a few favorite things about simon showing up on the ship hit by reaver's/jayne's joke:
you can see jayne trying not to lose his shit in the background as simon arrives and everyone else is going ???
mal suppresses a smile when jayne starts laughing but you can still here a little laughter in his voice when he says "alright"
to his credit, though, he's actively trying not add to simon's embarrassment in this moment, lmao, even if it IS a bit funny, it still was not very kind of jayne and they have more pressing matters.
i also like the way mal says to simon "you can roll with kaylee." obviously his mode of operation is always going to be, "you're here, might as well put you to work" and maybe he would have paired simon off with kaylee anyway. but after watching simon get a bit toyed with, i think he was honestly like, "okay, how we do minimize interpersonal drama here, simon goes with the nicest person on this ship who i also happen to know personally likes him" lmao. it's good captain-ing, honestly, and very sweet in its own way. i just get stuck on the 'can'. it's like a little bone he's throwing to simon after jayne's prank, lmao.
