Black Sails 3.07.
Mar. 6th, 2016 12:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which everyone is a villain in Nassau, and most of them are aware of it.
And not in a grimdark "nothing matters, let's slaughter" kind of way, which is what makes the show so good. Mind you, for all that Jack's "we're all villains in Nassau" quote comes in really handy, I'm still angry with him and have zero sympathies at the moment, because seriously, Jack, this is all your fault, for your blasted vanity. You and Anne could be enjoying a happily ever after if not for your ego. You really would deserve being handed over to the Spanish, but no such luck, Anne & Co. will save you, because Anne.
Meanwhile, Max and Eleanor play out an onscreen v ersion of the fanfic I linked a few days ago, in which Max is entirely aware that she's at the emotional place Eleanor was at the start of the show, and Eleanor is doing her best to preserve the life of her ex girlfriend's ex girlfriend, because she and Max amazingly have the most functional of exes relationships right now. (Who'd have thought?) Also because Eleanor truly wants to make a fresh start. I mean, it won't last, because Nassau doesn't work that way - and I love that Woode Rogers is clear sighted about this re: Eleanor, even if he isn't yet re: himself -, but that she truly wants that right now makes a lot of emotional sense to me. Eleanor sacrificed all her personal relationships for the idea of Lawful Nassau (with her in a top position), and shortly after the last of those choices (taking Abigail Ashe from Vane, thereby delivering him to near certain death), Nassau turned against her and delivered her to be hanged in England. This is her second chance, and one that promises, from her pov not ony what she always wanted (Lawful Nassau with her in a top position) but a way to achieve it while having a relationship with someone she hasn't a mutual betrayal backstory with yet, and a way to make peace with an important part of her past. Of course she sincerely wants it to work. Also: Rogers right now is a really good option for a partner. From the moment he showed up in her prison cell, he hasn't once lied to her or condescended to her (not even by taking her as harmless because she's a woman), he not only asks for advice on things she knows about and he doesn't but listens to it, he consistently informs her of the dangers they face instead of some "you don't want to know" nonsense, and he did none of this to have sex with her; every overture in that direction came to her. Note that when they finally do have sex in this episode, it's filmed remarkably differently from "ravishing each other" type of sex scenes the show has in seasons 1 and 2; it's very tentative. Something new.
Speaking of having sex, Max' scene with the previous Madam and finally Georgia (the girl) was good and a little heartbreaking, because you know that this must be how Eleanor and Max started way back when. (Check the pilot: Eleanor pays the Madam for having sex with Max; they're in love at that point, but it's still also a business relationship.) Max' bitter description of the cycle earlier in her scene with Eleanor - to get to the top, you form relationships, to remain on the top, you arrive at a point where you have to betray the people you have the relationships with - is answered by the Madam with the suggestion that in order to avoid this, you just have sex without emotional entanglement, as a business. But of course, as Max knows from her own story, this doesn't work out this way, either.
Re: backstory, Mr. Scott had said that he sent his wife and child (having faked their deaths) from Nassau way back when, and I had been wondering whether or not Madi is aware of the type of relationship her father used to have with Eleanor, so it was great that the episode took the time to let her ask about Eleanor and to reminisce that she used to play with her when they were children. It must be odd to think that her father did more to raise Eleanor than he could do to raise Madi (due to being absent), and now I'm pretty sure the two (Madi and Eleanor) will meet again.
(Incidentally: I've seen the question as to why Eleanor doesn't wonder where Mr. Scott is. Well, when she was last on Nassau, he was a part of Flint's crew. For all she knows, he still is, which since Hornigold announced the deaths of Flint's entire crew a few weeks earlier would mean he's dead as well.)
Good as all of this was, the highlights of the episode were two encounters and an aftermath. One of the encounters being the one between Flint and Rogers. I loved that it was Eleanor's idea of how to avoid the trap Rogers' was in (either forcibly restrain other pirates from joining Flint, which would make him look weak one way, or do nothing, which would weaken him another) by coming up with a third option, Rogers himself being on the beach without his army, thereby both showing his spine and shaming the other pirates from joining (for now) (note: so far all of Eleanor's strategic ideas have paid off, see also the earlier re: pardons read by Hornigold; there's a reason Woode Rogers keeps listening to her, and it's not that she's pretty), which Flint immediately understands and acknowledges as a clever move, and then we have the actual encounter, and Rogers brings up what Flint himself has acknowledged to Silver two episodes earlier: that he's doing exactly what Flint and the Hamiltons, once upon a time, have wanted. Even better, he brings this up in a way that makes it clear he knows or at least has a pretty good idea about who Thomas Hamilton truly had been to James McGraw.
(Sidenote: if he didn't know, he could/would have brought up the fake cover story Richard Guthrie recited in season 1 and which Alfred Hamilton had produced, i.e. that a James/Miranda affair had broken Thomas' heart and driven him to suicide. Otoh, if he knows, I'm not sure he could from Eleanor as his only source. Eleanor must have been told the gist of the story in late s2 not just as a way to explain why retrieving Abigail Ashe from Vane was so essential but also because when delivering Miranda's letter to Abigail, she says it's from Lady Hamilton, i.e. at this point she knows Mrs. Barlow = Lady Hamilton and presumably Flint = McGraw. However, the summary Flint and/or Miranda gave Eleanor probably did not include the information that Thomas Hamilton and James McGraw had been lovers. She could have worked that out on her own, but it's just as likely that Rogers, who made a lot of enquiries before ever starting that enterprise, talked with, say, Admiral Hennesey.)
What truly makes the encounter great is that Flint doesn't deny that this really is the case (i.e. what Rogers is doing right now is what he used to want), or goes into a "how dare you?" mode re: Rogers bringing up Thomas Hamilton. He doesn't even deny the "I'm what you used to be" part, which is true. If Lt. James McGraw had continued his career, he could be doing exactly what Woode Rogers is currently doing in Nassau. But he's changed, there is no way back, and the fact that both Hamiltons are dead is only part of it; his goal isn't Lawful Nassau anymore, it's Ruled By Him Nassau (which btw in the long term doom s Flint). And Rogers, who started the episode in his scene with Jack refusing to play the villain ends it in his scene with Flint acknowledging he will play the part, which, in fitting narrative irony, only further parallels him with Flint. (What he says to Flint is what Flint told Ashe and Charleston in the s2 finale, only using the word "monster" instead of "villain".) The show continues to go meta on the power of storytelling and the roles people get cast in, and it's fitting that Rogers, as a writer, is very self aware of this.
And this still wasn't the absolute highlight of the episode. Which was, of course, the long awaited emergence of John Silver's dark side.
Silver starts the show cheerfully amoral and openly selfish and looking out for number one, and only later comes to care about people, but so far, we've actually have seen him use violence less than any of the other regular pirates. The very few times we've seen him kill people, it was always in self defense; when a crew mate kills someone at what he thinks was Silver's suggestion, it actually hadn't been intentional on Silver's part, and he's shocked to realise it. All of which is a far cry from Treasure Island era John Silver who isn't a psycho looking for people to kill, and does rely on his wits and manipulative skills foremost, but has absolutely no compunction killing people when it serves his purposes, including people who trust him. Not to mention that he's someone who scares his former crew mates (both Billy Bones and Ben Gunn). So it stood to reason that sooner or later, we had to see this capacity starting to develop, and it couldn't just be by getting into Flint's head.
The scene when it happens has been two and a half seasons in the making, and it was absolutely worth the wait. Silver's strengths as a storyteller are by no w well established, and at first he starts with this, and does it reliably well. But then Dufresne calls his bluff. Now I've never hated Dufresne the way everyone else seems to (seriously, Flint had the mutiny coming at the end of s1, he so did, and Dufresne had absolutely no reasons not to use Eleanor Guthrie to buy his pardon at the end of s2 - what did Eleanor ever do to deserve his loyalty?), so for me Dufresne ending up as the catalyst here was a great choice not because I wanted to see the character dead, but because Dufresne, like Silver, started out in season 1 as the character with the least experience in pirating, least likely to be thought good at it, and like him went through a crash course in that regard, temporarily winning the respect of the entire crew. In s2, their development goes into opposite directions at one key point: Dufresne, who originally thinks of himself as a good man looking out for his crew discovers when push comes to shove, he's selfish enough to secure his own survival and leave many of them behind (falling for Billy's ploy with the eight pardons), while Silver, who thinks of himself as entirely governed by his own self interest and only with the crew as a means to an end, discovers when push comes to shove he's not willing to save himself by let many of them die (he makes that choice twice in the s2 finale, once by not swimming to Charleston and sabotaging the Urca instad, and the other time when he refuses to give Vane's quartermaster names; now granted, he probably was playing for time in the later case, since he knew Billy had gotten the keyes to the chains, but still, he was risking torture - and got it). So it's very fitting that Dufresne, who remembers Silver as the liar and wannabe cook they picked up in the pilot, calls Silver on what he sees as Silver's most elaborate lie yet - and that Dufresne ends up as the first person John Silver kills not in self defense but in cold blood, as a way to make a point. Nobody is who they started out as, and much as Flint in a way confronts his former self in Rogers, Silver confronts who he used to be in Dufresne and ends up utterly destroying him.
And it feels good. That confession in the ensuing scene between Silver and Flint is the ice on top of the cream of character development. We've seen Flint confessing things about himself to Silver before, we've seen Silver deducing things about Flint before, but other than the confession about the Urca gold (which was strategic on Silver's part) and the statement that he gave up his own share because he couldn't have both it and his position on the Walrus, and if he didn't have the later, he was nothing but an invalid (which I was unsure about being true, but probably is, since the Jack and Anne share of the treasure being the only parts still missing is such a big plot point), we haven't yet Silver admit something truly intimate about himself to Flint. This was it, and in a way cemented their partnership its dysfunctional dark side glory. Bring on the next episode!
And not in a grimdark "nothing matters, let's slaughter" kind of way, which is what makes the show so good. Mind you, for all that Jack's "we're all villains in Nassau" quote comes in really handy, I'm still angry with him and have zero sympathies at the moment, because seriously, Jack, this is all your fault, for your blasted vanity. You and Anne could be enjoying a happily ever after if not for your ego. You really would deserve being handed over to the Spanish, but no such luck, Anne & Co. will save you, because Anne.
Meanwhile, Max and Eleanor play out an onscreen v ersion of the fanfic I linked a few days ago, in which Max is entirely aware that she's at the emotional place Eleanor was at the start of the show, and Eleanor is doing her best to preserve the life of her ex girlfriend's ex girlfriend, because she and Max amazingly have the most functional of exes relationships right now. (Who'd have thought?) Also because Eleanor truly wants to make a fresh start. I mean, it won't last, because Nassau doesn't work that way - and I love that Woode Rogers is clear sighted about this re: Eleanor, even if he isn't yet re: himself -, but that she truly wants that right now makes a lot of emotional sense to me. Eleanor sacrificed all her personal relationships for the idea of Lawful Nassau (with her in a top position), and shortly after the last of those choices (taking Abigail Ashe from Vane, thereby delivering him to near certain death), Nassau turned against her and delivered her to be hanged in England. This is her second chance, and one that promises, from her pov not ony what she always wanted (Lawful Nassau with her in a top position) but a way to achieve it while having a relationship with someone she hasn't a mutual betrayal backstory with yet, and a way to make peace with an important part of her past. Of course she sincerely wants it to work. Also: Rogers right now is a really good option for a partner. From the moment he showed up in her prison cell, he hasn't once lied to her or condescended to her (not even by taking her as harmless because she's a woman), he not only asks for advice on things she knows about and he doesn't but listens to it, he consistently informs her of the dangers they face instead of some "you don't want to know" nonsense, and he did none of this to have sex with her; every overture in that direction came to her. Note that when they finally do have sex in this episode, it's filmed remarkably differently from "ravishing each other" type of sex scenes the show has in seasons 1 and 2; it's very tentative. Something new.
Speaking of having sex, Max' scene with the previous Madam and finally Georgia (the girl) was good and a little heartbreaking, because you know that this must be how Eleanor and Max started way back when. (Check the pilot: Eleanor pays the Madam for having sex with Max; they're in love at that point, but it's still also a business relationship.) Max' bitter description of the cycle earlier in her scene with Eleanor - to get to the top, you form relationships, to remain on the top, you arrive at a point where you have to betray the people you have the relationships with - is answered by the Madam with the suggestion that in order to avoid this, you just have sex without emotional entanglement, as a business. But of course, as Max knows from her own story, this doesn't work out this way, either.
Re: backstory, Mr. Scott had said that he sent his wife and child (having faked their deaths) from Nassau way back when, and I had been wondering whether or not Madi is aware of the type of relationship her father used to have with Eleanor, so it was great that the episode took the time to let her ask about Eleanor and to reminisce that she used to play with her when they were children. It must be odd to think that her father did more to raise Eleanor than he could do to raise Madi (due to being absent), and now I'm pretty sure the two (Madi and Eleanor) will meet again.
(Incidentally: I've seen the question as to why Eleanor doesn't wonder where Mr. Scott is. Well, when she was last on Nassau, he was a part of Flint's crew. For all she knows, he still is, which since Hornigold announced the deaths of Flint's entire crew a few weeks earlier would mean he's dead as well.)
Good as all of this was, the highlights of the episode were two encounters and an aftermath. One of the encounters being the one between Flint and Rogers. I loved that it was Eleanor's idea of how to avoid the trap Rogers' was in (either forcibly restrain other pirates from joining Flint, which would make him look weak one way, or do nothing, which would weaken him another) by coming up with a third option, Rogers himself being on the beach without his army, thereby both showing his spine and shaming the other pirates from joining (for now) (note: so far all of Eleanor's strategic ideas have paid off, see also the earlier re: pardons read by Hornigold; there's a reason Woode Rogers keeps listening to her, and it's not that she's pretty), which Flint immediately understands and acknowledges as a clever move, and then we have the actual encounter, and Rogers brings up what Flint himself has acknowledged to Silver two episodes earlier: that he's doing exactly what Flint and the Hamiltons, once upon a time, have wanted. Even better, he brings this up in a way that makes it clear he knows or at least has a pretty good idea about who Thomas Hamilton truly had been to James McGraw.
(Sidenote: if he didn't know, he could/would have brought up the fake cover story Richard Guthrie recited in season 1 and which Alfred Hamilton had produced, i.e. that a James/Miranda affair had broken Thomas' heart and driven him to suicide. Otoh, if he knows, I'm not sure he could from Eleanor as his only source. Eleanor must have been told the gist of the story in late s2 not just as a way to explain why retrieving Abigail Ashe from Vane was so essential but also because when delivering Miranda's letter to Abigail, she says it's from Lady Hamilton, i.e. at this point she knows Mrs. Barlow = Lady Hamilton and presumably Flint = McGraw. However, the summary Flint and/or Miranda gave Eleanor probably did not include the information that Thomas Hamilton and James McGraw had been lovers. She could have worked that out on her own, but it's just as likely that Rogers, who made a lot of enquiries before ever starting that enterprise, talked with, say, Admiral Hennesey.)
What truly makes the encounter great is that Flint doesn't deny that this really is the case (i.e. what Rogers is doing right now is what he used to want), or goes into a "how dare you?" mode re: Rogers bringing up Thomas Hamilton. He doesn't even deny the "I'm what you used to be" part, which is true. If Lt. James McGraw had continued his career, he could be doing exactly what Woode Rogers is currently doing in Nassau. But he's changed, there is no way back, and the fact that both Hamiltons are dead is only part of it; his goal isn't Lawful Nassau anymore, it's Ruled By Him Nassau (which btw in the long term doom s Flint). And Rogers, who started the episode in his scene with Jack refusing to play the villain ends it in his scene with Flint acknowledging he will play the part, which, in fitting narrative irony, only further parallels him with Flint. (What he says to Flint is what Flint told Ashe and Charleston in the s2 finale, only using the word "monster" instead of "villain".) The show continues to go meta on the power of storytelling and the roles people get cast in, and it's fitting that Rogers, as a writer, is very self aware of this.
And this still wasn't the absolute highlight of the episode. Which was, of course, the long awaited emergence of John Silver's dark side.
Silver starts the show cheerfully amoral and openly selfish and looking out for number one, and only later comes to care about people, but so far, we've actually have seen him use violence less than any of the other regular pirates. The very few times we've seen him kill people, it was always in self defense; when a crew mate kills someone at what he thinks was Silver's suggestion, it actually hadn't been intentional on Silver's part, and he's shocked to realise it. All of which is a far cry from Treasure Island era John Silver who isn't a psycho looking for people to kill, and does rely on his wits and manipulative skills foremost, but has absolutely no compunction killing people when it serves his purposes, including people who trust him. Not to mention that he's someone who scares his former crew mates (both Billy Bones and Ben Gunn). So it stood to reason that sooner or later, we had to see this capacity starting to develop, and it couldn't just be by getting into Flint's head.
The scene when it happens has been two and a half seasons in the making, and it was absolutely worth the wait. Silver's strengths as a storyteller are by no w well established, and at first he starts with this, and does it reliably well. But then Dufresne calls his bluff. Now I've never hated Dufresne the way everyone else seems to (seriously, Flint had the mutiny coming at the end of s1, he so did, and Dufresne had absolutely no reasons not to use Eleanor Guthrie to buy his pardon at the end of s2 - what did Eleanor ever do to deserve his loyalty?), so for me Dufresne ending up as the catalyst here was a great choice not because I wanted to see the character dead, but because Dufresne, like Silver, started out in season 1 as the character with the least experience in pirating, least likely to be thought good at it, and like him went through a crash course in that regard, temporarily winning the respect of the entire crew. In s2, their development goes into opposite directions at one key point: Dufresne, who originally thinks of himself as a good man looking out for his crew discovers when push comes to shove, he's selfish enough to secure his own survival and leave many of them behind (falling for Billy's ploy with the eight pardons), while Silver, who thinks of himself as entirely governed by his own self interest and only with the crew as a means to an end, discovers when push comes to shove he's not willing to save himself by let many of them die (he makes that choice twice in the s2 finale, once by not swimming to Charleston and sabotaging the Urca instad, and the other time when he refuses to give Vane's quartermaster names; now granted, he probably was playing for time in the later case, since he knew Billy had gotten the keyes to the chains, but still, he was risking torture - and got it). So it's very fitting that Dufresne, who remembers Silver as the liar and wannabe cook they picked up in the pilot, calls Silver on what he sees as Silver's most elaborate lie yet - and that Dufresne ends up as the first person John Silver kills not in self defense but in cold blood, as a way to make a point. Nobody is who they started out as, and much as Flint in a way confronts his former self in Rogers, Silver confronts who he used to be in Dufresne and ends up utterly destroying him.
And it feels good. That confession in the ensuing scene between Silver and Flint is the ice on top of the cream of character development. We've seen Flint confessing things about himself to Silver before, we've seen Silver deducing things about Flint before, but other than the confession about the Urca gold (which was strategic on Silver's part) and the statement that he gave up his own share because he couldn't have both it and his position on the Walrus, and if he didn't have the later, he was nothing but an invalid (which I was unsure about being true, but probably is, since the Jack and Anne share of the treasure being the only parts still missing is such a big plot point), we haven't yet Silver admit something truly intimate about himself to Flint. This was it, and in a way cemented their partnership its dysfunctional dark side glory. Bring on the next episode!
