Black Sails 3.09
Mar. 20th, 2016 08:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which the Great Reaper appears in the Bahamas.
There are two deaths happening in this episode; both of characters who have been with the show from the beginning. I wish Mr. Scott had been given more to do in season 2, which gave him only a few scenes, and these expositionary in nature, but season 3, while not giving him more scenes, gave us these scenes with two dynamic new characters related to him who immediately got a story of their own, the Queen of the Maroons and their daughter Madi, and none too soon. (Otherwise, Max would be the sole remaining character of color with lines and story importance in a region where poc were the majority of the population.) It's also important that Mr. Scott's story got recontextualized this season; as opposed to being a supporting player in Eleanor's story, we now have the narrative of the maroons and their island. Madi in her last conversation with her father thinks he's torn, that the upcoming war will be a civil war for him, that because he raised Eleanor he sees her as his daughter as much as he does her, and he tells her no, she's his only daughter. Which is another important point. It doesn't deny that Mr. Scott was fond of Eleanor, that he helped her in their time together. But she wasn't his daughter, and he didn't want her to be. This is the direct counter narrative to the cliché of the loyal slave/freedman who lives solely for the white child he/she raised.
The other death is Charles Vane's, and as opposed to Mr. Scott's, that one surprised me, never mind history, not least because Charles Vane is such a popular character in the fandom, and of course I was primed to expect another daring rescue sequence. But fourth time is the charm (and means the show keeps being unpredictable); as opposed to Flint, Eleanor and Jack, Vane actually does hang instead of getting a last moment reprieve/rescue. It dawned on me at the same time it did on Billy that Vane actually wanted to die, as opposed to getting rescued, counting on his death as the trigger for an uprising in Nassau. It was framed as Vane going out on his own terms, and btw, I appreciated that for all that he refused the pastor's ministrations with the archetypical "repentance is between me and God" argument,, said pastor wasn't vilified as an evil priest (tm), but was depicted acting compassionately (and got to make the point that Living Free, Charles Vane style, meant a lot of deaths and grief to a lot of people) .
Wisely (and cleverly), the show temporarily removed Woode Rogers from the equation by letting him fall to the same tropical fever many of his men are by now infected by and before he falls into a delirium put Eleanor in charge of everything. Rogers has no personal issue or history with Vane, and him condemning (or not) Vane wouldn't have been nearly as interesting, emotionally, as Eleanor having to do it, and bear the entirely responsibility on her lonesome. The early scene in the episode between Vane and Eleanor, following up the cliffhanger, was superb and captured both the screwed upness of their relationship, the intensity of it, and the way it couldn't have continued even in other circumstances. Vane, as usual, manages to be both wrong and right at the same time re: Eleanor's motives. Yes, to her, all he's done paled for her compared to him killing her father, and yes, Richard Guthrie was no good, but her wanting to believe she could finally have a good relationship with her father when Richard Guthrie came back into her life in s2 wasn't Eleanor moving on to the next guy saying nice things, and it certainly wasn't why she turned against Vane. She would have done that with Guthrie far away anyway, because Vane was steadfastly refusing to hand over Abigail no matter what everyone else, including her, said. Call Eleanor's Lawful Nassau ideal right or wrong, but she's had it since the start of the show, and it wasn't about her father. Similarly, Eleanor is right and wrong about Vane. Of course there's good in him, and she knows it when she's not psyching herself to lead up to his execution, but she's right that he's unable to compromise, and that this dooms him. This scene is the last time they see each other before his execution, the last time they're alone, and of course they manage to hurt each other again, Vane by informing Eleanor her father failed the 1984 test ("do it to Eleanor" replacing "do it to Julia") by in the end when fearing for his life willing to trade her in for his own life, and Eleanor physically, by hitting first him, and then deliberately hitting the wall, hurting herself. In his one conscious scene this episode Rogers, seeing her bloody knuckles, tells her he doesn't want to know what happened in the cell, just whether she's ready to leave it behind her, and Eleanor, who really as far as I can tell is honest with him (and has been through the season), says she'll never believe it behind but is ready to move forward. I suspect Eleanor's relationship with him won't end well, either (there are endless reasons why, starting with him possibly being less than keen to her solution to the Vane problem, especially if the island now explodes, and ending with the fact he's married, which doesn't matter right now but would in a hypothetical future where Nassau is stable enough for his wife to show up), but I'll continue to enjoy it while it lasts, because that short scene sums up why I like it; he doesn't get into jealousy of her ex issues and trusts her to rule the island for him; she, who is so suspicious and competitive by nature, really continues to do her best to reward that trust with honesty.
Mrs. Maplethorne, the old Madam, thinks that Eleanor is just too wired to create enemies for herself to change and to bet on in a long term struggle, which is why she tells Max, and not Eleanor, that Idelle is the spy, and Billy presents Eleanor as an alternate hate figure to the islanders, and again, they're both right and wrong. Because Eleanor at this point could not have done other than what she did. If she'd let things continue to a point where the inhabitants of Nassau actually rose up to stop Vane being extradicted to England, as she was informed they would, any hope of governmental authority on the island would have been shot to hell. If she'd ordered a regular, lengthy trial to take place in Nassau, it also would have allowed sympathy for Vane to rise, rescue operations to be started, and all this isn't even taking into account everyone is on the clock because of the upcoming Spanish invasion. Pardoning him would have, again, destroyed governmental authority because the pardons were depending on the pirates not resuming their trade, and Vane never gave it up. So relying on those same ruthless instincts that had her tell Anne Bonny in s1 it wasn't enough to kill one or two men holding Max, all eight needed to die, that made her compose a hit list in s2, she goes for the speed trial, speed hanging resolution.
The execution scene: other than the silent communication between Vane and Billy, the most compelling thing was Eleanor standing there the entire time and looking Vane in the face, not looking away. To me, this called back her accusation earlier in the cell that instead of facing her and dealing with her in retaliation post Abigail, he killed her father, put up the corpse for her to find and didn't have the courage to face her afterwards. This is her responsibility, and she's taking it.
In other news: the two scenes Silver has on the island, first with Flint and then with Madi, both showcase his respective building relationships with them. Mind you, I'm not sure whether Flint's "how to use your inner rage" instructions were really so apropos in this particular case (at least he didn't give Silver Mike's "Half Measure" lecture from Breaking Bad as I sort of expected him to), but it's significantly different from how Madi saw the issue last episode, where it was a lesson in leadership (she had both her rage and her men under utter control; Silver didn't have the same control over his men, and had to react to the result), not in how to embrace your dark side without being dominated by it. Silver's "I don't know whether that was a warning or a welcome" reply to which Flint doesn't say anything and just looks at him goes to push-pull core of their current dynamic.
Meanwhile, the scene after Mr. Scott's death where Silver goes to Madi is perhaps the first time we've seen her approach her without any secondary agenda or reason, just because she's a woman who just lost her father, and he tries, awkwardly (Silver, usually so good with words), to tell her he's sorry. That silent hug was powerful. I continue to approve of the way they're building this relationship, avoiding all traps to make it one sided (i.e. something like just Madi being there for Silver in times of crisis, without the reverse; I want mutual being there for each other in any relationship I'm supposed to be invested in).
Next week: the finale. I predict the Battle of the Five Armies. By which I mean: Team Flint & Maroons duking it out with the British Forces at first, with two wild cards coming to their aids, Mr. Underhill's militia and incensed about Vane's death Blackbeard respectively. First Team Flint will be on the defensive, then Team England, but neither will actually gain the upper hand. And then the Spanish are going to show up, intending on killing pirates and British navy equally. Which could possibly lead to a last minute alliance against the Spanish, which would solve the show's problem of on the one hand needing Flint to score but on the other needing Eleanor to survive (and if Team Lawful Nassau actually lost Nassau, then by all logic she should be dead; the commuting of her sentence entirely depended on Woode Rogers, who then would be in a debtor's prison, as he'd told her, and she's burned her bridges with the pirates). Also, they've been talking about the threatened Spanish forces for the entire season, and after all that build up, they simply need to show up. And it would be a great set up for the fourth season, or so than either Flint or Eleanor & Rogers winning decisively against the other.
There are two deaths happening in this episode; both of characters who have been with the show from the beginning. I wish Mr. Scott had been given more to do in season 2, which gave him only a few scenes, and these expositionary in nature, but season 3, while not giving him more scenes, gave us these scenes with two dynamic new characters related to him who immediately got a story of their own, the Queen of the Maroons and their daughter Madi, and none too soon. (Otherwise, Max would be the sole remaining character of color with lines and story importance in a region where poc were the majority of the population.) It's also important that Mr. Scott's story got recontextualized this season; as opposed to being a supporting player in Eleanor's story, we now have the narrative of the maroons and their island. Madi in her last conversation with her father thinks he's torn, that the upcoming war will be a civil war for him, that because he raised Eleanor he sees her as his daughter as much as he does her, and he tells her no, she's his only daughter. Which is another important point. It doesn't deny that Mr. Scott was fond of Eleanor, that he helped her in their time together. But she wasn't his daughter, and he didn't want her to be. This is the direct counter narrative to the cliché of the loyal slave/freedman who lives solely for the white child he/she raised.
The other death is Charles Vane's, and as opposed to Mr. Scott's, that one surprised me, never mind history, not least because Charles Vane is such a popular character in the fandom, and of course I was primed to expect another daring rescue sequence. But fourth time is the charm (and means the show keeps being unpredictable); as opposed to Flint, Eleanor and Jack, Vane actually does hang instead of getting a last moment reprieve/rescue. It dawned on me at the same time it did on Billy that Vane actually wanted to die, as opposed to getting rescued, counting on his death as the trigger for an uprising in Nassau. It was framed as Vane going out on his own terms, and btw, I appreciated that for all that he refused the pastor's ministrations with the archetypical "repentance is between me and God" argument,, said pastor wasn't vilified as an evil priest (tm), but was depicted acting compassionately (and got to make the point that Living Free, Charles Vane style, meant a lot of deaths and grief to a lot of people) .
Wisely (and cleverly), the show temporarily removed Woode Rogers from the equation by letting him fall to the same tropical fever many of his men are by now infected by and before he falls into a delirium put Eleanor in charge of everything. Rogers has no personal issue or history with Vane, and him condemning (or not) Vane wouldn't have been nearly as interesting, emotionally, as Eleanor having to do it, and bear the entirely responsibility on her lonesome. The early scene in the episode between Vane and Eleanor, following up the cliffhanger, was superb and captured both the screwed upness of their relationship, the intensity of it, and the way it couldn't have continued even in other circumstances. Vane, as usual, manages to be both wrong and right at the same time re: Eleanor's motives. Yes, to her, all he's done paled for her compared to him killing her father, and yes, Richard Guthrie was no good, but her wanting to believe she could finally have a good relationship with her father when Richard Guthrie came back into her life in s2 wasn't Eleanor moving on to the next guy saying nice things, and it certainly wasn't why she turned against Vane. She would have done that with Guthrie far away anyway, because Vane was steadfastly refusing to hand over Abigail no matter what everyone else, including her, said. Call Eleanor's Lawful Nassau ideal right or wrong, but she's had it since the start of the show, and it wasn't about her father. Similarly, Eleanor is right and wrong about Vane. Of course there's good in him, and she knows it when she's not psyching herself to lead up to his execution, but she's right that he's unable to compromise, and that this dooms him. This scene is the last time they see each other before his execution, the last time they're alone, and of course they manage to hurt each other again, Vane by informing Eleanor her father failed the 1984 test ("do it to Eleanor" replacing "do it to Julia") by in the end when fearing for his life willing to trade her in for his own life, and Eleanor physically, by hitting first him, and then deliberately hitting the wall, hurting herself. In his one conscious scene this episode Rogers, seeing her bloody knuckles, tells her he doesn't want to know what happened in the cell, just whether she's ready to leave it behind her, and Eleanor, who really as far as I can tell is honest with him (and has been through the season), says she'll never believe it behind but is ready to move forward. I suspect Eleanor's relationship with him won't end well, either (there are endless reasons why, starting with him possibly being less than keen to her solution to the Vane problem, especially if the island now explodes, and ending with the fact he's married, which doesn't matter right now but would in a hypothetical future where Nassau is stable enough for his wife to show up), but I'll continue to enjoy it while it lasts, because that short scene sums up why I like it; he doesn't get into jealousy of her ex issues and trusts her to rule the island for him; she, who is so suspicious and competitive by nature, really continues to do her best to reward that trust with honesty.
Mrs. Maplethorne, the old Madam, thinks that Eleanor is just too wired to create enemies for herself to change and to bet on in a long term struggle, which is why she tells Max, and not Eleanor, that Idelle is the spy, and Billy presents Eleanor as an alternate hate figure to the islanders, and again, they're both right and wrong. Because Eleanor at this point could not have done other than what she did. If she'd let things continue to a point where the inhabitants of Nassau actually rose up to stop Vane being extradicted to England, as she was informed they would, any hope of governmental authority on the island would have been shot to hell. If she'd ordered a regular, lengthy trial to take place in Nassau, it also would have allowed sympathy for Vane to rise, rescue operations to be started, and all this isn't even taking into account everyone is on the clock because of the upcoming Spanish invasion. Pardoning him would have, again, destroyed governmental authority because the pardons were depending on the pirates not resuming their trade, and Vane never gave it up. So relying on those same ruthless instincts that had her tell Anne Bonny in s1 it wasn't enough to kill one or two men holding Max, all eight needed to die, that made her compose a hit list in s2, she goes for the speed trial, speed hanging resolution.
The execution scene: other than the silent communication between Vane and Billy, the most compelling thing was Eleanor standing there the entire time and looking Vane in the face, not looking away. To me, this called back her accusation earlier in the cell that instead of facing her and dealing with her in retaliation post Abigail, he killed her father, put up the corpse for her to find and didn't have the courage to face her afterwards. This is her responsibility, and she's taking it.
In other news: the two scenes Silver has on the island, first with Flint and then with Madi, both showcase his respective building relationships with them. Mind you, I'm not sure whether Flint's "how to use your inner rage" instructions were really so apropos in this particular case (at least he didn't give Silver Mike's "Half Measure" lecture from Breaking Bad as I sort of expected him to), but it's significantly different from how Madi saw the issue last episode, where it was a lesson in leadership (she had both her rage and her men under utter control; Silver didn't have the same control over his men, and had to react to the result), not in how to embrace your dark side without being dominated by it. Silver's "I don't know whether that was a warning or a welcome" reply to which Flint doesn't say anything and just looks at him goes to push-pull core of their current dynamic.
Meanwhile, the scene after Mr. Scott's death where Silver goes to Madi is perhaps the first time we've seen her approach her without any secondary agenda or reason, just because she's a woman who just lost her father, and he tries, awkwardly (Silver, usually so good with words), to tell her he's sorry. That silent hug was powerful. I continue to approve of the way they're building this relationship, avoiding all traps to make it one sided (i.e. something like just Madi being there for Silver in times of crisis, without the reverse; I want mutual being there for each other in any relationship I'm supposed to be invested in).
Next week: the finale. I predict the Battle of the Five Armies. By which I mean: Team Flint & Maroons duking it out with the British Forces at first, with two wild cards coming to their aids, Mr. Underhill's militia and incensed about Vane's death Blackbeard respectively. First Team Flint will be on the defensive, then Team England, but neither will actually gain the upper hand. And then the Spanish are going to show up, intending on killing pirates and British navy equally. Which could possibly lead to a last minute alliance against the Spanish, which would solve the show's problem of on the one hand needing Flint to score but on the other needing Eleanor to survive (and if Team Lawful Nassau actually lost Nassau, then by all logic she should be dead; the commuting of her sentence entirely depended on Woode Rogers, who then would be in a debtor's prison, as he'd told her, and she's burned her bridges with the pirates). Also, they've been talking about the threatened Spanish forces for the entire season, and after all that build up, they simply need to show up. And it would be a great set up for the fourth season, or so than either Flint or Eleanor & Rogers winning decisively against the other.
