The Gentleman Pirate sets off to find his true love, for reals this time. I couldn’t contain my thoughts to five, so set sail with me for ten as we conclude our Summer TV Binge coverage of Our Flag Means Death, season one. I’m so happy to be able to type “season one” knowing there’ll be a season two! (Spoilers ahead!)
1. POV alternating
(Record scratch) You’re probably wondering how Mary Bonnet felt all this time. No? Well, you should have! Episode 10 takes a step back to show us things from Mary’s perspective, and I’m so glad it does. Stede remembers and imagines Mary to be a bit of a heartless bitch, which isn’t fair at all. She didn’t want to marry Stede any more than he wanted to marry her. And though the show doesn’t exactly address it head-on, in 1717, she would’ve been the one to raise their children and would’ve had far fewer options than Stede did.
As it turns out, being a wealthy widow in 1717 is not bad and Mary is not thrilled to have Stede back. And why would she? He doesn’t explain why he left, doesn’t ask her how she’s doing, doesn’t understand her interest in art, and just wants to brag about his adventures. Mary has stepped up her game and made a life in Stede’s absence, and his being back complicates everything.
2. Return of the Jim
Also, Jim’s back! We don’t get much insight into why Jim came back or what they plan to do now that they’ve returned. It seems like Jackie’s speech about letting go of the need for revenge did the trick. How did Jim find the ship? By the same hand-wavey storytelling device that gets the Revenge where it needs to go instantly despite the weather and limitations of eighteenth-century technology. But that’s okay! Because Jim and Oluwande finally get down to business and as the other functional couple on the Revenge (besides Pete and Lucius), they deserve a bit of private time.
3. A fictional character is having a hard time
Back in the captain’s quarters, Ed is barely hanging on. He has built a blanket fort made out of Stede’s bedsheets and is eating jam straight from the jar. Classic post-breakup behavior. He asks Lucius to write down song lyrics he’s composed, and Lucius can barely contain his expression of pity/scorn. Ed really is barely hanging on. Hanging on. Hanging on. (His lyrics are terrible. Sorry, Blackbeard, don’t quit your day job.)
Although it’s a funny visual gag to see the fearsome Blackbeard wearing Stede’s floral robe and hiding in a depression fort, Taika Waititi again shows impressive emotional range as the heartbroken Ed. He cries gently and listens as Lucius tries to help him get over Stede’s rejection. Anybody who has been through a bad breakup knows what Ed is going through, and it’s hard to see this swashbuckling, silly, leather-clad character we’ve come to know and love over the course of ten episodes so despondent.
(It gets worse.)
4. Get after it, Mary Bonnet
Meanwhile, Stede has been painted out of his family portrait. Literally. We saw him being miserable while posing for the picture but now that he’s been removed from it, Stede isn’t any happier. He pretends Ed is there with him, using the petrified orange from their treasure hunt as a stand-in. (Classic post-breakup behavior? Maybe not so much. Stede is an odd guy.) Mary, on the other hand, is doing great. More than great, from the sound of it. Her new painting instructor Doug gives her an after-hours lesson (wink wink), and she refuses to apologize for it. (Go girl!) She tells Stede she’s moved on with her life and isn’t about to let him ruin it. (Again, emphatically, go girl!)
5. The (talent) show must go on
Ever wonder what a pirate talent show might look like? Well, it’s not pretty. At least not with this lot. (I’d give them an ‘A’ for effort, though, especially considering how far they’ve come from the first episode, where they didn’t exactly embrace the idea of an arts and crafts exercise.) Ed performs his ballad of heartbreak for Stede’s crew, who take it in stride and offer their support to Blackbeard’s foray into songwriting. (Stede raised his crew right — they support their adopted captain no matter how terrible his poetry is.) But the idea of a talent show on board a pirate ship is the last straw for Izzy, who reminds Ed of his reputation. He threatens Edward, knowingly provoking him to commit a subtle act of violence. He reminds Ed of who he is and who his crew respects — Blackbeard, not Ed. As Ed stands in Stede’s cabin, staring at the lighthouse painting that inspired both of them and brought them together during their first hijink, Ed breaks.
Continued belowOur Flag Means Death has always played with the subtle ways your reputation and name can influence who you are, and here, Izzy uses the name Blackbeard against Ed. Ed may have only wanted to do what made “Ed” happy, but Ed is lost, and the temptation to return to the persona he knows is strong.
6. “Natural” causes
Not to be outdone by Stede, Mary decides to become the next member of the Bonnet family to commit attempted murder. After receiving encouragement from a fellow widow, Mary considers whether getting rid of Stede will solve her problems, and nearly does the deed with a meat skewer.
The widow Evelyn is played by Kristen Johnston, who is yet another excellent guest star to show up and steal all the scenes she’s in. I remember watching Third Rock From the Sun after school when I was a kid, which shows you how old I am but I’m also old enough not to care all that much. Ahem. Johnston was hilarious on that old show and she’s great here as the widow Higgins, a woman who can supply you with a body and a jungle cat on short notice. She’s also the only character with an eyepatch. On a pirate show!
7. Letting go (#RIPLucius)
In possibly the saddest scene ever, Ed lets go of the little scrap of red silk that he’s kept with him since childhood. Stede tucked it over his heart in episode five, and muttered the words that made Edward fall in love: “You wear fine things well.”
Not anymore.
We see the change washing over Ed’s face as he transforms from the lovable Edward to the (actually fearsome this time) Blackbeard. Taika Waititi’s performance is, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, great. He shifts from a heartbroken man in a pink robe to a ruthless killer in a pink robe before our eyes, and unfortunately, Lucius shows up at exactly the wrong moment. Ed tosses him overboard with a malevolent glare that sends chills down the spine and caused a million bitchy gays on Tumblr to suddenly cry out in terror before they were suddenly silenced.
8. His name is Ed
Mary’s murder plot goes awry. Instead of dying, Stede manages to have an honest conversation with his wife about love. They apologize to each other for all the things they’ve done to hurt one another, and when Mary tells Stede what it’s like to be in love, a shift happens in Stede’s face. He recalls his time with Ed and the show uses a montage that could’ve been made by a ship-happy fan to show him realizing, finally, that what he feels for Ed is love. (Of course it’s love!) He tells Mary he has found love, and when she asks for her name, Stede says, “His name is Ed.” Instead of being angry or disappointed or shocked, Mary smiles and hugs him, overjoyed that they’ve both found partners who make them happy.
It’s a quiet moment. It’s an important moment. To see Mary accept Stede with kindness and grace makes my Grinch heart grow so many sizes. To see Stede finally realize that he loves Ed makes it grow even more. Rhys Darby’s face lights up with happiness as he finally lets out a breath it seems that he’s been holding for ten episodes. This moment is a perfect example of the kindness this show embodies towards its characters and its audience, especially its LGBT+ audience. Even after the kiss, it’s easy to think that the rug will be pulled out from under these characters somehow and they’ll revert back to their lives as they were before acknowledging their love for each other. It’s so easy to think it could happen because we’ve seen so few stories like theirs on screen. We love to see it. We love to see it because we want it to happen in real life.
9. You who wish to conquer pain
But. Ed is in a very different place. He wore his heart on his sleeve (literally! as a scrap of silk!) and had it trampled by a failure of timing and communication. So like Stede did in episode nine, he regresses.
Continued belowBearing his soul to Stede after their fuckery in episode seven, Ed said, “I am the Kraken.” He repeats this ominous phrase as he puts his Blackbeard costume back on. Leonard Cohen’s “Avalanche” plays as he does, lending a spooky, sad, menacing ambiance to the scene as Blackbeard kills any remnant of Ed that remained. I called him “loveable” just a few paragraphs ago but things are complicated in this world of pirates and gray morality because that same “loveable” Ed cuts off his first mate’s toe and makes him eat it. The scene is not played for laughs. It’s brutal, difficult to watch, and reminds us that Blackbeard’s fearsome persona is based on a very real penchant for violence. Blackbeard knows exactly how to push people’s buttons to get them to fear him, and for Izzy, even as he loses a toe, it’s a welcome return to an awful status quo.
Ed takes Frenchie and Jim for his crew and maroons the rest, not because he likes either of them but because Jim is a badass and Frenchie can sew. Remember the thing about the Blackbeard flag? How in the beginning his flag showed a demon with a spear but it didn’t yet have a bleeding heart? Well, RIP our hearts, because that’s why Blackbeard kept Frenchie around. But Blackbeard is doing great, totally over the whole Stede thing, why do you ask? Blackbeard completes his flag and kills Stede’s crew as the pirate equivalent of dying your hair to prove you’re over your ex and ready to move on. (Is he, though?)
10. Wherever you go, there you are
Stede has almost been murdered by two English officers, the Spanish Navy, Izzy Hands (twice), and his own wife. He decides it’s time to give it a go himself. Taking a cue from Ed’s style of “fuckery,” Stede fakes his own death in a spectacular show of camp and fake gore. Complete with a jaguar and a piano falling on top of his body-double! But he’s able to say goodbye to his children and renounce his wealth before he goes, leaving his family behind again with a clear conscious.
He sets out alone with a renewed sense of purpose. The dying light is beautiful as Stede sets off in a dinghy all to himself, dressed more simply than we’re used to seeing him. He’s not the bumbling fool anymore. The wooden doll has become a real boy.
Will he make it back to Edward in time to salvage things between them? At first, it looks like Ed is gone, replaced by the Kraken, but the last shot we see of him is an utterly vulnerable Ed, crying in Stede’s window nook. He gazes at the lighthouse painting, and we see him “crack up on the rocks.”
The final shot of the show is reserved for Stede, unsteadily holding up his hand as he approaches his marooned crew. He’s the lighthouse, ready to guide his found family back home. Stede is officially dead, he has no fancy clothes, no ship, and only a partial crew. As the final song says, Stede is finally free to make his own way in the world. He doesn’t have to be anyone but himself.
And that’s a wrap! I truly love this show and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading along with me as I wrote about it. After two months of teeth gnashing, HBO finally announced that they’d renewed Our Flag Means Death for a second season. So we will get to find out whether/how our co-captains will be reunited sometime next year. Is Lucius living in the walls of the ship? What’s going to happen to Jim? Will Buttons finally get to eat a man? Stay tuned until 2023(?) to find out.
Other things:
- Doug. He’s great!
- “Sew like the wind” …what does that even mean?
- Con O’Neill (Izzy) and Nathan Foad (Lucius, RIP) were absolutely delightful besties/worsties at their first fan convention this past weekend at C2E2 – we love to see it!
- HBO/Warner/Discovery/whatever, y’all better not cancel the pirate show in post, I swear to somebody! (Seriously, though, there will be a flood of unhappy people on the Internet yelling loudly if you do that.)
- The orange shirt. If you know, you know!
