#Out here with a random ofmd meta today happy Friday everyone

[gingiekittycat]

Stede wants to be a pirate. Ed never did.

OK I have been thinking about the end of season 2, and after the initial shock and grief of losing Izzy (*sniff, sniff*) I was thinking about the choice to end on Ed and Stede's supposed "happy ending" when there is going to be a season 3....

Conclusion: It's not a happy ending.

There is, I think, a fundamental disconnect between what Ed wants and what Stede wants. S2 ep 7 really drives this home, when Stede is enjoying his pirate notoriety and Ed is watching him from afar in his kitchen rags in the background. Stede wanted to be a pirate, and is finally living his best life; Ed never did, and he's finally fully realizing it.

I love that Ed left at the end of that episode. I love that he finally accepted that about himself, for himself, and not for anyone else. He didn't need Stede to run away with him. He didn't need anybody to run away with him, he needed no other excuse.

The fact that they're at the inn now, living out Ed's dream in the wake of Stede's budding infamy, does not bode well. It means, imo, that Stede put aside his dream to give Ed his. But I don't think pirating is out of Stede's system. I think it's going to call to him, the way it called to him in his domestic life with his wife. I think it's always going to keep calling to him. And I think that's going to rear it's ugly head in season 3. I think one of the things that made Stede fall in love with Ed was that Ed was his twin soul but ALSO a pirate; the pirate part is important. It's the reason he got spooked at the end of season 1; Ed shaved his beard. Ed wanted to run away and quit pirating forever. And Stede went back to his wife, and why? Because he thinks, guiltily, well hell, if I'm going to live a domestic life, I might as well do it with my wife and kids!

In this way, I think Stede and Izzy actually aren't all that different. They were both horrified by the change in Ed; the non-pirate Ed does not make sense to them. I would have loved for season 3 to play with this; I would have loved Stede continuing to pirate without Ed, and with Izzy as his first mate. I think that could have been so interesting, watching Izzy advise Stede, with the arc his character as gone through, with the traumatic history of his relationship with Blackbeard. I think we could have had a stronger arc for both of those characters, Izzy finally becoming a "good" advisor, and eventually, somehow, advising Stede right out of piracy.

And then Stede growing and changing and realizing that he doesn't want to actually be a pirate either. And THEN he goes back to Ed.

Anyway. I am so excited to see how David Jenkins plays with the storyline of the inn and these characters in S3. I still think we'll get some flavor of this conflict and dynamic. We shall see...