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* Black Sails XXXIV: Everything Burns
* We open on Ruth and Silver reminding us of the political situation between pirates and the ex-slave community as part of their negotiation. They are knocking chains off slaves, to my great relief. Silver offers them a chance to beat Billy, but not kill him in exchange for Ruth trying to make an alliance with the Underhill ex-slaves and Julius' faction. They beat Billy and chain him up. Julius is the better man, which is lucky for everyone, but I always wonder why it is the black characters in things always have to put aside their completely justified anger for the greater good.
* Eleanor and Madi have been cast as symbolic sisters since season three, and thus mirrors of each other. Two strong women with authority, but one representing Nassau, the pirate Republic, the other the more idylic ex-slave settlement. The first words they speak to each other here are a cold exchange about whether they trust Flint, who is having the meeting with Jack from last episode in the distance. "Before this war began, before everyone's roles changed, your father mistrusted Flint as much as anyone in Nassau did." Eleanor references Mr. Scott in this exchange, because of course, he's as much on her mind as Flint and the immediate political situation. She has only just learned of Mr. Scott's death and Madi's being alive and is still processing it all. Eleanor is, of course still angry that as an enslaved person, somehow Mr. Scott's priorities didn't revolve around her, because privilege. Eleanor only freed Mr. Scott when he asked explicitly after his kidnap on the Andromache. She may pretend she loved him, but once she became her father's factor, she had the power to free him and it never once crossed her mind that he might want it or have other aspirations for himself. She may feel betrayed but she is not. She was keeping a living human being prisoner. That prisoner chose to use what power and influence he got through her to free other kidnapped people and good on him. That he did encourage and help Eleanor was a gift he never owed her but chose to give. Eleanor doesn't see it that way, being the same person who never thought of freeing him until the moment he asked. "You were my sister. There is very little that I remember from when I was young, but I remember this. You were older. You were beautiful. I revered you. When you were told that my mother and I were dead, I have to believe that it affected you. You had just lost your mother. But if things were as I remember, my mother and I were your family, too. And yet, through all the years thereafter that my father cared for you counseled you, labored for you he never told you that we were alive. It would have been so easy to lessen your suffering by divulging the secret. And yet, he never did.Have you yet asked yourself why that is? My father didn't mistrust Flint. My father mistrusted all of you." And rightly so, rightly so. While Madi and Eleanor both frame themselves as sisters, I think it is important that while dying, Mr. Scott made clear he had one daughter and that was Madi.
* Jack rightly points out that it's his money too and the deal is terrible. Flint comes along peacefully as collateral, having given his word even though the new information pretty much has killed the deal and Eleanor is currently outnumbered. I suspect he knows the deal is dead too, but is counting on chaos and wanting to be where he can do the most good when Woodes Rogers hits the beach with the horrible surprise Jack has darkly and correctly predicted.
* I'm going to telescope the plotty bits together by character a little as everything is super intercut and thus a pain to bullet point. Featherstone sensibly sees the writing on the wall, grabs the money, Idelle, and the sex workers and sensibly flees while sending word inland to Silver to catch him up on the whole Spanish invasion thing. Meanwhile, in the fort Max and the two guys theoretically in charge are debating their response when the sentinel brings word that Woodes is with the fleet, so they don't bombard the ships or resist. Sigh. Max leaves to warn Eleanor, as no one else will, but meets up with Jack, who rises above his fury at Max betraying him to capture by Woodes Rogers and takes her along on his sloop. He's delightfully snarky about it, but rises to the occation once it's explained. "'I betrayed you, Jack. Tried to trade your life for my own personal gain. Lied to Anne to her face about it. Please, Jack, I Beg of you. Is there any way you can forgive me?' That was the general sense I had of what I might hear come from your mouth were I ever this close to you again." Look, I've written a lot about Jack's realistic flaws and blind spots, but when it comes down to it, he really is as good a man as a throat slitting pirate can reasonably be. He also figures out Woodes Rogers invited them in before she could tell him. Jack may not be as bright as he thinks he is, but he's still plenty clever. The Spanish opt not to chase the Walrus, so it's free to meet up with Jack.
* Silver comes to talk with Billy, but basically monologues explaining why he chose as he did. "I did not want this. Flint is my friend, but I know what he is. I have no illusions about it. But for all the dangers he presents, for all his offenses the one thing he's never done is force me to choose between him and you. That, you did. But it isn't too late to find a way to remedy it. You made a terrible mistake and you paid a terrible price. But we're at war and you're an asset. Despite what's gone on, you are my friend.
And the men out there have had their pound of flesh. And our men Billy, I could walk out there and tell them the sky is red and they'd believe me.
That's the power you've given me. But I have to know this is over your vendetta against Flint, your need to see him dead or departed from our story.
I have to know you'll never put me to a choice between you again. Swear it and this all ends." Billy is having none of his reasons, guilt, or thinky thoughts just like Israel Hands. "You chose. Live with it."
* Flint and Eleanor have a brief conversation that reminds us again that they used to be friends and allies. Back in the beginning of everything. I think Flint was genuinely fond of her and respected her, and the scene in the prison, along with their interactions in this episode reminded me of that impression I always had during their season one partnership. He tends to use the same tone with her he uses with Madi and Silver. his pirate friendships are never open the way his friendships with Thomas and Miranda were, as he can never trust people now the way he did then, but I think he only uses this tone with a select few he actually does like and respect in the pirate world, even though he is manipulating them at the same time. he reminds us a last time of their shared vision and that she was the Pirate Queen of Nassau. "You know, there was a time not so long ago, when you shared their concern, when you saw what I saw: The benefits of being free of British rule. To make the new world something more than just an extension of the old. Is it so unthinkable that that might be again? You were a pirate once. Stranger things have happened." It is at this point they spot a Spanish force, and Flint does what he always does in times of trouble: He retreats to Miranda's house.
* Silver meets up with Julius under Ruth's auspices. Julius is sensibly sceptical about what a white pirate's word is worth given the whole slavery and Billy getting their families tortured and the mercurial nature of power amoung pirates. "Amongst pirates, loyalty changes quickly, it seems. If a man can be replaced so easily, how can I know that his promises won't be, too?" I know it's a throw away line right before they all discover how fucked they are by the Spanish invasion, but i think it's one of the fundamental questions at the heart of the show, threaded through everything, particularly Eleanor's arc, but really could be said of everyone. It's particularly pertinent given Jack's accusations against Max two scenes ago. While Silver's decision to dig in at the Underhill estate is tainted by his personal concerns with Madi and Flint, it actually does make sense to fight the first battle where they have supplies and some fortifications instead of out in the open with a ragged column of march.
* The burning and literal rape of Nassau visibly distresses the man who caused it, Woodes Rogers, who is getting zero sympathy from me because everything that follows is entirely his fault. he tells them the pirates are likely at the Underhill estate. Then he gets the news that eleanor was out doing exactly what she told him she'd be doing, which he ignored, because of course he did, the shit. He punches the messenger anyway as if anyone has ever been able to stop Eleanor from doing what Eleanor wants to do short of putting her in literal chains, and really, he looked to the people in the fort to be going along with her plan until he showed up with an enemy fleet to burn and kill anyone. Again, no sympathy, because he knew damned well who she was and she told him out right what she was doing. He tries to get the Spanish to not kill his wife. Their leader points out it's too late to stop what Woodes Rogers started.
* Jack is in command of the two ship fleet and insists they wait a while for survivors, which is very Jack in a good way. He does lend men to continue the work on fixing the walrus while they wait. Jack's expression when Max asks to see Anne speaks volumes. I do love the face acting on this show.
* The Max and Anne scene pretty clearly parallels the Silver and Billy Bones scene even though they are shot from different angles. In both you have the betrayed person lying down, horribly injured, in a dark, shadowy wooden location and the betrayer monologuing a 'why I did it' non apology to the betrayed person who is having none of it. "I loved you, and I betrayed you, but I cannot apologize for it. I did what anyone would have done when confronted with the same impossible choices. I apologize, you will know it is a lie, and I do not wish to lie to you ever again." "Leave." "No. I am going to stay with you. I want to take care of you." "Get the fuck out." I have long said the two I desperately want to survive are Max and Anne. I stand by that. One of the things I particularly love about Ms. Kennedy's acting all series is how restrained it is. She works very hard at the calm, impassive mask, but the real pain the character feels bleeds through. It is one of the reasons I have enjoyed Max and Anne together so much. Anne wears the masculine strong but silent archetype like armour, with her pain and anger occasionally breaking through in flashes. Max wears her traditional feminine presentation as exactly the same sort of armour, but with Max and Eleanor occasionally her pain, anger, and vulnerability break through. They match. I keep hoping they will work it out by the end and sail away to friendlier waters together, but I'm not holding my breath. Right now though? The breech is as deep and wide as that between Billy and Flint/Silver.
* Flint figures out what Woodes Rogers did, because on this he can be rational. Eleanor is still lying to herself about Woodes Rogers and loyally insists what clearly happened can't be what happened. After all the Spanish rape of Nassau is a thing she witnessed as a child and never forgot. Because it is at the root of her separation from Madi, it is subtext of everything that follows. The thing that is happening right now is her nightmare, and the thing that shaped her, and caused very specifically by a man claiming to love her. I have said she was doomed from the moment she condemned Charles vane to death, a man she once claimed to love. I was right that Woodes Rogers would be the death of her. I was wrong as to the how. In any case, Flint has already adjusted to the change of circumstance and has made new plans. Sentries spot the Spanish troops following them. Eleanor sensibly hands over command of the combined force to Flint, him being the obvious choice to lead in a battle over two people with little combat experience. He has them hold fire until the Spaniards are exposed. They fire and charge, winning, but three men flee to warn the main force. Flint leads most of the men to hunt them down, thus setting the immediate stage for the tragedy to come.
* They give us a nice long shit of a sentry guarding Miranda's house and Eleanor's face in the window before we turn inward for a shot of Madi reading one of Miranda's books in a beam of sunlight worthy of Vermeer. This conversation is beautifully shot, and I think that matters. The camera keeps finding beauty in the ruins of Miranda's life as the mirror sisters have a last conversation that goes a way towards healing the breech between them. They start physically separate, but end up setting a fire together, kneeling in Miranda's hearth, a very symbolic fire that first symbolizes their cooperation, but ends up destroying Miranda's very symbolic house. The visuals perfectly work with the narrative. (I am going to miss this show so much).
Eleanor, for all her pride, actually does exhibit a little empathy here, a small bending that begins to acknowledge that Madi and her Mother paid the larger price for Mr. Scott's staying in slavery to help other people to freedom. It's not enough, not even close to enough, but it's a start. "It did affect me. When Mr.Scott...when your father told me that you and your mother had died it affected me a great deal. It must have been hard to live hidden away for so long." Madi responds, "It was hard to be away from him. The rest of it my mother did the best she could with the rest of it." This next bit was a call back in Eleanor's arc to her conversation with Max about where they'd have gone if they'd fled when Max wanted, but also speaks to Silver's last conversation with Madi where he asked if being together would be enough for her and didn't wait for the answer. "She must have done well. I've found myself thinking about it. Of walking away from Nassau, from England, from civilization. One can be happy that way, can't they? A life of isolation and uncertainty as long as it is lived with someone you love And who loves you back. It is possible, isn't it?" I think Madi's answer is as much for Silver as for Eleanor, a simple, "It is." At this point Eleanor crosses the room to sit across from her, you get another nice shot of sentry still being alive, and unfortunately a Spanish soldier also being alive because Flint forgot to double tap.
I can't help but think that this conversation, held in Miranda's house, with one of her books on the table, might not also be intended as an echo of James and Miranda's debate over whether to seek a pardon, and his answer to Peter Ashe referencing Odysseus when he spoke of the death of Flint. The spirit of Miranda hangs over all of this, and I think that is entirely intentional.
* Ben Gunn frees Billy before the battle ostensibly because they might get over run and they'll need him to carry on the fight either way, but I've also seen how Ben Gunn looks at Billy, so think their might be extra insentive there. In any case, Billy legs it as far as I can tell.
* I'm going to put all the Pirate battle stuff in one place so I can talk about the death of Eleanor and surrounding issues in a block the way I did for Charles Vane. She deserves that.
* Unfortunately pirates aren't generals and they get flanked. Naval battles with ships, cannon, and marines are extremely different than 18th Century land battles with inaccurate pistols/muskets, infantry, and lancers. They are very separate skill sets and tactical situations. The pirates not being great at this is pretty accurate. It's a maxim that an individual skilled warrior will beat a skilled soldier, but get enough skilled soldiers together and it's going to go badly for the warriors. The technically win the engagement, with the help of Julius' reinforcements, but they lose half their men. What happens with the next hundred, or the next thousand? The eventual outcome is clear. (The engagement Flint and Madi's people won gainst the British last season was very specifically set up to take advantage of traps and terrain to help guerillas beat conventional forces. This is classic warfare with some siege tactics and a flat terrain battle favoring cavalry and massed infantry, a completely different scenario).
* Miranda's house has been slowly deteriorating to ruins, the one place Flint was still a little bit Mcgrawaw. We've seen it slowly turning into a wreck inside as Flint moves further and further away from who he was, unmored from the Hamiltons. The exterior looked all right, but inside, decay, broken crockery, and now violence. Exactly like Flint. This was the one safe haven he always retreats to in reverses. The thing I thought when it caught fire was: the last bit of Miranda "I'm trying to save your life!" Hamilton went up in smoke. Of course it did. It pretty much had to, just as Eleanor couldn't long survive the burning of her beloved Nassau, which was the very center of her. Jame's face as he watched it burn.... Ouch. He does her the kindness of lying that Woodes Rogers hadn't done this terrible unforgivable thing to her. I'm against lying to people to protect them just generally, but this is a clear exception. Flint takes the word of Madi's loss to Flint in a short exchange with face acting on both sides to break one's heart. They sensibly pack up and retreat to the ships, Flint tactfully giving the orders to give Silver a moment of private grief.
Eleanor makes it sound like Madi died with her last words, but I am not convinced Madi is dead. I am expecting a Silver like return later, though of course I could be wrong. If she is dead, it would be fridging, because it wouldn't serve her arc, but only manpain. I think Black sails is better than that, so my money is on came to and fled.
At least Eleanor went down fighting, as much as the violence done in her refuge would have appalled Miranda. It sucks it was a nobody who killed Eleanor Guthrie, but she died as herself, fighting tooth and nail for every breath and trying to protect unconscious Madi. Emotionally, I might have rather had Jack or Anne kill her for Charles, but she had to die one way or another and right about now, I think. She was Nassau, intimately entwined with it. I just can't imagine her without it, and neither could she, really, judging from that conversation she had with Max about where would they have gone if Eleanor had just run with Max as Max wanted. I think Max's lack of fixed destination suggests that while she wanted out desperately and loved Eleanor, in her heart of hearts she couldn't picture Eleanor any place else long term either. I think about Eleanor trying to leave New Providence to talk to her grandfather and Berringer stopping her, Nassau politics preventing her going, sucking her back into the island. The one time she did leave, it was as a captive, and circumstance brought her right back again. I think of faerie confusing the ways, I think of Escher's endless staircase.
Eleanor could not be Eleanor anywhere but Nassau, and the moment Woodes Rogers' colonizing hand is away from Nassau, she becomes herself again. When he returns with fire, he burns her heart out. I think she can no more be without Nassau than an Oread can be without her stone or a Naiad without her river. Once Rogers brought the Spanish in, it had to be a Spaniard to kill her because the Spanish burned Nassau. Who she became was born in that fire sacking, and her life ended by fire and sword when her Nassau died the same way by the same hand. The Nassau they will build on the ashes won't be her Nassau, but something else entirely.
I do not think she was fridged because her arc worked on it's own terms symbolically and emotionally. The ends were tied up. The conversation with Vane about her Father that finished them as sure as the noose she had them put round his neck; the mirror scene in prison with Flint about Mr. Scott and the way it changed how she saw herself and her past; the conversation with Max that tied them up; her final reconnection with Madi; the burning of Nassau and her running out of options for real and for good.
* I still blame Woodes Rogers. He knew who she was and the choices she made and was likely to make. If I could see the flaws with the Spanish plan, a man as clever as Woodes Rogers could. He didn't know it would go wrong in this way, but honestly, anyone could see it would go wrong, and my surprise is the Spanish Governor didn't kill or have him killed under cover of the confusion of the invasion in revenge for his brother. He mutilated her for more than a season and his disregard of her intelligence and political acumen and his pride and vengefullness did this. He may pretend otherwise, but it was Flint trying to save her the way he always tried to save Nassau (with as much effect, alas), and the Spanish he let loose who killed her very directly.
Woodes Rogers becomes more himself when she is not around, which likely means he will be even worse with her dead. I think he's always been a pirate, and the thing in his backstory with the Spanish is part of that, but there is an issue of whether he is seen to be a pirate or not. He tries to present himself as civilized, but there is always a suspicion in the Navy, in Whitehall, in society in general of what he truly is. he is tainted the way the Guthries are tainted.
I am not ruling out the Spanish having further nastiness planned for Woodes Rogers and I do think narrative he is getting a taste of the frustration and impotence Eleanor experienced with no one listening to her under the English colonial dystopian regime, what it had to have cost her to be with him.
Flint and Vane both treated Eleanor as an equal and a Power. Woodes didn't even when he was listening to her. I do think it was kindness to lie to Eleanor as she was dying, though in any other circumstance it wouldn't have been.
* Jack holds firm on one more hour's wait for the survivors. Most of his side of the Featherstone conversation was characteristically eloquent face acting. Featherstone learns that Max saw anne and tries to cheer her up a little, which is kind, by mentioning how she protected Featherstone from Berringer when betrayal would have been so much easier. Ms. Kennedy's acting is understated and heartrending, the tremble in her lip, the quaver in her voice, the crack of her stoic mask. "It wasn't supposed to end like this. How can we all have sacrificed so much and none of us has anything to show for it?" (I want to see Ms. Kennedy act in all the things. Please tell me she's been cast in another project worthy of her considerable skills?) She has lost everything: her power, her security, the Urca gold, and most importantly of all Anne, who is absolutely irreplaceable.
* The survivors turn up, and soon Flint has the Walrus, while Jack retains the sloop. The Walrus need proper refitting and Madi's people need to head home. Max is, of course, cut out of the council as to what to do next having betrayed them so thoroughly and destroyed their fleet. Featherstone is kind enough to tell her what was decided. Flint gives her a glare that could kill.
Max: A war against civilization?
Jack: What?
Max: Civilization has been winning that war for 10,000 years against men richer, braver, stronger, and smarter than you. How can you be so blind not to see that?
Jack: What the fuck are you talking about?
Max: You mustered a force stronger than you had any right to hope for. You hit the governor when he was at his weakest. And at what result? Eleanor is dead, Anne is nearly dead, and the governor is sitting in Nassau in my fucking chair victorious! You cannot fight civilization from the outside in. And your plan now is to follow that man into more of the same?!
Jack: "What result?" That result was because of your goddamn betrayal! Just now, that man and several others wondered aloud whether the smartest thing to do wouldn't be killing you and throwing you in the sea rather than giving you another opportunity to fuck us! For reasons I can't begin to fathom, I argued against it. Bark at me again about braver, stronger, and smarter men, and I might decide to revisit the issue!
Max: If killing me seems like the smartest thing to do, then it is obvious to me none of you have any idea how to defeat Woodes Rogers.
Jack: And you do?!
Max: You're goddamn right, I do! Eleanor is dead, Anne is nearly dead, and I want him to pay for all of it dearly. Do you want to help me or not? When Flint heads south, we head north.
Jack: What's north?
Max: Eleanor Guthrie's grandfather.
Jack gives her what for; Max proves yet again she is the smartest person in the room.
* Silver and Flint understandably think Jack has abandoned them. I'm expecting a dramatic, violent return at a key moment, and I really can't wait to see how that all goes with the Pirate Grandfather.
* The scene with Silver and Flint as they approach Madi's island reminded me strongly of the conversation Flint and Silver had after Silver lost his leg. Maybe it was the lighting; maybe it was the tone; maybe it was the Sacrifice. Flint gives the one genuine apology in the episode: for the loss of Madi, not expecting to be forgiven. Flint, after all has lived with a loss of that kind and the endless guilt and regret it brought him. Silver absolves him of blame, "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault." I wanted silver to tell Flint about Florida now, but of course he didn't, this moment is for Silver's grief.
* When the Walrus arrives, they find an army and an explanation for why they didn't send the gold. "They had already begun to arrive when Kofi came with your request for the cache. You can understand why I didn't let him go. They came from other islands, the colonies, maroons from camps like this one, pirates from as far away as Massachusetts. They heard that Nassau had fallen and they came to join us. The revolution you promised has begun!"
*****
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* Black Sails XXXIV: Everything Burns
* We open on Ruth and Silver reminding us of the political situation between pirates and the ex-slave community as part of their negotiation. They are knocking chains off slaves, to my great relief. Silver offers them a chance to beat Billy, but not kill him in exchange for Ruth trying to make an alliance with the Underhill ex-slaves and Julius' faction. They beat Billy and chain him up. Julius is the better man, which is lucky for everyone, but I always wonder why it is the black characters in things always have to put aside their completely justified anger for the greater good.
* Eleanor and Madi have been cast as symbolic sisters since season three, and thus mirrors of each other. Two strong women with authority, but one representing Nassau, the pirate Republic, the other the more idylic ex-slave settlement. The first words they speak to each other here are a cold exchange about whether they trust Flint, who is having the meeting with Jack from last episode in the distance. "Before this war began, before everyone's roles changed, your father mistrusted Flint as much as anyone in Nassau did." Eleanor references Mr. Scott in this exchange, because of course, he's as much on her mind as Flint and the immediate political situation. She has only just learned of Mr. Scott's death and Madi's being alive and is still processing it all. Eleanor is, of course still angry that as an enslaved person, somehow Mr. Scott's priorities didn't revolve around her, because privilege. Eleanor only freed Mr. Scott when he asked explicitly after his kidnap on the Andromache. She may pretend she loved him, but once she became her father's factor, she had the power to free him and it never once crossed her mind that he might want it or have other aspirations for himself. She may feel betrayed but she is not. She was keeping a living human being prisoner. That prisoner chose to use what power and influence he got through her to free other kidnapped people and good on him. That he did encourage and help Eleanor was a gift he never owed her but chose to give. Eleanor doesn't see it that way, being the same person who never thought of freeing him until the moment he asked. "You were my sister. There is very little that I remember from when I was young, but I remember this. You were older. You were beautiful. I revered you. When you were told that my mother and I were dead, I have to believe that it affected you. You had just lost your mother. But if things were as I remember, my mother and I were your family, too. And yet, through all the years thereafter that my father cared for you counseled you, labored for you he never told you that we were alive. It would have been so easy to lessen your suffering by divulging the secret. And yet, he never did.Have you yet asked yourself why that is? My father didn't mistrust Flint. My father mistrusted all of you." And rightly so, rightly so. While Madi and Eleanor both frame themselves as sisters, I think it is important that while dying, Mr. Scott made clear he had one daughter and that was Madi.
* Jack rightly points out that it's his money too and the deal is terrible. Flint comes along peacefully as collateral, having given his word even though the new information pretty much has killed the deal and Eleanor is currently outnumbered. I suspect he knows the deal is dead too, but is counting on chaos and wanting to be where he can do the most good when Woodes Rogers hits the beach with the horrible surprise Jack has darkly and correctly predicted.
* I'm going to telescope the plotty bits together by character a little as everything is super intercut and thus a pain to bullet point. Featherstone sensibly sees the writing on the wall, grabs the money, Idelle, and the sex workers and sensibly flees while sending word inland to Silver to catch him up on the whole Spanish invasion thing. Meanwhile, in the fort Max and the two guys theoretically in charge are debating their response when the sentinel brings word that Woodes is with the fleet, so they don't bombard the ships or resist. Sigh. Max leaves to warn Eleanor, as no one else will, but meets up with Jack, who rises above his fury at Max betraying him to capture by Woodes Rogers and takes her along on his sloop. He's delightfully snarky about it, but rises to the occation once it's explained. "'I betrayed you, Jack. Tried to trade your life for my own personal gain. Lied to Anne to her face about it. Please, Jack, I Beg of you. Is there any way you can forgive me?' That was the general sense I had of what I might hear come from your mouth were I ever this close to you again." Look, I've written a lot about Jack's realistic flaws and blind spots, but when it comes down to it, he really is as good a man as a throat slitting pirate can reasonably be. He also figures out Woodes Rogers invited them in before she could tell him. Jack may not be as bright as he thinks he is, but he's still plenty clever. The Spanish opt not to chase the Walrus, so it's free to meet up with Jack.
* Silver comes to talk with Billy, but basically monologues explaining why he chose as he did. "I did not want this. Flint is my friend, but I know what he is. I have no illusions about it. But for all the dangers he presents, for all his offenses the one thing he's never done is force me to choose between him and you. That, you did. But it isn't too late to find a way to remedy it. You made a terrible mistake and you paid a terrible price. But we're at war and you're an asset. Despite what's gone on, you are my friend.
And the men out there have had their pound of flesh. And our men Billy, I could walk out there and tell them the sky is red and they'd believe me.
That's the power you've given me. But I have to know this is over your vendetta against Flint, your need to see him dead or departed from our story.
I have to know you'll never put me to a choice between you again. Swear it and this all ends." Billy is having none of his reasons, guilt, or thinky thoughts just like Israel Hands. "You chose. Live with it."
* Flint and Eleanor have a brief conversation that reminds us again that they used to be friends and allies. Back in the beginning of everything. I think Flint was genuinely fond of her and respected her, and the scene in the prison, along with their interactions in this episode reminded me of that impression I always had during their season one partnership. He tends to use the same tone with her he uses with Madi and Silver. his pirate friendships are never open the way his friendships with Thomas and Miranda were, as he can never trust people now the way he did then, but I think he only uses this tone with a select few he actually does like and respect in the pirate world, even though he is manipulating them at the same time. he reminds us a last time of their shared vision and that she was the Pirate Queen of Nassau. "You know, there was a time not so long ago, when you shared their concern, when you saw what I saw: The benefits of being free of British rule. To make the new world something more than just an extension of the old. Is it so unthinkable that that might be again? You were a pirate once. Stranger things have happened." It is at this point they spot a Spanish force, and Flint does what he always does in times of trouble: He retreats to Miranda's house.
* Silver meets up with Julius under Ruth's auspices. Julius is sensibly sceptical about what a white pirate's word is worth given the whole slavery and Billy getting their families tortured and the mercurial nature of power amoung pirates. "Amongst pirates, loyalty changes quickly, it seems. If a man can be replaced so easily, how can I know that his promises won't be, too?" I know it's a throw away line right before they all discover how fucked they are by the Spanish invasion, but i think it's one of the fundamental questions at the heart of the show, threaded through everything, particularly Eleanor's arc, but really could be said of everyone. It's particularly pertinent given Jack's accusations against Max two scenes ago. While Silver's decision to dig in at the Underhill estate is tainted by his personal concerns with Madi and Flint, it actually does make sense to fight the first battle where they have supplies and some fortifications instead of out in the open with a ragged column of march.
* The burning and literal rape of Nassau visibly distresses the man who caused it, Woodes Rogers, who is getting zero sympathy from me because everything that follows is entirely his fault. he tells them the pirates are likely at the Underhill estate. Then he gets the news that eleanor was out doing exactly what she told him she'd be doing, which he ignored, because of course he did, the shit. He punches the messenger anyway as if anyone has ever been able to stop Eleanor from doing what Eleanor wants to do short of putting her in literal chains, and really, he looked to the people in the fort to be going along with her plan until he showed up with an enemy fleet to burn and kill anyone. Again, no sympathy, because he knew damned well who she was and she told him out right what she was doing. He tries to get the Spanish to not kill his wife. Their leader points out it's too late to stop what Woodes Rogers started.
* Jack is in command of the two ship fleet and insists they wait a while for survivors, which is very Jack in a good way. He does lend men to continue the work on fixing the walrus while they wait. Jack's expression when Max asks to see Anne speaks volumes. I do love the face acting on this show.
* The Max and Anne scene pretty clearly parallels the Silver and Billy Bones scene even though they are shot from different angles. In both you have the betrayed person lying down, horribly injured, in a dark, shadowy wooden location and the betrayer monologuing a 'why I did it' non apology to the betrayed person who is having none of it. "I loved you, and I betrayed you, but I cannot apologize for it. I did what anyone would have done when confronted with the same impossible choices. I apologize, you will know it is a lie, and I do not wish to lie to you ever again." "Leave." "No. I am going to stay with you. I want to take care of you." "Get the fuck out." I have long said the two I desperately want to survive are Max and Anne. I stand by that. One of the things I particularly love about Ms. Kennedy's acting all series is how restrained it is. She works very hard at the calm, impassive mask, but the real pain the character feels bleeds through. It is one of the reasons I have enjoyed Max and Anne together so much. Anne wears the masculine strong but silent archetype like armour, with her pain and anger occasionally breaking through in flashes. Max wears her traditional feminine presentation as exactly the same sort of armour, but with Max and Eleanor occasionally her pain, anger, and vulnerability break through. They match. I keep hoping they will work it out by the end and sail away to friendlier waters together, but I'm not holding my breath. Right now though? The breech is as deep and wide as that between Billy and Flint/Silver.
* Flint figures out what Woodes Rogers did, because on this he can be rational. Eleanor is still lying to herself about Woodes Rogers and loyally insists what clearly happened can't be what happened. After all the Spanish rape of Nassau is a thing she witnessed as a child and never forgot. Because it is at the root of her separation from Madi, it is subtext of everything that follows. The thing that is happening right now is her nightmare, and the thing that shaped her, and caused very specifically by a man claiming to love her. I have said she was doomed from the moment she condemned Charles vane to death, a man she once claimed to love. I was right that Woodes Rogers would be the death of her. I was wrong as to the how. In any case, Flint has already adjusted to the change of circumstance and has made new plans. Sentries spot the Spanish troops following them. Eleanor sensibly hands over command of the combined force to Flint, him being the obvious choice to lead in a battle over two people with little combat experience. He has them hold fire until the Spaniards are exposed. They fire and charge, winning, but three men flee to warn the main force. Flint leads most of the men to hunt them down, thus setting the immediate stage for the tragedy to come.
* They give us a nice long shit of a sentry guarding Miranda's house and Eleanor's face in the window before we turn inward for a shot of Madi reading one of Miranda's books in a beam of sunlight worthy of Vermeer. This conversation is beautifully shot, and I think that matters. The camera keeps finding beauty in the ruins of Miranda's life as the mirror sisters have a last conversation that goes a way towards healing the breech between them. They start physically separate, but end up setting a fire together, kneeling in Miranda's hearth, a very symbolic fire that first symbolizes their cooperation, but ends up destroying Miranda's very symbolic house. The visuals perfectly work with the narrative. (I am going to miss this show so much).
Eleanor, for all her pride, actually does exhibit a little empathy here, a small bending that begins to acknowledge that Madi and her Mother paid the larger price for Mr. Scott's staying in slavery to help other people to freedom. It's not enough, not even close to enough, but it's a start. "It did affect me. When Mr.Scott...when your father told me that you and your mother had died it affected me a great deal. It must have been hard to live hidden away for so long." Madi responds, "It was hard to be away from him. The rest of it my mother did the best she could with the rest of it." This next bit was a call back in Eleanor's arc to her conversation with Max about where they'd have gone if they'd fled when Max wanted, but also speaks to Silver's last conversation with Madi where he asked if being together would be enough for her and didn't wait for the answer. "She must have done well. I've found myself thinking about it. Of walking away from Nassau, from England, from civilization. One can be happy that way, can't they? A life of isolation and uncertainty as long as it is lived with someone you love And who loves you back. It is possible, isn't it?" I think Madi's answer is as much for Silver as for Eleanor, a simple, "It is." At this point Eleanor crosses the room to sit across from her, you get another nice shot of sentry still being alive, and unfortunately a Spanish soldier also being alive because Flint forgot to double tap.
I can't help but think that this conversation, held in Miranda's house, with one of her books on the table, might not also be intended as an echo of James and Miranda's debate over whether to seek a pardon, and his answer to Peter Ashe referencing Odysseus when he spoke of the death of Flint. The spirit of Miranda hangs over all of this, and I think that is entirely intentional.
* Ben Gunn frees Billy before the battle ostensibly because they might get over run and they'll need him to carry on the fight either way, but I've also seen how Ben Gunn looks at Billy, so think their might be extra insentive there. In any case, Billy legs it as far as I can tell.
* I'm going to put all the Pirate battle stuff in one place so I can talk about the death of Eleanor and surrounding issues in a block the way I did for Charles Vane. She deserves that.
* Unfortunately pirates aren't generals and they get flanked. Naval battles with ships, cannon, and marines are extremely different than 18th Century land battles with inaccurate pistols/muskets, infantry, and lancers. They are very separate skill sets and tactical situations. The pirates not being great at this is pretty accurate. It's a maxim that an individual skilled warrior will beat a skilled soldier, but get enough skilled soldiers together and it's going to go badly for the warriors. The technically win the engagement, with the help of Julius' reinforcements, but they lose half their men. What happens with the next hundred, or the next thousand? The eventual outcome is clear. (The engagement Flint and Madi's people won gainst the British last season was very specifically set up to take advantage of traps and terrain to help guerillas beat conventional forces. This is classic warfare with some siege tactics and a flat terrain battle favoring cavalry and massed infantry, a completely different scenario).
* Miranda's house has been slowly deteriorating to ruins, the one place Flint was still a little bit Mcgrawaw. We've seen it slowly turning into a wreck inside as Flint moves further and further away from who he was, unmored from the Hamiltons. The exterior looked all right, but inside, decay, broken crockery, and now violence. Exactly like Flint. This was the one safe haven he always retreats to in reverses. The thing I thought when it caught fire was: the last bit of Miranda "I'm trying to save your life!" Hamilton went up in smoke. Of course it did. It pretty much had to, just as Eleanor couldn't long survive the burning of her beloved Nassau, which was the very center of her. Jame's face as he watched it burn.... Ouch. He does her the kindness of lying that Woodes Rogers hadn't done this terrible unforgivable thing to her. I'm against lying to people to protect them just generally, but this is a clear exception. Flint takes the word of Madi's loss to Flint in a short exchange with face acting on both sides to break one's heart. They sensibly pack up and retreat to the ships, Flint tactfully giving the orders to give Silver a moment of private grief.
Eleanor makes it sound like Madi died with her last words, but I am not convinced Madi is dead. I am expecting a Silver like return later, though of course I could be wrong. If she is dead, it would be fridging, because it wouldn't serve her arc, but only manpain. I think Black sails is better than that, so my money is on came to and fled.
At least Eleanor went down fighting, as much as the violence done in her refuge would have appalled Miranda. It sucks it was a nobody who killed Eleanor Guthrie, but she died as herself, fighting tooth and nail for every breath and trying to protect unconscious Madi. Emotionally, I might have rather had Jack or Anne kill her for Charles, but she had to die one way or another and right about now, I think. She was Nassau, intimately entwined with it. I just can't imagine her without it, and neither could she, really, judging from that conversation she had with Max about where would they have gone if Eleanor had just run with Max as Max wanted. I think Max's lack of fixed destination suggests that while she wanted out desperately and loved Eleanor, in her heart of hearts she couldn't picture Eleanor any place else long term either. I think about Eleanor trying to leave New Providence to talk to her grandfather and Berringer stopping her, Nassau politics preventing her going, sucking her back into the island. The one time she did leave, it was as a captive, and circumstance brought her right back again. I think of faerie confusing the ways, I think of Escher's endless staircase.
Eleanor could not be Eleanor anywhere but Nassau, and the moment Woodes Rogers' colonizing hand is away from Nassau, she becomes herself again. When he returns with fire, he burns her heart out. I think she can no more be without Nassau than an Oread can be without her stone or a Naiad without her river. Once Rogers brought the Spanish in, it had to be a Spaniard to kill her because the Spanish burned Nassau. Who she became was born in that fire sacking, and her life ended by fire and sword when her Nassau died the same way by the same hand. The Nassau they will build on the ashes won't be her Nassau, but something else entirely.
I do not think she was fridged because her arc worked on it's own terms symbolically and emotionally. The ends were tied up. The conversation with Vane about her Father that finished them as sure as the noose she had them put round his neck; the mirror scene in prison with Flint about Mr. Scott and the way it changed how she saw herself and her past; the conversation with Max that tied them up; her final reconnection with Madi; the burning of Nassau and her running out of options for real and for good.
* I still blame Woodes Rogers. He knew who she was and the choices she made and was likely to make. If I could see the flaws with the Spanish plan, a man as clever as Woodes Rogers could. He didn't know it would go wrong in this way, but honestly, anyone could see it would go wrong, and my surprise is the Spanish Governor didn't kill or have him killed under cover of the confusion of the invasion in revenge for his brother. He mutilated her for more than a season and his disregard of her intelligence and political acumen and his pride and vengefullness did this. He may pretend otherwise, but it was Flint trying to save her the way he always tried to save Nassau (with as much effect, alas), and the Spanish he let loose who killed her very directly.
Woodes Rogers becomes more himself when she is not around, which likely means he will be even worse with her dead. I think he's always been a pirate, and the thing in his backstory with the Spanish is part of that, but there is an issue of whether he is seen to be a pirate or not. He tries to present himself as civilized, but there is always a suspicion in the Navy, in Whitehall, in society in general of what he truly is. he is tainted the way the Guthries are tainted.
I am not ruling out the Spanish having further nastiness planned for Woodes Rogers and I do think narrative he is getting a taste of the frustration and impotence Eleanor experienced with no one listening to her under the English colonial dystopian regime, what it had to have cost her to be with him.
Flint and Vane both treated Eleanor as an equal and a Power. Woodes didn't even when he was listening to her. I do think it was kindness to lie to Eleanor as she was dying, though in any other circumstance it wouldn't have been.
* Jack holds firm on one more hour's wait for the survivors. Most of his side of the Featherstone conversation was characteristically eloquent face acting. Featherstone learns that Max saw anne and tries to cheer her up a little, which is kind, by mentioning how she protected Featherstone from Berringer when betrayal would have been so much easier. Ms. Kennedy's acting is understated and heartrending, the tremble in her lip, the quaver in her voice, the crack of her stoic mask. "It wasn't supposed to end like this. How can we all have sacrificed so much and none of us has anything to show for it?" (I want to see Ms. Kennedy act in all the things. Please tell me she's been cast in another project worthy of her considerable skills?) She has lost everything: her power, her security, the Urca gold, and most importantly of all Anne, who is absolutely irreplaceable.
* The survivors turn up, and soon Flint has the Walrus, while Jack retains the sloop. The Walrus need proper refitting and Madi's people need to head home. Max is, of course, cut out of the council as to what to do next having betrayed them so thoroughly and destroyed their fleet. Featherstone is kind enough to tell her what was decided. Flint gives her a glare that could kill.
Max: A war against civilization?
Jack: What?
Max: Civilization has been winning that war for 10,000 years against men richer, braver, stronger, and smarter than you. How can you be so blind not to see that?
Jack: What the fuck are you talking about?
Max: You mustered a force stronger than you had any right to hope for. You hit the governor when he was at his weakest. And at what result? Eleanor is dead, Anne is nearly dead, and the governor is sitting in Nassau in my fucking chair victorious! You cannot fight civilization from the outside in. And your plan now is to follow that man into more of the same?!
Jack: "What result?" That result was because of your goddamn betrayal! Just now, that man and several others wondered aloud whether the smartest thing to do wouldn't be killing you and throwing you in the sea rather than giving you another opportunity to fuck us! For reasons I can't begin to fathom, I argued against it. Bark at me again about braver, stronger, and smarter men, and I might decide to revisit the issue!
Max: If killing me seems like the smartest thing to do, then it is obvious to me none of you have any idea how to defeat Woodes Rogers.
Jack: And you do?!
Max: You're goddamn right, I do! Eleanor is dead, Anne is nearly dead, and I want him to pay for all of it dearly. Do you want to help me or not? When Flint heads south, we head north.
Jack: What's north?
Max: Eleanor Guthrie's grandfather.
Jack gives her what for; Max proves yet again she is the smartest person in the room.
* Silver and Flint understandably think Jack has abandoned them. I'm expecting a dramatic, violent return at a key moment, and I really can't wait to see how that all goes with the Pirate Grandfather.
* The scene with Silver and Flint as they approach Madi's island reminded me strongly of the conversation Flint and Silver had after Silver lost his leg. Maybe it was the lighting; maybe it was the tone; maybe it was the Sacrifice. Flint gives the one genuine apology in the episode: for the loss of Madi, not expecting to be forgiven. Flint, after all has lived with a loss of that kind and the endless guilt and regret it brought him. Silver absolves him of blame, "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault." I wanted silver to tell Flint about Florida now, but of course he didn't, this moment is for Silver's grief.
* When the Walrus arrives, they find an army and an explanation for why they didn't send the gold. "They had already begun to arrive when Kofi came with your request for the cache. You can understand why I didn't let him go. They came from other islands, the colonies, maroons from camps like this one, pirates from as far away as Massachusetts. They heard that Nassau had fallen and they came to join us. The revolution you promised has begun!"
*****
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