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ladybusinessJenny: Jodie, oh my God; oh my God, Jodie. No matter how many times I watch this episode (and I've watched it a fair few times), I am never emotionally prepared for it. We'll have moments later on where Flint is in an actually darker headspace, but this is the only time that he's just this raw, bleeding wound of a man.
Phew. Okay. I will get my shit together and get us started. In this episode, Charles Vane heads to a logwood settlement to confront his past; Eleanor and Scott deal with the fallout of their mutual betrayals of each other; and Max begins her new life. Silver, meanwhile, finds his place in the Walrus crew in jeopardy thanks to Randall, and Flint tries to keep control of a situation that's rapidly slipping away from him.
SO MUCH PLOT! Where would you like to start?
Jodie: Can we start with that very intense back and forth between Gates and Flint?
Jenny: SO glad you asked! Of all the scenes in Season 1 that become more murderous when you acquire more context for them, this scene is probably the very most worstest. The confrontation starts with Gates asking Flint why Miranda thinks he's going to betray his crew, and when Flint gives him a half-assed explanation, Gates starts bringing up past grudges. For example: “What happened to Billy?” For example: “I know you used the crew to assassinate two people on board the Maria Aleyne.” And yeah, these are tough questions, but it's the kind of interrogation that Flint typically rises to beautifully.
Not here though. Even without knowing some relevant backstory, it's obvious that Flint is at his absolute limit. He's nowhere near putting a compelling case together for Gates. He's not even making that much sense. "Perhaps if you’d intervened when he first came to you with these fantasies, perhaps if you’d helped him understand the world in which he lived, he’d still be here right now," says Flint insanely. (Gates is rightly baffled by this.) I will tell you, Jodie: Flint is not having the same conversation with Gates that Gates is having with Flint. I recently rewatched this episode with some friends and was struck for the first time by what Flint is really talking about here, and it hurt me very much.
Jodie: THANK YOU for saying that Flint is making no sense here. I could not fathom his argument about Gates needing to have been a better father to Billy as anything except for a last dash play at pushing Gates' guilt buttons. And, like you say, Flint is usually so much more on his game than that. It seemed so unwise for him to upset one of his key allies (maybe his only real ally on the ship now) at this time, and yet there he goes... I look forward (with a healthy amount of trepidation) to this scene making sense at some point in the future.
Speaking of seemingly confused plays that will absolutely make more sense later on, shall we talk about Charles Vane next?
Jenny: Oh yes, let's do! This interlude with Charles Vane is a bit confusing if you're not familiar with the shared DNA of piracy and logwood settlements, which I presume is what this is. So it’s time for some PIRATE FACTS.
One of the many resources the imperial European powers extracted from the Caribbean was timber, and logwood was in particular favor in the early 1700s. Many of the logwood enclaves, like the Bay of Campeche, were manned by past or future pirates, and the loggers often traded or sold timber to pirates and then had a lovely beach feast with them upon concluding their business. One of my books even said that there was understood to be a peace between land pirates (loggers) and sea pirates. Logwood prices declined after 1717 so it wasn't nearly as lucrative after that.
The show explains none of this, and the whole sequence comes off like a fever dream. Charles Vane shows up at the settlement and is visibly unnerved to see a Black child there bearing the same brand that we've seen on Vane's shoulder. He still goes ahead with his pitch to the loggers, though: If their enormous frightening leader allows some of his men to come take Nassau, they and he will each get a share of the resulting booty. The leader agrees to the deal, though not before asking Charles Vane, "How did you know to seek me out?" Vane avoids the question, but an answer is heavily implied later on in this plotline, and it's distressing af.
Jodie: That makes a lot more sense. I was just assuming that for some reason this pirate had become a logger; possibly because it lets him run his own isolated kingdom where his despotic rule of law goes. Having that detail really helps to explain why a random pirate crew is now running a logging business using slave labour. I'm guessing this island is also meant to provide a contrast with how Nassau does things? Like, this is the really "bad" pirate kingdom while Nassau is more the flawed start of a pirate civilisation?
What I struggle to understand is why Vane thinks the challenge he makes here, once his negotiations get him in front of the leader's past crew, will work. Is he just desperate after losing his own crew? Is he convinced that his own experience with this leader (which, ugh, Jenny, that 'I'm proud of you' comment is just so upsetting) means he knows how to win over the crew? Sure, Vane is jacked, but this guy is huge, and quite obviously at least 10 times more feral than Vane. And Vane must know it's going to come down to a contest of strength which he can't win on his own unless the crew join him to free themselves. So, is this an example of a decent, last ditch plan that doesn't come off, or is Vane another man scrambling, and not making sense, just like Flint in this episode?
Jenny: Charles Vane isn't that much of a planner! I think he greatly underestimated how distressing it would be and how bad it would feel to ask for help from the man who physically and probably sexually abused him as a child. Based on his vision of Eleanor from last episode, he feels that he has to take drastic steps to regain his position of power in Nassau, and this is the drastic step. It just... goes badly.
Except, I mean, spoilers for the end of the episode, it actually goes kind of okay after all! The boss of the logwood settlement throws Charles Vane, presumed dead, into a shallow grave, and at the end of the episode Charles Vane just climbs up out of the grave and fence-posts the man in the back. Without wishing to sound overly bloodthirsty, it's very fucking satisfying to watch, and I say that as someone who at this point in the series didn't like Charles Vane one bit.
Jodie: I don't remember seeing the fence-posting happen, and I don't know how I missed it! The last bit I remember of this storyline was Vane being knocked out, but all the recaps tell me it did happen in this episode. Anyway, good to know because I was imagining Vane imprisoned in the next episode, but also did I black out?
Jenny: It might have been after an initial fade to black! It definitely happens, right at the very end.
But let's back up a scootch to discuss power in Nassau. Flint has returned with his guns and a cargo full of enslaved people, only to find that the whole governance system on Nassau has changed. When he goes in to see Eleanor, she reads him the riot act about Miranda letting Richard Guthrie leave when she was supposed to be keeping an eye on him -- a terrific point, frankly! Flint is already angry with Miranda about the letter, and this is another thing she's done that absolutely queers his pitch. He promises Eleanor that he'll talk to Miranda about the whole Richard Guthrie thing, and you can see he's massively impressed with what Eleanor has accomplished in his absence. "What a day I missed," he says, in a manner that upon first viewing caused my crush on Toby Stephens to intensify 100x. Do you love their friendship as I do, Jodie? How I love their friendship!
Jodie: I love their friendship so much! In particular, how respectful their relationship is even when they're at odds. Eleanor is free to go off on Flint without fear of repercussions. I can just imagine the resentment a similar dressing-down would have if it was directed at a lot of the other main male characters because they've got so much male pride swirling round their brains. But Flint, while not exactly happy to find himself attached to a party who is in the wrong, just accepts that Eleanor has the right to say her piece. As you say, Flint acknowledges how well Eleanor's handled the whole incredibly complicated situation in Nassau without being dismissive, or concerned about how everything could have gone wrong. And I think that puts them on a very equal footing. So often you see men in historical shows all 'this was a bad situation you were involved in and it could have gone wrong and you were lucky it didn't'. And that just low-key annoys me because if it all went off well who cares (I know, Jenny, they care and shouting at a woman they care about is the writer's weird way of showing that but still)?? Anyway, it's just really nice to see Flint take Eleanor's ability to handle herself in his stride, and allow her to see how impressed he is by just how much she has achieved.
Can I also say that while Flint and Eleanor are clearly friends, I like the way Eleanor is so smart about the way she presents the whole situation in Nassau to Flint. Her account is a very restrained version of what happened. Eleanor both clearly lays out how much she's dealt with (reaffirming just how competent she is) and smooths out the details into a quick narrative that implies the situation was never as messy or uncertain as the viewer knows it was. It's a retelling designed to reassure Flint that Eleanor has always had everything under control. And that makes me wonder if, while Eleanor is clearly a little bit more faithful to their friendship than other people think practical, she is a little unsure if Flint would go support her in a tight spot. Does she still feel like he needs to be 'managed' to a certain extent and reassured of her power, or is she just displaying the general caution and management of a woman used to bossing it in a world full of dangerous, violent men hungry for power even if they don't really know what they'll do with it?
Jenny: Honestly, one of the reasons I love their friendship is that they don't resent each other for being a little manipulative. I don't even like the word manipulative here! What I mean is that they are both very good at presenting the version of the truth most likely to achieve the results they want. It's not that other people are being more truthful than they are, either; everyone in this show (and also in real life) chooses what things to tell and what things not to tell. It's just that Eleanor and Flint are savvy and deliberate curators of the truth. And I love their friendship because both of them understand that. Even when they're working at cross-purposes and getting angry at each other, game respects game.
I would like, at this time, to discuss the other Flint & Eleanor scene in this episode, because it wrecks me emotionally, but I can't until we talk about Miranda. Following his argument with Gates and respectful discussion with Eleanor, Flint heads home to have it out with Miranda about the letter. What ensues is a confrontation so emotionally wringing that most of my notes on it were just onomatopoeic representations of anguish -- though I know that 90% of my emotions are down to the fact that I’ve already seen season two. I'm very interested how it played to you!
Flint confronts Miranda about sending that letter, which put him in awful danger. She says "I'm sorry" in the least sorry tone of voice you can imagine, then completely unravels him by saying how much she hates their life on Nassau. You can tell he knew that, but hearing it from her still upsets him badly. She's trying to get him to understand that if he accepts a pardon, they can leave Nassau and have a nice life together and it won't require any sacrifice at all, upon which they have AMONGST my favorite conversations from this entire show:
Jodie, I can't. I fully cannot. Even when I saw this for the first time, even without knowing the backstory, that last line killed me. If I am soft for anything in this life, it's grandeur of vision. I am so in the tank for someone who looks at an imperial power and dead-ass believes that it should be afraid of him. Please help, I am deceased.
Anyway, then he storms out, and Miranda says "If he were here, he'd agree with me," which in my opinion is evidence that Miranda is also not at all fine right now. God. This show. Jodie. Help.
Jodie: If there is one thing I have learned from Black Sails so far it is that Flint gives the best speeches. This one reminded me a lot of the way Tom Hardy talks in Taboo about The East India Company. I do NOT recommend that show at all, but I also feel that there is something very alluring about a character making statements like this, especially because they are not wrong. The state, and its various representatives, throughout history did terrible things to people, criminalised them, and then offered up 'pardons' that allow them to push their own state agenda. And it is amazing to see people stand up against such powerful institutions with the equivalent of 'you will kneel and I will spare you (probably) and only then will we be done'. See also, Peaky Blinders. I think I might have mentioned a few times that I really struggle with characters who are out for revenge, but those plots actually work fine for me if characters are looking to be revenged on an institution rather than an individual. So, yes, I am down for a ride to bring England to its knees!
As for Miranda and Flint's conversation, I think for me it shows that they're coming from two very different places and that at the moment they're too far apart to come to any kind of understanding. The concept of how to reach a place of contentment just looks so different to both of them, and they're operating on very different time scales. I just can't see how the resentment between them is going to be dealt with, and Miranda's resentment must be especially hard to bear because her plans all seem to rest on Flint making a move he's opposed to. If he were any other man she could probably win him round, but Flint is very clearly not for turning. Her plan to use Guthrie to make Nassau less of a haven, and so (I assume) force Flint's hand hasn't worked. It also looks like Flint is not just a man Miranda can't quit because she loves him, but a man she can't quit because her life is inextricably tied to his by past actions so she's doubly stuck.
As someone watching this for the first time, Flint and Miranda's relationship is still a mystery to me (as the show intends it to be) and at the moment it seems like a terrible tangle that's only going to progress with some seriously hard measures from Miranda or some intervention from somewhere else.
Btw, I want to know what all the references to 'he' are about SO BAD. I can tell it's going to be a good payoff, and I want it!
Jenny: God, ,em>yes, I couldn't agree more about preferring revenge on an institution to revenge on an individual. Revenge on an individual is some "dig two graves" business that I very quickly have enough of, but the grandeur of revenge on an institution -- I love it. I love it.
I wish I could say more about Flint and Miranda's relationship! I will just reiterate for people who are watching for the first time that all of this makes much more sense on a rewatch, once you've got Season 2 under your belt. And it hits about one million times harder after you've seen the first half of Season 3. It's secretly brilliant, and I'm not sure I agree with the show's Season 1 decision to deny the audience any access to the emotional weight of these scenes.
I say these scenes because there's a follow-on scene to the fight with Miranda: Later in the episode, Eleanor is tidying up the tavern as it's shutting down for the night, and she finds Flint there, drunk off his ass the night before he's meant to set out after the Urca gold. Whatever history there is between him and Miranda, a fight with her has the capacity to wreck him. When Eleanor points out that the men might start to doubt him if they see him this drunk, he says, "Perhaps a little doubt in me is called for," which I believe is the first time we've ever seen him waver. We will not see its like again for a long fucking time. But Eleanor tells him that she believes in him, and he kisses her on the forehead, and it is an exceptionally lovely moment of care and tenderness from characters we rarely, rarely see being tender or careful.
Eleanor has very little to do in this episode, so I won't linger on her, but I do want to mention that she tells Scott she's "never seen him" as an enslaved person. I am not really sure how the show wants us to take this. It often elides Scott's status as a person enslaved by the Guthrie family, so I guess I'm glad they mentioned it? But since Eleanor is still much more the POV character here in her scenes with Scott, it feels inadequate.
Jodie: Solidly agree that the way the show deals with Eleanor and Scott in that scene is inadequate. It kind of continues the pattern of making other people's pain about Eleanor as she grimaces and is clearly uncomfortable/in pain as she is reminded that Scott is owned by her family. I'm glad the show brings it up, partly because up until then I'd been assuming that Scott was free and employed, and knowing he's not changes how I view his and Eleanor's dynamic. However, like you say, the focus is on Eleanor here.
Jenny: ......does this mean we have to talk about John Silver now? HIS PLOTLINE IS SO BORING.
Jodie: Well, maybe we should just touch on John Silver who is yet again busy trying to stay alive? :D
Jenny: Okay, fair enough. The cook, Randall, is angry about being kicked off the crew, so he accuses John Silver of being the thief who stole the page. This leads to a whole interlude in which Dufresne and DeGroot administer a memory test to check whether John Silver really has the whole page in his memory. The idea is that if he does have as good a memory for the written word as he claims, they can't kill him because they need his help finding the Urca gold. It's... really boring. Eventually John Silver talks Randall into recanting.
I believe the only thing we haven't touched on at this point is Max! Max is recovering from her ordeal in the brothel, where everyone but her is cheating Jack Rackham, the new owner. She gathers herself together, comes downstairs to slap one of her coworkers, and reads Jack for filth. It's complicated. On one hand, I don't love the way she talks about her colleagues' dishonesty as being a function of their profession. Literally everyone on this show is a lying bastard out to take all they can; that is true across professions. On the other hand, I felt the most exquisite joy when Max put her face down close to Jack's face and hissed Get your fucking house in order at him. So, question mark?
Jodie: Yes, it's a wonderful moment isn't it, but I'm also not sure how I feel about Max basically being a snitch. I feel like we could very possibly be going down the 'Max as madam'/'Max as Jack's right hand' route which I don't think would be great because she clearly doesn't have much love for the other prostitutes at this time. But I guess I'll see how this turns out as we progress.
I think that's us done for this episode. I'm proud we did this in the middle of a pandemic :D
Jenny: I’m proud of us too! I am proud, and also really excited at how close we are getting to season two. The season one finale is strong, but the first two episodes of the second season are among the best this show has to offer. Those two, and then all the ones that follow them. The second season is close to perfect.
Anyway, next time on Black Sails: Flint sets out in earnest to find the Urca de Lima, and Vane returns to Nassau. Brace for heartbreak!
Phew. Okay. I will get my shit together and get us started. In this episode, Charles Vane heads to a logwood settlement to confront his past; Eleanor and Scott deal with the fallout of their mutual betrayals of each other; and Max begins her new life. Silver, meanwhile, finds his place in the Walrus crew in jeopardy thanks to Randall, and Flint tries to keep control of a situation that's rapidly slipping away from him.
SO MUCH PLOT! Where would you like to start?
Jodie: Can we start with that very intense back and forth between Gates and Flint?
Jenny: SO glad you asked! Of all the scenes in Season 1 that become more murderous when you acquire more context for them, this scene is probably the very most worstest. The confrontation starts with Gates asking Flint why Miranda thinks he's going to betray his crew, and when Flint gives him a half-assed explanation, Gates starts bringing up past grudges. For example: “What happened to Billy?” For example: “I know you used the crew to assassinate two people on board the Maria Aleyne.” And yeah, these are tough questions, but it's the kind of interrogation that Flint typically rises to beautifully.
Not here though. Even without knowing some relevant backstory, it's obvious that Flint is at his absolute limit. He's nowhere near putting a compelling case together for Gates. He's not even making that much sense. "Perhaps if you’d intervened when he first came to you with these fantasies, perhaps if you’d helped him understand the world in which he lived, he’d still be here right now," says Flint insanely. (Gates is rightly baffled by this.) I will tell you, Jodie: Flint is not having the same conversation with Gates that Gates is having with Flint. I recently rewatched this episode with some friends and was struck for the first time by what Flint is really talking about here, and it hurt me very much.
Jodie: THANK YOU for saying that Flint is making no sense here. I could not fathom his argument about Gates needing to have been a better father to Billy as anything except for a last dash play at pushing Gates' guilt buttons. And, like you say, Flint is usually so much more on his game than that. It seemed so unwise for him to upset one of his key allies (maybe his only real ally on the ship now) at this time, and yet there he goes... I look forward (with a healthy amount of trepidation) to this scene making sense at some point in the future.
Speaking of seemingly confused plays that will absolutely make more sense later on, shall we talk about Charles Vane next?
Jenny: Oh yes, let's do! This interlude with Charles Vane is a bit confusing if you're not familiar with the shared DNA of piracy and logwood settlements, which I presume is what this is. So it’s time for some PIRATE FACTS.
One of the many resources the imperial European powers extracted from the Caribbean was timber, and logwood was in particular favor in the early 1700s. Many of the logwood enclaves, like the Bay of Campeche, were manned by past or future pirates, and the loggers often traded or sold timber to pirates and then had a lovely beach feast with them upon concluding their business. One of my books even said that there was understood to be a peace between land pirates (loggers) and sea pirates. Logwood prices declined after 1717 so it wasn't nearly as lucrative after that.
The show explains none of this, and the whole sequence comes off like a fever dream. Charles Vane shows up at the settlement and is visibly unnerved to see a Black child there bearing the same brand that we've seen on Vane's shoulder. He still goes ahead with his pitch to the loggers, though: If their enormous frightening leader allows some of his men to come take Nassau, they and he will each get a share of the resulting booty. The leader agrees to the deal, though not before asking Charles Vane, "How did you know to seek me out?" Vane avoids the question, but an answer is heavily implied later on in this plotline, and it's distressing af.
Jodie: That makes a lot more sense. I was just assuming that for some reason this pirate had become a logger; possibly because it lets him run his own isolated kingdom where his despotic rule of law goes. Having that detail really helps to explain why a random pirate crew is now running a logging business using slave labour. I'm guessing this island is also meant to provide a contrast with how Nassau does things? Like, this is the really "bad" pirate kingdom while Nassau is more the flawed start of a pirate civilisation?
What I struggle to understand is why Vane thinks the challenge he makes here, once his negotiations get him in front of the leader's past crew, will work. Is he just desperate after losing his own crew? Is he convinced that his own experience with this leader (which, ugh, Jenny, that 'I'm proud of you' comment is just so upsetting) means he knows how to win over the crew? Sure, Vane is jacked, but this guy is huge, and quite obviously at least 10 times more feral than Vane. And Vane must know it's going to come down to a contest of strength which he can't win on his own unless the crew join him to free themselves. So, is this an example of a decent, last ditch plan that doesn't come off, or is Vane another man scrambling, and not making sense, just like Flint in this episode?
Jenny: Charles Vane isn't that much of a planner! I think he greatly underestimated how distressing it would be and how bad it would feel to ask for help from the man who physically and probably sexually abused him as a child. Based on his vision of Eleanor from last episode, he feels that he has to take drastic steps to regain his position of power in Nassau, and this is the drastic step. It just... goes badly.
Except, I mean, spoilers for the end of the episode, it actually goes kind of okay after all! The boss of the logwood settlement throws Charles Vane, presumed dead, into a shallow grave, and at the end of the episode Charles Vane just climbs up out of the grave and fence-posts the man in the back. Without wishing to sound overly bloodthirsty, it's very fucking satisfying to watch, and I say that as someone who at this point in the series didn't like Charles Vane one bit.
Jodie: I don't remember seeing the fence-posting happen, and I don't know how I missed it! The last bit I remember of this storyline was Vane being knocked out, but all the recaps tell me it did happen in this episode. Anyway, good to know because I was imagining Vane imprisoned in the next episode, but also did I black out?
Jenny: It might have been after an initial fade to black! It definitely happens, right at the very end.
But let's back up a scootch to discuss power in Nassau. Flint has returned with his guns and a cargo full of enslaved people, only to find that the whole governance system on Nassau has changed. When he goes in to see Eleanor, she reads him the riot act about Miranda letting Richard Guthrie leave when she was supposed to be keeping an eye on him -- a terrific point, frankly! Flint is already angry with Miranda about the letter, and this is another thing she's done that absolutely queers his pitch. He promises Eleanor that he'll talk to Miranda about the whole Richard Guthrie thing, and you can see he's massively impressed with what Eleanor has accomplished in his absence. "What a day I missed," he says, in a manner that upon first viewing caused my crush on Toby Stephens to intensify 100x. Do you love their friendship as I do, Jodie? How I love their friendship!
Jodie: I love their friendship so much! In particular, how respectful their relationship is even when they're at odds. Eleanor is free to go off on Flint without fear of repercussions. I can just imagine the resentment a similar dressing-down would have if it was directed at a lot of the other main male characters because they've got so much male pride swirling round their brains. But Flint, while not exactly happy to find himself attached to a party who is in the wrong, just accepts that Eleanor has the right to say her piece. As you say, Flint acknowledges how well Eleanor's handled the whole incredibly complicated situation in Nassau without being dismissive, or concerned about how everything could have gone wrong. And I think that puts them on a very equal footing. So often you see men in historical shows all 'this was a bad situation you were involved in and it could have gone wrong and you were lucky it didn't'. And that just low-key annoys me because if it all went off well who cares (I know, Jenny, they care and shouting at a woman they care about is the writer's weird way of showing that but still)?? Anyway, it's just really nice to see Flint take Eleanor's ability to handle herself in his stride, and allow her to see how impressed he is by just how much she has achieved.
Can I also say that while Flint and Eleanor are clearly friends, I like the way Eleanor is so smart about the way she presents the whole situation in Nassau to Flint. Her account is a very restrained version of what happened. Eleanor both clearly lays out how much she's dealt with (reaffirming just how competent she is) and smooths out the details into a quick narrative that implies the situation was never as messy or uncertain as the viewer knows it was. It's a retelling designed to reassure Flint that Eleanor has always had everything under control. And that makes me wonder if, while Eleanor is clearly a little bit more faithful to their friendship than other people think practical, she is a little unsure if Flint would go support her in a tight spot. Does she still feel like he needs to be 'managed' to a certain extent and reassured of her power, or is she just displaying the general caution and management of a woman used to bossing it in a world full of dangerous, violent men hungry for power even if they don't really know what they'll do with it?
Jenny: Honestly, one of the reasons I love their friendship is that they don't resent each other for being a little manipulative. I don't even like the word manipulative here! What I mean is that they are both very good at presenting the version of the truth most likely to achieve the results they want. It's not that other people are being more truthful than they are, either; everyone in this show (and also in real life) chooses what things to tell and what things not to tell. It's just that Eleanor and Flint are savvy and deliberate curators of the truth. And I love their friendship because both of them understand that. Even when they're working at cross-purposes and getting angry at each other, game respects game.
I would like, at this time, to discuss the other Flint & Eleanor scene in this episode, because it wrecks me emotionally, but I can't until we talk about Miranda. Following his argument with Gates and respectful discussion with Eleanor, Flint heads home to have it out with Miranda about the letter. What ensues is a confrontation so emotionally wringing that most of my notes on it were just onomatopoeic representations of anguish -- though I know that 90% of my emotions are down to the fact that I’ve already seen season two. I'm very interested how it played to you!
Flint confronts Miranda about sending that letter, which put him in awful danger. She says "I'm sorry" in the least sorry tone of voice you can imagine, then completely unravels him by saying how much she hates their life on Nassau. You can tell he knew that, but hearing it from her still upsets him badly. She's trying to get him to understand that if he accepts a pardon, they can leave Nassau and have a nice life together and it won't require any sacrifice at all, upon which they have AMONGST my favorite conversations from this entire show:
Flint: It requires an intolerable sacrifice. To apologize!
Miranda: Who will you be apologizing to?
Flint: To England! They took everything from us, and then they called me a monster? The moment I sign that pardon, the moment I ask for one, I proclaim to the world that they were right. This ends when I grant them my forgiveness, not the other way around.
Jodie, I can't. I fully cannot. Even when I saw this for the first time, even without knowing the backstory, that last line killed me. If I am soft for anything in this life, it's grandeur of vision. I am so in the tank for someone who looks at an imperial power and dead-ass believes that it should be afraid of him. Please help, I am deceased.
Anyway, then he storms out, and Miranda says "If he were here, he'd agree with me," which in my opinion is evidence that Miranda is also not at all fine right now. God. This show. Jodie. Help.
Jodie: If there is one thing I have learned from Black Sails so far it is that Flint gives the best speeches. This one reminded me a lot of the way Tom Hardy talks in Taboo about The East India Company. I do NOT recommend that show at all, but I also feel that there is something very alluring about a character making statements like this, especially because they are not wrong. The state, and its various representatives, throughout history did terrible things to people, criminalised them, and then offered up 'pardons' that allow them to push their own state agenda. And it is amazing to see people stand up against such powerful institutions with the equivalent of 'you will kneel and I will spare you (probably) and only then will we be done'. See also, Peaky Blinders. I think I might have mentioned a few times that I really struggle with characters who are out for revenge, but those plots actually work fine for me if characters are looking to be revenged on an institution rather than an individual. So, yes, I am down for a ride to bring England to its knees!
As for Miranda and Flint's conversation, I think for me it shows that they're coming from two very different places and that at the moment they're too far apart to come to any kind of understanding. The concept of how to reach a place of contentment just looks so different to both of them, and they're operating on very different time scales. I just can't see how the resentment between them is going to be dealt with, and Miranda's resentment must be especially hard to bear because her plans all seem to rest on Flint making a move he's opposed to. If he were any other man she could probably win him round, but Flint is very clearly not for turning. Her plan to use Guthrie to make Nassau less of a haven, and so (I assume) force Flint's hand hasn't worked. It also looks like Flint is not just a man Miranda can't quit because she loves him, but a man she can't quit because her life is inextricably tied to his by past actions so she's doubly stuck.
As someone watching this for the first time, Flint and Miranda's relationship is still a mystery to me (as the show intends it to be) and at the moment it seems like a terrible tangle that's only going to progress with some seriously hard measures from Miranda or some intervention from somewhere else.
Btw, I want to know what all the references to 'he' are about SO BAD. I can tell it's going to be a good payoff, and I want it!
Jenny: God, ,em>yes, I couldn't agree more about preferring revenge on an institution to revenge on an individual. Revenge on an individual is some "dig two graves" business that I very quickly have enough of, but the grandeur of revenge on an institution -- I love it. I love it.
I wish I could say more about Flint and Miranda's relationship! I will just reiterate for people who are watching for the first time that all of this makes much more sense on a rewatch, once you've got Season 2 under your belt. And it hits about one million times harder after you've seen the first half of Season 3. It's secretly brilliant, and I'm not sure I agree with the show's Season 1 decision to deny the audience any access to the emotional weight of these scenes.
I say these scenes because there's a follow-on scene to the fight with Miranda: Later in the episode, Eleanor is tidying up the tavern as it's shutting down for the night, and she finds Flint there, drunk off his ass the night before he's meant to set out after the Urca gold. Whatever history there is between him and Miranda, a fight with her has the capacity to wreck him. When Eleanor points out that the men might start to doubt him if they see him this drunk, he says, "Perhaps a little doubt in me is called for," which I believe is the first time we've ever seen him waver. We will not see its like again for a long fucking time. But Eleanor tells him that she believes in him, and he kisses her on the forehead, and it is an exceptionally lovely moment of care and tenderness from characters we rarely, rarely see being tender or careful.
Eleanor has very little to do in this episode, so I won't linger on her, but I do want to mention that she tells Scott she's "never seen him" as an enslaved person. I am not really sure how the show wants us to take this. It often elides Scott's status as a person enslaved by the Guthrie family, so I guess I'm glad they mentioned it? But since Eleanor is still much more the POV character here in her scenes with Scott, it feels inadequate.
Jodie: Solidly agree that the way the show deals with Eleanor and Scott in that scene is inadequate. It kind of continues the pattern of making other people's pain about Eleanor as she grimaces and is clearly uncomfortable/in pain as she is reminded that Scott is owned by her family. I'm glad the show brings it up, partly because up until then I'd been assuming that Scott was free and employed, and knowing he's not changes how I view his and Eleanor's dynamic. However, like you say, the focus is on Eleanor here.
Jenny: ......does this mean we have to talk about John Silver now? HIS PLOTLINE IS SO BORING.
Jodie: Well, maybe we should just touch on John Silver who is yet again busy trying to stay alive? :D
Jenny: Okay, fair enough. The cook, Randall, is angry about being kicked off the crew, so he accuses John Silver of being the thief who stole the page. This leads to a whole interlude in which Dufresne and DeGroot administer a memory test to check whether John Silver really has the whole page in his memory. The idea is that if he does have as good a memory for the written word as he claims, they can't kill him because they need his help finding the Urca gold. It's... really boring. Eventually John Silver talks Randall into recanting.
I believe the only thing we haven't touched on at this point is Max! Max is recovering from her ordeal in the brothel, where everyone but her is cheating Jack Rackham, the new owner. She gathers herself together, comes downstairs to slap one of her coworkers, and reads Jack for filth. It's complicated. On one hand, I don't love the way she talks about her colleagues' dishonesty as being a function of their profession. Literally everyone on this show is a lying bastard out to take all they can; that is true across professions. On the other hand, I felt the most exquisite joy when Max put her face down close to Jack's face and hissed Get your fucking house in order at him. So, question mark?
Jodie: Yes, it's a wonderful moment isn't it, but I'm also not sure how I feel about Max basically being a snitch. I feel like we could very possibly be going down the 'Max as madam'/'Max as Jack's right hand' route which I don't think would be great because she clearly doesn't have much love for the other prostitutes at this time. But I guess I'll see how this turns out as we progress.
I think that's us done for this episode. I'm proud we did this in the middle of a pandemic :D
Jenny: I’m proud of us too! I am proud, and also really excited at how close we are getting to season two. The season one finale is strong, but the first two episodes of the second season are among the best this show has to offer. Those two, and then all the ones that follow them. The second season is close to perfect.
Anyway, next time on Black Sails: Flint sets out in earnest to find the Urca de Lima, and Vane returns to Nassau. Brace for heartbreak!
