We need to talk about Jesse.
As a character, he ostensibly exists because of Joss Whedon’s long-standing obsession with killing off a character in the opening credits. According to David Fury:
“”Joss has bandied about, ‘I love the idea of putting a character in the main credits as one of the stars of the show and then kill him right off the bat.’” [1]
This quote is in reference to what happened with Doyle on Angel, but it was apparently also the plan in this episode, to have Eric Balfour in the opening credits before abruptly killing him. It’s a trick Whedon attempts to pull over and over again – with Jesse, with Doyle, arguably with Dobson (the 10th character brought aboard Serenity in the Firefly pilot) and Tara, when Amber Benson is added to the title sequence for Seeing Red. It’s a ploy that makes sense on the surface – subverting the audience’s expectations by introducing us to a group of characters in the pilot that we assume are all going to be main characters, and then killing one of them. It’s a stunt, but one that makes sense if you’re wanting to grab an idle viewer’s attention. Game of Thrones gained worldwide attention and acclaim partially thanks to this stunt in their first season.
There’s just one problem. Jesse sucks.
Insect Reflection 