Nassau is delivered.  Silver makes a painful amends.  Flint and Madi are separated.  Rogers searches for Eleanor.

(Summary provided by starz.com)

BEST FLINT MOMENT

Flint’s last moments with Eleanor is one of my favorite Flint scenes in the entire show.  Despite earlier trying to convince Eleanor that Woodes Rogers was likely responsible for the Spanish invasion, he lies and tells her it isn’t true.  Flint is not one to lie in order to provide comfort, and that he does so here shows just how much he loved Eleanor.

TODAY’S RUNNER UP

Eleanor!  She became one of my favorite characters during this rewatch, and if she had to die, I’m so glad it was a death like this that perfectly showcased her desperation, quick thinking, and resourcefulness.  She is a messy character, but she tries so hard, and I love her for it.  RIP, Eleanor.

WELL-FORMED THOUGHTS

I’ve been going on about the cycle of vengeance in all its iterations this season, and in this episode I find that they’ve tricked me!  Silver gives Billy to the slaves to be beaten within an inch of his life in repayment for Billy’s betrayal of their partnership with the slaves.  And…I love it?  I’m so GLAD that Billy is paying for his sins.  This is why vengeance always endures.  No matter how right we may think forgiveness is, there is something so entirely appealing about making someone suffer for their crimes.

I really love that this show dives into emotional and moral complications, insisting that the cycle of vengeance is inherently unhelpful while also reminding us why it is so attractive.

FRAGMENTED THOUGHTS

• Slaves being freed from their shackles is a needed bright spot in a very dark season.
• Another show would make the relationship between Eleanor and Madi a simplisticly happy reunion.  Black Sailsforces us to consider how privilege and inequality impacted their relationship in profoundly deep ways.

“My father didn’t mistrust Flint.  My father mistrusted all of you.”

• Jack threatens to kill Eleanor and/or Flint, but Eleanor cannot be bothered to take him seriously and just walks away.  I feel like this perfectly summarizes the entirety of their relationship.
• Silver giving Billy to the slaves to be tortured is…super dark.  Like, darker than anything Flint has done, right?

Silver:  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.

• Billy responding to Silver’s patronizing speech of ‘forgiveness’ with “You chose.  Live with it” makes me like him more than I have in a long time.
• I would love to see this episode from Julius’s POV.
• I continue to be fascinated by Max and Jack’s relationship.  They are business partners, sometime lovers, partners to the same woman.  Their reunion is gut-wrenching because Jack is all emotion, and Max is all logic.  Still, he rescues her (for the first of two times this episode).
• Flint and Eleanor talking about their former partnership is my everything!!!

“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 happen again?  You were a pirate once.  Stranger things have happened.”

• Although Flint has been betrayed by Eleanor just as much as Jack has been betrayed by Max, their reunion has had SUCH a different tone.  They are still civil, and they seem to still respect each other.  Why is this?  Because they always knew who the other was – someone ambitious and cunning and not above changing sides for a better outcome.  Flint and Eleanor knew each other so well that their relationship could survive betrayal.
• Speaking of changing sides, in an instant pirates and British soldiers must work together to defeat the new Spanish enemy.
• Silver needs to learn to read a room:  sitting in a throne in ominous lighting is not a great way to propose partnership with newly freed slaves.
• Woodes Rogers gets on land, sees destruction, murder, and rape all around him…but it’s not until he learns that Eleanor is at risk that he actually begins to care.  What an asshole.
• I will forever love Jack for deciding to wait for his former partners despite recently learning that they were willing to give up his cache without his knowledge or assent.
• Max reunites with Anne.  Max is so defensive, but when she sees Anne’s brutalized face, she sees the full ramifications of her decision.

Max:  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.  If I apologize, you will know it is a lie, and I do not wish to lie to you ever again.
Anne:  Leave.
Max:  No.  I am going to stay with you.  I want to take care of you.
Anne:  Get the fuck out.

• No, Max, you didn’t do what anyone else would have done.  PLENTY of people did the exact opposite, in fact.

Eleanor:  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?
Madi:  It is.

• Who is Madi talking about here?  Her mother, and the life they had on Maroon Island?  Or Silver, and the life they might have in the future?  If it’s Silver, that seems to contradict her earlier silence when he asked if he was enough for her.
• Silver hears the Spanish coming around the back over the din of battle?  Um, okay.
• Madi and Eleanor share a smile, which is so great but FUCK FUCK FUCK you can see the Spanish soldier standing in the background flexing his hands and it’s so creepy!!!
• Eleanor’s final fight is so desperate and beautiful.  She survives so much, and if that isn’t a symbol of her entire life, I don’t know what is.  I also really admire the show for how sexual assault is depicted:  we keep the female POV and never disempower her.
• When she kills the Spanish soldier, she immediately goes to Madi, MY HEART.
• Flint sees Miranda’s house on fire and Eleanor’s body.  The two most important women in his life.  😦

Eleanor:  Was he with them?  My husband?
Flint:  No, he isn’t.

• MY HEART.  Flint cradles Eleanor’s face as she dies, and his own face is just utter devastation and hopelessness.
• Eleanor’s last words are: “Madi.  I tried to save her.”  But it doesn’t look like Madi made it out of the burning house.
• In the wake of Madi’s death, Silver says of the rebellion, “It’s over.”  But Flint orchestrates a tactical retreat, insisting upon saving everyone.  They’re acting as good partners here, even if they are not in emotional agreement.

“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?”

• Finally, some emotion from Max.  I think her fierce adherence to calm logic is why I have felt so disconnected from her.  Now that she’s drowning, I like her a little bit.
• Continuing with the theme of “emotional investment changes everything,” Max finally sees civilization’s true face and wants revenge.  But…by going to a different version of civilization.  What makes her think this time will be any different?
• Honestly, I understand and almost agree with Max’s “fight civilization from the inside” philosophy.  But…it didn’t work.  Not that fighting from the outside worked either.  The moral of the story?  Changing society for the better is messy and complicated, and it takes all kinds of people fighting all kinds of battles.
• Woodes Rogers finds Eleanor’s corpse.  By bringing Spain to Nassau, he murdered his wife, and none of his enemies were killed.  YOU IDIOT.
• Silver is absolutely gutted and is grieving for Madi.  Flint puts his hand on Silver’s shoulder.  I can’t read whether or not Silver’s “It wasn’t your fault” is truthful or just a means to get Flint out of the room.  My poor babies!
• BUT THEN.  The pirate revolution has grown enormously on Maroon Island!!  The first time I watched the series I was SUUUUPER depressed by this point, and seeing all these pirates determined to join the cause gave me hope so intense it felt physical.

“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!”

Not done reliving the episode?  Listen to Daphne and Liz’s podcast at Fathoms Deep!

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Silver takes Flint’s life in his hands.  Billy drives a wedge.  Eleanor risks everything.  Rogers makes a stunning appeal.

(Summary provided by starz.com)

BEST FLINT MOMENT

What does Flint do while locked up in prison?  Read!  The fact that he keeps his finger in his place while talking with Eleanor proves that he is a true Reader, and my love for him therefore increases immeasurably.

TODAY’S RUNNER UP

Eleanor!  She is losing everything she worked so hard to achieve, and here at the end of all things, she’s acting more like a leader than ever before.  She’s level-headed, self-aware, and confident in a way that is truly beautiful to see.

WELL-FORMED THOUGHTS

FINALLY we get a break from the relentlessly gruesome violence of the last two episodes.  But our meditations on revenge continue, seen especially in Woodes Rogers’ meeting with Governor Raja in Havana.

In previous episodes, we learned Rogers’ tragic backstory about his brother dying, and this is the fuel that enflames his bloodlust.  But without all the drama Rogers demanded for his big reveal, Raja admits that he shares the exact same story, but worse – Rogers personally killed his brother under a flag of surrender.  Yet instead of becoming a blood thirsty maniac, Raja makes a calm decision for the good of his country.

Everyone has trauma in this story.  It’s what they allow that trauma to drive them to that really matters.  The fact that Rogers is wallowing in his is why he’s stuck in this desperate cycle of vengeance that actually leads to his betrayal of his own country, partnering with an enemy empire out of a misshapen pursuit of justice.

FRAGMENTED THOUGHTS

• Silver is pissed after Flint made a deal with Eleanor in 404, and this entire episode is one huge question:  How will Silver react to Flint making a decision without him?
• Eleanor refuses to allow Mrs. Hudson to tell Rogers about their baby.  She doesn’t want to use it as a pawn in this power struggle, which seriously shows how much she’s grown.

Billy:  Guaranteed?  When is anything ever–?  And you agreed to this?
Silver:  I didn’t agree to anything.  The offer was put to Captain Flint.  He had little time to decide.  I trust his judgment.

• The crux of everyone’s relationship with Flint is whether or not they trust his judgment, but my favorite example of this is not with Silver.  It’s when Eleanor asks Flint how to fire warning shots at her husband’s, his enemy’s, ship.  Now THAT is trust.

“She says she knows that you will be angry, and that this will be hard for you to understand.  But she said…she said you should trust that her commitment to you remains inviolable and that this is no betrayal but an act of love.”

• It seems as though Rogers stops his mania when reminded of Eleanor’s love for him.  It almost makes me like him, but then it’s revealed that he didn’t stop his attack but instead went for the kind of backup that literally haunts his wife’s nightmares.  What an asshole.  His arrogance and desperation have made him dangerously reckless.
• I love how Silver talks to Billy carefully, but when relating everything that’s happened to Madi, he allows himself to be emotional.

Madi:  You know as well as I Billy cannot exist alongside Captain Flint for long.  Sooner or lager, one or the other must go.
Silver:  If we win Nassau even through surrender, we are still going to have to control it.  Without the resources afforded by the cache or the force supplied by Billy and his men, how the fuck do you imagine we’re going to do that?
Madi:  We will struggle through it, train men, gain strength through numbers, hunt for that which we need.  It will be difficult, but since when did we expect this would be anything else?
Silver:  Jesus.  You sound exactly like him.

• #TriumverateWatch:  MADI SIDES WITH FLINT, MADI SIDES WITH FLINT, I’M IN LOVE WITH THEM BOTH BECAUSE THEY ARE THE SAME PERSON.
• Silver also loves them both because they are the same person, but unlike me, he is just now realizing that he’s fallen in love with a female Flint.
• Actually, Madi is better than Flint.  She’s able to bring empathy and emotional connection to her cold-blooded tactical decisions, and this is what makes Silver trust her.

“If this goes away, Flint’s war, if it all ended and we had to walk away from it, would I be enough for you? … You know what?  You don’t have to answer that.”

• Silver wants to be someone’s everything, but he keeps being drawn to people with big ambitions and ironclad wills to pursue them.
• My love for Eleanor skyrockets when the first thing she asks Flint is to tell her about Mr. Scott.  And then I’m devastated as she realizes her father figure was using her.  And then I’m even more emotionally destroyed when Flint calmly reaffirms her.  And then I love Eleanor for her new self-awareness, and then Flint challenges her to look even harder, and GUYS THIS IS SUCH A GOOD SCENE.

Eleanor:  For so long, I thought I knew what I was.  A daughter who usurped her father.  A woman who had taken control of a wild place.  Scott was proof of that, the one who saw me that way too, who substantiated it.  And all that time, all he saw was a girl so ambitious she would never doubt his story.
Flint:  You did do all those things.
Eleanor:  I know I did.  But always with a man behind me doing his damnedest to bend it all to his benefit.  My father, Scott, Charles you.  So many goddamned men here.  Too many goddamned men here.
Flint:  Woodes Rogers.  He’s really so different from the rest of us?

• Billy appeals to Silver’s self-importance by claiming he is a “rational man to lead Nassau.”  What?  I would never think that “rational” is Silver’s primary characteristic.  Billy doesn’t know Silver, which, uh, is going to be made even more evident very soon.
• Silver sees through this, however, and calls him on it.  Everybody wants Silver on their side because while he’s still not a very good leader, he’s an incredible quartermaster.
• Israel Hands is out to make him a better leader, though, taking a much more Tough Love approach than Flint ever did.  “I don’t give a shit what you choose, but fucking choose!  And don’t make me suffer the thinking,” is SUCH a great line.  Poor Silver, though.  He’s so conflicted.  He just doesn’t see what Flint and Madi see. (“The road they intend to travel is one I’m losing the ability to understand.”)
• Rogers keeps talking about disorder in Nassau, as though that is its primary sin.  But I suppose that makes sense, because it clearly isn’t the murder or greed that offends him.  He knows civilization is built upon murder and greed, but disorder is one step too far.  I mean, he’d never do something so disordered as ask his country’s enemy to raze his citizen’s land to the ground, right?  UGH, you fucking hypocrite, Rogers.

“Flint will just keep pushing for these things, costly things that we pay for with our own suffering, with our own lives.  You know this.  You’ve always known this.  Sooner or later, it has to end.”

• Billy isn’t exactly wrong, but what he doesn’t see is that Flint entirely believes in his vision to the point of suffering and offering his life along with his men.  He wants them to share in his dream and willingly give up their lives too.  In season 1, he hid his true motivation from his crew.  But now he’s a (mostly) open book.  He wants to lead an army of pirates and slaves to rebel against a corrupt empire that they all hate.  Billy is a few seasons behind.
• But Silver isn’t.  He just doesn’t know if he hates England the way Flint does.  And I honestly wasn’t sure what was going to happen the first time I watched this.
• BUT IT’S MADI WHO GREETS FLINT!!!  And it’s Billy who is betrayed!  This was all so well done, wow, A+.
• Billy created “Long John Silver” and this was his own undoing.  Poor Billy only has one (1) supporter.  After Israel Hands is done, Billy has zero (0) supporters.
• Jack’s on the beach instead of the cache, which is confusing for everyone involved.  Max appears in the fort and I realize that I completely forgot about Jack, Anne, and Max.

Flint:  It’s already agreed to.
Jack:  She agreed to it.  Her people agreed.  You’ve agreed.  But it’s all meaningless until he agrees.  Woodes Rogers.
Flint:  He left the island for Port Royal, as she asked, to await her arrival with the money.
Jack:  No, he hasn’t.  I watched him defeat Edward Teach in battle outnumbered and through sheer force of will.  I saw his bloodlust with my own eyes.  That man will never surrender his position here.  He will never allow himself to be defeated by you or I. Not because we bribed him, not because Eleanor Guthrie told him so.  He simply will not allow it to happen.  I don’t know where that man went or what designs drew him there, but this I know.  Woodes Rogers will be returning and this fight isn’t nearly over.

• Flint trusted in civilization AGAIN, and once more it fucked him over.  Even when he gives it a cache of money and simply asks, “Go away,” civilization refuses to compromise.
• THAT SPANISH FLEET THOUGH.  *covers eyes*

Not done reliving the episode?  Listen to Daphne and Liz’s podcast at Fathoms Deep!

Violence engulfs Nassau.  Silver demands answers from Billy.  Eleanor comes to Max’s aid.  Bonny and Rackham endure hell.

(Summary provided by starz.com)

BEST FLINT MOMENT

This episode gives us two of my favorite Flints:  Grumpy Flint (“Is there a point you’re trying to make?” to Israel Hands) and Enigmatic Flint (“Trust me.”)  I continue to love him, even when the episode is not focused upon him.

TODAY’S RUNNER UP

Silver!  Poor guy is feeling the burden of leadership, playing the growly pirate theater and throwing his weight around.  But everywhere he goes there is complication, and he does not seem comfortable with it in the way that Flint is.  This is also the episode that reveals most fully Silver’s emotionalism.  Until now he’s been very rational, choosing partners based upon what is best for him.  With the recent events threatening Flint and especially Madi, Silver’s logic is unraveling fast.  At this point, he’s secure enough to see it for the liability that it is, but should something more drastic occur…who knows what he will do?

LOL MOMENT

Billy, after being chastised for his very bad actions:  “Is everyone feeling better?”

WELL-FORMED THOUGHTS

If ever there were an episode that wanted to drive home the theme about the futility of a cycle of vengeance, this would be it.  The fact that this show is not interested in glorying in revenge is most obviously shown in how we see the retaking of Nassau.  Instead of something glorious, it is a violent and chaotic scene, shot in such a way that we as viewers are emotionally distanced from it.

From there we get example after example of how futile revenge is.  We open on a horrific scene of a plantation owner beating a slave woman for the actions of slaves on another plantation…but his actions are soon answered by Julius’s slave revolt.  The guy Rogers leaves in charge of Rackham’s crew has one job: to deliver the captured pirates to Port Royal.  Unable to resist the allure of revenge, he instead makes them fight to the death, a choice that ultimately leads to his death and the death of his remaining men.

Billy wants to make a public example of Max in the same way that public examples were made of Charles Vane and other pirates.  He fails to see that this act will fail in the same way that their acts failed:  vengeance (even coded as “justice”) only leads to more violence.  Silver highlights the limitations of this idea by pointing out that there is no definitive action that can end the totality of what has been done.

Billy:  One would think we could go a long way towards soothing all that chaos out there, and the anger driving it, if we could draw everyone together to see justice done to the one responsible for all of it.
Silver:  All of it?
Billy:  Enough of it.

It’s fitting that they are discussing Max, since she is the one who has so often spoken against the cycle of vengeance.  And it seems as though Eleanor is beginning to see things in a similar light, especially now that she is pregnant and must reconcile her life with what is best for a new generation.  She knows she is drawn to Nassau and its unending power struggle, but for the first time, she sees how her actions might place her child in the same position she was in as a child: “amongst all this brutality.”

In a bid to end the cycle of vengeance and leave all parties satisfied, Eleanor summons Flint and Silver to discuss an exchange:  the pirates can have Nassau, and she will leave with the British and the cache.  Future episodes will reveal if she will be successful.

FRAGMENTED THOUGHTS

• Listening to a white man verbally chastise kneeling slaves while a woman shrieks in pain behind him is suuuuuuper disgusting.  In a show that asks us to sympathize with multiple viewpoints, I’m very glad that we are meant to see this as a completely evil act.
• Eleanor’s escape to the fort is very badass.  I especially love that she is leaning over the other passengers to protect them, immediately followed by her barging up to a crowd of men and telling them what to do.  She is regaining a lot of her agency, and I am reminded of why I love her so much!
• Flint reforms a system of land-based pirate crews, which is a stroke of brilliance that shows how flexible his strategies are.

“The more they realize there is no daylight between you and I, the more they will learn to accept our shared authority.”

• I love so much Flint and Silver’s unified public front (“You heard him.”) that still allows space for Silver to privately challenge Flint.
• Flint is very confused about why Eleanor wants Max, and it made me wonder:  does he know about their former relationship?  Was he too busy pursuing the Urca gold to keep track of his partner’s love life?  I kind of love the idea that he notices everything except for this.
• #TriumverateWatch:  Flint and Silver fawn over Madi.  “A wise woman recently told me…”  “Sounds like good advice.”  SHE DESERVES ALL THE COMPLIMENTS.
• The standoff between our #Triumverate and Billy is VERY satisfying.  It feels very much like three parents chastising an errant child, and Billy only regains a sliver of power because he knows he has something they want.

“Of course Billy would never violate the trust I place in him as a brother, as a friend, to allow harm to come to those closest to me.  For if Billy were to do something as disloyal as that, he knows I’d stop at nothing to see that offense repaid against him.”

• Wow, does Silver know exactly what to say to shame Billy.
• Of course, Billy knows exactly what to say to push Silver’s buttons too.  When appealing to their former fear of Flint upon them doesn’t work, he shifts the object of Flint’s consumption to Madi, and Silver is shook.

“How long ago was it that the two of us agreed that Flint threatened to be the end of us all?  That he would find ways of driving us over and over again into that storm till there was nothing left of us?  We survived him, you and I.  And now you want to follow him into what?  A massive slave revolt?  A war against the British Empire?  How is this not just the next storm in a very long line of them?”

• The Awful British Guy forces Jack to pick who will fight to the death, which echoes how the plantation owner forced slave women to hold down the woman being beaten.  As if violence weren’t enough, Civilization makes things even worse by forcing the oppressed to feel responsible for the violence themselves.
• Israel Hands says he knows Flint was at the previous rebellion, though he was British Navy at the time.  Does…everyone know Flint’s past?

“I am right back where I started.  Every fight I have ever won, every death I have escaped, every sacrifice I have had bled out of me, it will all have to be repeated just to get things back to where they were a few hours ago.”

• I cannot help but imagine Flint, ten years ago fleeing London, thinking the exact same thing.  He rebuilt himself into something even more formidable.  Eleanor, on the other hand, seems to want to take this opportunity to get out.  What’s the difference?  Eleanor still has a husband and future child to cling to.  Flint lost the lover/partner that made getting out seem possible.
• Mrs. Hudson says she is fond of Eleanor and wants to protect her, and my heart is dead!!  Has anyone ever truly wanted to take care of Eleanor in a way that was this unselfish?  I think this is the closest Eleanor has ever been to a mother’s love.
• Anne’s fight!!!  Oh my God, it’s awful to watch, but wow, is she the very epitome of tenacity.  There is no way she should win this fight, but she’s smart and determined and holy shit.  Honorable mention goes to Jack who fears very much for her but chooses to trust that she is capable.
• Max brings up “a reform-minded man” who takes prisoners from wealthy families in England and puts them to comfortable work out of sight, out of mind.  Silver perks up, and SO DO I.
• The whole scene between Flint and Silver watching the prisoner exchange is SO GOOD.  Silver, against all my assumptions, confesses to Flint what Billy said about Madi.  Their emotional honesty with each other is truly beautiful.

Silver:  If we assume that we are on the verge of some impossible victory here, a truly significant thing, if we assume that is real and here for the taking, wouldn’t you trade it all to have Thomas Hamilton back again?
Flint:  I think it he knew how close we were to the victory he gave his life to achieve he wouldn’t want me to.
Silver:  I see.  Though, that wasn’t really what I asked, was it?  Assume his father was just as dark as you say, but was unable to murder his own son.  Assume he found a way to secret Thomas away from London –
Flint:  He didn’t.
Silver:  Would you trade this war to make it so?  It is some kind of hell to be forced to choose one irreplaceable thing over another.

• Flint’s eyes and mouth get all twitchy talking about Thomas, and I AM DEAD.
• I love Partners Flint and Silver a lot, but I love a little bit of manipulation between them even more.  I can’t help but feel like Silver is bringing Thomas up mostly as a way to even the emotional playing field between them.  He feels weakened by the revelation of Madi being his vulnerability, and he wants to remind Flint that he has a vulnerability too.
• Love the eye contact between Flint and Eleanor, and her deep nod as the fort’s door closes.

“Reprisals were visited upon our loved ones on the Edwards estate.  Reprisals of the cruelest kind intended to instill fear, break spirits, reassert control.  It did not have the intended effect.”

• We learn that Julius’s plantation revolt was successful!  I really love that we got to see slaves fighting back on their own, instead of always relying upon the help of predominantly white pirates (although I think I’ve already made my love for this partnership clear).
• Madi is advised by the former slave from the Underhill estate (anyone know her name??) to “find a place you can protect, build a wall, and save who you can” like her mother.  Everyone’s motivations and desires are becoming muddier!  I both love it and hate it.
• Max is pissed because everything she feared would happen HAS happened.  When apologizing, Eleanor goes all the way back to episode two, apologizing for not leaving with Max when she offered.  I love that she knows that this is the apology Max needs to hear most.
• Woodes Rogers returns on The Revenge (thematic much?), and I feel nothing for his and Eleanor’s distant reunion.
• Eleanor comes faces to face with Flint, and I feel EVERYTHING for their reunion.
• Silver has come a long way in this show, but in this final scene, he is desperate and flailing where Flint and Eleanor are powerful and calm.  As much as he wants to be a big dog, he has still not yet matched the major players of Nassau.
• Flint says, “Trust me” to Silver.  Will their partnership survive this disagreement?

Not done reliving the episode?  Listen to Daphne and Liz’s podcast at Fathoms Deep!

Max runs afoul of the law.  Rogers reckons with his past.  Flint and Madi reach an understanding.  Long John Silver makes his return.

(Summary provided by starz.com)

BEST FLINT MOMENT

Season Four, while incredibly dark and depressing, gifted us with Toby Stephens frequently saying “Yep,” and we get two of them in this episode in quick succession.

“Billy?”
“Yep.”
“Tried to kill you?”
“Yep.”
“And Madi?”
“Her too.”

It’s the small things.

TODAY’S RUNNER UP

Teach!  It is fitting that this pirate of pirates is only taken down once surrounded by 5+ men with guns.  It is excruciating to see the pain on his face when he realizes that Jack has ruined his reputation by surrendering, but um, he more than makes up for his badass-ness by refusing to let his death bolster an Englishman’s ego.

RIP, Edward Teach.

LOL MOMENT

Teach:  Ever captained a ship of this size before?
Jack:  God, no.
Teach:  Have you captained a ship this size before?
Jack:  …Sure.

WELL-FORMED THOUGHTS

I love this show for refusing to allow viewers to make monsters out of any of our characters, despite HOW MUCH I want to villainize Berringer.  First we get him looking at pictures of his wife and child, and honestly, that doesn’t move me.  He could be reunited with them if he wanted.  He’s only stayed in Nassau to pursue a course of revenge, committing treason even to do so.

What DOES bother me is his speech about dark men doing dark deeds, and how easily I can imagine the same words coming from Flint’s mouth.

“You’ve given me good men to lead.  I’ll do my best by them.”
“There isn’t a good man among them.  Not anymore.  Some of them may have been, before all this.  Some of them may be again on the other side of it.  But right now, good men are not what the moment requires.  Right now, the time calls for dark men to do dark things.  Do not be afraid to lead them to it.”

When Flint uses theater and leads his men into horrific atrocities, I support him because I support his end goal – overturning a corrupt empire and establishing a free world.  But when Berringer uses theater and leads HIS men into horrific atrocities, I am livid.  Granted, this is because he’s supporting that corrupt empire.  And in some ways, the ends definitely do justify the means.  But if we look beneath their political worldviews, in actuality they keep fighting because the world keeps fighting them.  It’s the cycle of vengeance I’ve been talking about.  The truth is, I support Flint because I like him, because I’m invested in his story.  If we’d had three seasons of Berringer’s story, would I emotionally support him in this moment?  Probably.

I do think the show wants us to support Flint, and I do think that Flint’s motivations are deepening beyond revenge to a more genuine desire to create something new.  BUT it is unquestionable that the showrunners want us to remember the power of narrative in shaping our allegiances, and to question why we see some people as good and others as bad, when really, they might not be so different.

FRAGMENTED THOUGHTS

• Berringer basically tells Woodes Rogers that darkness is inevitable, and we shouldn’t be afraid to use it.  It is SO hard not to think Flint would agree with him.
• Mrs. Hudson asks to go home after they’re done in Philadelphia.  Eleanor says yes and they’re both super happy before IMMEDIATELY finding out they aren’t going to Philadelphia.  This is about how everyone’s happiness goes in this show, huh?
• Max is losing her power, exemplified by how men can burst into her room while she’s lounging naked in bed.

Maroon:  Whatever slaves are still alive on this island will never fight alongside a pirate again.  Not after last night.
Madi:  Last night, there were also pirates who fought alongside us, against terrible odds and at great cost.  Billy and his men are our enemies now, but these men are not.

• #TriumverateWatch:  Madi defends Flint!!  And as if the show doesn’t realize that my heart has already burst, the two proceed to have an inspiring conversation as equals and I loooooove them!!!

Madi:  You truly believe it is possible?  That as disadvantaged and disabled as we are, that anything we do here is going to make the least bit of difference to the men in London?
Flint:  Well, that’s the trick, isn’t it?  If no one remembers a time before there was an England, then no one can imagine a time after it.  The empire survives in part because we believe its survival to be inevitable.  But it isn’t, and they know that.  That’s why they’re so terrified of you and I.  If we are able to take Nassau, if we are able to expose the illusion that England is not inevitable, if we are able to incite a revolt that spreads across the New World then, yeah, I imagine people are gonna notice.
Madi:  “Too much sanity may be madness, and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.”

• Madi just used Don Quixote to describe Flint, AND THAT IS THE BOOK MIRANDA USED TO DESCRIBE THOMAS, byyyyyyye.
• It is impossible to be reminded of the amazing partnership between James and Thomas and not see Flint and Madi having equally amazing potential.
• Poor Anne.  She just wants to get away from all of this and have a boring life, but she’s chosen to partner herself to a man who can’t stop following giants in hopes of influencing them and thus feeling meaningful.
• I love Idelle being the level-headed one to Featherstone’s panic.  She trusts in Max’s loyalty and stubbornness before saying they have to help her from the outside.  Eleanor then bursts in to help Max – are we to assume that Idelle told Eleanor what was going on?
• THAT REUNION THOUGH.  Silver is about to die, but Flint comes to the rescue!!  There is so much contained emotion going on in these two men, and I can’t even.
• Jack has to watch Teach and Anne lead the vanguard onto a spookily “empty” ship.  Why did no one notice that everyone hid themselves?  I’m so upset about everything here, I hate it, stop please.

Max:  You think you can control him.  And by the time you realize he has been controlling you, it is going to be too late.

• Max is talking to Eleanor about Berringer, but it’s hard not to imagine she’s also talking about Woodes Rogers.
• We know Eleanor is cultured now, because she says, “I beg your pardon, but what the fuck have you got to lose?”
• THAT OTHER REUNION THOUGH.  Silver and Madi running to each other, kissing, staring into each other’s eyes!!
• Flint is happy for them, but there’s a definite flicker of sadness in his expression.  Whether he’s sad because he loves Silver or because he wishes he had someone like they have each other, I honestly don’t care.  It’s compelling either way!
• Eleanor now agrees with Max that the theater of power only exacerbates problems.  I like this questioning whether power exists to uphold order or to boost someone’s ego.
• Berringer’s power play of reading the black spot aloud is actually VERY good, and I love how he becomes an interesting villain just before dying.  Because he’s too obvious.  The REAL villain is revealed in this episode to be:  Nice Guy Rogers.
• Reader, I HATE HIM.
• In flashback, he reveals his dark side to Berringer, telling the story he didn’t share in his book because he didn’t want the world to know what he is capable of.
• The real evil here is not what he did in the past, because as despicable as it is, I can forgive a lot that is done in grief (see: my enduring love of James Flint).  What is horrible is that he is committed, rationally, a day before it happens, to doing the exact same thing to Teach and his crew, simply to prove a point.  I HATE HIM.
• An admission:  I’ve never actually watched the keelhauling.  The first time I saw this episode, Rogers’ creepy voiceover and the music cued me in that something truly horrible was about to go down, so I Googled what happened to Teach and promptly skipped ahead.  Having listened to other people’s reactions to the scene, I’m super glad I did, and so I did the same again.  I’m so glad Teach stuck it to Rogers by refusing to die, but I do not need to let those images exist in my brain, thanks ever so much.
• Berringer refuses to use Eleanor as an ally.  He ignores her suggestion to ambush Silver, thus ensuring his own death!!  What an idiot!
• But also thank God.
• BECAUSE HERE COME SILVER AND FLINT.  I love the look Flint gives Silver when the guns come out.  This is Silver’s first time fighting on the front line, and as a target, and Flint is concerned.
• They seem alone in a small group, but suddenly slaves and maroons and pirates join them!  And there’s a fight!  And soldiers appear on the roofs but they are killed by Billy’s men!  I temporarily forgive Billy, but I’m glad Flint gives him a look during the battle because this isn’t over yet!!
• Israel Hands takes out Berringer, which is fitting because he doesn’t deserve a death by one of our heroes.  What purpose does Hands’ long look at Silver/Flint serve?  Is it like, look at me, see my value?
• Our last shot is of Berringer’s wife and child, and while I don’t have empathy for HIM, I do for those two.  It’s a good reminder that in all the passion and righteous anger that creates and perpetuates violence, the real victims are civilians.  But…I don’t want the fighting to stop until Flint and Madi’s vision of a free Nassau is realized.

Not done reliving the episode?  Listen to Daphne and Liz’s podcast at Fathoms Deep!

Flint acedes to Billy’s authority.  Eleanor has a plan for Rogers.  Silver seeks help from an unlikely source.  Max is put on notice.

(Summary provided by starz.com)

BEST FLINT MOMENT

If I thought it was fun to see Flint scream at Giant Billy in the last episode, WOW it is great to see him defeat a man seemingly three times his size in one-on-one combat.

TODAY’S RUNNER UP

Billy!  I don’t actually like him in this episode, but he deserves some credit for FINALLY standing up to Flint after 30 episodes of doubt and distrust.

“I’m through following you down a path only you seem able to see towards a victory only you seem able to define.”

LOL MOMENT

Israel Hands:  You talk too much.
Silver:  *keeps talking*

WELL-FORMED THOUGHTS

Anne once again shows us a way out of the cycle of revenge, and this time Jack listens and passes her wisdom on to Teach.  What is especially interesting is that she articulates why choosing not to pursue vengeance is for her own good.

“I go looking for Eleanor Guthrie, you know I’m gonna find her too.  Max.  Said if I turned over the cache, you’d be safe.  And it ain’t just the lie.  She tried to take you away from me.  When I left that island all I could think about was having a chance to make her pay for what she done.  Now that we’re here it would be so easy.  And I don’t wanna do it.  Don’t wanna live with it after.  The sight of her hurt in that way.  Just don’t want it.”

Anne has every reason to wish pain on Max, even more than Teach or Jack with Eleanor, because her reasons are personal.  But she is able to think beyond the anger to what will come after: the regret, the images she can’t forget, the knowledge of what she’s capable of.

FRAGMENTED THOUGHTS

• The Wrecks look a million times better than in season 1.
• Israel Hands’ character is a fascinating glimpse of a possible future for Silver.  He is also smart and opportunistic, but as a result of being passed over by a captain he admired, he has turned bitter, hardened, and ruthless.
• When Max confronts Featherstone and Idelle with their treachery, she is SO calm and powerful.  Unfortunately, we just learned that she is the reason the amazing s4 opening attack failed, so I have no positive feelings for her.  She is merciful to her people, but she doesn’t care about the bigger picture.  I don’t find an attitude of “This will all pass soon enough if we let it” admirable at all.
• Eleanor straight up says that the only difference between pirates and powerful men of civilization is time.
• Holy shit, Teach’s ship of hanged men is a very effective scare tactic.
• I like that in the pirate world, Eleanor is held accountable for killing Vane, when civilization’s story is that Woodes Rogers is responsible despite being unconscious.
• #TriumverateWatch:  Flint calls Madi out on her claiming to know the location of the cache.  Madi calls Flint out on his tendency to overlook Billy.  They are clearly equals at this chess match, and I love them.
• Max is saddened that everyone else in Nassau won’t roll over and submit to English rule like her.  Oops, is my bias showing?

Max:  When you condemn a dozen men in as many hours, perhaps remorse is a bit much to ask.
Berringer:  You object to these trials.
Max:  I do not object to trials, I do not object to hangings.  What I do object to, however, is spectacle, certain to increase defiance and anger rather than sooth it.  We should be moving past this, not wallowing in it.

• I can see the appeal of her strategy, though it is steeped in privilege.  With England in control, she maintains power and influence.  But people JUST LIKE HER remain slaves, and that disconnect feels awful to me.

Eleanor:  We are so very close to winning this war and finally bringing Nassau out of the dark.

• THIS LINE.  First of all, it directly compares to Flint’s similar line in 401 about being so close.  This puts the two of them as the true opposing strategists here, which I have been screaming about ever since I realized every one of Rogers’ good ideas was actually Eleanor’s.  But the thing about bringing Nassau out of the dark?  I’m trying to make these spoiler free, but those who have finished the series know why I am flailing with emotion.
• Eleanor thinks that Nassau needs someone to be in terror of (Berringer).  It strikes me that this has always been her strategy, using men like Flint and especially Vane to be big enough and bad enough to defend her plans.
• Silver is so smart for figuring out who Israel Hands is, and for telling his story in such a way as to get what he wants.

Hands:  Who are you that I ought to pay you any mind?
Silver:  I’m no one from nowhere belonging to nothing.  I’m a wretch like you.  And yet mountains of gold have changed hands because I chose it.  Thousands of men in Nassau are living in fear of my return because I decreed it.  Hundreds of dead redcoats in a forest not far from here because I made it so.  I’m the reason grown men lie awake at night.  I am a new beginning for Nassau.

• This is a very good self-promotion, much like Flint’s “I survived everything in the world” speech in 310.  But I’m struck by how many of the things he lists as his accomplishments are actually the result of Billy and Flint’s work.  Silver’s tragedy is that he’s struggling to live up to the fiction other people have created for him.
• I like that we see the plantation owners being tender and humorous while also very much relying upon slave labor, even in the same scene.  They are humanized, which reminds us that in this show, there are no cartoonish villains.
• Flint spares the mother and child, which is in direct contrast to his actions in 301.  He is no longer a broken man.  He’s found a purpose, and with it, his moral compass.
• Woodes Rogers looking at his own book, contemplating the story he told about himself, about who he wants to be, would be really moving to a viewer who is not adamantly opposed to him.  Ditto for his goodbye with Eleanor.
• Although…is that the first time we’ve seen Eleanor cry?  Surely not, but I can’t think of another moment.

“That fucking island.  Makes you do shit you don’t wanna do.”

• What is it about Nassau that makes people do “shit they don’t wanna do”?  I think the stakes are so much higher there, the possibility of so much available.  Whether it’s a life of freedom or a prosperous trade route, Nassau is valuable, and people will do terrible things to capture or keep something they value.
• If anyone was in doubt as to the goodness of civilization, now we know that slave families have been torn apart and threatened should anyone help the revolt.  Gross.
• Billy wants to take the plantation despite the implications for slave families and against Madi’s wishes, which shows he values the rebellion over the partnership with the Maroons.  Which is understandable, I guess, since he wasn’t there for most of the partnering.  But still, it’s not a good look for him.
• #TriumverateWatch:  Madi is the one to call men to Flint’s defense, and I’m DYINGGGG.  She thought Silver and then Billy was the one to trust, but Flint has proven that his values align with hers:  this actually is a revolution to free oppressed people, and she is here for it.
• Billy is not playing around when he fights Flint, even aiming a shot directly at his face.  I mentioned this above, but I LOVE watching Flint take down Billy the Giant.  And notably, he doesn’t kill Billy even though he could.
• Love the comparison between Anne and Vane who share a “mistrust of sentimentality” to Jack and Teach, who could sit and talk about symbols and memories for days.
• “He and I were somehow fated to matter to each other” is an absolutely LOVELY statement.
• Jack and Teach bonding over Vane’s memory is a far healthier grieving tactic than vengeance.  It’s fitting that, having let go of their anger for a moment, they are both able to see that killing Eleanor is the exact last thing Vane would have actually wanted.
• Max watching Eleanor be in love with someone else is a little bit heartbreaking.  I really like their relationship dynamic – I never get the feeling that they’ll wind up back together, but their past is layered into everything they do together.
• Then Max slips away to meet up with Silver, and their simultaneous familiarity and unfamiliarity is gorgeous to watch.  They’ve both grown so powerful since last they worked together.
• God, I wish Max would join the pirate revolution and be a voice of reason for them rather than for England.  She is SO great when she interrupts Silver’s intimidation tactics with a firm “no.”

Silver:  No?
Max:  I am tired of this.  This thing that perpetuates itself with anger and bluster and blood.  I do not want to be your friend.  What I want is for all of this to end.  For it to end, you must end.

• Why am I so enamored with Anne’s desire to stop the cycle of vengeance, but I can’t stand Max’s similar desire?  I think it’s because Anne wants peace by escaping from the chaos, while Max wants peace by getting rid of people.
• Silver and Hands make a formidable team, and Max flees from the massacre with a look of “oh shit, I just made it worse.”

Not done reliving the episode?  Listen to Daphne and Liz’s podcast at Fathoms Deep!

The invasion of Nassau meets with catastrophe.  Teach and Rackham seek revenge for the death of Charles Vane.  Eleanor adjusts to her new role.

(Summary provided by starz.com)

BEST FLINT MOMENT

Flint prepares for battle by ruminating on Scripture and the nature of man.  Reader, I LOVE HIM.

TODAY’S RUNNER UP

Anne!  She is the voice of reason in an increasingly emotional cast, standing up to both Teach and Jack when she thinks they’re acting irrationally.  She is just astoundingly grounded in this episode, confident in who she is and what she should do, and she seems flabbergasted that no one else is as evolved as she is.

LOL MOMENT

There are two excellent moments at the beginning of the episode before all hell breaks loose, and I refuse to choose just one.

Flint:  Here I sit at the head of an army of men, each of whom, present company included, has probably at some point considered killing the man he now fights alongside.  Each of whom, present company included, has certainly considered killing me.
Silver:  If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t considered killing you in months.
Flint:  A little bit.

AND the tiny moment after Jack goes on and on when Teach looks back at Anne and says, “It’s no wonder you don’t say much.”

WILL WE EVER LAUGH AGAIN??

WELL-FORMED THOUGHTS

If season three was about leadership and darkness, season four is about friendship and revenge.

Flint and Silver (and Madi) will be the main friendship pairing to watch this season, as already a lot happened that we didn’t see.  Post-coitus, Madi tries to remind Silver that he once feared being close to Flint, but Silver is unconcerned now, insisting things are different.  They are now secure in their friendship and the power they wield together, no matter Madi’s warning, “When a man first needs you and thereafter calls you a friend, a little suspicion is a healthy thing.”

Silver is presumed dead, but we must wait and see whether or not the “loss” of their friendship will compel Flint toward revenge, which is what we see literally everyone else doing.

Jack and Teach are making rash decisions (personally, for Jack, and communally, for Teach) to seek vengeance for Vane’s death.  Berringer commits treason to stay in Nassau and kill pirates to seek vengeance for the death of his comrades at arms.  It would seem that intimate relationships would equal a thirst for vengeance…were it not for Anne, who calls bullshit on the whole thing.

“Fuck Charles Vane.  I know how you felt about him.  I felt the same way, and you know it.  But he’s dead, and I can’t see what fucking sense it makes to keep trying to make him happy.  All it’s actually gonna lead to is you joining him.”

She sees past the cycle of vengeance, giving us a glimpse of a friendship that can end with grief but not violence.

FRAGMENTED THOUGHTS

• Flint quoting the Genesis passage about warring twins, the younger of which will defeat the older, seems to be about his hope of a new pirate nation conquering the English empire.  But he’s talking to Silver, and it’s hard not to remember Silver’s speech about successors from the season 3 finale.

Flint:  We’re so close.  So very close.  If we can just hold this alliance together just a little longer, if we can just will it forward just a little more…
Silver:  Nothing will ever be the same for anyone ever again.  You and I have willed our men through unthinkable things to get this far.  Why not one more?  To call Nassau home again.

• Silver saying, “our men” is ruining my heart.
• Silver has convinced Flint and, more importantly, himselfthat they share the same goal.  But when has Silver ever called Nassau home?
• #TriumverateWatch:  Madi doesn’t trust Flint despite Silver’s persuasion.
• Jack understands the power of speeches:  “We are emotional beings, after all, and rhetoric is the fuel that feeds the fire.”
• Flint has A+ instincts, but the glorious assault ends before it can begin.  I seriously hate England being smart, but I love Flint being smarter.  When he orders the sails moved so that the ship can tilt at just the right angle to fire at the fort, providing enough cover for some of them to escape??  SO GOOD.
• #TriumverateWatch:  It is no coincidence that when Silver falls in the water, we cut between Madi and Flint’s horrified faces and helpless reactions.

Eleanor:  The world is changing so rapidly and we with it.
Max:  We are who we are.  Nothing so important changes so quickly.

• Eleanor is moving up in the world now that she’s married to Woodes Rogers, but “moving up” means that she’s hidden from battle, embroidering.  When she reunites with Rogers, I got the feeling that the underwater barricade was her idea, but she is willing to give up her power and status in order to boost Rogers’.  It is VERY disheartening, but she says “fuck” a couple times, so I know her ferocity is still in there somewhere.

Flint:  Here I must be careful.  I have well over two hundred men unaccounted for.  Those who remain, it will be very hard to explain to them why, with all I have to attend to, I choose to stand here hanging onto the fate of just one of them.  I know that you and he had been working closely together of late, become friends even.  I don’t know what I’m trying to say.  Perhaps just that he is my friend, too.

• #TriumverateWatch:  Flint and Madi bond, both over their love for Silver and, more importantly, over their shared understanding of the heavy crowns they wear that prevent them from mourning the man they love in the way they would prefer.
• The RAGE with which Flint greets Billy is 100% more vicious because he thinks Silver is dead.
• Billy has spent his time on New Providence Island perfecting a wardrobe that shows off his arms to best effect.
• Now that Billy must wrestle with the fact that the pirate king he created to supplant Flint is seemingly dead, we flashback to Silver learning of his new role, worrying how it will affect his relationship with Flint.
• Despite that, Silver is VERY turned on by Madi calling him a pirate king.

Anne:  It ain’t fear to want to do a hard thing smart.

• Even though we later find out Jack’s motivation, in the moment of his fighting and looking to Teach for guidance/approval, it definitely feels like he’s just discovered a male role model and realized that men can be good fighters too.
• A small hope:  no one in Nassau is willing to help England any more.
• Rogers understands that this is a war against civilization itself.  He will later insist that civilization is courts and fair trials, but right now, civilization is a ruthless monster who, when its power is threatened, will abandon all morals and values.  Rogers won’t directly approve of Berringer cutting off DeGroot’s ear (RIP DeGroot’s ear), but he’s definitely not stopping it.  THE TWO WORST SIDES OF CIVILIZATION, I see you, overwhelming force and silent complicity.
• Flint seems perturbed by Billy going dark and hanging traitors, and honestly, if you make FLINT uncomfortable?  Yikes.
• Miranda’s house is a war room, and my heart is soooooo sad.
• Flint started his journey hoping for domesticity for all where shovels replace oars.  As he picks up a shattered teacup, you can see him wondering if he has destroyed the thing he sought in a vain effort to attain it.
• Max is both pissed and scared when she realizes that the English are just as ruthless as the pirates.  I would feel bad except I’m still mad that she sided with them in the first place.  (I GET IT, but I’m still mad.)
• In Silver’s absence, Billy is making a play for power.  Madi is having none of his pissing contest with Flint, insisting that there will be no pirate king (without Silver).
• Flint is not power hungry.  He doesn’t care about power in its own right.  But he IS control hungry.  He doesn’t trust anyone else to accomplish his goal.

Anne:  I came here cause we all agreed we had a chance to take Nassau back, have a place of our own.  I ain’t here to prove anything!  I ain’t here to figure out who I am.  And I sure as shit ain’t here to pretend a dead man might think better of me for it.

• Anne is on another level from literally every other character.  Flint almost matches her in those first two assertions, but he is DEFINITELY trying to get a dead man’s approval.  Anne is the queen, all hail the queen.  Speaking of queens, maybe Madi matches her?  No, even if it’s healthy, Madi is trying to prove she can be the leader her people need.
• IN VERY MUCH CONTRAST:

Eleanor:  I did all of it, contorted myself into the role, mutilated myself so that it would fit because I believed as long as you believed I was your partner, it didn’t matter what anyone else believed.

• Um, Eleanor?  I’m worried about you.
• “You are not a compromise to me.”  UGH, please stop making me like Eleanor/Rogers.  I DON’T WANT TO.
• Poor Silver.  He escapes the ladder and finds air in the ship.  Then the ship sinks and he has to struggle to find another pocket of air.  Then he crawls onto shore only to find someone rummaging through the bodies to kill any survivors!  A literal nightmare.

Not done reliving the episode?  Listen to Daphne and Liz’s podcast at Fathoms Deep!

Rogers and his forces come for the pirates.  Rackham and Bonny face impossible odds.  Silver demands answers from Flint.  Billy crowns a king.

(Summary provided by starz.com)

BEST FLINT MOMENT

Flint stares down a charging horse, kneels, reloads his gun, and shoots Hornigold dead.  This is just so perfectly symbolic of how unstoppable he is despite the odds being staked against him.

TODAY’S RUNNER UP

Anne!  It is so satisfying to see her being her best piratey self, swimming with the vanguard to board an enemy ship.  And SHE’S the one to call out the order for one English ship to fire on the others.

LOL MOMENT

Cannonfire hits Teach’s ship, who stands at the bow unmoved.  Jack, meanwhile, ducks beside him, then quickly stands and glances at Teach to see if he noticed.  I adore the big dog/little dog relationship these two have.

WELL-FORMED THOUGHTS

Season three spent a lot of time showing us varying styles of leadership as we watched Silver struggle with his newfound authority.  We’ve seen him learn from both Flint and Madi, and in this episode, it seems clear that he has tried to carve out a path that incorporates the best of both of them.  Essentially, if Flint is feared and Madi is liked, Silver believes (based on his interactions with Dobbs) that he is both feared and liked.  Put this way, I almost believe that his leadership style is the most effective.

But there is another angle worth exploring.  In his conversation with Flint, Silver explicitly states what emotions he and Flint inspire in the men, and I will add my own thoughts about Madi.  Flint inspires resentment in his crew, likely because he withholds his intentions and affections.  Silver inspires shame in his men, explicitly because they’re desperate to please him.  Madi, I believe, inspires loyalty in her people, because they trust her family’s ruling ability.  In this light, Madi’s leadership style clearly seems the best option.  We’ve seen Flint lose and regain his position multiple times because of an ongoing cycle of silence and resentment.  The shame that Silver inspires immediately sounds like civilization’s ploy of offering comfort with the threat of punishment looming overhead.  Madi is the only one that seems even remotely healthy.

In summation, everyone should be like Madi.  Obviously.

FRAGMENTED THOUGHTS

• Flint/Silver/Jack is a great trio that I wish we could have more of.

“You [Silver] they trust above any of us not to betray for money.  The irony wasn’t lost on either of us.”

• Literally every line between Flint and Silver during these late night flashbacks deserves to be over-analyzed, but I’ll try to just pick and choose a few of the highlights.
• Silver is having second thoughts as he thinks about the blood that’s about to be spilt.  Flint sincerely but kind of carelessly says that he just wishes it weren’t necessary.  This seems to me another example of Flint’s enormous experience with making life or death decisions, which just highlights Silver being new to the role.  Or looked at another way, Flint is so focused on the big picture that he doesn’t see individual lives lost, while Silver can.
• Indeed, Hornigold says much the same thing to the English officer who asks, “Am I to believe he sacrificed over fifty of his men, led them into a massacre deliberately, just to entice us to chase him?”  “He’s quite capable of what you suggest and more.”
• In another man, these decisions would seem reckless or evil, but Flint’s redeeming quality is that he never puts someone in danger without being in similar danger himself.
• The partnership between Eleanor and Max is breaking down after the events of the last episode.  Max doesn’t want to make enemies if she doesn’t have to, but Eleanor is buying into England’s belief that making concessions equals weakness.

“You have enemies here.  Let them be my enemies as well.”

• Okay, FINE, that was actually a really romantic scene between Eleanor and Woodes Rogers.  He supports her, and I’m really glad she has that.
• Jack is super smart for identifying the pirate fleet.  Teach tells both him and Anne that Charles is dead.  Teach joins the cause, saying, “The governor in Nassau hung him in the square.  On the island I helped build, he thought he could do that and face no consequences.  He failed to account for me.”  *shivers*  I love badass Teach!  Not that there’s actually any other kind.
• FLINT TELLS SILVER ABOUT THOMAS!!!  My heart explodes from pride at my good boy being vulnerable and my other good boy listening and empathizing and there being no shame between the two of them!!!

Flint:  So you see yourself as a potential fourth member of this class, concerned that your association with me will lead to your end.
Silver:  My association with you began out of necessity, but I’ve come to find a great deal of respect for you.  Perhaps even friendship.  Which is why I find myself unnerved by the thought that when this pattern applies itself to you and I that I will be the end of you.
Flint:  Is that so?
Silver:  Well, the three who preceded me all had one thing in common: they were vulnerable to you.  Had more to lose than you, less means with which to protect themselves than you.  Until recently, I thought that was me as well, but now I don’t know that it is anymore.
Flint:  It is natural for men new to power to assume that it has no limits.  Trust me.  It does.

• God, I could watch entire seasons of these two talking to each other and engaging in sexy sexy power struggles.
• The whole “is Dobbs betraying them or not” thing is done Very Well.

Teach:  You can count the things that Flint and I agree upon on one hand.  But among them is the sincere confusion as to why Charles invested any time and energy in you.  I suppose Flint’s come to see that there might be some capacity in you after all.
Jack:  And?
Teach:  And what?
Jack:  “And” as in it sounded as if there was more to that thought.  That you might see yourself agreeing with him again about my capacity.  There wasn’t any more to that thought, was there?

• Jack’s fanboy adoration of Teach is SO CUTE.
• And then we get his amazing, “To be underestimated is an incredible gift.”  What a perfect pirate position, to use England’s prejudice against her.  AND Jack gets the added bonus of acknowledging that Teach underestimates him, but that perhaps he shouldn’t.
• Madi wants to be fighting beside her people, and when she appears next to Silver, he silently hands her a musket.  No trying to protect her bullshit, just respect for her decision and confidence in her ability.
• Similarly, Jack wishes Anne well as she leaves to take over an English ship.  He knows she’s awesome, and his smile when she successfully uses one ship to attack another!!  He loves his badass partner!

“See you on the other side.”
“Always.”

• Every time Silver talks about being liked and feared, I cannot help but think of Michael Scott’s “Would I rather be feared or loved?  Umm…easy, both.  I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.”
• Honestly, this whole conversation is Shark Date 2.0 in which Silver is desperate for Flint to take him seriously (much like Jack/Teach).
• Anne defeats the English ships!!  Flint defeats the English soldiers!!  It’s all so amazing and well planned and I looooove it.
• Flint kills Hornigold, and no one feels bad about it.
• “Tell your governor – you tell him I’m coming!”  Me: AHHHHH.

“In terms of our future and the danger that you believe you may pose to me, bear this in mind.  I have survived starvation, a tempest, pirate hunters, jealous captains, mutinous crews, angry lords, a queen, a king, and the goddamn British navy.  So to whatever extent you may be concerned that some day we will clash, worried that though today we be friends, some day you will have no choice but to be my end, I wouldn’t worry too much.”

• Me, again:  AHHHHH.
• I know that Luke Arnold claimed this scene was two friends sincerely concerned for each other, but in context, the whole thing reads as rather sinister.
• Billy creates the legend of Long John Silver because he doesn’t want to hand any more power to Flint.  Interestingly, he seems to think the problem is Flint himself, when we have seen throughout this season that the problem is in the power itself, and how it forces men and women to make terrible decisions.
• My bias is showing, but I can’t stop thinking that Silver’s legend is being built for him, whereas James fought to create his Flint persona all on his own.

“I was no one, and then you came, and my island fell, and I became something else.  On the night I confiscated the pardon rolls, the night I started becoming, I made clear my position that there would be two sorts of men on the island going forward: those like Captain Vane, determined to stand by their oath to the very end.  And those like Captain Throckmorton, happy to be the first to betray it.  Captain Throckmorton’s black spot will not be the last.  Ignore it, and join him.  Heed it, and reclaim your place amongst us.  Until then, I remain Long John Silver.”

• THAT ROUND TABLE, with Flint, Silver, Teach, Jack, Anne, Madi, and the Queen standing together!!!  Me, again and always:  AHHHHH.
• And that’s the end of season three!  We started with the lonely Walrus crew trying to survive against the elements and ended with a united pirate alliance with former slaves, determined to defeat the British empire.  THIS SHOW IS SO GOOD.

Not done reliving the episode?  Listen to Daphne and Liz’s podcast at Fathoms Deep!