Firefly (TV Series)

Ariel (2002)

Sean Maher: Dr. Simon Tam

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Quotes 

• Wash : So... two days in a hospital. That's awful. Don't you just hate doctors?

  Simon : Hey.

  Wash : I mean, present company excluded.

  Jayne : Let's not be excluding people. That'd be rude.

• Mal : Now, all we need are a couple of patients.

  Dr. Simon Tam : Corpses, actually. For this to work, River and I will have to be dead.

  Jayne : Huh. I'm startin' to like this plan.

• [Simon examines River with the neuro-imager] 

  Simon : They opened up her skull. That's a scalpel scar, they, they opened up her skull and they cut into her *brain*.

  Jayne : Why?

  Simon : The only reason to make an incision in someone's brain is to lobotomize them, to go in and remove damaged tissue. Why anyone would cut into a healthy brain, is...

  [he looks further] 

  Simon : [horrified]  They did it over... and over. They stripped her amygdala.

  Jayne : Her what?

  Simon : You know uh, you know how you get... scared, or, or worried or nervous when you don't want to be scared or worried or nervous; you push it to the back of your mind, you try not to think about it. Your amygdala is what lets you do that, it's like a, a filter in your brain that keeps your feelings in check... She feels *everything*, she can't not.

• [Jayne spits on his whetstone] 

  Simon : Could you not do that while we're - ever?

  [Jayne spits on stone again] 

• [Simon prepares some bad rice] 

  River : I don't want it.

  Simon : River, you have to eat. It's good. It tastes like...

  [Simon samples rice and grimaces] 

  Simon : It's good.

  Jayne : It smells like crotch.

• Simon : This is the recovery ward. This is where patients come to get better.

  River : They're going to die.

  Simon : No one is going to die.

  River : [points]  He is.

• Agent McGinnis : Get up.

  Simon : What's going to happen to us?

  Agent McGinnis : I said, "Get up."

  Simon : Agent McGinnis, I'm certain you're working under a superior who's keeping close tabs on this case. I'm certain of that because important people don't do fieldwork. I'm also quite certain your superior wants me and my sister alive. Now, I'm not going to move from this spot until one of two things happens: You answer my very simple question, or you shoot me.

  Agent McGinnis : [coldly]  We are transferring you to a holding area until you can be retrieved.

  Simon : Retrieved. By whom?

  Agent McGinnis : People who want you alive. People not me.

• Simon : Do you remember why we went to the hospital?

  River : Is it time to go to sleep again?

  Simon : No, mei-mei. It's time to wake up.

• Simon : [seeing the others dressed as hospital personnel]  Well, if I didn't know better I'd say you all were ready to save some lives.