580: The Race: Part 4

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The Race: Part 4
Things are rarely just crazy enough to work, but they're frequently just crazy enough to fail hilariously.
Title text: Things are rarely just crazy enough to work, but they're frequently just crazy enough to fail hilariously.

Explanation

Firefly was a television series aired by FOX in 2002 but canceled after only eleven episodes. Over ten years later it still has a devoted fan base, apparently including Randall. The main characters were the crew of the spaceship "Serenity", including Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), mechanical genius Kaylee (Jewel Staite), the apparently insane psychic River Tam (Summer Glau), and five others not relevant to this comic.

Nathan Fillion appeared naked at the beginning and end of the show's eleventh episode, "Trash", after having been stripped of all his weapons, equipment, and clothes in a desert. Cueball is either fascinated or repulsed by this mental image, to the point of missing the start signal.

The "Crazy Ivan" is an emergency maneuver used by the crew of the Serenity in the pilot episode of the series, when they were hotly pursued by a Reaver ship. The maneuver involves a sharp 180° turn to face the pursuing spacecraft and accelerating in that direction, forcing the less agile pursuer to overshoot and lose ground in a long turn. But as Jewel points out, this does not work on a skateboard, since the board spins in place while the rider continues forward unimpeded -- and even if successful, it would be utterly pointless because the direction to the finish line does not change.

Summer Glau is often a target of sexual attraction for her appearance and her well-known, eccentric characters. River Tam, in the movie Serenity (Film), had subconcious programming that caused her to be able to take on dozens of foes in hand to hand combat, and her Terminator character in the Sarah Connor Chronicles also regularly beat up men far larger than her, which, for many, just adds to the attraction. Thus, even as he is kicked painfully in the face by Summer, Cueball is incredibly aroused.

All comics in "The Race" series:

This series was released on 5 consecutive days(Monday-Friday) and not over the usual Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule.

Transcript

[Cueball and Nathan Fillion are ready on the start line on their electric skateboards.]
Voice off panel: On your mark...
Voice: Get set...
Nathan: Remember episode 11, when I got all naked in that desert?
Voice: Go!
[Nathan speeds away leaving Cueball standing at the start line.]
Voice: ...I said "Go."
Voice: Someone throw some water on him.
Cueball: Can't...get it...out of my head...
[Nathan on walkie talkie, speeding on his skateboard.]
Nathan: He's right behind me. Kaylee, I'm gonna try a Crazy Ivan.
Jewel [on walkie talkie] (579 shows Nathan's naming confusion): That doesn't make any sense, Nathan.
Nathan: Trust me.
Jewel: No, I mean it's not a skateboard maneuver. The concept doesn't even apply to this situation.
Nathan [via walkie talkie]: That's why it just might work!
Jewel: No, that's the opposite of true!
Nathan: On my mark, override the remote differential and throw her into a spin.
Jewel [via walkie talkie]: okay, but—
Nathan: Mark!
WHAM
[Nathan lying injured on the ground next to his skateboard, Cueball cruises past.]
Whirrrrrrrr
[Nathan, trying to stand up.]
Nathan: I'm down. Tell Summer "The chickens are in the hayloft. Plan Gamma is a go."
[Nathan, one foot on skateboard, looking at walkie talkie.]
mumbling from walkie talkie
Jewel: She says, "Plan gamma acknowledged. The meerkats are in the bag.
[Summer Glau is walking off panel.]
Jewel [to walkee talkie]: So we're good?
Nathan: Hard to tell with her. Do you see an actual bag of meerkats?
Jewel: No.
Nathan: Then we're probably good.
[Cueball screeching to a halt as he sees Summer Glau.]
Cueball: Oh! Hi, Miss Glau! I'd love to talk, but Nathan's back on his feet and catching up.
[Summer grabs Cueball's arm.]
Grab
Cueball: Wha—
[Summer kicks Cueball in the face whilst pulling his arm towards her, he flies off his skateboard.]
[Summer walking away as Cueball lies crippled on the floor with his sunglasses beside him.]
[Cueball still lying on the floor.]
Cueball [thinking]: I've never been so turned on in my life.

Trivia

  • The xkcd's own transcript for this episode is radically wrong, and words like maneuver are spelled incorrectly.


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Discussion

Wasn't "Crazy Ivan" originally a submarine maneuver, from "The Hunt for Red October"? --JakubNarebski (talk) 16:44, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Unless it has a towed sonar array, a sub has a sonar "blind spot" (the "baffles") where it can't hear anything. Periodically, subs would zigzag to check the blind spot for enemies ("clearing the baffles"). The Russians used a manouver which the Americans called "crazy Ivan," in which they would do a sudden 180-degree turn. It was called "crazy" for the high risk of colliding with the following/hunting sub. 96.241.151.134 14:58, 2 August 2013 (UTC)Monica

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