#of course the context is very different since at that point Eleanor just thought Max had left Nassau

[starbuck]

[lairofsentinel]

Seriously... I finished watching Black Sail and had several thoughts I want to keep in one post.

Spoilers ahead, of course.

Flint's ending: It's queerly romantic, in the most broad sense of the word. But it felt a bit odd to me. Not because I don't like it, I find it a good smart ending that doesn't imply “bury your gays”. But it felt unrealistic for the context of the series. Through the show, we saw Miranda telling Flint that she could not recognise herself in the way she had changed compared with the woman she was when Thomas was alive. Flint agreed in that respect, and made the same comparison with the man he was in that time. They wondered if Thomas could ever recognise them both now. The scene meant “we both changed too much”.

The message along the series is that loss and pain change you, transform you. Life is a painful continuously changing process. Even the characters that were “written in stone”, like Charles Vane, changed! So, with such reinforcement of the narrative related to “change”, Flint's ending feels troublesome.

How can Thomas, such a naïve and over-idealist man, embrace this Flint, so distant to the man he left in England? The level of tragedy and horror and blood that Flint's wake spread in those years in the real world can't be overlooked, not by Thomas who was a man who cared so much about the manners and the procedures.

Flint also killed Thomas' father. Imagine that scene where he knows this news... I don't know exactly if this news could be problematic for Thomas, since we did not see him too much to infer what kind of reaction he may have. He could be disappointed for his father, but that's different to wanting him dead, specially due to his lover's hand. How much of this event can hurt Thomas' love?

And Flint, in the end, abandoned Thomas' war. Flint himself, in the first time he is asked, said that Thomas would never put aside this war due to all what it means. In the second time he is asked, when he hesitated, it was more his own desire .

After all, Flint is so fucking tired of all this war and blood. I think that letting Silver get closer to him showed that; he was tired of fighting, he was tired of killing his closest partners just because the war demanded it. When he and Silver talked privately, and Flint disclosed his story to Silver, they joked about how they would end. Silver even joked that Flint should not worry to fear to be killed by him. And Flint's response was one of a such tired man. It transpired that he was in peace with the fact that, if Silver ever attempted against his life, he was going to let him do it. Flint is a man so alike to the one that belong to England and Thomas. How the hell this Thomas would see this man? I wonder.

So, for all that, even though I think this ending is nice and Flint truly wanted this [his idea of a Pirate Kingdom to have a place where all pirates can retire and live in peace was always in his plans even though he never allowed himself to be part of it, probably because Thomas was not in that Kingdom]. Flint has changed so much, that honestly, I think Thomas would be completely horrified of him. I don't know how much Thomas could look aside or forgive. This series is also about how forgiveness has limits too... so I wonder.

Sure, Thomas probably changed a lot, but his experience was far less violent and less mutable as Flint's. I don't know. I have mixed feeling with this ending. Maybe too cheesy and open for the deep darkness it hides.  

Madi's ending: This was super sad to me.  We saw in this series that all women had always been controlled and manipulated or coerced by men. Eleanor's story is exactly this, reflected in most women in the narrative. I thought Madi was going to be the exception... but it was not. Silver, the white man, decided for her what was best for her.

I know, war is not a solution in general... but he denied her anger. He decided for her. He did not allow her to make her own mistakes. And she ended up accepting it just fine. It felt odd. I suppose the best way to describe it is “it felt grey”, like most things in this series.

Sure, war was not the solution of anything... but this whole ending of never doing the revolution and taking comfort in half-measures that can be changed so easily without much consequences.... I mean, as long as Max lives in Nassau, there will be no slaves.... once she dies... what?. I suppose the series has the answer in several repeated scenes: “nothing lasts”. I suppose the freedom of the black people is something that “would not last” either. I felt a bit weird with that idea floating in the last episode.

Eleanor’s ending: Another woman in the series whose ending was so fucked up. I would not mind her story if she were the only woman whose narration is about how fucked up men control women's lives. But sadly, her story was just taking this narrative to the extreme... since her story is the reflection of the life of most women in this series. Anne is controlled by Jack and/or the guilt or gratefulness she has for him, Madi by Silver, Miranda by Flint... most women dancing to the whims of their men. Eleanor thought she was in control of everything, she was the independent strong woman... and yet, her control jumped from man to man, from his father, to Charles Vane, to Flint, to Scott, to the governor. She was never truly free of a man's control, and this is such a devastating truth for her. Her story is so sad... and a lot of her most disgusting betrayals were fuelled by those men. Super sad her ending.

John Silver ’s ending : He is my fave char. Probably his ending is the one I like the most. He was always smart enough to avoid death in the most disastrous situations. But in the process, he started to become darker. Over days, he became closer to Flint, to his thinking process, to his darkness. I understand he saw that he was getting close to become Flint at some point, and Madi put a stop to that. She changed things in his life. Flint also helped him to stop that process, opening himself to him. It's sad to me that Silver could find a way to take control over his own life by deciding over Madi. I know, breaking the cycles is a nice narrative... but I'm not so sure I like to see it when a white man decided such a thing, when you have a wise smart black woman there to do it.... But again, this series is all about grays. It was a nice but at least, realistic shade of gray.

Max's ending: Probably the best ending of all chars. She fought so much to be in control of her own life... and she finally could do it. With a level of intelligence that it was a pleasure to see. She was not even under the control of a man... she was men's toy. Her story is so fucking painful. And somehow, she survived thanks to her intelligence. In that regard, she is like Silver: both hard survivors thanks to their brains. At least she could overcome that fate of being in control of a man. She denied that chance of marry an idiot noble because she wanted to have control over her life and her decision of trying to retake Anne. Lesbian love in gray shades.

Anne's ending: I loved her char. But again, I felt so weird when her life is, once again, restrained to what she feels she owes to Jack. I thought I was going to find a scene of relief when she fought those men that saved her crew's lives. But no. It was just more of the same... the bodyguard of Jack. I don't resent it much though, because Jack truly loves her and cares for her in beautiful ways... but that scene of Anne resenting her own feeling of being in eternal debt with Jack stuck in my mind.

Billy's ending: this char was so surprising to me. He went from one extreme to the other... and he, more than any other char, showed that life, events, tragedy, pain, and loss, change people. And it changes them in ways from where there is not return.

Charles Vane ’s ending : He was a beast. There is almost nothing to say in his favour, he was evil-chaotic to the core. But his vulnerabilities were unbelievable when you contrast them with his personality. How such evil-chaotic man could do such gestures of (twisted) love? Sure, he did a lot for Eleanor in his wickedest ways, but the most surprising love I saw in him was for Jack and Anne. And honestly, being he the symbol of the beginning of the revolution is such a gray thing that this series used. It felt, like all things in this show, wrong and good at the same time. There was probably no other char in this story more “free” and “animal-savage-like” than him. He dismissed domesticity, he hated “peaceful” times. He was a char born in battle to die in battle. Revolution had to be born from this savage to be effective, so he being hanged was a reinforcement of that sentiment that had to be inspired in the revolution. But at the same time, he was absolutely random, selfish [in the beginning] and his behaviour was mostly the confirmation of all the demonization that the stories tell about pirates. He being the symbol that starts the revolution was also a way to tinge the revolution with cruelty and dirt.

I don't know, this series is fabulous. It's so gray that you can be thinking in each char, in each concept... and nothing is sacred, nothing is clean, nothing is pure.  Nor good nor bad. Just a disgusting mixture of dirty and evilness and humanity. Masterpiece.

I loved this story, because its complexity makes the watchers think, and that's such a feat to do. But on the other hand, I felt the ending in general not very inspiring, tending to a moderate solution that, through history, we know it changes nothing. Moderate solutions [in times of slavery and empires] are absolutely prone to corruption and to return to the previous state of things.

The only thing I did not like was the unbalanced display of naked bodies or sex scenes when it came to women vs men. We saw all actress naked or having sex with other women and/or men in many, many, many times. In the whole series, only 2 men were displayed naked, and never was shown any gay sex scene. We only had 2 kisses between two men, very chaste, and almost hidden.  I mean, I can't care less about nakedness in general or sex scenes, but I'm always annoyed when I see such a big unbalance when it comes to women vs men or straight sex vs gay sex vs lesbian sex. It made me feel that this serie was done thinking mainly in the male gaze. Hell, considering how most female chars are controlled by men [mostly in their endings, showing that their stories are not exactly stories of emancipation] made me confirm this.

But putting aside that, it was a hell of a story, and I loved it.