Black Sails 4.06.
Mar. 7th, 2017 06:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAlas, the last episode for me for a month, which has nothing to do with the content or STARZ' schedule and everything with my impending departure for the other side of the plent on March 13th. I'll still be able to watch those shows which Amazon Prime or Netflix are putting up, but the rest will have to wait. Well, this episode was a doozy to take an involuntary break on.
First of all: I don't think Madi is dead. Old rule of tv: no dead body, no death. Which has been true for Black Sails so far, except for the case of Thomas Hamilton, which has just gotten far more ambigous this season. With everyone else, if we didn't see their dead bodies complete with lingering shot, they turned out to be alive a few eps later (Billy being the most prominent example), whereas those characters who actually died - Miranda, Richard Guthrie, Mr. Scott, Vane, Blackbeard - did get their death shot.
And Eleanor. This I didn't see coming - in this episode, mind, I knew there was always a chance in the long run despite her being an OC whose fate wasn't governed by either Treasure Island or history. I'm just glad that a) she wasn't killed by a Charles Vane avenger, b) she defeated and killed her murderer before dying (and, if my guess re: Madi is right, managed to save the woman she wanted to save in the process), c) Flint was with her, and ) her death ultimately came as the consequence of her own choices. Not inevitably so, but Eleanor was in that house at that point because of the choices she made. She has ruled her own life.
She also got an excellent last episode. Those scenes with Madi were all I'd been hoping for. The mutual bracing honesty, Madi pointing out that impossible divide between them that came with Eleanor being white and Madi black, "he didn't trust any of you" while also acknowledging that they cared for each other as children. Both were real. Eleanor was the daughter of the man who owned Mr. Scott, Madi and Madi's mother. In her turn, she owned people. There could never be trust there, and it was very like Eleanor both as an individual and as a product of her time and class to assume that there was. But there was affection, and it was real.
The scenes with Flint were also good, but I have one complaint, re the whole "you used to see what I did" - excuse me, Flint, but the last time you were on the same team, indepedence from the British Empire actually was NOT the goal of said team. When you want to Charleston with the girl Eleanor had freed for your benefit, the explicitly declared goal was to get reconciliation with the British authorities and universal pardons. Eleanor never in her entire life signed on to "let's get independent from Britain and defy the British Empire", and while it's not unlike Flint to rewrite history in his mind and/or try to get through to Eleanor emotionally by doing so, I wonder whether the scriptwriter didn't rewrite history in their heads as well, because they didn't let Eleanor ask "what the hell are you talking about?" Anyway, this aside, their scenes were great, and Flint lying to Eleanor at the end so she could die in peace was possibly the kindest thing he's done for anyone since Miranda died.
Meanwhile, at the former Underhill plantation: sorry, I still don't believe in the former Silver and Billy friendship, and consequently there was no angst. Otoh it makes sense that Ben Gunn is the one to set Billy free. Which reminds me: I wonder whether we'll ever get something to explain Gunn's, err, exentricity later on, or whether we're just blaming that on having had to live on the island alone for so many years.
Max, trying to save Eleanor, ends up with Jack and Co. instead, and this leads to a couple of excellent scenes between her and Jack, though I have again a tiny caveat. Which isn't an ooc one. Jack goes on about her betrayal etc. In character for Jack. Wounded Anne tells her to fuck off. IC for Anne. But. You know what I distinctly remember from the season 3 which I watched? Jack Rackham, returning to Nassau instead of escaping with Anne just because of his ego. Jack Jack Rackham then being pissed off Woodes Rogers managed to motivate the pirates to repair the fort when he, Jack, hadn't managed to do that, and even more pissed off that it looked as if Rogers was universally accepted as the new boss when he, Jack, never had been. And then I remember Jack starting the development about which he told Max when she, horrified, asked him what he'd done, that he didn't care whether this whole thing would end in a pirate republic OR IN A SPANISH INVASION WHICH BURNED EVERYTHING TO THE GROUND, as long as people knew that Jack Rackham was responsible.
Before anyone says anything, I'm not trying to excuse Rogers from his own responsibility - the invasion which happened had been his idea, entirely. (And the irony of Jack's s3 wish is that gets Monkey pawe'd - both pirate victory and Spanish invasion happen, but nobody is recalling anymore it was all triggered by Jack Rackham.) (Meanwhile, Rogers of course also got monkey pawed: the pirates are defeated (for now), but he's lost Eleanor, he's definitely about to find out he also lost the child she was carrying, and it doesn't take a genius to guess that Max' plan will involve the massive financial debt Rogers still owes - which was why Eleanor wanted to enslist her grandfather to begin with.) But I do remember Jack saying that, and I wish Max would have remembered, too. Though I totally get why her ire at Woodes Rogers for the Spanish invasion, Eleanor's death and Anne's near death was so great that she didn't waste time with returning recriminations that but came up with a revenge plan of her own (seems we're going to meet Grandpa Guthrie after all). Also, that Jack actually did speak up for her first and then signed on to her plan. Messy, convoluted relationships, how do I love them. (While still blaming Jack, not Max, for Jack's imprisonment and Anne needing to rescue him with all that followed in season 3.)
In conclusion: great, heartbreaking episode. I just hope I'll manage to remain unspoiled for what follows for the next four weeks.
First of all: I don't think Madi is dead. Old rule of tv: no dead body, no death. Which has been true for Black Sails so far, except for the case of Thomas Hamilton, which has just gotten far more ambigous this season. With everyone else, if we didn't see their dead bodies complete with lingering shot, they turned out to be alive a few eps later (Billy being the most prominent example), whereas those characters who actually died - Miranda, Richard Guthrie, Mr. Scott, Vane, Blackbeard - did get their death shot.
And Eleanor. This I didn't see coming - in this episode, mind, I knew there was always a chance in the long run despite her being an OC whose fate wasn't governed by either Treasure Island or history. I'm just glad that a) she wasn't killed by a Charles Vane avenger, b) she defeated and killed her murderer before dying (and, if my guess re: Madi is right, managed to save the woman she wanted to save in the process), c) Flint was with her, and ) her death ultimately came as the consequence of her own choices. Not inevitably so, but Eleanor was in that house at that point because of the choices she made. She has ruled her own life.
She also got an excellent last episode. Those scenes with Madi were all I'd been hoping for. The mutual bracing honesty, Madi pointing out that impossible divide between them that came with Eleanor being white and Madi black, "he didn't trust any of you" while also acknowledging that they cared for each other as children. Both were real. Eleanor was the daughter of the man who owned Mr. Scott, Madi and Madi's mother. In her turn, she owned people. There could never be trust there, and it was very like Eleanor both as an individual and as a product of her time and class to assume that there was. But there was affection, and it was real.
The scenes with Flint were also good, but I have one complaint, re the whole "you used to see what I did" - excuse me, Flint, but the last time you were on the same team, indepedence from the British Empire actually was NOT the goal of said team. When you want to Charleston with the girl Eleanor had freed for your benefit, the explicitly declared goal was to get reconciliation with the British authorities and universal pardons. Eleanor never in her entire life signed on to "let's get independent from Britain and defy the British Empire", and while it's not unlike Flint to rewrite history in his mind and/or try to get through to Eleanor emotionally by doing so, I wonder whether the scriptwriter didn't rewrite history in their heads as well, because they didn't let Eleanor ask "what the hell are you talking about?" Anyway, this aside, their scenes were great, and Flint lying to Eleanor at the end so she could die in peace was possibly the kindest thing he's done for anyone since Miranda died.
Meanwhile, at the former Underhill plantation: sorry, I still don't believe in the former Silver and Billy friendship, and consequently there was no angst. Otoh it makes sense that Ben Gunn is the one to set Billy free. Which reminds me: I wonder whether we'll ever get something to explain Gunn's, err, exentricity later on, or whether we're just blaming that on having had to live on the island alone for so many years.
Max, trying to save Eleanor, ends up with Jack and Co. instead, and this leads to a couple of excellent scenes between her and Jack, though I have again a tiny caveat. Which isn't an ooc one. Jack goes on about her betrayal etc. In character for Jack. Wounded Anne tells her to fuck off. IC for Anne. But. You know what I distinctly remember from the season 3 which I watched? Jack Rackham, returning to Nassau instead of escaping with Anne just because of his ego. Jack Jack Rackham then being pissed off Woodes Rogers managed to motivate the pirates to repair the fort when he, Jack, hadn't managed to do that, and even more pissed off that it looked as if Rogers was universally accepted as the new boss when he, Jack, never had been. And then I remember Jack starting the development about which he told Max when she, horrified, asked him what he'd done, that he didn't care whether this whole thing would end in a pirate republic OR IN A SPANISH INVASION WHICH BURNED EVERYTHING TO THE GROUND, as long as people knew that Jack Rackham was responsible.
Before anyone says anything, I'm not trying to excuse Rogers from his own responsibility - the invasion which happened had been his idea, entirely. (And the irony of Jack's s3 wish is that gets Monkey pawe'd - both pirate victory and Spanish invasion happen, but nobody is recalling anymore it was all triggered by Jack Rackham.) (Meanwhile, Rogers of course also got monkey pawed: the pirates are defeated (for now), but he's lost Eleanor, he's definitely about to find out he also lost the child she was carrying, and it doesn't take a genius to guess that Max' plan will involve the massive financial debt Rogers still owes - which was why Eleanor wanted to enslist her grandfather to begin with.) But I do remember Jack saying that, and I wish Max would have remembered, too. Though I totally get why her ire at Woodes Rogers for the Spanish invasion, Eleanor's death and Anne's near death was so great that she didn't waste time with returning recriminations that but came up with a revenge plan of her own (seems we're going to meet Grandpa Guthrie after all). Also, that Jack actually did speak up for her first and then signed on to her plan. Messy, convoluted relationships, how do I love them. (While still blaming Jack, not Max, for Jack's imprisonment and Anne needing to rescue him with all that followed in season 3.)
In conclusion: great, heartbreaking episode. I just hope I'll manage to remain unspoiled for what follows for the next four weeks.
