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Mar. 14th, 2017 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwydion* "Dutch election: PM warns against populism in TV debate with Wilders:" http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39258957
* "Dutch see Trump as cautionary election lesson amid Wilders ascent:"
* "Attorney with Trump investigations in purview part of mass firing:"
* "New Health Care Bill: Find Out Where Your Member Of Congress Stands:" http://www.npr.org/2017/03/10/519629973/new-health-care-bill-find-out-where-your-member-of-congress-stands?utm_source=tumblr.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170311
* "Stephen Reaches Out To President Obama Via Microwave:"
* Black Sails XXXV: The Ghost of Charles Vane and Mirrored Mourning
* We open on the Queen grieving her daughter. Silver gives Madi an excellent premature epitaph. "She was curious and strong, not made to be hidden away from the world. She was able to see it before she died and she was fighting for something she believed in when she died.
* The various resistance leaders are debating what next while Flint catches us up and then inquires how The Queen and Silver are doing, using his private tone. Silver's answer for the Queen is "She's breathing." his answer for himself is a telling look. I feel you Silver. I will talk about my dead, but I hate answering the how are you question over and over when I'm grieving. The fuck is one supposed to say in answer. I like that it's just a look. Then he steps into the debate, switching seamlessly to his captain Flint leader tone. It's a beautiful little thing, the switch from private to public. Flint builds a grandiose plan. Julius echoes Miranda, "You're all fools if you think this road leads to where he says it does." She gave a warning in almost the same words 9without the fools) way back when. I think this means we should listen to Julius and this is the beginning of the end. Julius then predicts Woodes Rogers' plan to destroy the Pirate/ex-Slave alliance, and points out valid concerns about the different way they will be treated when it goes pear shaped.
Julius: What happens when our enemy realizes that all it needs to do to defeat us is to take away that common cause? Turn one against the other. And when that happens as it is all but certain to do which of us standing here are likely to be the ones who benefit and which the ones sold back into their chains?
Silver: Then what the fuck are you doing here?
Julius: I saved your men's lives and yours from the fight you started but could not finish, and now you would start another that no man can hope to finish?
Silver: Then leave. But what's happening here is going to happen. This war is going to begin. This camp is going to fight it, with or without you.
Julius: They may call you a king, but only in the kingdom that is no more. We're all free men here, and I wish to stay that way.
Queen: As do we all.
* I think Anne is softening slightly on Max. I think her observation about Max not being back down to see her suggest maybe she was hoping or expecting er too on some level, but we'll see. Still, the next bit also sounds like she's not ready to forgive, but she might.
Anne: Part of me wanted to lash out. Betrayed you. Betrayed me. Refuses to make it right.
Jack: Mm-hm. And the other part?
Anne: The other part knew how easy it would've been for her to lie. Say she was sorry when she ain't. I don't know what the fuck to think.
So my long held hope that they might still sail off and out of history together is not yet dead, though far from certain. You know what else I find interesting here? Anne is talking about her feelings, something she'd not have done in season one, or at least not at this length or this level of self knowledge and introspection, and Jack is mostly just listening. I don't think he has her mood right as "You'll have plenty of time to murder her another day" suggest, but he's trying. He's encouraging her to talk instead of her listening while he Jack babbles at her. Its not perfect, but he has made progress on being a better partner for her. This small interaction shows progress for them both, I think.
* Back to Woodes Rogers and Mrs. Hudson. She's still working her angles; he calls her on her lies. How much tragedy resulted from the entirely unnecessary capture of Jack Rackham? I am looking at the dominoes. Max betraying Anne. The rescue that lead to the death of Vane, Billy's guerilla war, Rogers' reign of terror.... I have so many damned questions now. Why did this happen exactly? The agent seems to have added it to the demands to make Mrs. Hudson safer, or so it sounded. I'm clearly missing the logic of it. In any case, it is so much bigger and worse than I thought, and I think I'll be watching her scenes closely when I go back for the four season rewatch when this is over. Woodes Rogers' growing paranoia makes sense, given he doesn't know where it came from or why. They are interrupted with a man come to tell him that Eleanor was pregnant. Mrs. Hudson insists, "You don't want to hear what he's about to tell you. Not like this. You don't want to hear about it this way." They cleverly leave the telling behind the cut.
* Instead we get the comic relief of Jack complaining about taxes. Featherstone, "- And we're the thieves." Jack "- Not very good ones, apparently." The relief in tension was needed. I like that they don't forget that it's a Northern winter and they are all wearing tropical weight clothing. The women are wrapped in blankets and Jack is freezing his balls off (as he points out) in that grubby linen outfit. Jack's imitation of Max is flat out hilarious. "The last thing I need to overhear when Mr.Guthrie rejects our proposal is, uh [imitating Max] Uh, Monsieur Constable, what sort of reward might one expect for aiding in 'zhe' capture of a notorious pirate captain, such as, say, oh, Jack Rackham? Really? 'Zhat' much? Huh. Well, what do you know? 'Zhere' he is." Jack is still understandably furious, for all he let her on board. Featherstone sticks up for Max, which is nice, pointing out she doesn't cross people who didn't cross her first. (I couldn't remember Jack crossing Max first, but it was pointed out him telling Anne to run with money after he was captured might look like betrayal to Max). Jack orders a surgeon, then point out, "It's somehow only just occurred to me how ruined we'll be if I fail to win the man on the other side of that door to our cause. No home. No cache. Anne on death's door. A ship that can barely sail. But worst of all, he'll have won. Woodes Rogers will sit in Nassau and grow old knowing that he was measured against us and proven the better man." Ouch, and also why Jack is going to make a really bad decision in a bit.
* The Queen and Julius debate what the ex-slave community should do in the face of this war. Julius sounds like Miranda again, the realist to the Queen's idealist. Fuck! The Queen is Thomas in this scenario, isn't she. Another warning that the end is coming. I think that makes Silver this scenario's Flint.
Julius: I have fought alongside these men, but I did it so that I might find security. But what they are now arguing for does not sound like security to me.
The Queen: There is no lasting security to be had here. We'll fight to change that.
Julius: Nothing is lasting, but months, years, that is meaningful and it can be had here. You now have the resources to have it here. There is a treasure in the ground here. It'd purchase whatever is needed to survive.
The Queen:No one has ever been this close, this near a chance to change the world.
Julius: No one changes the world. Not like this. Not all at once. The world is too strong for that.
* Silver grieves like me, I think. I hate being asked over and over. I talk when I'm ready. Silver sounds so much like Flint here. "From the moment he started speaking, I couldn't stop thinking about her. She died for this. She believed in this, and if it all goes away, then it was all for nothing. I can't let this be for nothing. I just can't. It has to mean something." Like Flint he's trying to carry forward the vision of a lover believed to be dead. He's is talking to Flint about Madi the way Flint talks about Thomas. (Madi not being dead + the plantation for wayward nobles hints at hope for Thomas, but I'm not holding my breath for happy endings). We get a little extra something from Flint to drive the parallel home in case we've missed it. "When I was drowning over Miranda you helped me find my way out. Look at me.
I will do the same for you. I give you my word, but in order to do that, you have to trust my judgment for a little while while yours is reeling." He's trying to be Silver for Silver, though of course in both cases there is a manipulative aspect to it.
* The fangirl incident is tragic in it's way. Jack went back to Nassau to be captured because he valued his name, and that started the chain of events that killed Charles Vane, something he has expressed huge guilt for before. Here a fan guesses he's a pirate of Nassau, probably because of his light weight clothes. She asks him about "the Giants:" Edward Teach first, Jack Rackham second. He is clearly flattered to be a giant, famous enough to come second after Blackbeard, but he doesn't own the name (because of his disguise, one assumes, but there is a touch of irony there. If he'd been willing to deny his name a season and a half ago, Charles likely would still be alive), and even starts to brag a little, but she interrupts the start of his story to ask about Charles Vane, and his face does this thing, profound and complex. I know I go on and on about the face acting, but seriously, his face in this scene is so good. There is a hint of self mocking, because of course she'd rather hear about Vane, the pirate's pirate. The grief and regret clearly stab him sharp and sudden, the way it does when a little time has passed, but the grief is still there under the surface. He gathers himself and tells her true things, his own epitaph for Charles in it's way, and I think a farewell, as he is shrugging off Charles ghost at last by the end of the episode. I think he needed to talk to let it go.
Jack Rackham: Charles Vane was my closest friend in the world.
Fan: Tell me everything about him.
Jack: He was the bravest man I ever knew. Not without fear, just unwilling to let it diminish him, and loyal to a fault. And in a world where honesty is so regularly and casually disregarded.
Fan: I heard he cut off a man's head and left it as a marker in the sand to anyone who would cross him.
Jack: It was a little more complicated than that.
Fan: I heard... he sometimes butchered his enemies for amusement, made stew of their flesh. He was truly an animal.
Jack: Stew? For what possible.... I'm... I beg your pardon, but do you believe this?
Fan: I read it in a newspaper.
Servant: Mr. Guthrie will see you now.
Jack: Charles Vane was a good man. What I told you was the truth. Put down the newspapers and read a book.
Fan: Truth isn't nearly as interesting.
I suspected correctly the old lady doing embroidery was Eleanor's grandmother and I love her snort here in response to the silliness. It's a good introduction. She sits unobtrusively listening under cover of her embroidery, and has strong opinions about what she hears. She is already forming her opinion of Jack, guessing correctly why he'd risk coming, and likely adjusting plans in her head.
Of course the Grandfather blows him off. He's put huge effort into a respectable facade. Jack Rackham decides to declare his name in hopes of private audience after all. Of course it does no good and the news of Eleanor's betrayal and murder by Woodes Rogers and Jack's revenge plot are all greeted with a grim rejection. He was doing it all wrong, of course, and I kept thinking of Thomas and James McGraw trying to sell their plan for Nassau to Lord Hamilton. Both done exactly wrong in the wrong political context by comparative youths not nearly formally enough dressed. *wince* Eleanor's approach was intended to play up to respectability. Jack's is the opposite. *facepalm* He is not the politician she was. He feels things too strongly and is too angry in the face of their indifference for the death of someone he respected and who "closest friend in the world" once loved. of course Woodes Rogers tortured Jack and I think that's fueling the hate on. Does Jack know Eleanor killed Charles and not Woodes Rogers? They were keeping the fact that Woodes Rogers was incoherent secret, and Eleanor was pretending the orders were coming from him instead of her. I am wondering if she took the secret to her grave. It would explain the bits of Jack's reaction that don't quite fit otherwise.
All hope is not lost, of course, because the old woman was who I suspected she was, and it turns out she is whom Eleanor got at least some of it from. (The theatrical rages and stubbornness sound like Grandfather Guthrie, so clearly she comes by those honestly too).
* We cut back to Woodes Rogers mourning all over again now that he knows. He and Mrs. Hudson start out back lit, but also each captured in their individual beams of light. The room is so still and quiet. This too is much more my way of mourning than the screaming and raging so typical of mourning one sees in visual media. This is less overtly dramatic, but very real and thus so powerful. I hate Woodes Rogers, but the obvious pain on his face and his stillness draw one in. This is really well done. It also reminds me of Jack in the hold with the gold mourning Charles Vane at the end of last season, and I think that's deliberate too. The correspondences between characters are coming fast and hard as the circle closes tighter and tighter and the final tragedies loom on the horizon. Mrs. Hudson I still pleading Eleanor' case, and I think trying to manipulate Woodes Rogers so she might save herself. They make Eleanor look very dead here, which I appreciate, the way I appreciated it last episode. There is a tendency to prettify death and in visual media, that makes it equivocal in a way it just isn't most times in real life.
* Woodes Rogers' mourning is interrupted by the news Billy has turned himself in and wants to speak to him. It makes sense both in the Watsonian sense (where else would Billy Bones go at this point for a chance at getting back at his betrayers) and in the Doylist sense (Billy has to be separate from Flint given what we know will happen to poor Ben Gunn from reading Treasure Island. I can not see this Billy allowing that if he knew).
* Grandmother Guthrie explains exactly how Jack fucked up. He pitches to her, cleverly picking up clues from what she said to figure out she's working the illicit side of the Guthrie business interests. She's subtler and better at covert than Eleanor ever was and uses femininity like armour the way Miranda did and Max does. I suspect that consciously or subconsciously she reminds him of an older Max, hence him bringing Max to the next meeting. Oh, his stated reasons are solid ("Because our plan is ludicrous by any sane measure, and my suspicion is if she's going to say yes, it's going to be for emotional reasons rather than financial ones. She would look across the table and see a woman with some experience quietly wielding power over men without them knowing it, and a woman who might remind her of herself. It might go a long way towards winning her."), and Max is the right person to show her the numbers, but I think he spots a deeper affinity. I know I do.
I think the thing Jack says to her just before the cut is more evidence in my pirate evolution theory, and it is interesting to me that Jack is thinking what I'm thinking. "In all the years the Guthrie family has had a relationship with Nassau, I imagine I'm the first pirate to find his way to your ear. So, either I'm the single luckiest pirate in all creation or I'm of a different sort to the rest of them."
* Even though the Woodes Rogers conversation with Billy Bones is not in the Fort's cells, they are using lighting that is strongly reminiscent of the Eleanor/Charles scene right before his hanging. I need to think more about what that means, but I am thinking in a way the three scenes make up a triptych. In the Eleanor Vane, she is standing in for Woodes Rogers as she condemns a pirate to death for emotional reasons including grief and anger. In the Eleanor/Flint scene the mood is calm instead of furious (and continuing the daddy issues theme from the Charles scene from a new angle as part of tying up Eleanor's arc, but that's beside the point here), but she is till in a sense standing in for Woodes Rogers and he is her prisoner because she is making a deal with a Pirate in Woodes rogers name just as she condemned one in Woodes Roger's name. The Flint scene was physically the opposite of the Vane scene with the same items laid out left to right instead of right to left and significantly more sunlight to fit the calmer mood of the scene that went the opposite of the first. This third scene has the same lighting as the Charles vane scene with the strong contrast between light and shadow and faces half lit in the beam of light from the window. Woodes Rogers is full of grief and fury like Eleanor was, but is tightly controlled. Billy's fury and sense of betrayal is the whole reason he is here. They fit together. Billy takes ownership of the Long John Silver persona, something silver has been doing lately to Billy's horror. "I am Long John Silver. The resistance in the interior I built it. I led it. It was mine. I was hitting your supply lines to the estates, fomenting sabotage in Nassau Town. Fighting your soldiers in untold skirmishes. You killed many of my men, and I got my fair share of yours." I can't say he's wrong. They are both Long John Silver if one thinks about it, or maybe long John Silver is made from them both. Billy is certainly long and he wove the legend out of John Silver's reputation and image and Billy's own skills and vision. Long John silver is properly both of them, but Silver has grabbed hold of the narrative even tighter than Flint does. If Flint can raise a storm, what will two Long John Silvers do in opposition to each other? I'm betting destroy nearly everything that is left.
Billy is mirroring Woodes Rogers here also. Tell me this doesn't sound like the sort of mood that could burn Nassau and kill everyone he loved. "I don't care about the cause now. I don't care about Nassau now. I want one thing and one thing only.... They all turned on me. Discarded what I'd done for them, the sacrifices I made, and left me for dead, and I want them all to pay for it. I cannot achieve it on my own. You could if you were so inclined and you knew how." Billy Bones correctly points out that to defeat Flint and Silver, one must drive a wedge between them. He pretty clearly intends to use Madi to separate their interests. Last time this happened it was gold. Now it is love, which shows how much Silver has changed. My suspicion is Madi won't cooperate, but they will resort to threats against her to manipulate Silver.
* I love that Feathertone and Idelle managed to smuggle Max's ledger out of Nassau in the midst of all that chaos. The cat story and Max's response are horrifying, but also revealing. It is hard to imagine that picture of Richard Guthrie as a boy, given his complete lack of love or caring for his own daughter, but I suppose his kindness eventually died. that is a lot of physical abuse regardless of age and he was four. I can see the way the contentious relationship would have shaped him and how his passive aggressive adult rebellion against his family fit, and I think Grandmother Guthrie despite what looks and sounds like disapproval and regret was just as hard in her own way, just way more subtle with it, and exactly the sort to kill a cat for a little peace at home. I bet Richard guessed it. Assuming the cat was killed as I suspected it was even before Max spoke her counter. "That would seem to be the history of Nassau, too, wouldn't it? A cycle of violence that benefits none and consumes all."
Oliver challenges Max on her refusal to use slave labour. She is as calm under questioning as she was with Berringer. Her stated reasons do make economic sense in Nassau, but they guess the other reason. I was thinking of Charles here and how Jack's difficulty with the fort ended up tainting Charles Vane and eating him up inside because of his own history as an enslaved person. Max is not ashamed; she is matter of fact about her history. "In my life, I have been bought and sold. And as I would be no slave again, and nor would I be a master." This is a thing not even Charles for all his stated ideals could say by the end. I am thinking of Featherstone's defense of her, with which this fits in a way. It does speak to an integrity, quiet and normally unnoticed. She has her code and sticks to it. It's also very fitting that this conversation about slavery be in the same episode in which two other formerly enslaved people, Julius and the Queen, discuss what is best for the people they lead given the particular risks they face that the white pirates do not. (White pirates may be hanged or killed in battle, but they don't risk chattel slavery and hundreds of years of their descendants facing the same horrible fate).
The moment Max really gets Grandmother Guthrie's attention and interest is when she says, "You are right. Many men have played a role in Nassau's story, but none have been able to break the cycle of brutality and failure. Your granddaughter came as close as anyone before or since. But at the end of the day and despite her best intentions, there was one truth even she was unable to see: That at some point, progress cannot begin and suffering will not end until someone has the courage to go out into the woods and drown the damned cat. Lend us your help, and we will do whatever must be done to move Nassau forward." Max, ever practical, and in the end as willing to sacrifice any one for her goals as Eleanor ever was. She is just less dramatic about it, very Grandmother Guthrie.
* The Queen summons Flint and Silver to deliver the news Madi is alive along with Woodes Rogers' demand he be delivered the Urca gold for her, clearly on Billy Bones' advice. If they give up the cache the resistance will die. I spent this whole conversation yelling "Rescue mission" in between the dialog at the screen, because of course that is the thing they are going to do and I couldn't see how discussing it would change the decision. Silver's plan makes as little sense as Peter Ashe's plan for Flint to go to England to confess his relationship with Thomas Hamilton. Yes things were different last week, but the tactical and strategic situation is completely different. Flint calls back to the scene about mourning Madi and Miranda earlier in the episode, "When you and I are of the same mind there is nothing we have not yet been able to do. I believe that. I trust it. Do you?"
* Madi's cell is smaller than Charles' was by a good deal, though the door is to our left and the window and her furniture are to our right. The cell is lighter than Charles' was, though there is still strong contrast between light and shadow. The angle of the light is different. Instead of the prisoner half in shadow and half illuminated like a martyr painting and the jailer moving in and out of light, here the light misses them and they seem to huddle in the triangle of shadow. Woodes Rogers wants to know if Eleanor died fighting. I think this could be read to ways. On first watching I just assumed he felt as I do about it, but thinking it over later, I came to the opinion that he wanted to know if he killed the mutilated version of herself he claimed to love or the Pirate Queen he was talking to Mrs. Hudson about just before they landed in Cuba. If that is what he was asking and I suspect he was, fuck Woodes Rogers! She died herself as was right and proper, fighting for every last breath, and if he's wishing she did otherwise... I have no words for how gross that is. His terms are grosser still and entirely unacceptable. "Every fugitive slave in your camp will receive their immediate emancipation with one condition. Any escaped slave who seeks refuge with you after the ratification of this deal will be surrendered to the law, and any pirate at any time who seeks refuge with you will be surrendered to the law." He threatens them all with return to slavery if they don't accept. Madi lives up to my view of her, "Eleanor died fighting. As will I."
* Jack finally has a warmer coat, with the silliest looking black fir trim possibly ever, making it look like he is wearing a feather boa. What's needed is a winter weight coat and a proper cloak, but it's not like they are staying. Jack is leaving Anne behind. I am pretty sure that is because Jack knows as well as I do that Mrs. Guthrie's condition that he kill Flint is a suicide mission whether he succeeds or fails. He is sacrificing not only his life, but his name and his fame, something underlined by his encounter with the fan earlier. Jack is the cat as much as Flint is, and I think Jack knows it. He is making this terrible stupid decision because he can see it's over as much as I can. I never believed Flint about his plan to make like Oddyseus and the oar. I think his plan to leave with Anne after the thing with Woodes was over from earlier this season was just as illusory in it's way, a wistful idea never really likely to be carried out. He is using Anne's injuries to protect her while he does the equivalent of going back to Nassau to claim his pardon. Trouble is, he knows better this time and maybe he thinks dying this way will make up for Charles' death, which he blames himself for. I kept hoping Anne would stop him, but she doesn't. She does raise an objection, "But even if you could do all those things I mean, how could you be someone who would do that? The world would know that you were the one to betray every last one of our brothers. Betray the memory of Charles Vane." She knows what his name means to him and what it cost them all. She knows how he has always worshiped Charles and mourned him. he gives her back her words, "Charles Vane is dead. I do it for us. That's how it started. That's how it's going to end." He adores her and has always adored her. Anne alive is also the closest thing to Charles Vane alive as Jack and Blackbeard agreed back when Blackbeard still was alive to have an opinion. He's not doing it for "us" though. He is doing it for her. He is leaving her behind for what he believes is her own good, the way Max sent Anne away for what Max considered Anne's own good without bothering to ask Anne's opinion on the matter.
I think Anne is more than bright enough to figure all this out and her expression suggests she must know consciously or unconsciously what he is doing. She must see his devastated trying to be brave face as well as I do. Is she too tired to keep fighting? Does she see the end coming as she seemed to back before the death of Teach and is letting go consciously or unconsciously? Does him being willing to do this mean he isn't the man she's loved since she was a girl? Is she finally choosing her life over his? I don't know if it's conscious or unconscious and which if any or possibly all of the reasons are why she goes along with being left.
I am thinking of Charles again and the taint that the Fort slaves left on him. This thing Jack is doing is a similar violation of his own principles and character, and this is the second time he's done it. He's crossed people, but only for Anne or Charles that I can think of. I remember how he hated the way they all despised him after he helped Anne kill Max rapists. Charles wiped away the social stigma, but even if he somehow survived this, which he pretty clearly won't, I can not imagine him living with it. From Anne's face I don't think she can picture him living with it either. Jack is doomed.
* Hands is whispering in Silver's ear, eating at his alliance with Flint, though clearly the gap is nearly as wide as Billy would like already, as Silver brought the cash. "You're confident in his plan, maybe because it's a good plan. Maybe because it's the only plan. But maybe it's just because if his plan don't succeed, you'll have to show him that you prepared for the failure. That the world ain't gonna be what he wanted. And that a treasure he wanted left in the ground ain't in the ground no more. And when that happens and the extreme reaction follows, it's one of two roads ahead. You're either gonna have to concede and let him have his way or you're gonna have to kill him. You know this, don't you?" I think I see how that treasure gets hidden for them to hunt in treasure Island and why Flint did what he did to keep it hidden.
*****
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* Black Sails XXXV: The Ghost of Charles Vane and Mirrored Mourning
* We open on the Queen grieving her daughter. Silver gives Madi an excellent premature epitaph. "She was curious and strong, not made to be hidden away from the world. She was able to see it before she died and she was fighting for something she believed in when she died.
* The various resistance leaders are debating what next while Flint catches us up and then inquires how The Queen and Silver are doing, using his private tone. Silver's answer for the Queen is "She's breathing." his answer for himself is a telling look. I feel you Silver. I will talk about my dead, but I hate answering the how are you question over and over when I'm grieving. The fuck is one supposed to say in answer. I like that it's just a look. Then he steps into the debate, switching seamlessly to his captain Flint leader tone. It's a beautiful little thing, the switch from private to public. Flint builds a grandiose plan. Julius echoes Miranda, "You're all fools if you think this road leads to where he says it does." She gave a warning in almost the same words 9without the fools) way back when. I think this means we should listen to Julius and this is the beginning of the end. Julius then predicts Woodes Rogers' plan to destroy the Pirate/ex-Slave alliance, and points out valid concerns about the different way they will be treated when it goes pear shaped.
Julius: What happens when our enemy realizes that all it needs to do to defeat us is to take away that common cause? Turn one against the other. And when that happens as it is all but certain to do which of us standing here are likely to be the ones who benefit and which the ones sold back into their chains?
Silver: Then what the fuck are you doing here?
Julius: I saved your men's lives and yours from the fight you started but could not finish, and now you would start another that no man can hope to finish?
Silver: Then leave. But what's happening here is going to happen. This war is going to begin. This camp is going to fight it, with or without you.
Julius: They may call you a king, but only in the kingdom that is no more. We're all free men here, and I wish to stay that way.
Queen: As do we all.
* I think Anne is softening slightly on Max. I think her observation about Max not being back down to see her suggest maybe she was hoping or expecting er too on some level, but we'll see. Still, the next bit also sounds like she's not ready to forgive, but she might.
Anne: Part of me wanted to lash out. Betrayed you. Betrayed me. Refuses to make it right.
Jack: Mm-hm. And the other part?
Anne: The other part knew how easy it would've been for her to lie. Say she was sorry when she ain't. I don't know what the fuck to think.
So my long held hope that they might still sail off and out of history together is not yet dead, though far from certain. You know what else I find interesting here? Anne is talking about her feelings, something she'd not have done in season one, or at least not at this length or this level of self knowledge and introspection, and Jack is mostly just listening. I don't think he has her mood right as "You'll have plenty of time to murder her another day" suggest, but he's trying. He's encouraging her to talk instead of her listening while he Jack babbles at her. Its not perfect, but he has made progress on being a better partner for her. This small interaction shows progress for them both, I think.
* Back to Woodes Rogers and Mrs. Hudson. She's still working her angles; he calls her on her lies. How much tragedy resulted from the entirely unnecessary capture of Jack Rackham? I am looking at the dominoes. Max betraying Anne. The rescue that lead to the death of Vane, Billy's guerilla war, Rogers' reign of terror.... I have so many damned questions now. Why did this happen exactly? The agent seems to have added it to the demands to make Mrs. Hudson safer, or so it sounded. I'm clearly missing the logic of it. In any case, it is so much bigger and worse than I thought, and I think I'll be watching her scenes closely when I go back for the four season rewatch when this is over. Woodes Rogers' growing paranoia makes sense, given he doesn't know where it came from or why. They are interrupted with a man come to tell him that Eleanor was pregnant. Mrs. Hudson insists, "You don't want to hear what he's about to tell you. Not like this. You don't want to hear about it this way." They cleverly leave the telling behind the cut.
* Instead we get the comic relief of Jack complaining about taxes. Featherstone, "- And we're the thieves." Jack "- Not very good ones, apparently." The relief in tension was needed. I like that they don't forget that it's a Northern winter and they are all wearing tropical weight clothing. The women are wrapped in blankets and Jack is freezing his balls off (as he points out) in that grubby linen outfit. Jack's imitation of Max is flat out hilarious. "The last thing I need to overhear when Mr.Guthrie rejects our proposal is, uh [imitating Max] Uh, Monsieur Constable, what sort of reward might one expect for aiding in 'zhe' capture of a notorious pirate captain, such as, say, oh, Jack Rackham? Really? 'Zhat' much? Huh. Well, what do you know? 'Zhere' he is." Jack is still understandably furious, for all he let her on board. Featherstone sticks up for Max, which is nice, pointing out she doesn't cross people who didn't cross her first. (I couldn't remember Jack crossing Max first, but it was pointed out him telling Anne to run with money after he was captured might look like betrayal to Max). Jack orders a surgeon, then point out, "It's somehow only just occurred to me how ruined we'll be if I fail to win the man on the other side of that door to our cause. No home. No cache. Anne on death's door. A ship that can barely sail. But worst of all, he'll have won. Woodes Rogers will sit in Nassau and grow old knowing that he was measured against us and proven the better man." Ouch, and also why Jack is going to make a really bad decision in a bit.
* The Queen and Julius debate what the ex-slave community should do in the face of this war. Julius sounds like Miranda again, the realist to the Queen's idealist. Fuck! The Queen is Thomas in this scenario, isn't she. Another warning that the end is coming. I think that makes Silver this scenario's Flint.
Julius: I have fought alongside these men, but I did it so that I might find security. But what they are now arguing for does not sound like security to me.
The Queen: There is no lasting security to be had here. We'll fight to change that.
Julius: Nothing is lasting, but months, years, that is meaningful and it can be had here. You now have the resources to have it here. There is a treasure in the ground here. It'd purchase whatever is needed to survive.
The Queen:No one has ever been this close, this near a chance to change the world.
Julius: No one changes the world. Not like this. Not all at once. The world is too strong for that.
* Silver grieves like me, I think. I hate being asked over and over. I talk when I'm ready. Silver sounds so much like Flint here. "From the moment he started speaking, I couldn't stop thinking about her. She died for this. She believed in this, and if it all goes away, then it was all for nothing. I can't let this be for nothing. I just can't. It has to mean something." Like Flint he's trying to carry forward the vision of a lover believed to be dead. He's is talking to Flint about Madi the way Flint talks about Thomas. (Madi not being dead + the plantation for wayward nobles hints at hope for Thomas, but I'm not holding my breath for happy endings). We get a little extra something from Flint to drive the parallel home in case we've missed it. "When I was drowning over Miranda you helped me find my way out. Look at me.
I will do the same for you. I give you my word, but in order to do that, you have to trust my judgment for a little while while yours is reeling." He's trying to be Silver for Silver, though of course in both cases there is a manipulative aspect to it.
* The fangirl incident is tragic in it's way. Jack went back to Nassau to be captured because he valued his name, and that started the chain of events that killed Charles Vane, something he has expressed huge guilt for before. Here a fan guesses he's a pirate of Nassau, probably because of his light weight clothes. She asks him about "the Giants:" Edward Teach first, Jack Rackham second. He is clearly flattered to be a giant, famous enough to come second after Blackbeard, but he doesn't own the name (because of his disguise, one assumes, but there is a touch of irony there. If he'd been willing to deny his name a season and a half ago, Charles likely would still be alive), and even starts to brag a little, but she interrupts the start of his story to ask about Charles Vane, and his face does this thing, profound and complex. I know I go on and on about the face acting, but seriously, his face in this scene is so good. There is a hint of self mocking, because of course she'd rather hear about Vane, the pirate's pirate. The grief and regret clearly stab him sharp and sudden, the way it does when a little time has passed, but the grief is still there under the surface. He gathers himself and tells her true things, his own epitaph for Charles in it's way, and I think a farewell, as he is shrugging off Charles ghost at last by the end of the episode. I think he needed to talk to let it go.
Jack Rackham: Charles Vane was my closest friend in the world.
Fan: Tell me everything about him.
Jack: He was the bravest man I ever knew. Not without fear, just unwilling to let it diminish him, and loyal to a fault. And in a world where honesty is so regularly and casually disregarded.
Fan: I heard he cut off a man's head and left it as a marker in the sand to anyone who would cross him.
Jack: It was a little more complicated than that.
Fan: I heard... he sometimes butchered his enemies for amusement, made stew of their flesh. He was truly an animal.
Jack: Stew? For what possible.... I'm... I beg your pardon, but do you believe this?
Fan: I read it in a newspaper.
Servant: Mr. Guthrie will see you now.
Jack: Charles Vane was a good man. What I told you was the truth. Put down the newspapers and read a book.
Fan: Truth isn't nearly as interesting.
I suspected correctly the old lady doing embroidery was Eleanor's grandmother and I love her snort here in response to the silliness. It's a good introduction. She sits unobtrusively listening under cover of her embroidery, and has strong opinions about what she hears. She is already forming her opinion of Jack, guessing correctly why he'd risk coming, and likely adjusting plans in her head.
Of course the Grandfather blows him off. He's put huge effort into a respectable facade. Jack Rackham decides to declare his name in hopes of private audience after all. Of course it does no good and the news of Eleanor's betrayal and murder by Woodes Rogers and Jack's revenge plot are all greeted with a grim rejection. He was doing it all wrong, of course, and I kept thinking of Thomas and James McGraw trying to sell their plan for Nassau to Lord Hamilton. Both done exactly wrong in the wrong political context by comparative youths not nearly formally enough dressed. *wince* Eleanor's approach was intended to play up to respectability. Jack's is the opposite. *facepalm* He is not the politician she was. He feels things too strongly and is too angry in the face of their indifference for the death of someone he respected and who "closest friend in the world" once loved. of course Woodes Rogers tortured Jack and I think that's fueling the hate on. Does Jack know Eleanor killed Charles and not Woodes Rogers? They were keeping the fact that Woodes Rogers was incoherent secret, and Eleanor was pretending the orders were coming from him instead of her. I am wondering if she took the secret to her grave. It would explain the bits of Jack's reaction that don't quite fit otherwise.
All hope is not lost, of course, because the old woman was who I suspected she was, and it turns out she is whom Eleanor got at least some of it from. (The theatrical rages and stubbornness sound like Grandfather Guthrie, so clearly she comes by those honestly too).
* We cut back to Woodes Rogers mourning all over again now that he knows. He and Mrs. Hudson start out back lit, but also each captured in their individual beams of light. The room is so still and quiet. This too is much more my way of mourning than the screaming and raging so typical of mourning one sees in visual media. This is less overtly dramatic, but very real and thus so powerful. I hate Woodes Rogers, but the obvious pain on his face and his stillness draw one in. This is really well done. It also reminds me of Jack in the hold with the gold mourning Charles Vane at the end of last season, and I think that's deliberate too. The correspondences between characters are coming fast and hard as the circle closes tighter and tighter and the final tragedies loom on the horizon. Mrs. Hudson I still pleading Eleanor' case, and I think trying to manipulate Woodes Rogers so she might save herself. They make Eleanor look very dead here, which I appreciate, the way I appreciated it last episode. There is a tendency to prettify death and in visual media, that makes it equivocal in a way it just isn't most times in real life.
* Woodes Rogers' mourning is interrupted by the news Billy has turned himself in and wants to speak to him. It makes sense both in the Watsonian sense (where else would Billy Bones go at this point for a chance at getting back at his betrayers) and in the Doylist sense (Billy has to be separate from Flint given what we know will happen to poor Ben Gunn from reading Treasure Island. I can not see this Billy allowing that if he knew).
* Grandmother Guthrie explains exactly how Jack fucked up. He pitches to her, cleverly picking up clues from what she said to figure out she's working the illicit side of the Guthrie business interests. She's subtler and better at covert than Eleanor ever was and uses femininity like armour the way Miranda did and Max does. I suspect that consciously or subconsciously she reminds him of an older Max, hence him bringing Max to the next meeting. Oh, his stated reasons are solid ("Because our plan is ludicrous by any sane measure, and my suspicion is if she's going to say yes, it's going to be for emotional reasons rather than financial ones. She would look across the table and see a woman with some experience quietly wielding power over men without them knowing it, and a woman who might remind her of herself. It might go a long way towards winning her."), and Max is the right person to show her the numbers, but I think he spots a deeper affinity. I know I do.
I think the thing Jack says to her just before the cut is more evidence in my pirate evolution theory, and it is interesting to me that Jack is thinking what I'm thinking. "In all the years the Guthrie family has had a relationship with Nassau, I imagine I'm the first pirate to find his way to your ear. So, either I'm the single luckiest pirate in all creation or I'm of a different sort to the rest of them."
* Even though the Woodes Rogers conversation with Billy Bones is not in the Fort's cells, they are using lighting that is strongly reminiscent of the Eleanor/Charles scene right before his hanging. I need to think more about what that means, but I am thinking in a way the three scenes make up a triptych. In the Eleanor Vane, she is standing in for Woodes Rogers as she condemns a pirate to death for emotional reasons including grief and anger. In the Eleanor/Flint scene the mood is calm instead of furious (and continuing the daddy issues theme from the Charles scene from a new angle as part of tying up Eleanor's arc, but that's beside the point here), but she is till in a sense standing in for Woodes Rogers and he is her prisoner because she is making a deal with a Pirate in Woodes rogers name just as she condemned one in Woodes Roger's name. The Flint scene was physically the opposite of the Vane scene with the same items laid out left to right instead of right to left and significantly more sunlight to fit the calmer mood of the scene that went the opposite of the first. This third scene has the same lighting as the Charles vane scene with the strong contrast between light and shadow and faces half lit in the beam of light from the window. Woodes Rogers is full of grief and fury like Eleanor was, but is tightly controlled. Billy's fury and sense of betrayal is the whole reason he is here. They fit together. Billy takes ownership of the Long John Silver persona, something silver has been doing lately to Billy's horror. "I am Long John Silver. The resistance in the interior I built it. I led it. It was mine. I was hitting your supply lines to the estates, fomenting sabotage in Nassau Town. Fighting your soldiers in untold skirmishes. You killed many of my men, and I got my fair share of yours." I can't say he's wrong. They are both Long John Silver if one thinks about it, or maybe long John Silver is made from them both. Billy is certainly long and he wove the legend out of John Silver's reputation and image and Billy's own skills and vision. Long John silver is properly both of them, but Silver has grabbed hold of the narrative even tighter than Flint does. If Flint can raise a storm, what will two Long John Silvers do in opposition to each other? I'm betting destroy nearly everything that is left.
Billy is mirroring Woodes Rogers here also. Tell me this doesn't sound like the sort of mood that could burn Nassau and kill everyone he loved. "I don't care about the cause now. I don't care about Nassau now. I want one thing and one thing only.... They all turned on me. Discarded what I'd done for them, the sacrifices I made, and left me for dead, and I want them all to pay for it. I cannot achieve it on my own. You could if you were so inclined and you knew how." Billy Bones correctly points out that to defeat Flint and Silver, one must drive a wedge between them. He pretty clearly intends to use Madi to separate their interests. Last time this happened it was gold. Now it is love, which shows how much Silver has changed. My suspicion is Madi won't cooperate, but they will resort to threats against her to manipulate Silver.
* I love that Feathertone and Idelle managed to smuggle Max's ledger out of Nassau in the midst of all that chaos. The cat story and Max's response are horrifying, but also revealing. It is hard to imagine that picture of Richard Guthrie as a boy, given his complete lack of love or caring for his own daughter, but I suppose his kindness eventually died. that is a lot of physical abuse regardless of age and he was four. I can see the way the contentious relationship would have shaped him and how his passive aggressive adult rebellion against his family fit, and I think Grandmother Guthrie despite what looks and sounds like disapproval and regret was just as hard in her own way, just way more subtle with it, and exactly the sort to kill a cat for a little peace at home. I bet Richard guessed it. Assuming the cat was killed as I suspected it was even before Max spoke her counter. "That would seem to be the history of Nassau, too, wouldn't it? A cycle of violence that benefits none and consumes all."
Oliver challenges Max on her refusal to use slave labour. She is as calm under questioning as she was with Berringer. Her stated reasons do make economic sense in Nassau, but they guess the other reason. I was thinking of Charles here and how Jack's difficulty with the fort ended up tainting Charles Vane and eating him up inside because of his own history as an enslaved person. Max is not ashamed; she is matter of fact about her history. "In my life, I have been bought and sold. And as I would be no slave again, and nor would I be a master." This is a thing not even Charles for all his stated ideals could say by the end. I am thinking of Featherstone's defense of her, with which this fits in a way. It does speak to an integrity, quiet and normally unnoticed. She has her code and sticks to it. It's also very fitting that this conversation about slavery be in the same episode in which two other formerly enslaved people, Julius and the Queen, discuss what is best for the people they lead given the particular risks they face that the white pirates do not. (White pirates may be hanged or killed in battle, but they don't risk chattel slavery and hundreds of years of their descendants facing the same horrible fate).
The moment Max really gets Grandmother Guthrie's attention and interest is when she says, "You are right. Many men have played a role in Nassau's story, but none have been able to break the cycle of brutality and failure. Your granddaughter came as close as anyone before or since. But at the end of the day and despite her best intentions, there was one truth even she was unable to see: That at some point, progress cannot begin and suffering will not end until someone has the courage to go out into the woods and drown the damned cat. Lend us your help, and we will do whatever must be done to move Nassau forward." Max, ever practical, and in the end as willing to sacrifice any one for her goals as Eleanor ever was. She is just less dramatic about it, very Grandmother Guthrie.
* The Queen summons Flint and Silver to deliver the news Madi is alive along with Woodes Rogers' demand he be delivered the Urca gold for her, clearly on Billy Bones' advice. If they give up the cache the resistance will die. I spent this whole conversation yelling "Rescue mission" in between the dialog at the screen, because of course that is the thing they are going to do and I couldn't see how discussing it would change the decision. Silver's plan makes as little sense as Peter Ashe's plan for Flint to go to England to confess his relationship with Thomas Hamilton. Yes things were different last week, but the tactical and strategic situation is completely different. Flint calls back to the scene about mourning Madi and Miranda earlier in the episode, "When you and I are of the same mind there is nothing we have not yet been able to do. I believe that. I trust it. Do you?"
* Madi's cell is smaller than Charles' was by a good deal, though the door is to our left and the window and her furniture are to our right. The cell is lighter than Charles' was, though there is still strong contrast between light and shadow. The angle of the light is different. Instead of the prisoner half in shadow and half illuminated like a martyr painting and the jailer moving in and out of light, here the light misses them and they seem to huddle in the triangle of shadow. Woodes Rogers wants to know if Eleanor died fighting. I think this could be read to ways. On first watching I just assumed he felt as I do about it, but thinking it over later, I came to the opinion that he wanted to know if he killed the mutilated version of herself he claimed to love or the Pirate Queen he was talking to Mrs. Hudson about just before they landed in Cuba. If that is what he was asking and I suspect he was, fuck Woodes Rogers! She died herself as was right and proper, fighting for every last breath, and if he's wishing she did otherwise... I have no words for how gross that is. His terms are grosser still and entirely unacceptable. "Every fugitive slave in your camp will receive their immediate emancipation with one condition. Any escaped slave who seeks refuge with you after the ratification of this deal will be surrendered to the law, and any pirate at any time who seeks refuge with you will be surrendered to the law." He threatens them all with return to slavery if they don't accept. Madi lives up to my view of her, "Eleanor died fighting. As will I."
* Jack finally has a warmer coat, with the silliest looking black fir trim possibly ever, making it look like he is wearing a feather boa. What's needed is a winter weight coat and a proper cloak, but it's not like they are staying. Jack is leaving Anne behind. I am pretty sure that is because Jack knows as well as I do that Mrs. Guthrie's condition that he kill Flint is a suicide mission whether he succeeds or fails. He is sacrificing not only his life, but his name and his fame, something underlined by his encounter with the fan earlier. Jack is the cat as much as Flint is, and I think Jack knows it. He is making this terrible stupid decision because he can see it's over as much as I can. I never believed Flint about his plan to make like Oddyseus and the oar. I think his plan to leave with Anne after the thing with Woodes was over from earlier this season was just as illusory in it's way, a wistful idea never really likely to be carried out. He is using Anne's injuries to protect her while he does the equivalent of going back to Nassau to claim his pardon. Trouble is, he knows better this time and maybe he thinks dying this way will make up for Charles' death, which he blames himself for. I kept hoping Anne would stop him, but she doesn't. She does raise an objection, "But even if you could do all those things I mean, how could you be someone who would do that? The world would know that you were the one to betray every last one of our brothers. Betray the memory of Charles Vane." She knows what his name means to him and what it cost them all. She knows how he has always worshiped Charles and mourned him. he gives her back her words, "Charles Vane is dead. I do it for us. That's how it started. That's how it's going to end." He adores her and has always adored her. Anne alive is also the closest thing to Charles Vane alive as Jack and Blackbeard agreed back when Blackbeard still was alive to have an opinion. He's not doing it for "us" though. He is doing it for her. He is leaving her behind for what he believes is her own good, the way Max sent Anne away for what Max considered Anne's own good without bothering to ask Anne's opinion on the matter.
I think Anne is more than bright enough to figure all this out and her expression suggests she must know consciously or unconsciously what he is doing. She must see his devastated trying to be brave face as well as I do. Is she too tired to keep fighting? Does she see the end coming as she seemed to back before the death of Teach and is letting go consciously or unconsciously? Does him being willing to do this mean he isn't the man she's loved since she was a girl? Is she finally choosing her life over his? I don't know if it's conscious or unconscious and which if any or possibly all of the reasons are why she goes along with being left.
I am thinking of Charles again and the taint that the Fort slaves left on him. This thing Jack is doing is a similar violation of his own principles and character, and this is the second time he's done it. He's crossed people, but only for Anne or Charles that I can think of. I remember how he hated the way they all despised him after he helped Anne kill Max rapists. Charles wiped away the social stigma, but even if he somehow survived this, which he pretty clearly won't, I can not imagine him living with it. From Anne's face I don't think she can picture him living with it either. Jack is doomed.
* Hands is whispering in Silver's ear, eating at his alliance with Flint, though clearly the gap is nearly as wide as Billy would like already, as Silver brought the cash. "You're confident in his plan, maybe because it's a good plan. Maybe because it's the only plan. But maybe it's just because if his plan don't succeed, you'll have to show him that you prepared for the failure. That the world ain't gonna be what he wanted. And that a treasure he wanted left in the ground ain't in the ground no more. And when that happens and the extreme reaction follows, it's one of two roads ahead. You're either gonna have to concede and let him have his way or you're gonna have to kill him. You know this, don't you?" I think I see how that treasure gets hidden for them to hunt in treasure Island and why Flint did what he did to keep it hidden.
*****
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