Black Sails XXXI: Tragedy, Oracles, and Adventures in Foreshadowing

[gwydion]

* In retrospect the opening shot was foreshadowing. Doh! The little square locket is a bookend, opening and closing the episode.

* This is the first time I looked at Christopher Larkin in this show and saw Maggie Smith in his face, I think because of the acting in this scene, which was really good and intimate in a way his other scenes haven't been. Seriously, his face acting is so good in this scene, the subtle changes of expression, the depth, the nuance and the use of ambiguity in key spots. Does the first part of the exchange suggest he's hiding plans for what happens after Woodes Rogers leaves from him, or am I reading to much into it? First time through I took it to mean the dead women from his backstory, but now I'm not so sure. Timeline wise, he doesn't yet know what specific thing he will use against Max, but I'm sure he was intending to find something on Max he could use against her, or failing that manufacture something. Hence the watch. Was he also planning to disrupt Eleanor's Philadelphia trip or was that simply him giving no fucks about the big picture under his sexist belief that women have nothing useful to contribute politically or militarily. (Berringer is so incredibly easy to hate). Speaking of his chauvinism, is Berringer's relentless misogyny and increased influence and contact with Woodes since the mutiny a contributing factor to Woodes Rogers reverting to the patriarchal attitudes he was brought up with in his dealings with Eleanor? Oh look, they are protecting Eleanor from information she actually needs. Charming. Not. No really, guys, she does need to know what lies ahead?

In the one moment Berringer is actually right about something all episode, he accurately predicts how Woodes Rogers' day will go. "I have found that contemplating these things is the most difficult part, but when the dread moment arrives, your true nature will assert itself. The confusion will lift, and will appear as it should be." In the event, the whole thing turns out rather less comforting than it was likely intended. It is like a Delphic oracle which has a dark reading and a light one. "There isn't a good man among them, not any more. Some of them may have been before all this. Some of them may be again on the other side of it, but, by now good men are not what the moment requires. Right now, the time calls for dark men to do dark things." Notice that Woodes Roger's is among them, a fact emphasized by the voice over including shots of Woodes Rogers moving among his men aboard ship. Of course Woodes isn't the only dark man doing dark deeds today. Berringer likely is including himself her, but not realizing how many other people his prophecy is about to fit. I do mean prophecy, and the heavily shadowed faces half seen by torchlight visually reinforces this impression.

* There is a hint of the classical Greek tragedy about Berringer this episode. Not just prophecy that cuts more than one way, but Berringer's hubris being his downfall, and his refusal to listen to the prophesies and warnings he is given along the way.

* Mrs. Hudson's plans like those of mice and men....

* So the Berringer being in charge thing wasted no time in biting them in the ass. Berringer has now arrested the current avatar of the ideal of Civilization (one neither empire nor pirates ever much lives up to outside of Thomas Hamilton) in Nassau. *facepalms* Seriously, she's the only one left trying to deescalated things and minimize deaths. Notice Berringer ignores plenty of good advice from both Max and Eleanor this whole episode, which is completely in character and fits what I said earlier.

* I really am convinced Berringer would have found an excuse to arrest Max one way or another, as he clearly has been determined to make best use of Woodes Roger's being away. He needs her dead before Woodes Rogers comes back because Rogers might see reason. Can't have that, and there was no telling how long or short the governor's journey was likely to be, though in the event is turning out way shorter than planned. I think this charge and this day was sheer luck, though I think it may prove more good luck than bad for her. Having been arrested for treasonous collaboration could help her with the pirates. It could go the other way of course what with the attempt to arrest Silver and the giving away the route. We'll see which way it falls out in the long term.

* Madi pays her debts. Props to her for standing by Flint after Flint stood by her at great cost. Note, she is the one still thinking with her head when the men spent the last two episodes taking turns emoting instead of thinking. Her argument for holding the alliance is rational. I like that Flint is not pretending to be more noble than he is. When she thanks him he makes sure she knows his practical considerations. He's talking to Madi much the way he talks to Silver, his tone and body language and content reminding me very much of Season two and particularly three. He used to talk to Billy this way when he was training him back in one on occasion, if I remember correctly. He's explaining his thinking to another member of command staff who he considers reasonably on his side, in a was he never does with crew. This is his in private face, isn't it? (I need to go back and compare Eleanor, Miranda, Gates, and Thomas, to see if it carries over and to which and in what circumstance. I could swear I've seen him do it with Thomas when they discussed strategy, but I'd need to rewatch the scene to be sure.) In any case there is something a little sweet about him trying to bond with her the way he did with Silver, them both thinking him dead. He is always a little vulnerable in these moments, showing some of his real self even though there are practical and political reasons for him doing it. just because he has more than one reason for doing it, doesn't mean he isn't lonely and this seems like the only way he knows to reach out.

* "Well that's the trick, isn't it? If no one remembers the 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. It isn't. They know that. It'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 then England is not inevitable. If we are able to incite a revolt that spreads across the New World, then yeah, I imagine people are going to notice." How those in power have always worked to keep people from fighting back when they are oppressed and colonized, and Flint's grand vision. Can we pause to note how incredibly far this is for where he started, vision wise? Her response is lovely, "Too much sanity may be madness, and the maddest of all to see life as it is and not as it should be." I think he may be getting into her head against her better judgement much as he did with Silver.

* The first bit of the Blackbeard and Rackham nautical bits suggested to me at the time that Rogers is doing a slightly baffling thing, and thus it's a trick, though at the time i assumed it was on the fly like a lot of Flint's tricks are. I am now completely convinced that this is the plan they were hiding from Eleanor in the first scene.

* The Blackbeard and Rackham version of the Flint and Bones first season conversation about never letting them see you are unsure, is characteristically so much sorter and funnier.

Blackbeard: You ever Captain a ship this size before?
Jack Rackham: God no. *scoffs*
Blackbeard: *Hairy eyeball* Have you Captained a ship this size before?
Jack Rackham: Sure.
Blackbeard: Good

* Observant, laconic Anne: "You always want to stand next to giants, and there you are, and I'm wondering how it is you and I are ever gonna move on from this." And Jack turns all starry eyed and gushes, "He's brilliant, you know. I find him highly underestimated on that score, perhaps owing to his physical strength. People finding it hard to accept one man can be two things, but I've seen it. He's brilliant. And last night all he wanted is revenge and all that would satisfy it is Eleanor Guthrie's head on a plate, and in a moment in which he had no appetite to be persuaded otherwise, I persuaded him otherwise. If the story of the pirate Jack Rackham is to end with him standing along side Blackbeard as an equal together defeating the Governor who hanged Charles Vane and in so doing restoring pirate rule over Nassau. That is an ending I can live with."

I could almost see a thought bubble over Anne's head as Jack fanpoodled about yet another famous butch Daddy pirate he has a crush on, saying 'Fuck, Jack, not again!' He seems not even to be hearing her, so busy gazing star struck at his hero/father figure, but in the end, it turned out he did listen. She's fondly exasperated by it all, despite her serious concerns about how it's going to end. "Defeat Rogers. Then we walk away." This also really is a heads up for how badly wrong their day was about to go. I also think it's set up for what will happen to Jack.

* Madi, being unknown, can sneak into Nassau for intelligence and gets the crucial news that Silver lives, thus changing everything both personally and tactically.

* Yet again, it's a woman being rational in the face of male emoting this episode. This is a beautiful little Idelle moment. It displays her knowledge of Max's character, a calm head in a crisis, and loyalty. She's the one trying to get Featherstone to use contacts to save Max while he's all for panicky flight that would have them hunted by Berringer's forces because it would be taken as the act of a guilty conscience.

* Ms. Kennedy's face acting is very good in this episode generally, stoic when her interrogators are looking, silently expressive when they can't see her. I do adore Max. There is something about her dignified, stubborn but calm, response to this treatment; her attempt to reason while knowing full well that Berringer is not amenable to it, but that one has to try; that is perfection.

* The little Silver and Hands scene reminded me of very early Silver and Flint dynamic during the whole schedule kerfluffle. Silver: "Do I need to run?" Hands: "That'd be fun for me to see." Later, "When I did it... drove the governor away, I had Teach and an army of my once-brothers at my back." Both are definitely in keeping with the people in this episode unwittingly predicting the future and not in the way they think they mean it. Silver just pulled a Flint on Hands, didn't he? I keep thinking of Silver accusing Flint of bending reality to fit his narrative during the Sargasso Sea becalming. Here's Silver, who looked from Hands' perspective to be insane or merely a bizarrely confident liar somehow bends the world to fit his claims. Which doesn't preclude the lying, I'll point out. I still think that was Jack's story, not Flint's he used to seduce Hands into unchaining him last episode.

* Jack really is a Jack, in the sense of the archetypal trickster fairy tale hero. He just accepts that a combination of luck, his tongue, and tricks will save him, because it keeps happening this way. he needed a lat minute save from certain death and an army to take Nassau with? Of course one shows up.

* Yep, it was a trap. And no last minute counter trick as I was rather hoping.

* Berringer characteristically paternalistic as he ignores Eleanor's advice.

* I liked that both Eleanor and Max made sense from their perspective in their scene, and that Eleanor's anger was clearly the sort one has when one is scared for the other person. So much has healed there. Max's answer had to have been a hard one for Eleanor to respond to given she had done the hanging. "Because the last time the law got its hands on a pirate of that stature, it yielded the following... anger, hostility, resentment, purges to combat it all that only resulted in amplifying it all, and a resistance movement that, since Captain Vane was hanged, has done nothing but grow strong enough to control almost every part of this island outside of Nassau. And you ask why I chose not to help start the cycle all over again?" Note Max argued against that hanging to, for the same exact reason to Eleanor herself last season. Not surprisingly, Eleanor drops that part of the argument and starts pressuring her to give Berringer something that might save her. Another oracle, "You think you can control him. And by the time you realize he has been controlling you, it is going to be too late."

* Berringer, because of hubris, of course ignores Eleanor's good advice yet again in the next scene, thus setting himself up for his own downfall. He even pretty much dares the gods to smite him, or at least for someone to shoot him. "Here. I am unarmed. No one will stand in your way. If the time isn't now, when the fuck is it going to be?! None of you?! No one at all?! You fucking cowards." I admit to rather wishing longbow assassins hadn't gone out of style, as early 18th century muskets are useless at range. Seriously, this is very much a Greek tragedy sort of trope.

* The Flint and Silver dynamic is back in force and oh how I missed it. I think it is interesting that Flint is assuming Billy would act as he would do, to prepare for war against the now enemy Flint. he has underestimated Billy, most like. The exchange about Isreal Hands reinforces my impression that Silver and Hands were an image of first season Silver and Flint done in miniature, maybe to remind us where they started and how they got here. Which I suspect is set up for the inevitable coming break between them that will tear my heart in two, but which I've expected all along, having first been read Treasure Island as a toddler.

* Madi's contact in Nassau and Idelle's little set up pay off and explains how things fell out in the denouement. Here, have two short connector scenes that help sell the big ending so we aren't wondering 'And where did they come from again?'

* Eleanor the episode's Casandra gives Berringer a third and final ignored bit of good advice.

* So Woodes Rogers was a pirate before and now has simply reverted. It's nice to know what the occasional season three side eye from his own side was about last season. They each had a Thomas, Flint and Woodes, but the relationship and deaths were entirely different, but I sense a similarity beyond the name. "He'd always been smarter than me. Braver. Better. Protected me when we were young. Taught me to sail when we were older. He was my closest friend. Lost to a cheap and cowardly shot." For Flint Thomas always was better. A different kind of brave, a different kind of smart, and the sailing metaphorical and political, but it does make me want to reexamine the scene in which Woodes Rogers confronts Flint with Thomas Hamilton. I still think this isn't the whole story on the brother. Woodes seemed to have more guilt about his brother than this version of the story explains, and we know he spins his stories every bit as much as Silver does.

* When the pirates are all looking at you like you are a disgusting monster in response to your brutality and your own men start to look ashamed and uncomfortable, maybe it is time to reconsider your life choices. Which he does. Berringer's prediction in the first scene comes true during his torture and execution of Blackbeard. "When the dread moment arrives, your true nature will assert itself. The confusion will lift, and will appear as it should be." I think what was revealed to him was more complicated than a simple matter of morality. He was confronted with his own monsterousness, but also the emptiness of the path he'd been pursuing. This isn't really what he wants anymore. He is not a good man. He has done dark deeds. I suspect he knows better than to think taking surrendered captives back to Nassau for kangaroo trials and hanging is redemption, because it's not, and he's a little too self aware in this moment to buy into the smug certainties of a minute ago. Something in the set of his mouth suggets that he is disgusted with himself the way Flint generally is in these moments and that he has the same capacity for self loathing. His cruelty wasn't righteous, it was pleasure in hurting

* Eleanor's face when she realizes what Berringer has done is priceless, and her practical measures and fast thinking to save herself and a few key others are very old school Eleanor.

* It is satisfying to have the gang back together again, even though it's likely to be incredibly brief.

* Meaningful Flint and Bones eye contact across the battlefield. A conversation in seconds.

* Hands cuts the cord again symbolically. will it work out better or worse for him than last time?

* I always wonder if these moments are as odd for actors as they strike me watching them. Is it weird for Tony Stephens to watch his his older brother have his throat slit, at least on the first take? (I also wondered this about that time Ben Affleck directed his brother in a sex scene, because I'm pretty sure I'd feel weird about doing that with my sister.) I know, I know. They are all professionals, and it's pretendy fun times, but I always wonder at times like these.



*****
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