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January Meme: Jack, Anne and Max in Black Sails
As I said earlier, I had to rearrange some dates due to Darth Real Life breathing down my neck again. But now, onwards to one of Black Sails' memorable triads!
You know, during the first half of s2, I remember feeling that the Max-Anne-Jack triangle was one of the few things about the show that dragged, was drawn out too long, before, I was sure, coming to ist predictable conclusion.
Mea Culpa. By the end of the season, I not only knew how wrong I’d been in this regard, but that particular constellation of people had become one of the Black Sails highlights to me. This went on till the very end, and since these three were one of the few characters who got an unqualified happy ending, I was absolutetely delighted.
Now, Black Sails in general aces in complicated relationships outside the norm, and not exactly in the easy way. Which is to say: this is a show where monogamous relationships are the exception, not the rule, but it doesn’t just declare that poly is lovely and tension free instead. Au contraire. It also avoids the cliché of making the characters (or the narrative) declare all previous relationships inferior, of lesser importance, once they fall in love. And it’s never „solely“ love, but „love and…“ , meaning ambitions, issues, debts that all influence the characters feelings for each other. Jack, Anne and Max are an excellent example of this.
Jack and Anne have their history with each other, and secondarily also with Charles Vane, having served on his ship until mid s1. They have their own individual backstories before they ever met – Jack with his father, ruined by debt and an unjust system, Anne as an abused child bride. Max has not solely her history with Eleanor – which is very much still a part of her till the end of the show – but also her birth as the slave daughter of a white plantation owner with a white half sister, literally standing outside looking in, and wishing herself inside, which is key to many of her actions especially, but not solely in s3. And they bring all this baggage in how they interact with each other.
When we meet them in s1, at first in separate storylines, Max is the most powerless of them all, seemingly destined to a future as a victim. She’s a prostitute in a brothel, and while she’s in love with Eleanor who at least cares for her in return (though as we later find out, the whole relationship started via Mrs. Mapleton recommending emotion-free paid for sexual relief to Eleanor), her idea of running away with Eleanor seems hopelessly naive and would probably get rejected even if it did not coincide with a get-rich-quick scheme gone dreadfully wrong which Max entered into with John Silver. The fallout for Max is far worse than that, though, as she ends up gang raped by various members of Charles Vane’s crew. In terms of future developments, perhaps the most telling detail here is that Max rejects Eleanor’s first rescue attempt, and I don’t think that’s just because she’s furious with Eleanor but because at this point she is still a bit naive in that she thinks that „paying of her debts“ with Vane’s crew can’t be worse than her normal job, and she can manage that. Overlooking that in the brothel, she has at least the somewhat dubious protection of Mrs. Mapleton. With Vane’s crew, she has no one and nothing, and the way one of the sailors rejects her attempt at manipulation, the suggestion that sex is more fun for him if she’s eager, because for him the fun lies in the exercise of power and humilation, that experience demonstrates to Max in the most drastic way what the ultimate consequence of powerlessness is. For the rest of the series, she’s determined not to be powerless again.
Meanwhile, Jack and Anne are introduced as co-dependent partners who have clearly a strong relationship, but it’s signalled as well early on that the sexual aspect of that relationship is somewhat lacking. (It’s a race whether the Miranda/Flint or Jack/Anne sex scene from s1 is the most clear „these people care about each other, but the woman doesn’t really get what she wants, sex wise“ signaller.) They’re also characterized as opposites: the very verbose Jack, not into physical struggles, versus the taciturn Anne, scaring people more often than not with a mere look and lethally dangerous. Quite how deeply they are committed to each other, however, doesn’t become clear until the turning point of both their and Max‘ story in mid s1; when Anne plots with Eleanor Guthrie to free Max from her gang rape situation… via murdering no less than eight of their crew mates. I deliberately use the word „murder“ instead of „kill“ here. I mean, my sympathies are entirely on the side of Team Anne/Eleanor/Max, but nonetheless, this was murder, and murder of people whom Anne was serving on a ship with, which directly violates one of the few ethical rules the pirates have set themselves, and has consequences for quite a while. That Jack, without knowing what exactly is going on, backs up Anne when he realises it’s either the deaths of those men or denouncing her and thus her death, again has long term consequences, and at this moment gives the audience the first proof of quite how strong their commitment to each other is.
Anne goes through with the murder of her crewmates because she’s seen what said crewmates are doing to Max. I don’t think at this point it’s a question of attraction to Max as much as it is of Anne’s own history with (prolonged) rape and powerlessness. It’s also worth noting that while Max can hardly be the first rape victim Anne encounters, given Anne at this point has served on pirate ships for at least a decade, if not more, she’s probably the first Anne sees and interacts with on a longer basis. Now this version of Anne Bonny has lived in male company and for all intents and purposes in a male persona (not literally in disguise, since everyone on Vane’s ship knows she’s a woman, but wearing male clothes, and playing a „male“ role in the crew) since she was 13. Chances are she associates feminity with helpessness, which she utterly rejects. She seems to be accepted among the other pirates as „one of the guys“, she appears to be comfortable with this, and the sole woman she refers to during those early episodes, because said woman has an on/off affair plus power struggle with Anne’s Captain, is Eleanor Guthrie, whom Anne consistently calls „the cunt“ in her conversations with Jack. I think you can make a case that pre-Max Anne not just has no time for other women but doesn’t much like being one, identifying with men instead.
Choosing to help Max, and to help her in this specific murderous way, goes directly against that self understanding, and I’d say Anne’s identity crisis starts right there, though we only see it manifest throughout season 2. But then, none of them remain unchanged. Jack, who as the remainder of the show proves is very much someone to whom the respect of his (male) fellow pirates is an issue and something he desires, who was glad to have the position as Vane’s quatermaster, loses not just the position but for a considerable time the prospect of ever sailing again through his loyalty to Anne. (Which will influence a later choice he’ll make in s2.) Even worse, in his eyes, he ends up with that riduled-by-masculine-code position, a pimp, a brothel owner, which he isn’t even good at. Which starts an identity crisis of his own, with the relationship to Anne as the sole remaining anchor, and that, no pun intended, is weighed by how they got there.
Meanwhile, Max‘ immediate consequence from the whole nightmarish experience is to start to aquire leverage, so she won’t be in a position of powerlessness again. She does this in various ways; spotting that Jack and Anne have not a clue of how to run a brothel and making herself indespensible, using the gossip from sailors to her own financial benefit – and, starting with s2, interpreting Anne’s skittish behaviour towards her as something that indicates Anne by now feels an attraction Anne doesn’t know how to handle.
During the original broadcast of s2, there was much debate whether or not Max felt love for Anne or was simply playing a calculated power game, right until the episode where the roles are reversed and Max protects Anne mid-(murderous) nervous breakdown. Conversely, after the relationship between Max and Anne was accepted as a romantic one, the idea that there could have been calculation was in some quarters seen as an unfair attack. To me, the two aren’t mutually exclusive. As I said, Max not wanting to remain powerless is a driving motivation for her through the remaining show (which is why her big dilemma in late s4 is a question of the ultimate insider power versus love), and I don’t think she fell in love with Anne at first sight. She was grateful, of course. And later on, once she’d recovered, probably attracted as well. But seducing Anne, when it happens, isn’t spontanous in the least on Max‘ parts, it’s an informed strategy based both on dealing with Anne’s volatile state and emotional confusion, and needing further leverage on Anne and Jack. (On whom, let’s not forget, at this point her existence still depends. Jack still owns the brothel.) Not to mention that the last time Max fell in love, with Eleanor, it ended badly not least because Max was the one with the greater emotional investment in that relationship.
However, as the relationship continues, Max does fall in love with Anne. I’m not sure when it happens, but the big gesture of commitment is definitely when Max takes care of Anne through the culmination of Anne’s identity crisis. At this point she doesn’t, in terms of pragmatic use, need Anne anymore. She’s carved out a business relationship with Jack that got him on a ship and her in control of the brothel. And Anne isn’t a little girl lost having a breakdown (though yes, part of Anne is that as well at this point), Anne’s a lethally dangerous woman who just killed another woman for no other reason than that violence is Anne’s go to instinct in any crisis, with this other woman being someone Max has known for years, certainly better than she’s known Anne at this point. When Idelle argues that Anne is a danger to everyone in the brothel, she’s entirely right. (And the narrative doesn’t play her objections as unjustified, mean or foolish, which I’ll be eternally grateful for, as I am for the fact Idelle will get a later chance to bring up the murder of Charlotte to Anne herself several seasons later.) Max‘ counterargument, that Anne helped her when none of the other whores did, isn’t wrong, but it’s equally not her sole reason for standing by Anne in this dangerous situation. If survival was all, Max should ditch Anne at this point. She doesn’t.
For Anne, who seems to have trusted no one but Jack (either emotionally or sexually) ever since they met and he killed her abusive husband when she was 13, the new relationship with Max is just one of several shattering experiences through s2. Her immediate solution , of having Max and Jack at the same time (and it’s important that it is Anne who gets to decide this), only papers the „who am I, and who are we to each other?“ fisures over, which the next shock coming once Jack has the chance to captain a vessel again, but because Anne’s killing of those eight fellow crewmen is still unforgotten and Max as shareholder for the vessel’s future profits is an alien idea to the new crew who neither knows him nor respects him, has to choose between either keeping Anne on board or keeping Max as a financer and route provider. And for the first (and as it turns out, last) time in their lives, he doesn’t choose Anne.
This has been built up to since late s1. In this show, sooner or later, all the main characters commit some sort of betrayal. (Welll, except for Madi.) This is Jack’s, and to the show’s credit, it doesn’t come across as some petty revenge on Anne or for landing them in the shore situation to begin with. But it is informed by that year of insecurity, ostracism and ridicule by other men, as well as Jack’s eternal need for respect and validation, which in s3 will lead to his most selfish act in the entire show (which, however, has nothing to do with Anne). (On another level, it’s also sheer common sense. Without Max, there’s no ship and no profit to begin with.)
Jack and Anne remain separated for almost the remainder of the season and individually figure out that they can do without each other – but that they don’t like it much. Not so coincidentally, this happens for Jack via gaining the respect of his new crew via winning the fight against a superior foe both mentally and physically (leaving the start of their relationship aside, for most of his time with Anne she’s been playing the physical protector role), only to find Anne disappeared from Nassau upon his return, and for Anne via having her existential crisis in a house inhabited entirely by women, where her fallback on lethal violence isn’t an heroic plus gaining her respect but something that’s seen as a bloody pointless horror.
By the end of the season, Anne has come to a new sense of self, and a new balance of her relationships; the one with Max as a romance, the one with Jack as a partnership „till they put us in the fucking ground“. Jack and Max, having started out as hostile and mutually distrustful, haven’t just come to an acceptance of each other in Anne’s life but also of a mutual appreciation; Jack’s glee when presenting the Urca treasure in the season’s final scene and Max‘ utter delight – we haven’t seen her this happy since the show started – end an otherise angsty and dramatic finale on a joyful note, and would not have been possible between the Jack and Max who snarled at each other at the start of that same season. In short, all seems well for these three.
But life has other plans. So has Max, for that matter. That sight of the Urca treasure isn’t the only gain she’s made in the finale; after Eleanor’s abduction, she also makes a successful play for both the tavern and the Guthrie warehouse, leaving her in control of the three most important economic assets in Nassau when two seasons earlier, she was the most powerless person there. However, Nassau being Nassau, with the return of British forces impending, this isn’t enough. Nor, and I think this is important, has Max really abandoned her post Eleanor idea that love doesn’t conquer all, and being now in Eleanor’s old position only heightens that conviction. When Max, with an invasion by British forces looming, tells Anne about her childhood dream of being the girl inside the big house, not the slave outside, and says that sooner or later, she and Anne would lose each other anyway, so it’s best to break up now when they still love each other, she means it. Plus, with Max, there’s also a bit of calculation, to wit, getting Anne and Jack out of Nassau before the new governor arrives.
Unfortunately, this is also where Jack’s fatal weakness comes into play. He and Anne could make a clean getaway with their part of the treasure, and the entire plotline of Black Sails would not have happened the way it did. Instead, his need for recognition drives him back to Nassau, where seeing the same pirates who refused to help him rebuild the fort now fall in line with Woode Rogers asking them to (without Rogers having to use force or even bribes other than the pardons which the pirates would have gotten anyway) gets him in a rage and ends up in his capture. The subsequent realisation that he’s seemingly in a position to ruin Rogers (until then) peaceful conquest of Nassau results in Jack declaring he doesn’t care whether Spanish Forces burn Nassau to the ground or whether a new Pirate Republic arises, just as long as history will note it’s all due to him and that Woode Rogers failed. (That would be the single most selfish thing Jack does in the show. BTW, when I finally get my Black Sails post about storytellers done, await some meta on how Woode Rogers reflects various aspects of the main characters at various points – Flint, Thomas Hamilton, Jack – and of course Jack’s „don’t care if the Spanish burn Nassau to the ground as long as I get what I want“ will be repeated by Rogers a season later.)
In a way, Jack gets his wish - there’s both a short lived pirate republic and a Spanish invasion and Woode Rogers ultimately fails within the narrative frame of the show (though not in the long term history) – but it’s definitely in a „be careful what you wish for“ manner, not least because there’s incredible pain for himself and those he cares about in store. It’s Max turn to betray someone, though I find it irritating what while Max misinforming Anne is dealt with thoroughly, the fact she only does so after Jack has created the awful situation in the first place doesnt come up. Be that as it may, Max making Eleanor-like choices in s3 while also requainting herself with the real, somewhat changed Eleanor, whom she know understands a great deal better than in ye olde days also leads her to lose Anne in a different way than she thought she would when they parted. Anne had come to trust her, and now feels betrayed in that trust; Anne is, to put it mildly, not the forgiving and forgetting type. If Max prioritized fulfilling her dream of not just economic but social power and acceptance, being on the inside, over her love for Anne, the consequences of this for her are no less bitter than they are for Jack. Lawful Nassau becomes tyrannical Nassau as things go increasingly pear-shaped, social acceptance is still out of reach, and she’s lost Anne.
I find it eminently fitting that Jack, not Anne, is the one to first end up talking to Max again. Due to plot circumstances, true, but it’s also entirely in character. Jack hadn’t loved Max (and vice versa), but he’d known how much Anne cared (ditto for Max re: Anne and Jack), and, see above, they’d been on mutually respectful and friendly terms before the return of British forces. This makes it both easier to argue verbally and easier to listen when they confront each other. Anne, aside of everything else, would have been too angry to listen to a word Max said at this (season 4) point. Jack, when his fatal flaw isn’t invoked, doesn’t have that kind of temper, plus he might have some self awareness that some of this is also his fault, and he’s aware that humilation feels like a prospect worse than killing to some men (him included), so when Max reveals her plan to get revenge on Woode Rogers via Eleanor Guthrie’s rich Boston relations, he listens.
The reconciliation between Jack and Max is aided by having now a shared foe.
The reconciliation between Anne and Max, however, is a far trickier affair, and as opposed to how their relationship started, nursing through a horribly painful state alone won’t do it on ist own. I love that Idelle gets to champion Max here (and to remind Anne of the murdered Charlotte), but that by itself wouldn’t have been enough, either. Nor would Max‘ apology. It all comes together… with one last missing piece. Which is Max having to make a decision again. One of the great things about Black Sails is that where two outcomes would have been equally in character, the show finds a third. Max, being offered by Eleanor’s grandmother the one thing she hadn’t been able to reach yet – complete social acceptance and power along with the economic power she already reached once -, could have chosen either to agree with Mrs Guthrie’s suggestion (power over love) or to reject it utterly (love over power).
Being Max, and this show being this show, she comes up with a variation. She does choose love, but not, as the younger, more naive Max at the start of the show would have done, without any power at all, making instead a counter proposal to Mrs. Guthrie. What Max gives up is legitimacy (being inside the great house, ruling from there), and that was a cherished dream, but, as it turns out, she doesn’t give up power altogether. (Mind you, there was the risk she would have, if Mrs. Guthrie hadn’t accepted her counter proposal. Also, Max made that decision without knowing whether Anne would ever forgive her, so it could also have been that she sacrificed her shot at legitimacy and still ended up without love. But that’s the danger in such choices. ) What Max retains is the economic power in the background position she’d gained on her own in Nassau. What she regains is Anne’s love – and imo Anne seeing Max was ready to make that choice for her, with potentially no reward, was what ultimately pushed her over into risking love again - , and Jack’s friendship. And so we end with the three of them in balance once more. There’s history on the horizon, of course, but the show lets them exit on a note full of hope, all three of them. As this viewer realised: if even one of the three would have been excluded from that happy ending, it would have felt just plain wrong.
The other days
You know, during the first half of s2, I remember feeling that the Max-Anne-Jack triangle was one of the few things about the show that dragged, was drawn out too long, before, I was sure, coming to ist predictable conclusion.
Mea Culpa. By the end of the season, I not only knew how wrong I’d been in this regard, but that particular constellation of people had become one of the Black Sails highlights to me. This went on till the very end, and since these three were one of the few characters who got an unqualified happy ending, I was absolutetely delighted.
Now, Black Sails in general aces in complicated relationships outside the norm, and not exactly in the easy way. Which is to say: this is a show where monogamous relationships are the exception, not the rule, but it doesn’t just declare that poly is lovely and tension free instead. Au contraire. It also avoids the cliché of making the characters (or the narrative) declare all previous relationships inferior, of lesser importance, once they fall in love. And it’s never „solely“ love, but „love and…“ , meaning ambitions, issues, debts that all influence the characters feelings for each other. Jack, Anne and Max are an excellent example of this.
Jack and Anne have their history with each other, and secondarily also with Charles Vane, having served on his ship until mid s1. They have their own individual backstories before they ever met – Jack with his father, ruined by debt and an unjust system, Anne as an abused child bride. Max has not solely her history with Eleanor – which is very much still a part of her till the end of the show – but also her birth as the slave daughter of a white plantation owner with a white half sister, literally standing outside looking in, and wishing herself inside, which is key to many of her actions especially, but not solely in s3. And they bring all this baggage in how they interact with each other.
When we meet them in s1, at first in separate storylines, Max is the most powerless of them all, seemingly destined to a future as a victim. She’s a prostitute in a brothel, and while she’s in love with Eleanor who at least cares for her in return (though as we later find out, the whole relationship started via Mrs. Mapleton recommending emotion-free paid for sexual relief to Eleanor), her idea of running away with Eleanor seems hopelessly naive and would probably get rejected even if it did not coincide with a get-rich-quick scheme gone dreadfully wrong which Max entered into with John Silver. The fallout for Max is far worse than that, though, as she ends up gang raped by various members of Charles Vane’s crew. In terms of future developments, perhaps the most telling detail here is that Max rejects Eleanor’s first rescue attempt, and I don’t think that’s just because she’s furious with Eleanor but because at this point she is still a bit naive in that she thinks that „paying of her debts“ with Vane’s crew can’t be worse than her normal job, and she can manage that. Overlooking that in the brothel, she has at least the somewhat dubious protection of Mrs. Mapleton. With Vane’s crew, she has no one and nothing, and the way one of the sailors rejects her attempt at manipulation, the suggestion that sex is more fun for him if she’s eager, because for him the fun lies in the exercise of power and humilation, that experience demonstrates to Max in the most drastic way what the ultimate consequence of powerlessness is. For the rest of the series, she’s determined not to be powerless again.
Meanwhile, Jack and Anne are introduced as co-dependent partners who have clearly a strong relationship, but it’s signalled as well early on that the sexual aspect of that relationship is somewhat lacking. (It’s a race whether the Miranda/Flint or Jack/Anne sex scene from s1 is the most clear „these people care about each other, but the woman doesn’t really get what she wants, sex wise“ signaller.) They’re also characterized as opposites: the very verbose Jack, not into physical struggles, versus the taciturn Anne, scaring people more often than not with a mere look and lethally dangerous. Quite how deeply they are committed to each other, however, doesn’t become clear until the turning point of both their and Max‘ story in mid s1; when Anne plots with Eleanor Guthrie to free Max from her gang rape situation… via murdering no less than eight of their crew mates. I deliberately use the word „murder“ instead of „kill“ here. I mean, my sympathies are entirely on the side of Team Anne/Eleanor/Max, but nonetheless, this was murder, and murder of people whom Anne was serving on a ship with, which directly violates one of the few ethical rules the pirates have set themselves, and has consequences for quite a while. That Jack, without knowing what exactly is going on, backs up Anne when he realises it’s either the deaths of those men or denouncing her and thus her death, again has long term consequences, and at this moment gives the audience the first proof of quite how strong their commitment to each other is.
Anne goes through with the murder of her crewmates because she’s seen what said crewmates are doing to Max. I don’t think at this point it’s a question of attraction to Max as much as it is of Anne’s own history with (prolonged) rape and powerlessness. It’s also worth noting that while Max can hardly be the first rape victim Anne encounters, given Anne at this point has served on pirate ships for at least a decade, if not more, she’s probably the first Anne sees and interacts with on a longer basis. Now this version of Anne Bonny has lived in male company and for all intents and purposes in a male persona (not literally in disguise, since everyone on Vane’s ship knows she’s a woman, but wearing male clothes, and playing a „male“ role in the crew) since she was 13. Chances are she associates feminity with helpessness, which she utterly rejects. She seems to be accepted among the other pirates as „one of the guys“, she appears to be comfortable with this, and the sole woman she refers to during those early episodes, because said woman has an on/off affair plus power struggle with Anne’s Captain, is Eleanor Guthrie, whom Anne consistently calls „the cunt“ in her conversations with Jack. I think you can make a case that pre-Max Anne not just has no time for other women but doesn’t much like being one, identifying with men instead.
Choosing to help Max, and to help her in this specific murderous way, goes directly against that self understanding, and I’d say Anne’s identity crisis starts right there, though we only see it manifest throughout season 2. But then, none of them remain unchanged. Jack, who as the remainder of the show proves is very much someone to whom the respect of his (male) fellow pirates is an issue and something he desires, who was glad to have the position as Vane’s quatermaster, loses not just the position but for a considerable time the prospect of ever sailing again through his loyalty to Anne. (Which will influence a later choice he’ll make in s2.) Even worse, in his eyes, he ends up with that riduled-by-masculine-code position, a pimp, a brothel owner, which he isn’t even good at. Which starts an identity crisis of his own, with the relationship to Anne as the sole remaining anchor, and that, no pun intended, is weighed by how they got there.
Meanwhile, Max‘ immediate consequence from the whole nightmarish experience is to start to aquire leverage, so she won’t be in a position of powerlessness again. She does this in various ways; spotting that Jack and Anne have not a clue of how to run a brothel and making herself indespensible, using the gossip from sailors to her own financial benefit – and, starting with s2, interpreting Anne’s skittish behaviour towards her as something that indicates Anne by now feels an attraction Anne doesn’t know how to handle.
During the original broadcast of s2, there was much debate whether or not Max felt love for Anne or was simply playing a calculated power game, right until the episode where the roles are reversed and Max protects Anne mid-(murderous) nervous breakdown. Conversely, after the relationship between Max and Anne was accepted as a romantic one, the idea that there could have been calculation was in some quarters seen as an unfair attack. To me, the two aren’t mutually exclusive. As I said, Max not wanting to remain powerless is a driving motivation for her through the remaining show (which is why her big dilemma in late s4 is a question of the ultimate insider power versus love), and I don’t think she fell in love with Anne at first sight. She was grateful, of course. And later on, once she’d recovered, probably attracted as well. But seducing Anne, when it happens, isn’t spontanous in the least on Max‘ parts, it’s an informed strategy based both on dealing with Anne’s volatile state and emotional confusion, and needing further leverage on Anne and Jack. (On whom, let’s not forget, at this point her existence still depends. Jack still owns the brothel.) Not to mention that the last time Max fell in love, with Eleanor, it ended badly not least because Max was the one with the greater emotional investment in that relationship.
However, as the relationship continues, Max does fall in love with Anne. I’m not sure when it happens, but the big gesture of commitment is definitely when Max takes care of Anne through the culmination of Anne’s identity crisis. At this point she doesn’t, in terms of pragmatic use, need Anne anymore. She’s carved out a business relationship with Jack that got him on a ship and her in control of the brothel. And Anne isn’t a little girl lost having a breakdown (though yes, part of Anne is that as well at this point), Anne’s a lethally dangerous woman who just killed another woman for no other reason than that violence is Anne’s go to instinct in any crisis, with this other woman being someone Max has known for years, certainly better than she’s known Anne at this point. When Idelle argues that Anne is a danger to everyone in the brothel, she’s entirely right. (And the narrative doesn’t play her objections as unjustified, mean or foolish, which I’ll be eternally grateful for, as I am for the fact Idelle will get a later chance to bring up the murder of Charlotte to Anne herself several seasons later.) Max‘ counterargument, that Anne helped her when none of the other whores did, isn’t wrong, but it’s equally not her sole reason for standing by Anne in this dangerous situation. If survival was all, Max should ditch Anne at this point. She doesn’t.
For Anne, who seems to have trusted no one but Jack (either emotionally or sexually) ever since they met and he killed her abusive husband when she was 13, the new relationship with Max is just one of several shattering experiences through s2. Her immediate solution , of having Max and Jack at the same time (and it’s important that it is Anne who gets to decide this), only papers the „who am I, and who are we to each other?“ fisures over, which the next shock coming once Jack has the chance to captain a vessel again, but because Anne’s killing of those eight fellow crewmen is still unforgotten and Max as shareholder for the vessel’s future profits is an alien idea to the new crew who neither knows him nor respects him, has to choose between either keeping Anne on board or keeping Max as a financer and route provider. And for the first (and as it turns out, last) time in their lives, he doesn’t choose Anne.
This has been built up to since late s1. In this show, sooner or later, all the main characters commit some sort of betrayal. (Welll, except for Madi.) This is Jack’s, and to the show’s credit, it doesn’t come across as some petty revenge on Anne or for landing them in the shore situation to begin with. But it is informed by that year of insecurity, ostracism and ridicule by other men, as well as Jack’s eternal need for respect and validation, which in s3 will lead to his most selfish act in the entire show (which, however, has nothing to do with Anne). (On another level, it’s also sheer common sense. Without Max, there’s no ship and no profit to begin with.)
Jack and Anne remain separated for almost the remainder of the season and individually figure out that they can do without each other – but that they don’t like it much. Not so coincidentally, this happens for Jack via gaining the respect of his new crew via winning the fight against a superior foe both mentally and physically (leaving the start of their relationship aside, for most of his time with Anne she’s been playing the physical protector role), only to find Anne disappeared from Nassau upon his return, and for Anne via having her existential crisis in a house inhabited entirely by women, where her fallback on lethal violence isn’t an heroic plus gaining her respect but something that’s seen as a bloody pointless horror.
By the end of the season, Anne has come to a new sense of self, and a new balance of her relationships; the one with Max as a romance, the one with Jack as a partnership „till they put us in the fucking ground“. Jack and Max, having started out as hostile and mutually distrustful, haven’t just come to an acceptance of each other in Anne’s life but also of a mutual appreciation; Jack’s glee when presenting the Urca treasure in the season’s final scene and Max‘ utter delight – we haven’t seen her this happy since the show started – end an otherise angsty and dramatic finale on a joyful note, and would not have been possible between the Jack and Max who snarled at each other at the start of that same season. In short, all seems well for these three.
But life has other plans. So has Max, for that matter. That sight of the Urca treasure isn’t the only gain she’s made in the finale; after Eleanor’s abduction, she also makes a successful play for both the tavern and the Guthrie warehouse, leaving her in control of the three most important economic assets in Nassau when two seasons earlier, she was the most powerless person there. However, Nassau being Nassau, with the return of British forces impending, this isn’t enough. Nor, and I think this is important, has Max really abandoned her post Eleanor idea that love doesn’t conquer all, and being now in Eleanor’s old position only heightens that conviction. When Max, with an invasion by British forces looming, tells Anne about her childhood dream of being the girl inside the big house, not the slave outside, and says that sooner or later, she and Anne would lose each other anyway, so it’s best to break up now when they still love each other, she means it. Plus, with Max, there’s also a bit of calculation, to wit, getting Anne and Jack out of Nassau before the new governor arrives.
Unfortunately, this is also where Jack’s fatal weakness comes into play. He and Anne could make a clean getaway with their part of the treasure, and the entire plotline of Black Sails would not have happened the way it did. Instead, his need for recognition drives him back to Nassau, where seeing the same pirates who refused to help him rebuild the fort now fall in line with Woode Rogers asking them to (without Rogers having to use force or even bribes other than the pardons which the pirates would have gotten anyway) gets him in a rage and ends up in his capture. The subsequent realisation that he’s seemingly in a position to ruin Rogers (until then) peaceful conquest of Nassau results in Jack declaring he doesn’t care whether Spanish Forces burn Nassau to the ground or whether a new Pirate Republic arises, just as long as history will note it’s all due to him and that Woode Rogers failed. (That would be the single most selfish thing Jack does in the show. BTW, when I finally get my Black Sails post about storytellers done, await some meta on how Woode Rogers reflects various aspects of the main characters at various points – Flint, Thomas Hamilton, Jack – and of course Jack’s „don’t care if the Spanish burn Nassau to the ground as long as I get what I want“ will be repeated by Rogers a season later.)
In a way, Jack gets his wish - there’s both a short lived pirate republic and a Spanish invasion and Woode Rogers ultimately fails within the narrative frame of the show (though not in the long term history) – but it’s definitely in a „be careful what you wish for“ manner, not least because there’s incredible pain for himself and those he cares about in store. It’s Max turn to betray someone, though I find it irritating what while Max misinforming Anne is dealt with thoroughly, the fact she only does so after Jack has created the awful situation in the first place doesnt come up. Be that as it may, Max making Eleanor-like choices in s3 while also requainting herself with the real, somewhat changed Eleanor, whom she know understands a great deal better than in ye olde days also leads her to lose Anne in a different way than she thought she would when they parted. Anne had come to trust her, and now feels betrayed in that trust; Anne is, to put it mildly, not the forgiving and forgetting type. If Max prioritized fulfilling her dream of not just economic but social power and acceptance, being on the inside, over her love for Anne, the consequences of this for her are no less bitter than they are for Jack. Lawful Nassau becomes tyrannical Nassau as things go increasingly pear-shaped, social acceptance is still out of reach, and she’s lost Anne.
I find it eminently fitting that Jack, not Anne, is the one to first end up talking to Max again. Due to plot circumstances, true, but it’s also entirely in character. Jack hadn’t loved Max (and vice versa), but he’d known how much Anne cared (ditto for Max re: Anne and Jack), and, see above, they’d been on mutually respectful and friendly terms before the return of British forces. This makes it both easier to argue verbally and easier to listen when they confront each other. Anne, aside of everything else, would have been too angry to listen to a word Max said at this (season 4) point. Jack, when his fatal flaw isn’t invoked, doesn’t have that kind of temper, plus he might have some self awareness that some of this is also his fault, and he’s aware that humilation feels like a prospect worse than killing to some men (him included), so when Max reveals her plan to get revenge on Woode Rogers via Eleanor Guthrie’s rich Boston relations, he listens.
The reconciliation between Jack and Max is aided by having now a shared foe.
The reconciliation between Anne and Max, however, is a far trickier affair, and as opposed to how their relationship started, nursing through a horribly painful state alone won’t do it on ist own. I love that Idelle gets to champion Max here (and to remind Anne of the murdered Charlotte), but that by itself wouldn’t have been enough, either. Nor would Max‘ apology. It all comes together… with one last missing piece. Which is Max having to make a decision again. One of the great things about Black Sails is that where two outcomes would have been equally in character, the show finds a third. Max, being offered by Eleanor’s grandmother the one thing she hadn’t been able to reach yet – complete social acceptance and power along with the economic power she already reached once -, could have chosen either to agree with Mrs Guthrie’s suggestion (power over love) or to reject it utterly (love over power).
Being Max, and this show being this show, she comes up with a variation. She does choose love, but not, as the younger, more naive Max at the start of the show would have done, without any power at all, making instead a counter proposal to Mrs. Guthrie. What Max gives up is legitimacy (being inside the great house, ruling from there), and that was a cherished dream, but, as it turns out, she doesn’t give up power altogether. (Mind you, there was the risk she would have, if Mrs. Guthrie hadn’t accepted her counter proposal. Also, Max made that decision without knowing whether Anne would ever forgive her, so it could also have been that she sacrificed her shot at legitimacy and still ended up without love. But that’s the danger in such choices. ) What Max retains is the economic power in the background position she’d gained on her own in Nassau. What she regains is Anne’s love – and imo Anne seeing Max was ready to make that choice for her, with potentially no reward, was what ultimately pushed her over into risking love again - , and Jack’s friendship. And so we end with the three of them in balance once more. There’s history on the horizon, of course, but the show lets them exit on a note full of hope, all three of them. As this viewer realised: if even one of the three would have been excluded from that happy ending, it would have felt just plain wrong.
The other days
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(I was very spoiled, so didn't get to form too many expectations.)
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