Black Sails 3.02
Feb. 1st, 2016 02:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which Blackbeard is a Shadow, Eleanor Guthrie is a Vorlon, and Flint sees dead people when he's not quoting Jean Luc Picard.
Since I assumed (naturally) we'd never see Miranda again, I more than welcome Flint being haunted by her ghost and hope this advances to him having his own Head!Miranda, a la BSG. Though him seeing her but not being able to hear her even though he can see she's talking to him agitatedly, angrily, desperately, works great as a metaphor for Flint's mental and emotional state. Re: the corpse like thing sitting on the table in the last Miranda dream - Thomas? James McGraw that was? BTW, since I've seen some fanfic assuming Flint only valued Miranda as his last link to Thomas, I'm glad the dreams are making clear that she meant something beyond their shared grief for Thomas.
It's backstory time for Eleanor, Charles Vane and newbie (to the show) Edward Teach aka Blackbeard as we find out the answer to a question posed both in show and in pro reviews - how did Eleanor initially, as a 17 years old girl, get all the pirates to take her seriously beyond "has money and holdings from absent father"? The answer being that she took on the most feared pirate at the time, i.e. Blackbeard, isolated him and turned his Faithful Lieutenant Vane against him is very Eleanor and makes complete sense. (And no, Blackbeard, I don't believe your face saving version of leaving until Charles could see the error of his ways for a minute.) Though my favourite detail of the Eleanor plot thread was the maid Rodgers had on board in order to take care of/keep an eye on Eleanor and her tart, matter of fact conversation with her. Name of maid, please? She was an instantly interesting character. Her statement of Eleanor (as a prisoner and a woman of privilege) being the first woman she served she could actually be frank with (since Eleanor isn't in a position to punish her) was great. I hope for many more scenes.
So far, I also like our new seasonal antagonist Rodgers. It did occur to me that his current plan for Nassau (pardons for all the pirates minus Charles Vane, on Eleanor's advice, until he figured out Vane and Eleanor have history) actually is Thomas' plan for Nassau. Not that Flint, long past pardons, would be in any mood to accept this. The rather heavy hint about Rodgers having a Mysterious Past of his own makes me duly curious. Oh, and Hornigold's face when he realises Eleanor is a) still around and b) in the immediate proximity of the currently most powerful man on the British side of things was priceless. He and Dufresne have every reason to be afraid. Eleanor is going to deliver them to an extremely unpleasant fate once she gets the chance to, mark my word.
Mind you, I can't decide yet whether she actually plans to stick with Rodgers long term or plans to screw him over and leave as soon as she gets the chance. There are good arguments for both. Not least because she does still believe in Lawful Nassau (the last one of the original team who does). Considering Blackbeard's nostalgic speech about the time when manly men fought each other all the time as the one true state for a pirate, it occured to me that basically we're seeing the Shadow War from Babylon 5 playing out here, complete with "both superpowers are bastards": Blackbeard/Edward Teach just voiced the Shadow ideology (he makes a tall Mr. Morden, but it fits), whereas Eleanor in her attempt to convince Rodgers he needs her at his side (as opposed to sending her back to England to be hanged when he figures out she set him up to kill her former boyfriend) voiced the Vorlon one.
When I first heard about the casting of Ray Stevenson as Blackbeard, I expected him to play the character differently than he does here, because even with Pullo (his most complex role I've seen him in), he tends to be cast as brawn over brain. But his Blackbeard is soft spoken and very clever and manipulative, knowing exactly which button of Vane's to push. (Basically: Vane/Manipulative Types seem to be a given pairing. Which makes a good case for hate sex with Flint, I guess.) Otoh the speech about the glory of manly men fighting did not wash at all with Jack Rackham, to whom it is the last straw that makes him go with Max' plan of changing many of those coins into more portable and/or hideable goods so they can have something stashed away once Nassau gets conquered by theVorlons Forces of Lawful Evil. (Or for that matter descends into the Blackbeard type of bloody anarchy.)
Lastly: the show uses what must be much of its special effects budget on the Walrus sailing through the deadly storm. I have to say that Flint saying "Make it so" to Billy, aka the probably unintended Picard homage, made me inappropriately squee in the midst of all the drama. Otoh the scenes with Silver and Soon Dead Shipmate below decks were intense and heartrendering. I think John said the truth when saying that the whole "we'll take care of you" attitude of the crew after his loss of leg scared him more than anything else, but that's half of it: because it can lead into caring back, and then you end up watching one of the people you care for drown in front of you while holding their hand, which is fucked up beyond belief but par the course for life around James Flint.
"Sailing through a storm" is one tried and true age of sails trope, and it looks like next we'll get another one, "on a ship with no wind and no water or food in the middle of nowhere". Bring it on!
Since I assumed (naturally) we'd never see Miranda again, I more than welcome Flint being haunted by her ghost and hope this advances to him having his own Head!Miranda, a la BSG. Though him seeing her but not being able to hear her even though he can see she's talking to him agitatedly, angrily, desperately, works great as a metaphor for Flint's mental and emotional state. Re: the corpse like thing sitting on the table in the last Miranda dream - Thomas? James McGraw that was? BTW, since I've seen some fanfic assuming Flint only valued Miranda as his last link to Thomas, I'm glad the dreams are making clear that she meant something beyond their shared grief for Thomas.
It's backstory time for Eleanor, Charles Vane and newbie (to the show) Edward Teach aka Blackbeard as we find out the answer to a question posed both in show and in pro reviews - how did Eleanor initially, as a 17 years old girl, get all the pirates to take her seriously beyond "has money and holdings from absent father"? The answer being that she took on the most feared pirate at the time, i.e. Blackbeard, isolated him and turned his Faithful Lieutenant Vane against him is very Eleanor and makes complete sense. (And no, Blackbeard, I don't believe your face saving version of leaving until Charles could see the error of his ways for a minute.) Though my favourite detail of the Eleanor plot thread was the maid Rodgers had on board in order to take care of/keep an eye on Eleanor and her tart, matter of fact conversation with her. Name of maid, please? She was an instantly interesting character. Her statement of Eleanor (as a prisoner and a woman of privilege) being the first woman she served she could actually be frank with (since Eleanor isn't in a position to punish her) was great. I hope for many more scenes.
So far, I also like our new seasonal antagonist Rodgers. It did occur to me that his current plan for Nassau (pardons for all the pirates minus Charles Vane, on Eleanor's advice, until he figured out Vane and Eleanor have history) actually is Thomas' plan for Nassau. Not that Flint, long past pardons, would be in any mood to accept this. The rather heavy hint about Rodgers having a Mysterious Past of his own makes me duly curious. Oh, and Hornigold's face when he realises Eleanor is a) still around and b) in the immediate proximity of the currently most powerful man on the British side of things was priceless. He and Dufresne have every reason to be afraid. Eleanor is going to deliver them to an extremely unpleasant fate once she gets the chance to, mark my word.
Mind you, I can't decide yet whether she actually plans to stick with Rodgers long term or plans to screw him over and leave as soon as she gets the chance. There are good arguments for both. Not least because she does still believe in Lawful Nassau (the last one of the original team who does). Considering Blackbeard's nostalgic speech about the time when manly men fought each other all the time as the one true state for a pirate, it occured to me that basically we're seeing the Shadow War from Babylon 5 playing out here, complete with "both superpowers are bastards": Blackbeard/Edward Teach just voiced the Shadow ideology (he makes a tall Mr. Morden, but it fits), whereas Eleanor in her attempt to convince Rodgers he needs her at his side (as opposed to sending her back to England to be hanged when he figures out she set him up to kill her former boyfriend) voiced the Vorlon one.
When I first heard about the casting of Ray Stevenson as Blackbeard, I expected him to play the character differently than he does here, because even with Pullo (his most complex role I've seen him in), he tends to be cast as brawn over brain. But his Blackbeard is soft spoken and very clever and manipulative, knowing exactly which button of Vane's to push. (Basically: Vane/Manipulative Types seem to be a given pairing. Which makes a good case for hate sex with Flint, I guess.) Otoh the speech about the glory of manly men fighting did not wash at all with Jack Rackham, to whom it is the last straw that makes him go with Max' plan of changing many of those coins into more portable and/or hideable goods so they can have something stashed away once Nassau gets conquered by the
Lastly: the show uses what must be much of its special effects budget on the Walrus sailing through the deadly storm. I have to say that Flint saying "Make it so" to Billy, aka the probably unintended Picard homage, made me inappropriately squee in the midst of all the drama. Otoh the scenes with Silver and Soon Dead Shipmate below decks were intense and heartrendering. I think John said the truth when saying that the whole "we'll take care of you" attitude of the crew after his loss of leg scared him more than anything else, but that's half of it: because it can lead into caring back, and then you end up watching one of the people you care for drown in front of you while holding their hand, which is fucked up beyond belief but par the course for life around James Flint.
"Sailing through a storm" is one tried and true age of sails trope, and it looks like next we'll get another one, "on a ship with no wind and no water or food in the middle of nowhere". Bring it on!
