When Out Of Gas begins, the Serenity is adrift in space. The ship is dark and deserted, the crew is gone, save for Mal, who is badly wounded. As he struggles through the empty ship, Mal reminisces about all that came before. It started with a riotous dinner gathering, where everybody sat around the table, laughing at a funny story that Shepard Book told about his days in a monastery. When Kaylee gets up to start putting the dishes away, she surprises Simon by presenting him with a birthday cake. The Alliance had sent out an updated wanted bulletin on Simon and River with their birthdates attached, which was how the Serenity crew found out about his birthday. But before Simon can even blow out the candles, an explosion in the engine room rocks the ship, knocking out the power and sending a raging fireball throughout the corridors.

Mal manages to shut the door to the dining room before the fire can reach them, but not before the blast severely injures Zoe. Mal puts the fire out by opening the main cargo hold doors, which blows the fire right into space. However, the ship is dead in the water and there’s no way of fixing her. The life support is shut off, and what little air remains had been sapped by the fire. Mal orders the others into Serenity’s twin lifeboats while he stays behind just in case somebody answers the make-shift beacon that Wash set up. But just when things can’t be expected to get any worse, they do.

Out Of Gas is a marvelous story that’s not only riveting, it’s also packed with a great deal of emotional resonance as we discover--through flashbacks--how Mal acquired the Serenity, how he and Zoe hand-picked the crew, and even how Inara decided to join the ship. These flashbacks are also packed with surprises--like how Zoe disliked Wash from the moment she first laid eyes on him, and Kaylee wasn’t Serenity’s original mechanic. But mainly, this is a great episode because it’s got a lot of heart, along with delivering the all too true message that sometimes you just can’t get by without your friends.