Crossbones
Sep. 29th, 2015 11:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAka, the other pirate show, and also the one which was cancelled after the first season, as opposed to Black Sails. Overall verdict: has its moments but not as good as the later, which for me is the inevitable comparison.
They share the era, roughly the geographical setting, and several themes; lots of double crossing, and the pirates versus British Empire nearing the zenith of hits power background. You could even parallel some of the characters' functions, though that to my mind only highlights their differences.
Crossbones basically has two leading men, Edward Teach aka Blackbeard who in this version faked his death some years pre-show, is ruling (though he doesn't call it that) the secret island community of Santa Campana and is played by John Malkovich, which is why he's on every poster or advertisment for this show. And John Malkovich certainly delivers his John Malkovich thing as "the Commodore", which is what Teach now likes to calll himself. But the character who actually has a narrative arc through the season - indeed the only one who definitely has one, which is part of why Crossbones, even just comparing first seasons, strikes me as much weaker than Black Sails - is Tom Lowe (might not be his real name), surgeon and 18th century superspy whose job as given in the pilot is to kill Blackbeard. The guy who gives him said job is the governor of Jamaica, William Jagger, who is the only one convinced Blackbeard is still alive, not least because he's the one who supposedly killed him.
(I googled, and Jagger is fictional; 'twas the governor of Carolina who did Blackbeard in historically.)
Jagger is played by Julian Sands, who takes up the scenery chewing competition with relish and is the most boo-hiss black hat character in the show. Every dastardly sadistic evil government official you can imagine, and then some. Which to me already took some suspense from Tom Lowe's arc, because obviously the big question "will Lowe change his loyalties?" isn't much of one if the government side is presented by Lord Voldemort. This said, the show does a reasonably good job of not woobifying Blackbeard (while he's better than Jagger, this isn't saying much since Jagger is so vile) and making it clear that best answer to "Jagger or Teach?" is "neither". And it gives Tom Lowe reasons other than "good lord, but that Blackbeard is a clever bastard!" to reconsider.
However, several of those reasons bring me to the weaker points of the show. It should have been an ensemble show, selling us and Lowe on the community of outcasts the "Commodore" has surrounded himself with. But most of them are only brief character sketches at best. Charlie, Blackbeard's loyal sidekick, carries narratively similar functions to Mr. Gates, Billy Bones and Dufresne in Black Sails' first season, but never gains a personality to match either of the three. "Why do I love you?" Blackbeard asks at one point, and I've got to wonder, too, because the narrative isn't giving me anything, and when Charlie argues with his boss re: the plan, I'm not feeling any emotional tension because Charlie hardly got any scenes to get to know him.
Then there's Nenna, the sole important poc character. On paper, Nenna sounds awesome: fierce black female pirate, with a secret agenda that seems buying herself a plantation. Does she want it to free slaves, or does she want to be an owner? We never find out one way or the other, because Nenna abruptly disappears from the narrative two thirds in. Maybe she'd have come back in a second season, maybe not, but as it is, the audience is left with a sense of "huh?", but no more than that. Before her disappearance, Nenna had a short subplot with the local madam, Rose, who is blackmailing her while simultanously hitting on her. The comparison to Anne Bonny and Max in Black Sails is all all but inevitable if you've watched both shows. But where Anne has a personality beyond "fierce female pirate" and complicated emotions she's just beginning to figure out, not to mention strong loyalties, and Max has both an agenda, smarts and a strong emotional life of her own, Rose is stupid enough to blackmail a professional killer for money and doesn't see the end coming. Because she's solely in for the blackmail, this, the only same sex relationship (not really one) of the show, makes her flirting with Nenna come across as creepy/sexual molestation. I don't think the implication was intended, but it's unfortunate, to say the least.
(Meanwhile, Black Sails has four on screen bisexual regular characters.)
Key for Lowe's emotional arc are the Balfours, James Balfour, Scottish Jacobite lord in exile, and his wife Kate (played by Claire Foy). They are probably the most prominent supporting characters, and if you're thinking "triangle", you're thinking right. The show is going for "complicated" here. Lowe falls for Kate pretty much on sight, but also respects James (not to mention a spoilery secret regarding the past that left James crippled courtesy of government torture); Kate loves her husband and doesn't see that as incompatible with also fancying Lowe; James loves Kate and is for anything that makes her happy, though when he figures out something about Lowe's past, that resolution is tested. As triangles go, I was okay with this one. My problem in the larger context was that we're strictly in the two male povs, Tom Lowe's and James Balfour's, regarding it. They get the emotional weight by the narrative. Kate has essentially the same job Eleanor Guthrie has in Black Sails (buying and selling the pirate plunder), but whereas Eleanor is a woman of power, one of the key political players in Nassau whose support or enmity is crucial for the others, Kate never gets shown in a context outside of her romantic narrative. Blackbeard talks to her husband, not to her. The one time we see her "on the job", so to speak, she gets captured by Jagger, and Lowe, for the first time showing his wavering loyalties, has to rescue her, i.e. what the narrative is about is to make a point about Lowe (and Jagger, and even Blackbeard), not Kate.
Lastly, appearantly Neil Cross who created the show really liked the "mad wife in the attic" part of Jane Eyre and somehow missed out of not just Wide Saragasso Sea but each and any criticial discussion of the trope. . Blackbeard's mysteries past - like Flint, he has one - turns out to include a wife, Antoinette (! - that's Bertha Mason's real name in Wide Saragasso Sea) - who was so madly in love with him that she killed their children, either before or after Jagger tortured her to find out Blackbeard's location. In the present, Jagger still keeps her as a prisoner with the occasional torture plus grope, because Jagger is like that. (He also tortures and gropes Kate when he hasa her prisoner.) We never find out more about Antoinette than that she killed her children, moans "Edward" occasionally and is mad. Then, in the finale, Jagger brings her along for the final showdown and sets her free so she can kill Blackbeard's current love, Semira. Which she does. Then she commits suicide by Blackbeard.
Meanwhile, Semira, alas, isn't Jane Eyre. Again, great on paper: Arab origin lady with spy network in Jamaica whom Blackbeard says is the only one worthy of succeeding him? Awesome. In practice, we never see Semira conduct any spy networking or island ruling. Instead, we see her fight her agraphobia (successfully) and have a brief fling with Charlie. And as mentioned, she's killed in the finale by Antoinette the mad without having the slightest idea who this woman is. Also, she makes no attempt to defend herself; she hides and is found by Antoinette. This despite the fact we've seen Semira go through a few katana exercises earlier in the season.
In conclusion: Crossbones utterly fails at women despite having good intentions. As to where its male characters end up in the finale:
To nobody's surprise, Blackbeard manages to kill Jagger, but not vice versa. Jagger being a one note villain, this would have been a relief even if the show had been prolonged. However, everyone on the island has been disillusioned by just how far their "Commodore" was willing to go in order to pull off his convoluted master plots and for vengeance, so even Charlie (who miraculously survived a gut stabbing and a near drowning and emerged still in fighting form - note that Billy Bones when going over board and getting tortured by the British navy at least is given some time to recover before he's back in action in s2) urges on Lowe to fulfill his original mission. Which Lowe does. Except the show can't resist a final tag scene showing that Blackbeard survived after all and faked being dead AGAIN. Given they knew they were cancelled at this point (I assume), I'd have cut the tag scene, honestly. End it with Lowe delivering the head to the new governor of Jamaica while announcing his committment to the pirates from this point onwards, and you have a reasonable conclusion for at least one arc, instead of Surprise!Malkovich on a beach.
Basically, I wasn't bored when watching, but it had too many drawbacks for me to get fannish about, so I'm not sad it's already gone.
They share the era, roughly the geographical setting, and several themes; lots of double crossing, and the pirates versus British Empire nearing the zenith of hits power background. You could even parallel some of the characters' functions, though that to my mind only highlights their differences.
Crossbones basically has two leading men, Edward Teach aka Blackbeard who in this version faked his death some years pre-show, is ruling (though he doesn't call it that) the secret island community of Santa Campana and is played by John Malkovich, which is why he's on every poster or advertisment for this show. And John Malkovich certainly delivers his John Malkovich thing as "the Commodore", which is what Teach now likes to calll himself. But the character who actually has a narrative arc through the season - indeed the only one who definitely has one, which is part of why Crossbones, even just comparing first seasons, strikes me as much weaker than Black Sails - is Tom Lowe (might not be his real name), surgeon and 18th century superspy whose job as given in the pilot is to kill Blackbeard. The guy who gives him said job is the governor of Jamaica, William Jagger, who is the only one convinced Blackbeard is still alive, not least because he's the one who supposedly killed him.
(I googled, and Jagger is fictional; 'twas the governor of Carolina who did Blackbeard in historically.)
Jagger is played by Julian Sands, who takes up the scenery chewing competition with relish and is the most boo-hiss black hat character in the show. Every dastardly sadistic evil government official you can imagine, and then some. Which to me already took some suspense from Tom Lowe's arc, because obviously the big question "will Lowe change his loyalties?" isn't much of one if the government side is presented by Lord Voldemort. This said, the show does a reasonably good job of not woobifying Blackbeard (while he's better than Jagger, this isn't saying much since Jagger is so vile) and making it clear that best answer to "Jagger or Teach?" is "neither". And it gives Tom Lowe reasons other than "good lord, but that Blackbeard is a clever bastard!" to reconsider.
However, several of those reasons bring me to the weaker points of the show. It should have been an ensemble show, selling us and Lowe on the community of outcasts the "Commodore" has surrounded himself with. But most of them are only brief character sketches at best. Charlie, Blackbeard's loyal sidekick, carries narratively similar functions to Mr. Gates, Billy Bones and Dufresne in Black Sails' first season, but never gains a personality to match either of the three. "Why do I love you?" Blackbeard asks at one point, and I've got to wonder, too, because the narrative isn't giving me anything, and when Charlie argues with his boss re: the plan, I'm not feeling any emotional tension because Charlie hardly got any scenes to get to know him.
Then there's Nenna, the sole important poc character. On paper, Nenna sounds awesome: fierce black female pirate, with a secret agenda that seems buying herself a plantation. Does she want it to free slaves, or does she want to be an owner? We never find out one way or the other, because Nenna abruptly disappears from the narrative two thirds in. Maybe she'd have come back in a second season, maybe not, but as it is, the audience is left with a sense of "huh?", but no more than that. Before her disappearance, Nenna had a short subplot with the local madam, Rose, who is blackmailing her while simultanously hitting on her. The comparison to Anne Bonny and Max in Black Sails is all all but inevitable if you've watched both shows. But where Anne has a personality beyond "fierce female pirate" and complicated emotions she's just beginning to figure out, not to mention strong loyalties, and Max has both an agenda, smarts and a strong emotional life of her own, Rose is stupid enough to blackmail a professional killer for money and doesn't see the end coming. Because she's solely in for the blackmail, this, the only same sex relationship (not really one) of the show, makes her flirting with Nenna come across as creepy/sexual molestation. I don't think the implication was intended, but it's unfortunate, to say the least.
(Meanwhile, Black Sails has four on screen bisexual regular characters.)
Key for Lowe's emotional arc are the Balfours, James Balfour, Scottish Jacobite lord in exile, and his wife Kate (played by Claire Foy). They are probably the most prominent supporting characters, and if you're thinking "triangle", you're thinking right. The show is going for "complicated" here. Lowe falls for Kate pretty much on sight, but also respects James (not to mention a spoilery secret regarding the past that left James crippled courtesy of government torture); Kate loves her husband and doesn't see that as incompatible with also fancying Lowe; James loves Kate and is for anything that makes her happy, though when he figures out something about Lowe's past, that resolution is tested. As triangles go, I was okay with this one. My problem in the larger context was that we're strictly in the two male povs, Tom Lowe's and James Balfour's, regarding it. They get the emotional weight by the narrative. Kate has essentially the same job Eleanor Guthrie has in Black Sails (buying and selling the pirate plunder), but whereas Eleanor is a woman of power, one of the key political players in Nassau whose support or enmity is crucial for the others, Kate never gets shown in a context outside of her romantic narrative. Blackbeard talks to her husband, not to her. The one time we see her "on the job", so to speak, she gets captured by Jagger, and Lowe, for the first time showing his wavering loyalties, has to rescue her, i.e. what the narrative is about is to make a point about Lowe (and Jagger, and even Blackbeard), not Kate.
Lastly, appearantly Neil Cross who created the show really liked the "mad wife in the attic" part of Jane Eyre and somehow missed out of not just Wide Saragasso Sea but each and any criticial discussion of the trope. . Blackbeard's mysteries past - like Flint, he has one - turns out to include a wife, Antoinette (! - that's Bertha Mason's real name in Wide Saragasso Sea) - who was so madly in love with him that she killed their children, either before or after Jagger tortured her to find out Blackbeard's location. In the present, Jagger still keeps her as a prisoner with the occasional torture plus grope, because Jagger is like that. (He also tortures and gropes Kate when he hasa her prisoner.) We never find out more about Antoinette than that she killed her children, moans "Edward" occasionally and is mad. Then, in the finale, Jagger brings her along for the final showdown and sets her free so she can kill Blackbeard's current love, Semira. Which she does. Then she commits suicide by Blackbeard.
Meanwhile, Semira, alas, isn't Jane Eyre. Again, great on paper: Arab origin lady with spy network in Jamaica whom Blackbeard says is the only one worthy of succeeding him? Awesome. In practice, we never see Semira conduct any spy networking or island ruling. Instead, we see her fight her agraphobia (successfully) and have a brief fling with Charlie. And as mentioned, she's killed in the finale by Antoinette the mad without having the slightest idea who this woman is. Also, she makes no attempt to defend herself; she hides and is found by Antoinette. This despite the fact we've seen Semira go through a few katana exercises earlier in the season.
In conclusion: Crossbones utterly fails at women despite having good intentions. As to where its male characters end up in the finale:
To nobody's surprise, Blackbeard manages to kill Jagger, but not vice versa. Jagger being a one note villain, this would have been a relief even if the show had been prolonged. However, everyone on the island has been disillusioned by just how far their "Commodore" was willing to go in order to pull off his convoluted master plots and for vengeance, so even Charlie (who miraculously survived a gut stabbing and a near drowning and emerged still in fighting form - note that Billy Bones when going over board and getting tortured by the British navy at least is given some time to recover before he's back in action in s2) urges on Lowe to fulfill his original mission. Which Lowe does. Except the show can't resist a final tag scene showing that Blackbeard survived after all and faked being dead AGAIN. Given they knew they were cancelled at this point (I assume), I'd have cut the tag scene, honestly. End it with Lowe delivering the head to the new governor of Jamaica while announcing his committment to the pirates from this point onwards, and you have a reasonable conclusion for at least one arc, instead of Surprise!Malkovich on a beach.
Basically, I wasn't bored when watching, but it had too many drawbacks for me to get fannish about, so I'm not sad it's already gone.
