Black Sails 3.08
Mar. 13th, 2016 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which we get not one but two rescue operations, and a leadership test to boot.
Okay, my anger towards Jack has officially abated. It was already hart to resist the monologueing at the rat (btw, well trained rat! do we think it was a real one or GCI?) , but the monologueing about his origin story (at last we have one for him) weakened my grudge further (of course he comes from a line of plain and simple tailors - Garak, well, wouldn't be proud, because wanting Nassau aflame for vanity was still stupid and petty, but he'd like Jack in general), and the reunion with Anne finally did it in. "Ouch." Only you, Jack. Incidentally, to this foreigner's ear Toby Schmitz as Jack Rackham speaks Rep, err, the King's good English, so if he's from Leeds originally does that mean he trained himself out of his Northern accent? More seriously, I have no idea whether this is true of the historical Rackham, and honestly don't care, but the tale of Jack's father the tailor being ridiculed on the street for financial failure and Jack inheriting his debts at age 13 and pressed into service of the burgeoning textile industry is a great background story for this version of him, and explains a lot about his obsession with making his name.
Flint, Vane and Anne hiding out at Miranda's house while mounting Operation Rescue The Treasure And Jack Rackham offers less interaction between the three of them than I'd hoped for but a good opening scene that illustrates both how far Flint and Vane have from from their s2 feud and the still existing differences between them, with Vane seeing the remnants of Flint's existence with Miranda - the books, the teacups, the instrument - as pointless and civilization's bribe with creature comforts, while to Flint they and what they symbolize are still the point of it all. This, btw, is why Charles Vane and Eleanor Guthrie were always doomed as a couple, strong chemistry notwithstanding. Natural Born Pirateness for its own sake gets you Blackbeard, Charles, but no society which by necessity also consists of people with conflicting desires.
Speaking of Eleanor: how much do I love that both of the episode's rescue operations (the one for Jack, and the one for Woode Rogers) were initiated by women while the guys were the damsels to be rescued, and that the show didn't pat itself on the back by letting someone in the script point it out? Also, the Eleanor and Max reunited team-up continues to bear fruit, as Max points out Anne would never have just resigned upon realizing Jack wasn't there, therefore it had to be a trap. And Eleanor, when getting not anywhere with Rogers' stupid sidekick, immediately comes up with an alternative by recruiting Hornigold (complete with pity "if I can get over it, so can you" remark), and thinks of the fact that rescueing Rogers isn't the only problem, they also have to do something about the Walrus simultaneously? For all the s2 mistakes she's made, this season Eleanor's strategies continue to be great. She's three for three now; using Hornigold to provide some men to rescue Rogers while simultanously going after the Walrus was about the only thing which could have saved her from a dead (or captured, depending) governor and an immediate pirate takeover of Nassau, and she thought of it.
Meanwhile, on the Walrus, Madi continues to establish herself as a force to be reckoned with. It says something about the show that the nature of the crisis - some of the Walrus crew beating up one of Madi's people in belated retaliation of the torture some of them suffered several episodes earlier (but only a few days, in show time), and intending to kill him - is something that feels organic and considers that the crew consists of human beings, not just prompt providers for our regulars. It says something even better that the show also reminds us the guy badly beaten up started out life as a slave, as did all the other Maroons, where the treatment some of the Walrus crew received when the Queen was having them "interrogated" was something the Maroons themselves were prone to receiving on a regular basis from white people just like the seamen. Best of all is that this first test of the new alliance between Maroons and pirates isn't done in a way that makes it about Silver (though he learns from it - both in terms of having to trust Madi, when he gives her the dagger, and in terms of how to handle your inner rage and violence when your people's lives are at stake, which Madi demonstrates), but in a way that makes it about Madi. Her mother gave her a huge responsibility, and here she shows she can handle it, even if it's not easy. Note that she doesn't explain herself to Silver until it's all over. If the alliance - both the general one between Maroons and pirates and the personal one between Madi and Silver - is to work, he has to trust her, and her word really needs to be law as much as Flint's.
Cliffhanger: two of them. The early dialogue between Madi and Silver included a reminder that he's only been a member of the crew for less than a year (in show time), learning on his feet (and with a lot of bluffs), and zero training as a seaman before that. Which is about to become a real problem because he's the highest ranking man on board of a ship that's about to be intercepted attacked by the very experienced Captain Hornigold. The other cliffhanger, of course, is Eleanor's reunion with Charles Vane. Given their history, anything between sex, mutual murder attacks or a team up is possible, and I wouldn't guess. But so far, Eleanor has been determined not to waste her second chance, down to and including being honest when Woode Rogers asks her how she'll respond to being around Vane again.
Okay, my anger towards Jack has officially abated. It was already hart to resist the monologueing at the rat (btw, well trained rat! do we think it was a real one or GCI?) , but the monologueing about his origin story (at last we have one for him) weakened my grudge further (of course he comes from a line of plain and simple tailors - Garak, well, wouldn't be proud, because wanting Nassau aflame for vanity was still stupid and petty, but he'd like Jack in general), and the reunion with Anne finally did it in. "Ouch." Only you, Jack. Incidentally, to this foreigner's ear Toby Schmitz as Jack Rackham speaks Rep, err, the King's good English, so if he's from Leeds originally does that mean he trained himself out of his Northern accent? More seriously, I have no idea whether this is true of the historical Rackham, and honestly don't care, but the tale of Jack's father the tailor being ridiculed on the street for financial failure and Jack inheriting his debts at age 13 and pressed into service of the burgeoning textile industry is a great background story for this version of him, and explains a lot about his obsession with making his name.
Flint, Vane and Anne hiding out at Miranda's house while mounting Operation Rescue The Treasure And Jack Rackham offers less interaction between the three of them than I'd hoped for but a good opening scene that illustrates both how far Flint and Vane have from from their s2 feud and the still existing differences between them, with Vane seeing the remnants of Flint's existence with Miranda - the books, the teacups, the instrument - as pointless and civilization's bribe with creature comforts, while to Flint they and what they symbolize are still the point of it all. This, btw, is why Charles Vane and Eleanor Guthrie were always doomed as a couple, strong chemistry notwithstanding. Natural Born Pirateness for its own sake gets you Blackbeard, Charles, but no society which by necessity also consists of people with conflicting desires.
Speaking of Eleanor: how much do I love that both of the episode's rescue operations (the one for Jack, and the one for Woode Rogers) were initiated by women while the guys were the damsels to be rescued, and that the show didn't pat itself on the back by letting someone in the script point it out? Also, the Eleanor and Max reunited team-up continues to bear fruit, as Max points out Anne would never have just resigned upon realizing Jack wasn't there, therefore it had to be a trap. And Eleanor, when getting not anywhere with Rogers' stupid sidekick, immediately comes up with an alternative by recruiting Hornigold (complete with pity "if I can get over it, so can you" remark), and thinks of the fact that rescueing Rogers isn't the only problem, they also have to do something about the Walrus simultaneously? For all the s2 mistakes she's made, this season Eleanor's strategies continue to be great. She's three for three now; using Hornigold to provide some men to rescue Rogers while simultanously going after the Walrus was about the only thing which could have saved her from a dead (or captured, depending) governor and an immediate pirate takeover of Nassau, and she thought of it.
Meanwhile, on the Walrus, Madi continues to establish herself as a force to be reckoned with. It says something about the show that the nature of the crisis - some of the Walrus crew beating up one of Madi's people in belated retaliation of the torture some of them suffered several episodes earlier (but only a few days, in show time), and intending to kill him - is something that feels organic and considers that the crew consists of human beings, not just prompt providers for our regulars. It says something even better that the show also reminds us the guy badly beaten up started out life as a slave, as did all the other Maroons, where the treatment some of the Walrus crew received when the Queen was having them "interrogated" was something the Maroons themselves were prone to receiving on a regular basis from white people just like the seamen. Best of all is that this first test of the new alliance between Maroons and pirates isn't done in a way that makes it about Silver (though he learns from it - both in terms of having to trust Madi, when he gives her the dagger, and in terms of how to handle your inner rage and violence when your people's lives are at stake, which Madi demonstrates), but in a way that makes it about Madi. Her mother gave her a huge responsibility, and here she shows she can handle it, even if it's not easy. Note that she doesn't explain herself to Silver until it's all over. If the alliance - both the general one between Maroons and pirates and the personal one between Madi and Silver - is to work, he has to trust her, and her word really needs to be law as much as Flint's.
Cliffhanger: two of them. The early dialogue between Madi and Silver included a reminder that he's only been a member of the crew for less than a year (in show time), learning on his feet (and with a lot of bluffs), and zero training as a seaman before that. Which is about to become a real problem because he's the highest ranking man on board of a ship that's about to be intercepted attacked by the very experienced Captain Hornigold. The other cliffhanger, of course, is Eleanor's reunion with Charles Vane. Given their history, anything between sex, mutual murder attacks or a team up is possible, and I wouldn't guess. But so far, Eleanor has been determined not to waste her second chance, down to and including being honest when Woode Rogers asks her how she'll respond to being around Vane again.
