burn the earth and boil the sea

[cyrano]

So I finally saw all the episodes of Firefly, which I hoped might give me insight. But it didn't.
The episode is Objects in Space, with bounty hunter Jubal Early. Opening sequence, River goes around listening to people's heads. And Shepherd Book says/thinks "I don't give half a hump if you're innocent or not."

Who is he referring to? What is he talking about? The others were all pretty clear. Is he self-referencing?

Comments

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Hrm. I'm not so sure--I think they all took note of it. But at the same time, they're all in a line of work where you respect a man's privacy and don't ask questions unless you need to.
And he's done nothing they can see so far to hurt them, and he lasted through Mal's nasty phase of pushing him and seeing if he pushes back.
That doesn't mean nobody's watching him carefully, and that nobody thinks he has a history. But if it were my ship, yeah, I'd have had words with the man.