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ladybusinessJodie: Anchors away for Episode 6 of our favourite pirate drama, Black Sails.
Jenny: Well, we are back in the rape tent once more for Episode 6 but not for long, because thank the Lord above in Heaven, we are finally, finally done with this plotline, and Max can get on with her character arc (which, by the way, I think you're going to love). The episode opens with Eleanor giving in to Benjamin Hornigold's condition: She'll lift the ban on Charles Vane (who is MIA) and his crew, in exchange for Hornigold's support of her consortium. Anne Bonny meanwhile tries to stop Vane's not-MIA crew from raping Max, but is talked down from a fight by her partner, Jack Rackham. At this point, Anne and Eleanor are at the end of their rope vis-a-vis men having control over what they will and will not allow on their goddamn island.
The scene wherein Anne and Eleanor conceive of their plan -- which may be the only scene they share in the series -- is among my favorites in the series. The writers give us a little misdirect here, which works gloriously. Anne proposes killing Hamund (the worst one on Vane's crew), and Eleanor expresses an untactful opinion that the plan is stupid, risky, and doomed. As Anne's turning away in disgust, Eleanor hits her with a counteroffer: Instead of killing just one rapey shitbag, let's kill them all.
Jodie, gosh. It would be hard for me to overstate the increase in love of Black Sails that I experienced in Episode 6. I liked the show right away, in part because I had been warned that it was going to be rough going at first so I was prepared for that; but seeing these two angry-as-hell women manipulating the available men in service of their own goals was like taking ten shots of dopamine all in a row. Did you love it?
Jodie: I LOOOOOOOVVVVVVVEEEEEDDDDDDD IT! Not only was it great to be able to have uncomplicated feelings about Eleanor, but the surprise escalation of a plan is one of my favourite tropes. It almost always catches me off guard, and often results in double great drama. I just adored the plan - how it wrong-footed Jack, who so deserved it, and how much murdering of rapists there was in it. I'm super sad to hear this is the only scene Anne and Eleanor will share together this series though because they would make a great grudging pair of allies, and it would be cool to see the show explore their differences and similarities.
I have to admit to being a little... surprised... to see that Anne is sleeping with Jack. I mean, I suppose I shouldn't be. They hang around together all the time, but even so... OK, Jack Rackham is smart, has a way with words, and he's alright looking (idk, I am torn) but Anne is just clearly too good for him. She's quick to anger, hard, mean, and murdery to boot; all things I love about her, but which I guess don't make her much of a traditional "prospect". But, she's obviously got a solid sense of what is right and what is wrong (within the frame of pirate morality, at least, where killing people is fine as long as there's a reason) while Jack seems to believe that morality is much more flexible and self-serving. Also... I just really don't want Anne to sleep with someone who threatens her with the thought of the rape tent; who would, in fact, abandon her to the rape tent because they don't really want to think too hard about ways to outmatch a mob of absolute bastards. The man is smart enough to outmatch them, he just can't be bothered because, as I think I mentioned before, he really just doesn't value Anne, and she can see that in the way he refers to other women he feels are "disposable" like Max.
So, yes very much here for the Anne and Eleanor team up, and for Max's rescue by women who are besting the men trying to keep them down. Very much not here for Jack Rackham at this particular point in time. I feel like Black Sails is going to be the kind of show where I go back and forth on so many characters over the course of a series.
Jenny: Anne really does have such a strong moral code, especially by comparison with, uh, everyone else in this show. She's my Hufflepuff angel amidst a sea of Slytherins. As regards Jack, four seasons of context leave me reasonably confident in claiming that what Jack was saying was not "I would abandon you to the rape tent," but instead "I really don't want us both to die tonight." That doesn't mean you can't be mad at him! Right now he's allied with Charles Vane, and it makes him hard to love.
If you already love him though (which I do), the unfolding of Anne's plan contains excellent Jack Rackham content. He figures out very quickly what Anne's up to, and he's pissed about it, clearly. But neither of them seriously contemplates the possibility that he'll shop her to the men or even give them five seconds' warning about the ambush. She says that she knows Jack will choose her over the men, and when the chips are down, that's what he does. I also love it when he snaps "That's very fucking touching!" at Anne. It is very fucking touching! I am glad Jack noticed!
In enlisting/conscripting John Silver aid into this plan, Eleanor does one of my favorite Black Sails tricks, which is to unsettle the audience's beliefs about plot points that have come before. We've identified John Silver as a protagonist, so we believed Flint when he said he'd (maybe) let John Silver live in exchange for information from the memorized schedule. Eleanor, who's known Flint since she was a teenager, scoffs at the very idea -- but she offers protection to Silver in exchange for luring Charles Vane's crew out to the wrecks to be ambushed. Afterward, he opines that her real motive in all this wasn't about Max; it was to show the island "nobody fucks with you and gets away with it." Por que no los dos, John Silver? Eleanor doesn't care enough about him to respond. She just gazes out into the night with cold, cold eyes.
**
The Mrs. Barlow stuff won't, I guess, make sense until we've discussed the A-plot of this episode, which I have to say is just really really fucking good. Flint and his men are still in a stalemate with the Andromache, where the crew have locked themselves in the hold along with all the guns and (as we found out at the end of last episode) a shipment of slaves plus Mr. Scott. Worse, the Scarborough has come after Flint and the Walrus, which means they have until sun-up to procure the guns and kill the Andromache's crew. In the morning the Scarborough will find them on the water and blow them all up with superior guns.
Plan A is smoke bombs. This does not work.
Plan B is Billy griping quite a bit to Mr. Gates about Mrs. Barlow pulling Flint's strings. He has found a letter aboard the Andromache in which Mrs. Barlow assures the Massachusetts (?) Governor that Flint has repented and wants to be pardoned. It has to happen now, she says, before his men find out he's betrayed them. Billy and his biceps are shook. Mr. Gates tells him to shush his pretty face and focus on retrieving the guns.
Plan C unfolds over the course of some very tense conversations in the hold. The rest of the slaves want to help the pirates against the Andromache's crew, in the hopes that they'll be taken to Nassau and freed. Mr. Scott won't play along. The guns that the pirates are looking for are very dangerous to someone he loves, he says.
Like: On one hand, it is a huge relief to see this show finally deal with slavery, which was an inescapable part of the Caribbean economy in this period. On the other hand, it's sure fucking something to see a second character of color sign up for long-term imprisonment for reasons that (appear to) have to do with Eleanor Guthrie. Can this show try harder, please?
Jodie: (Jenny, I love the description of Anne as a Hufflepuff angel and I will treasure it as we watch more of this show.)
Yeah, this whole part of Mr Scott's story has just been terrible. Betrayed into slavery as textual punishment for "betraying" a white character. Pushed by the show to accept his slavery to save said white character in a bizarre move to get the audience to understand, and empathise, with him??! This in an episode where we also see a black character from the Walrus' crew get shot after being lowered down to try and smoke out the Andromache's crew. It's not been great. I'm hopeful that better things are yet to come for Mr Scott at least, especially as he has met Eme. But, yes, if things could improve at a pace that would be wonderful.
Before we talk about Mrs Barlow & THAT SCENE!! Can we quickly talk about Billy's growing issues with Flint, and this episodes instalment of 'how best to lead a pirate crew'? So far, Black Sails feels like a show very interested in exploring what the difference is between 'good' leadership and 'good' character, and when it is appropriate to be a leader rather than a 'good' human being. It's clearly hard for Flint to pick volunteers to dangle down the hole; he obviously hopes for volunteers. But when none present themselves, he does pick men rather than abandoning a plan he thinks will work. I think he continues on this path not because he's a tyrannical monster, but because he's in charge, he thinks this will work, and he takes the burden of moral consequences on himself. Conveniently, he is not the one who might die, but you also never get the sense that he wouldn't volunteer his own body if necessary. It's interesting to me that the show has already managed to make me feel like I'm behind Flint's plan when in the hands of another creator the character of a driven pirate captain could be characterised as a blinkered dictator.
I sometimes think one of the most interesting, and prevalent, lines in modern storytelling is this exploration of leadership. The way leadership is dealt with in a story is so revealing, so Black Sails' interest in leadership has grabbed my attention. In this episode we get to see Mr Gates ideas about leadership. Gates, seeing discontent grow in the crew as Flint seems happy to risk their lives, stomps down on any unrest by knocking out Logan and giving a speech about the necessity of obeying orders in battle. By knocking out Logan, he also forestalls Billy supporting a rebellion against Flint; something which Flint could never tolerate or forgive. It's a really interesting picture both of Mr Gates personal, very experienced views on leadership, and his belief that Billy has the makings of a great leader one day. It feels like Gate's is being set up as Billy's compass on his journey from a good person, and someone who thinks a leader should be driven by fairness, to something else; a successful leader who leads no matter what the costs to themselves and others.
I'm not sure I have a great point here, I'm just wondering what you make of the show's approach to leadership and the way people are trying to shape Billy Bones with their own ideas about leadership.
Jenny: A huge running theme in this show is about ideological vision, and what you're willing to sacrifice to realize it. Billy isn't a vision guy. He's bread and butter meat and potatoes do the right thing be true to your brother pirates every day all the time. He's about dealing with the situation as it stands in front of him. And he's good at dealing with the situation in front of him; he's smart and has a good grasp of resources. What sets Flint apart as a leader (for good or ill!) is that he's considering the situation in front of him as one tiny piece of an unfathomably huge puzzle, which if he puts together in exactly the right way, the result will be a more just and stable Nassau. If the price of that is some dudes dying, Flint figures, so be it.
Gates, as you say, stands somewhere in between. He knows you can't make an omelet without killing a few people,[1. that is a joke from the Neil Gaiman book Neverwhere] but he's a lot more flexible than Flint about what the omelet's going to be. I think his point to Billy here is similar to the one Flint made in a prior episode, that you'll lose everything if you show doubt in pursuit of an omelet. He doesn't mean that he doesn't have omelet doubt. (I do not know how I got here with the omelet thing, and I apologize.) I think the show overall may take the position that you actually can't wield power while remaining a straightforwardly good person. There are always sacrifices -- every character in this show will be confronted with that truth -- and you have to decide whether you care more about the power (which might be power to bring about broadly good futures!) or more about the people in your life.
CAN WE DO MIRANDA NOW?
Miranda is at home minding her business when up rides Pastor Lambrick, all aflutter because he suspects that Miranda has done something sneaky to Captain Flint in concert with Mr. Guthrie (which indeed she has). He's like, oh dear! You're in danger! From wicked Captain Flint! Come away with me! This proves to be a tactical error on his part. She very politely tells him how stupid his beliefs are and how quickly he would lose them if her husband were there. Then she very cold-heartedly bangs him. It is the greatest thing I have ever seen in my life. Miranda is my entire queen.
Jodie: Jenny, it was the power move to end all power moves, and I may have to watch just this scene again before I move on to Ep 7. 'I will emotionally break you with sex while getting off myself.' Just, wow, so much respect. While there are historical shows were women get to have fulfilling sex, or get to take charge of their bodies sexually and use them as they will, there are very few historical shows where women actually get to be outside of sexual shame and genuinely give no fucks about societal norms. I am greatly in awe of Miranda.
I'm pretty sure there are a lot of spoilers you can't reveal at the moment about Miranda that help you explain exactly what makes you love her so much, but feel free to take this opportunity for a bit of non-spoilery squee foreshadowing about why she's so great :D
Jenny: Oh, I love her very much for the reasons you've just said: She's unapologetic about wanting what she wants, and she goes after them with this lowkey ruthlessness that just blows me away. As compared to Eleanor or, going forward, Max, she's not flashy about making her power plays. She's just quietly going after what she wants, acting like it's perfectly normal. I love that the show gives her the space to do that without penalizing her for it, and I love that it's a part of her character that Flint really loves. As he should!
I would also say that I admire her ferocious loyalty -- that's not a spoiler, right? It seems pretty clear that one of the reasons she decides to emotionally break Pastor Lambrick is that he comes over to her house to talk shit about Flint. In the early episodes of this show, a lot of what we know or imagine about Miranda comes from what other people say about her, particularly the men on Flint's crew who want to cast her in a kind of Lady Macbeth role. So it's terrific to have this scene where she's unambiguously defending her choices and her relationship with Flint, at the cost of a character we already find kinda loathsome.
I've also just realized we didn't talk about the end of the whole plotline with the Scarborough. How, um, how are you doing with all that?
Jodie: So luckily I had seen some spoilers about Billy so I know that Billy will return (although I don't know pretty much anything about the circumstances). Otherwise I'd be howling. I tried to watch Umbrella Academy for Tom Hopper (it... did not come off) and I <3 Billy a lot so I would have been very upset if he'd disappeared so soon. Now, the question is - did he fall or was he pushed? The show is deliberately ambiguous about this at the end of the episode, but I feel like it makes it clear we have to consider the possibility that Flint did away with Billy.
Jenny: I don't think it's too much of a spoiler anyway, considering that Billy Bones is a character in Treasure Island. For the Muppet fans out there, he's the guy who rants and raves and grabs Gonzo's nose in Muppet Treasure Island. What a great movie.
Next time on Black Sails: Max begins the arduous process of clawing herself up from the bottom. Flint falls apart as completely as we'll ever see him do. And Charles Vane seeks out a way to shift the balance of power in Nassau.
Jenny: Well, we are back in the rape tent once more for Episode 6 but not for long, because thank the Lord above in Heaven, we are finally, finally done with this plotline, and Max can get on with her character arc (which, by the way, I think you're going to love). The episode opens with Eleanor giving in to Benjamin Hornigold's condition: She'll lift the ban on Charles Vane (who is MIA) and his crew, in exchange for Hornigold's support of her consortium. Anne Bonny meanwhile tries to stop Vane's not-MIA crew from raping Max, but is talked down from a fight by her partner, Jack Rackham. At this point, Anne and Eleanor are at the end of their rope vis-a-vis men having control over what they will and will not allow on their goddamn island.
The scene wherein Anne and Eleanor conceive of their plan -- which may be the only scene they share in the series -- is among my favorites in the series. The writers give us a little misdirect here, which works gloriously. Anne proposes killing Hamund (the worst one on Vane's crew), and Eleanor expresses an untactful opinion that the plan is stupid, risky, and doomed. As Anne's turning away in disgust, Eleanor hits her with a counteroffer: Instead of killing just one rapey shitbag, let's kill them all.
Jodie, gosh. It would be hard for me to overstate the increase in love of Black Sails that I experienced in Episode 6. I liked the show right away, in part because I had been warned that it was going to be rough going at first so I was prepared for that; but seeing these two angry-as-hell women manipulating the available men in service of their own goals was like taking ten shots of dopamine all in a row. Did you love it?
Jodie: I LOOOOOOOVVVVVVVEEEEEDDDDDDD IT! Not only was it great to be able to have uncomplicated feelings about Eleanor, but the surprise escalation of a plan is one of my favourite tropes. It almost always catches me off guard, and often results in double great drama. I just adored the plan - how it wrong-footed Jack, who so deserved it, and how much murdering of rapists there was in it. I'm super sad to hear this is the only scene Anne and Eleanor will share together this series though because they would make a great grudging pair of allies, and it would be cool to see the show explore their differences and similarities.
I have to admit to being a little... surprised... to see that Anne is sleeping with Jack. I mean, I suppose I shouldn't be. They hang around together all the time, but even so... OK, Jack Rackham is smart, has a way with words, and he's alright looking (idk, I am torn) but Anne is just clearly too good for him. She's quick to anger, hard, mean, and murdery to boot; all things I love about her, but which I guess don't make her much of a traditional "prospect". But, she's obviously got a solid sense of what is right and what is wrong (within the frame of pirate morality, at least, where killing people is fine as long as there's a reason) while Jack seems to believe that morality is much more flexible and self-serving. Also... I just really don't want Anne to sleep with someone who threatens her with the thought of the rape tent; who would, in fact, abandon her to the rape tent because they don't really want to think too hard about ways to outmatch a mob of absolute bastards. The man is smart enough to outmatch them, he just can't be bothered because, as I think I mentioned before, he really just doesn't value Anne, and she can see that in the way he refers to other women he feels are "disposable" like Max.
So, yes very much here for the Anne and Eleanor team up, and for Max's rescue by women who are besting the men trying to keep them down. Very much not here for Jack Rackham at this particular point in time. I feel like Black Sails is going to be the kind of show where I go back and forth on so many characters over the course of a series.
Jenny: Anne really does have such a strong moral code, especially by comparison with, uh, everyone else in this show. She's my Hufflepuff angel amidst a sea of Slytherins. As regards Jack, four seasons of context leave me reasonably confident in claiming that what Jack was saying was not "I would abandon you to the rape tent," but instead "I really don't want us both to die tonight." That doesn't mean you can't be mad at him! Right now he's allied with Charles Vane, and it makes him hard to love.
If you already love him though (which I do), the unfolding of Anne's plan contains excellent Jack Rackham content. He figures out very quickly what Anne's up to, and he's pissed about it, clearly. But neither of them seriously contemplates the possibility that he'll shop her to the men or even give them five seconds' warning about the ambush. She says that she knows Jack will choose her over the men, and when the chips are down, that's what he does. I also love it when he snaps "That's very fucking touching!" at Anne. It is very fucking touching! I am glad Jack noticed!
In enlisting/conscripting John Silver aid into this plan, Eleanor does one of my favorite Black Sails tricks, which is to unsettle the audience's beliefs about plot points that have come before. We've identified John Silver as a protagonist, so we believed Flint when he said he'd (maybe) let John Silver live in exchange for information from the memorized schedule. Eleanor, who's known Flint since she was a teenager, scoffs at the very idea -- but she offers protection to Silver in exchange for luring Charles Vane's crew out to the wrecks to be ambushed. Afterward, he opines that her real motive in all this wasn't about Max; it was to show the island "nobody fucks with you and gets away with it." Por que no los dos, John Silver? Eleanor doesn't care enough about him to respond. She just gazes out into the night with cold, cold eyes.
**
The Mrs. Barlow stuff won't, I guess, make sense until we've discussed the A-plot of this episode, which I have to say is just really really fucking good. Flint and his men are still in a stalemate with the Andromache, where the crew have locked themselves in the hold along with all the guns and (as we found out at the end of last episode) a shipment of slaves plus Mr. Scott. Worse, the Scarborough has come after Flint and the Walrus, which means they have until sun-up to procure the guns and kill the Andromache's crew. In the morning the Scarborough will find them on the water and blow them all up with superior guns.
Plan A is smoke bombs. This does not work.
Plan B is Billy griping quite a bit to Mr. Gates about Mrs. Barlow pulling Flint's strings. He has found a letter aboard the Andromache in which Mrs. Barlow assures the Massachusetts (?) Governor that Flint has repented and wants to be pardoned. It has to happen now, she says, before his men find out he's betrayed them. Billy and his biceps are shook. Mr. Gates tells him to shush his pretty face and focus on retrieving the guns.
Plan C unfolds over the course of some very tense conversations in the hold. The rest of the slaves want to help the pirates against the Andromache's crew, in the hopes that they'll be taken to Nassau and freed. Mr. Scott won't play along. The guns that the pirates are looking for are very dangerous to someone he loves, he says.
Like: On one hand, it is a huge relief to see this show finally deal with slavery, which was an inescapable part of the Caribbean economy in this period. On the other hand, it's sure fucking something to see a second character of color sign up for long-term imprisonment for reasons that (appear to) have to do with Eleanor Guthrie. Can this show try harder, please?
Jodie: (Jenny, I love the description of Anne as a Hufflepuff angel and I will treasure it as we watch more of this show.)
Yeah, this whole part of Mr Scott's story has just been terrible. Betrayed into slavery as textual punishment for "betraying" a white character. Pushed by the show to accept his slavery to save said white character in a bizarre move to get the audience to understand, and empathise, with him??! This in an episode where we also see a black character from the Walrus' crew get shot after being lowered down to try and smoke out the Andromache's crew. It's not been great. I'm hopeful that better things are yet to come for Mr Scott at least, especially as he has met Eme. But, yes, if things could improve at a pace that would be wonderful.
Before we talk about Mrs Barlow & THAT SCENE!! Can we quickly talk about Billy's growing issues with Flint, and this episodes instalment of 'how best to lead a pirate crew'? So far, Black Sails feels like a show very interested in exploring what the difference is between 'good' leadership and 'good' character, and when it is appropriate to be a leader rather than a 'good' human being. It's clearly hard for Flint to pick volunteers to dangle down the hole; he obviously hopes for volunteers. But when none present themselves, he does pick men rather than abandoning a plan he thinks will work. I think he continues on this path not because he's a tyrannical monster, but because he's in charge, he thinks this will work, and he takes the burden of moral consequences on himself. Conveniently, he is not the one who might die, but you also never get the sense that he wouldn't volunteer his own body if necessary. It's interesting to me that the show has already managed to make me feel like I'm behind Flint's plan when in the hands of another creator the character of a driven pirate captain could be characterised as a blinkered dictator.
I sometimes think one of the most interesting, and prevalent, lines in modern storytelling is this exploration of leadership. The way leadership is dealt with in a story is so revealing, so Black Sails' interest in leadership has grabbed my attention. In this episode we get to see Mr Gates ideas about leadership. Gates, seeing discontent grow in the crew as Flint seems happy to risk their lives, stomps down on any unrest by knocking out Logan and giving a speech about the necessity of obeying orders in battle. By knocking out Logan, he also forestalls Billy supporting a rebellion against Flint; something which Flint could never tolerate or forgive. It's a really interesting picture both of Mr Gates personal, very experienced views on leadership, and his belief that Billy has the makings of a great leader one day. It feels like Gate's is being set up as Billy's compass on his journey from a good person, and someone who thinks a leader should be driven by fairness, to something else; a successful leader who leads no matter what the costs to themselves and others.
I'm not sure I have a great point here, I'm just wondering what you make of the show's approach to leadership and the way people are trying to shape Billy Bones with their own ideas about leadership.
Jenny: A huge running theme in this show is about ideological vision, and what you're willing to sacrifice to realize it. Billy isn't a vision guy. He's bread and butter meat and potatoes do the right thing be true to your brother pirates every day all the time. He's about dealing with the situation as it stands in front of him. And he's good at dealing with the situation in front of him; he's smart and has a good grasp of resources. What sets Flint apart as a leader (for good or ill!) is that he's considering the situation in front of him as one tiny piece of an unfathomably huge puzzle, which if he puts together in exactly the right way, the result will be a more just and stable Nassau. If the price of that is some dudes dying, Flint figures, so be it.
Gates, as you say, stands somewhere in between. He knows you can't make an omelet without killing a few people,[1. that is a joke from the Neil Gaiman book Neverwhere] but he's a lot more flexible than Flint about what the omelet's going to be. I think his point to Billy here is similar to the one Flint made in a prior episode, that you'll lose everything if you show doubt in pursuit of an omelet. He doesn't mean that he doesn't have omelet doubt. (I do not know how I got here with the omelet thing, and I apologize.) I think the show overall may take the position that you actually can't wield power while remaining a straightforwardly good person. There are always sacrifices -- every character in this show will be confronted with that truth -- and you have to decide whether you care more about the power (which might be power to bring about broadly good futures!) or more about the people in your life.
CAN WE DO MIRANDA NOW?
Miranda is at home minding her business when up rides Pastor Lambrick, all aflutter because he suspects that Miranda has done something sneaky to Captain Flint in concert with Mr. Guthrie (which indeed she has). He's like, oh dear! You're in danger! From wicked Captain Flint! Come away with me! This proves to be a tactical error on his part. She very politely tells him how stupid his beliefs are and how quickly he would lose them if her husband were there. Then she very cold-heartedly bangs him. It is the greatest thing I have ever seen in my life. Miranda is my entire queen.
Jodie: Jenny, it was the power move to end all power moves, and I may have to watch just this scene again before I move on to Ep 7. 'I will emotionally break you with sex while getting off myself.' Just, wow, so much respect. While there are historical shows were women get to have fulfilling sex, or get to take charge of their bodies sexually and use them as they will, there are very few historical shows where women actually get to be outside of sexual shame and genuinely give no fucks about societal norms. I am greatly in awe of Miranda.
I'm pretty sure there are a lot of spoilers you can't reveal at the moment about Miranda that help you explain exactly what makes you love her so much, but feel free to take this opportunity for a bit of non-spoilery squee foreshadowing about why she's so great :D
Jenny: Oh, I love her very much for the reasons you've just said: She's unapologetic about wanting what she wants, and she goes after them with this lowkey ruthlessness that just blows me away. As compared to Eleanor or, going forward, Max, she's not flashy about making her power plays. She's just quietly going after what she wants, acting like it's perfectly normal. I love that the show gives her the space to do that without penalizing her for it, and I love that it's a part of her character that Flint really loves. As he should!
I would also say that I admire her ferocious loyalty -- that's not a spoiler, right? It seems pretty clear that one of the reasons she decides to emotionally break Pastor Lambrick is that he comes over to her house to talk shit about Flint. In the early episodes of this show, a lot of what we know or imagine about Miranda comes from what other people say about her, particularly the men on Flint's crew who want to cast her in a kind of Lady Macbeth role. So it's terrific to have this scene where she's unambiguously defending her choices and her relationship with Flint, at the cost of a character we already find kinda loathsome.
I've also just realized we didn't talk about the end of the whole plotline with the Scarborough. How, um, how are you doing with all that?
Jodie: So luckily I had seen some spoilers about Billy so I know that Billy will return (although I don't know pretty much anything about the circumstances). Otherwise I'd be howling. I tried to watch Umbrella Academy for Tom Hopper (it... did not come off) and I <3 Billy a lot so I would have been very upset if he'd disappeared so soon. Now, the question is - did he fall or was he pushed? The show is deliberately ambiguous about this at the end of the episode, but I feel like it makes it clear we have to consider the possibility that Flint did away with Billy.
Jenny: I don't think it's too much of a spoiler anyway, considering that Billy Bones is a character in Treasure Island. For the Muppet fans out there, he's the guy who rants and raves and grabs Gonzo's nose in Muppet Treasure Island. What a great movie.
Next time on Black Sails: Max begins the arduous process of clawing herself up from the bottom. Flint falls apart as completely as we'll ever see him do. And Charles Vane seeks out a way to shift the balance of power in Nassau.
