Nec Hoc Nec Ilud

* There has been a serious chemical attack on Civilians in Syria. They then attacked one of the hospitals treating the victims with a rocket. At least 58 were killed in the initial saran attack. The survivors say it was Russia or Syrian government forces that attacked them. Assad is of course calling the victims liars.

* "Nunes, Flynn and Russia probe controversies:"





* "Petition demands Melania Trump move to White House:"





* "Can we avoid a government shutdown?:"





* "Internet privacy: soon a thing of the past?:"





* "Tackling the nation’s infrastructure problem:"





* So I'm trying a Wonder Woman rewatch. Keep in mind that I saw them first in real time when they were brand new, to the point that I remember all the little girls twirling on the playground, singing Wonder Woman and pretending to transform. These were so important when I was a kid, in an era when boys liked to pretend only white boys were allowed to be superheroes and everyone else had to be villains or damsels to rescue. Diana had a job and was a superhero too. It was incredibly important and exciting to see her on TV I watched them in syndication into the '80's, but I likely haven't seen them since...I'm guessing 83? '84? The pilot rather cheesy by modern tastes, I fear, and the dialog is rather wooden. You can see the direct line from the Adam West Batman to here, though this isn't that kind of funny. Oddly enough, I had forgotten it was meant to be WWII and they were fighting NAZIs, this despite me clearly remembering everything else about the plot of the pilot. It is just so very seventies in look and feel and content, that I kept forgetting watching it that this is supposed to be the '40's. I am not impressed with the male sidekick, who is no where near her caliber,and I have other qualms. It has not aged as well as one would hope, but it was actually watcheable unlike Green Hornet, and I've hopes of it smoothing out a little next episode. I just... It's hard to separate the reality from how incredibly important it was to a generation of little girls.

* Health Update: I'm about half as sick as I was this time last week, which is a more functional thing. The steroids did way cut down the amount of gunk in my lungs, though I'm also clearly still infected with something. I am really struggling with things like food, though there is no real way to tell if it is the infection, the steroid's after effects, or the ravages of antibiotics. The Doctor prescribed a new long term lung treatment, but I'd already spent two hours at the Doctor and the pharmacy's usually overwhelmed that close to close. I also forgot to check if any money had cleared before I left. I've called a few more things in and will go pick up the mess another day. I am still heavily medicated even by my standards and the infection leaves me exhausted.

There were no tomato or basil starts when I went to the co-op and it turns out I can't even order a gravy flat as I'd planned to as the distributor wasn't even selling them. Sigh. I did get dried mushrooms there and emergency perishables on the way home, but my dream of tzaziki and naan will have to await another mission on another day. I do have a nice set of greens planted outside and have radically reorganized to take best advantage of the sun. My choice to leave the perennial herbs up high on the shelving has proved an excellent idea as the sage and sorrel are thriving and quite happy to poke up through the bars. I'm being liberal with the sluggo even though I haven't seen slugs yet as they are brutal with young greens, and I have a lot of fragile volunteers seeded out of last years crop. Let us hop we get tomatoes and carrot too, as last year was a bit of a disappointment in the carrot green department.

* I love that the late breakfast genre of still life painting was actually a thing.

Next time you see someone mocking a woman for posting pictures of her breakfast, take a moment to imagine the time and energy men used to spend painting picture of theirs.

* Black Sails XXXVIII: Orpheus and Eurydice and Ambiguous Oracles.

I have a lot of feelings about this one. I'm normally a fan of ambiguity and unreliable narration, but in this instance I am left with a fury so deep I'm not sure what to do with it. For the record, I am agnostic on the Schrodinger's Cat situation. I leaned one way after first watching; I lean another way after deep analysis, wavered back and forth, but I am not really convinced either way and honestly wish they had not left us all with this mess. I will explain my reasons and thinking in the analysis, but I suspect I will not leave anyone happy. I know I'm not, but I do feel better having chewed it over at length. I do mean at length. Edited to add: I am leaning towards team live cat after the edit at the bottom and literally more than half a day writing about it.

Side note: Can we please have this cast in all the things? There are so many incredibly skilled actors here. I know Mcgowen and Stephens have particularly strong careers, but can we please put the rest of them, particularly Ms. Kennedy and Toby Schmitz in lots of projects, but really all of them in everything?



* We open on a voice in the dark, which segues to the Georgia plantation for the unwanted and a conversation between Oglethorpe (?) and Tom Morgan, an agent of Silver.

Oglethorpe: What's to be done with the unwanted ones? The men who do not fit, whom civilization must prune from the vine to protect its sense of itself. Every culture since earliest antiquity has survived this way, defining itself by the things it excludes. So long as there is progress, there will always be human debris in its wake, on the outside looking in, and sooner or later, one must answer the question what becomes of them? In London, the solution is to call them criminals, to throw them in a deep, dark hole and hope it never runs over. I would argue that justice demands we do better than that. That a civilization is judged not by who it excludes, but by how it treats the excluded.
Tom Morgan: That is not what I asked.
Oglethorpe: Many of the men incarcerated here have enemies, sir. Such is the nature of being anathema to the empire. And the only way I can protect them is to ensure that once they walk through these gates, their anonymity is protected, too. Here, they must cease to be to be able to find peace.

I do not trust that it is as benign as it is presented. I haven't trusted that from the moment max mentioned it, because I know too much about both early modern penal colonies and indentured servants on plantations. It sounds pretty and reform minded, but ultimately it is a kind of slavery, men doing hard labour without remuneration or a choice to leave in a climate dangerous to their health. I know too much about how many died on the way to Virginia and Australia. I know too much about the terrible things 18th century people did to each other in the name of "curing" their mental illnesses, or fitting them into society, or progress.

That said, the things said about civilization in the above passage are really interesting. As someone who was in a sense pruned, once upon a time an am still in many ways half feral decades later, I can not argue with this description of civilization. What was done to me was incredibly cruel, but I can't argue that it was worse than hanging or the hulks, and I DO tend to judge a society by it's treatment of those excluded.

We do not get a definitive answer to Thomas Hamilton's fate in this passage, nor do we know if Silver ever got one. Instead it cuts to opening credits, leaving the question hanging: "Is the prisoner we are looking for here or isn't he?"

* We are back at Skeleton Island with Woodes Rogers and Billy Bones slaughtering men in the water while Flint, Silver, and Hands try to get them ashore. Woodes Rogers gives orders to save Flint (as Flint is the only one knows where the treasure is). "There are no others." The rest are to be slaughtered. I reiterate that I believe this was always the plan, that if Silver had handed over the cash right away, the English still would have attacked. would also argue that Billy's expression in this sequence is pretty solid vidence of how damaged he is by this point. The pain leaks through the deadness. billy specifically picks off a man Flint is helping.

* Jack turns up with his little schooner, causing Woodes Rogers to break off the attack and return to his ship. Jack and Featherstone are understandably horrified by what they see. I love the very in character Featrherstone response that also reminds the audience of their goals.

Featherstone: An hour ago, we were upon a fool's errand to capture Captain Flint and find an island that does not exist... you're welcome for that... by the way evade a ship full of redcoats, fight through a ship full of pirates, and somehow get past Long John Silver. I don't know if you've noticed, but this is considerably better luck than you and I have experienced lately, and yet somehow, I get the sense you and I are possessed of different instincts as to how to react to this.
Jack Rackham: How would you like to react to it?
Featherstone: Throw him in a sack, sail away from here, let the Guthrie woman and her lawyers deal with the governor, and be alive come tomorrow.

Jack actually has a really good plan. I KNOW. Remember when Jack was like first season Silver an out of the frying pan into the fire thinker? It's more subtle with Jack, but he HAS grown up and really is a better Captain than he was in season two. He went in with a suicide mission and in response to events he works out a way that had a chance of giving him everything he wanted and still walking away. Serious props to Jack for watching and waiting and using his political skills to best effect, instead of leaping before he looked as Featherstone advocates.

Anyway, Flint exposits the buried cache bit and his plan. Flint is not wrong about Woodes Rogers, "You’ve met the man. What do you think? He’ll never stop until we’re all hanging in his square. Unless we defeat him today, together." Jack cleverly plays along, though we can see him thinking via his face acting as he recalculates his surprisingly good plan. I love how Jack his response is. "Woodes Rogers isn't going to receive a letter from anyone's lawyer informing him I've beaten him. I'm going to tell him so. I want my money back. If it takes rescuing the girl to get Flint to dig it up, then, Augustus, you and I are in the rescuing business today. Get us after that ship." It's like something Wesley (The Dread Pirate Roberts, who was an actual guy Jack likely fanboys over) from Princess Bride would say.

* The three captains meet to plan. They are understandably interested to know where the fuck Jack's been. Jack carefully words things so that everything he says in answer is true though obviously far from complete. Given that they can ask the crew later and verify the public bits, this is intelligent on jack's part and it's way harder to get tripped up later if all one says is true. Jack is not best pleased by Flint demanding to take control of Jack's ship or the plan not use the main guns. Flint's argument that he is the only one of them good enough at technical sailing for them to have a chance against the much bigger ship without their best weapons is solid however. I do love Silver's face when Flint explains they are not using main guns so as to make Madi's rescue more likely. "It would put Madi's life at greater risk. Securing her alive is all that matters today." I think Silver genuinely believed that Flint's actions were entirely self serving and that he was only paying lip service to rescuing Madi as a priority up to this point. His genuine surprise gives way to something akin to guilt. As Madi points out later it is clear Silver has been planning his betrayal for months. This doesn't change anything, but I do think Silver feels a tiny bit bad about it here, though not enough to stop him doing what he's planning to do. Flint seals his fate with these lines. "The war will be fully, undeniably, and maybe unstoppably underway. Victory here today changes everything for everyone forever." Neither Jack nor Silver want this war, though both are pretending they do. They are both strongly motivated to prevent him from making the war unstoppable, though they do need Flint for immediate goals. Flint is certainly right about victory here changing everything forever, one way or another. It is very Delphic oracle, taken to mean one thing, but actually meaning something else. This season has been full of oracles. It is fitting to find a last one here on the eve of the final battle. Silver sees that Flint is right and backs him a last time against Jack.

* After Jack Storms out, Flint and Silver discuss their relationship.

Flint: We need to watch him. The governor is the danger ahead of us, but if he has a chance to put knives in our backs for the money, he'll do it.
Silver: You don't think I know that? What the hell is this? You cannot honestly believe that placating me is going to repair what's been broken here.
Flint: I absolutely think that it is repairable, and no one is placating anyone.
Silver: Then what exactly is it you think you're doing here?
Flint: I know what it's like to have lost her, and then seeing a way to have her back. I understand what that must've felt like. You asked me once what I would do, what I would sacrifice if it meant having Thomas back again. I honestly don't know what I would've done. I honestly couldn't say I wouldn't have done what you did. I told you I'd see you through this, put things back together again so that we can move forward. I meant it.

It is heartbreaking, Flint's real empathy for Silver, and the fact that the friendship really is irreparable. Flint is so used to talking the narrative around, but he has no handle on Silver. Silver refused to give him one, while Silver has been working on Flint's narrative handle for months. It just really breaks my heart here. Flint is so vulnerable and so desperate to make it okay.

* Billy turns up to threaten Madi with a throat slitting. Listen to his tone. He really is utterly broken. It doesn't make him any less dangerous or creepy here. I'm just saying, give him a few years with unlimited rum and you get the unpredictably violent and too frightening to press to pay his Inn bill version, haunted by dead men and dark deeds to the point of paranoia and dark hallucination. He's been literally tortured one to many times. He's been betrayed one too many times. His beating at the hands of the slaves he wronged and Silver and Madi's roll in that is in the subtext of this whole scene. This doesn't make him right. I think he is very like Woodes Rogers insisting that Madi and Flint are somehow to blame for Woodes Rogers' sending Spanish soldiers to rape and kill whomever they catch. Woodes Rogers is absolutely to blame for Eleanor's death, not the people who tried to save her from Woodes Rogers terrible decision making. Billy Bones made the decision to ignore the enslaved people begging him to leave them alone, their justified worries for the safety of their families, and the political consequences of doing this terrible thing, including keeping people he claimed to be liberating in chains. What exactly did Billy think would happen when the slave revolt struck back. Yes, what Silver did to him was shitty, but Billy set up the situation through is series of bad decisions, such that Silver had to chose between Billy on the one hand; and Madi, Flint, and Julius on the other. Torture is never okay, but I'd argue enslaving people is also never okay, and if Billy had listened to Madi, Flint, and the enslaved people the night they took the Underhill plantation things would have turned out so much better for everyone. Billy is in some deep denial about his choices leading directly to his own tragedy.

Billy Bones: Please know I was so conflicted about all this when it began. I knew it would be difficult to separate them Flint and Silver. They'd grown so close, it was hard to know where one ended and the other began. I worried that the act of separating them might destroy them both when what I wanted was to remove Flint, and I saw no other way. But the things I've done in the pursuit of it were intended to honor my oath. But somehow, here I am now. What I've just done there's no coming back from that. There is no difference between Flint and Silver now, or between Flint and any of them. They are all enemies of mine. Now, I believe they are outmatched today. I believe at the end of the day, there will be no more of them left alive, but if somehow they are able to prevail today against us fight their way through the British soldiers above, through the governor, through me I will ensure that at the end of it all, when they walk through this final door, there is defeat awaiting them.
Madi Scott: You think killing me means defeat for them? You will have given them a martyr to unite them.

Billy seems to think this is all about his hatred for Flint, about his murder of Gates, about him maybe letting Billy fall, about what he likely frames as Flint's betrayal of him at the Underhill plantation, but I honestly think it runs deeper than that. I think he and Silver were so close in season three. I think that relationship mattered to him more than he recognized. I think Silver betraying him and picking Flint and Madi and handing him over to be tortured yet again was way more personal than he is pretending. This holding a knife to Madi's neck and whispering in this intimate way his complaints, in what might be the only on on one conversation he's had with a woman in four seasons, that sure looks personal and it really seemed to be as much or more about Madi and Silver as it did about his self justification for his intent to murder a chained and defenseless prisoner to me first time through and I stand by it.

I need to double check, but I can't remember him talking one on one with a woman off the top of my head. I think he deliberately didn't talk to Abigail or Miranda on the boat or though Flint talked ABOUT him to Abigail Ashe. I do think there was some interaction in the triumvarate scenes before they took the Underhill Plantation, and he questioned her in a scene there about her information from Ruth in a group scene. At one point in 4.04 she asks him something and he mostly ignores her. Billy took Max prisoner this season, but we never saw them speak. So basically, the only women he interacts with in the series is Madi, and up to this point it's reluctant and mostly antagonistic. This one on one scene suggests some deep underlying issues with women, especially when one adds it to the other little bits and bobs we have. I supose we'll never know now whether billy was gay or asexual, but I think there IS misogyny there mostly hidden by his mostly homosocial context and general avoidance of women.

I do think it's all blurred together in his head now, everything from his initial press ganging, to his fall from the ship, through various literal imprisonment with or without torture , to his final imprisonment, that several seasons of retraumatizaion and PTSD have caught up with him, because trauma can be like that, being traumatized over and over can layer the details into one complex ball of triggers and dissociation and hurt. He has lost nearly every one he cared about to death or betrayal; everything that anchored him is gone. I do have sympathy with that even though I am absolutely not okay with the whole knife to the throat threatening to kill him.

Madi's resilience and intelligence really shine here. She listens to his rant and makes the one argument he is likely to be able to hear. Clever, clever Madi.

* Wait a minute! Woodes Rogers' ship is called the Eurydice! Eurydice was a wood nymph, who was married to Orpheus. Remember that time Eurydice died and Orpheus went down to Hades to try to get her back, but looked back at the last minute and lost her? Remember how I kept likening Eleanor Guthrie to a nymph who couldn't survive the destruction of Nassau any more than an Oread the destruction of her rock or a wood nymph the destruction of her tree? And here is Woodes Rogers sailing around inside a wood nymph, mourning his dead wife, endlessly looking backward. Remember what else happened to Orpheus? He was torn apart by Maenads, but his head lived on without his body or any way to take action. All he had was his stories and his songs. Which is apropos, given what Jack is about to do to him and that his real world counterpart wrote a popular pirate book after. Orpheus is also associated with oracles (He was seeking an oracle when the Maenads got him, and became an oracle himself after his beheading), which is fitting given how many oracles were in the Berringer episode. Also consider how badly Flint's oracle this episode is going to turn out for them both. This rather ties Woodes rogers and Flint together.

Speaking of Flint, you know what else Orpheus is known for? Male lovers. It was pretty much male lovers before and after Eurydice and he swore off women for good after she died. Let us cast back to season three when dead Miranda kept turning up in Flint's dreams, sending him messages from Hades, as it were, telling him he wasn't alone. Miranda is Eurydice too, every bit as much as Eleanor. Miranda has always been Eurydice, and the only two ghosts we see in the series are Miranda and Eleanor, even though they are only in the minds of James and Woodes. Two Eurydices. Two Orpheuses.

* The pirates are hunting the English, whom Flint correctly guessses are hiding behind a spur of rock. We get some tactical planning on both sides, but really the important thing here is a little suggestive snippet between Jack and Silver that sets up what happens after the battle.

Silver: In the meantime, why don't you tell me what the fuck you're actually doing here? You presented a plan to the Guthrie family to bolster piracy in Nassau with Max at your side? I sincerely doubt you'd go along with any plan that promised support for the account. And from there, my questions only multiply, which is probably not a state you want to leave me in.
Jack Rackham: A state of multiplying questions. I suppose that makes two of us. Because there is something in the air between you and your friend up there. It's just tension between steadfast partners, or it's something else. We could suffer under the weight of our respective questions, or would you like to start trading answers?

I think we can assume that they cook up the details for what happens after the battle at this point.

* Woodes Rogers decides to ram the pirate ship at a less than advantageous angle in hopes of breaking them before they board. Flint sees it coming and holds his side together. The party splits up at this point, with Flint sending Silver after Madi, leaving Jack in charge of the boarding party, and Flint himself chopping free the pirate ship mast and leading an assault on the sniper platform in Eurydice's rigging, where Woodes Roger is sending Billy.

Watching Billy and Flint fight I was thinking about the Silver Flint spar and fight from the previous episode. Flint never gave Billy his story, but Flint had Billy's. It was also a really good chance to see just how good Billy is at Pirating. That thing where he comes very close to shooting Flint through the canvass, the long brutal well matched fight in the rigging. He is a good match for Flint with a cutlass, something Silver never could be though Silver eventually was Flint's master when it came to narrative and betrayal. Watching Billy and Flint fight, I kept thinking of all the could have beens we were watching die. When Billy fell this second time it was obvious he was going to be marooned on Skeleton Island, just as poor Ben Gunn will be about three years before treasure Island starts, another correspondence between Billy Bones and Ben Gunn. We'll get back to that later, though. The fight is incredibly brutal and intimate, the attempted strangling of Flint, Flint stabbing Billy's thigh to get free, Billy pulling the knife from his own flesh to chase after flesh, the long struggle in which Billy tries to pull Flint down and Flint struggles to free himself. Violence is the only intimacy Billy gets in this series. Perhaps violence is the only intimacy he is capable of after his repeated brutalization. That is heartbreaking. Billy's second fall is so much longer than his first fall and though it doesn't kill him is so much more permanent.

* The boarding battle is a different kind of brutal, with Jack, Israel, and Silver hacking away at the Lobsterbacks. Where the other battle is intimate and mostly hands and feet, this is mass butchery, like the clubbing of seals, done quick and with swords and axes. Watching it, I kept missing "damned butcher" Charles Vane. We get to see how much Silver has learned from fighting Flint, and I did like him using one of my favorite old tricks: when they knock you down, use that to go for legs and crotch. There is often the advantage of extra stability, the tendency of the opponent to underestimate a seemingly downed opponent, and the lack of practice people generally have with fighting someone prone. Sure, one is less mobile than on one's feet, but one can spin and one can use both feet and one or both arms. It makes it really hard for an opponent to close. It's not allowed in tournaments sure, but in real life you can do a lot of damage that way and the point is to buy time, damage them, and wear them down. I'm not saying flop over if you're attacked, but I am saying if you are down, keep kicking them in the crotch and knee, or head (or throat if it's life and death) if they lean down to try to grab you. it really can work and often has for me. Silver fights his way into the hold while Jck tries to follow Woodes Rogers through the melee.

In the hold, Silver finds a terrified cook hiding, a call back to the very first time we saw Silver, way back in episode one. How far he's traveled from coward aboard an English vessel to terrifying blood spattered pirate accusing a cowering cook on an English vessel of cowardice. watching it, I wondered if that would make him more or less likely to save vs. kill. After all, look how saving Silver worked out for Flint. In the event, the man's fate depended on Madi being alive. I honestly felt the super slow Silver and Madi reveal was annoying, as it was pretty clear Billy sheathed his sword and the suspense felt cheap. Do have to admit that her slump was effective despite me being sure she was alive, but even that annoyed me. I think they should have maybe cut half the Silver footage between finding the cook and the kiss, as it slowed things down, especially as it's inter cut with the fast moving fight above.

* This is inter cut with the Silver bits, but I'm combining it because that's the only way to talk sensibly about it. I think the intercutting is both because it's simultaneous action and to create suspense about Madi and Madi.

Jack kills his way through redcoats to get to Woodes Rogers. This too is very, very personal, and fast. Jack is pure fury, I think, which given the history is earned. His technique is sloppy, but he does briefly get the upper hand. Jack has his sword to Woodes Rogers' throat; Woodes Rogers applies knee to kidney, being a pirate in gentleman's clothing. Flint turns up in the nick of time to fight Wooes Rogers with rather more skill. Charles Vane looked to be winning in their season three fight, but I remember what a good fight he gave Charles, so it wasn't that surprising that Woodes Rogers fought for his life so hard and dirty here. Flint and Rackham fight him together and it ends quickly with Rogers disarmed and Flint's sword at his throat. Props to Luke Roberts on the face acting in the close up after Woodes Rogers' defeat, BTW.

* Madi and Silver emerge into aftermath. The face acting here is brilliant as he watches her take it all in. We see his expression shift as she spots Flint and begins to smile. Jack gets his moment of gloat and it is quite satisfying. "Don't worry. No one's going under the ship today. Though, the thought had crossed my mind. No, I'm quite certain I can do better than that." Jack has Woodes rogers' story after all, and knows him better than anyone. Jack is also very clever and the final pirate evolution. (A reminder from previous commentary: Israel Hands is the proto pirate, which evolved into Blackbeard representing the Golden age, who was supplanted by Charles Vane (a butcher, but a much thinkier butcher), and the final evolution is Jack the self aware, PR conscious, talky, able to coexist with civilization version). Jack eschews the extreme brutality of Woodes Rogers' repeated keelhauling of Blackbeard for a more subtle punishment aimed at what Woodes Rogers holds most dear. It is very Jack. It also better fits Jack's political goals.

* I am strongly suspecting the little exchange between Silver and Jack where they work out who is doing what on which ship in front of everyone was decided between them privately in advance. It makes it look like Jack doesn't trust Silver and is worried about the gold, but it actually ensures that the people left on at Skeleton Island are Flint, Silver, Jack Rackham, and Silver's loyalists, so only they know what happens next. Madi, Featherstone, and Jack's crew (who I assume are in the dark about the whole betray Flint plan because telling them would be stupid and Jack isn't stupid even though he does have his blind spots.) are all headed back to Madi's people. It gets people likely to object out of the way and likely is intended to lull Flint, except Flint is better at politics and strategy than that.

* Silver, Hands, and a couple NPCs row Flint to the island through ominous fog to the island. After this point, there are a bunch of little distance shots before the one on one that made me wonder if they were being followed and watching through the follower's eyes, possibly by Billy, but it didn't pan out, so I was likely just imagining it. A cut takes us to some point in the hike when Flint callas a halt to rest. Silver interprets it as meant for him, what with the leg and the difficulty of terrain. (Flint: We'll rest here. You really are getting nimble on that thing. Silver: Pain is an exceptional tutor.) I can't help but think there is a larger subtext here. Flint has gone enough forward and Silver has given his loyalists a look, so that it is just the two of them for this last confrontation. In any case, Flint makes it clear he knows they are planning to kill him after he takes them to the treasure, and eventually Silver gives up pretending he isn't betraying Flint. The acting is heartbreaking here and leaves no doubt that they care about each other, even after everything that's happened, even through what is happening now. The focus in this seen is fascinating, the way often the speaker is out of focus or their face is out of frame so our eyes are drawn to the reaction. For the really important speeches there is a close up on the speaker of course, but wherever possible, they focus on the listener which creates an impression that they ARE listening to each other for all they disagree, and that this breach really hurts them both.

Silver: And what is it you think is happening?
Flint: I show you the chest, the chest is brought out of the ground and then I don't know what then exactly, but I doubt it involves returning it to the camp as planned. Am I wrong? Tell me I am and we'll continue on our way.
Silver: And then what? This war. Your war. Her war. Julius will be no obstacle to it, as long as you and she stand for it, as long as the treasure powers it. Nothing can stop it from beginning now. Nothing but you.
Flint: Why would you want to do that?
Silver: This is what it would be. Time after time after time. Endlessly. The measuring of lives and loves and spirits so that they may be wagered in a grand game. How much ransom can be afforded for the cause? How many casualties can be tolerated for the cause? How much loss? That isn't a war. That is a fucking nightmare. And I cannot take a single step towards leaving this forest till I know it's over.
Flint: This is how they survive. You must know this. You're too smart not to know this. They paint the world full of shadows and then tell their children to stay close to the light. Their light. Their reasons, their judgments. Because in the darkness, there be dragons. But it isn't true. We can prove that it isn't true. In the dark, there is discovery, there is possibility, there is freedom in the dark once someone has illuminated it. And who has been so close to doing it as we are right now?
Silver: This isn't about England or her king or our freedom, or any of it. When I thought Madi was gone, I saw for the first time, I saw the world through your eyes. A world in which there is nothing left to lose. I felt the need to make sense of the loss to impart meaning to it whatever the cost. To exalt her memory with battles and victories. But beneath all of that, I recognized the other thing hiding in the spaces. The one whose shape you first showed me. And when asked, it was honest about the role it wanted to play. It was rage. And it just wanted to see the world burn. I see a life for myself with her, and I will not live it wondering if tomorrow is the day your nightmare finally takes her away for good.
Flint: So, what next, then? What decisions have you made about what our tomorrows will be?
Silver: I made arrangements to ensure that when we leave here, it is with compromises in place that will diffuse any threat of widespread rebellion.
Flint: All this will be for nothing. We will have been for nothing. Defined by their histories distorted to fit into their narrative until all that is left of us are the monsters in the stories they tell their children.
Silver: I don't care.
Flint: You will. Someday, you will. Someday. Even if you can persuade her to keep you she'll no longer be enough. And the comfort will grow stale. And casting about in the dark for some proof that you mattered and finding none, you'll know that you gave it away in this moment on this island. Left it in the ground along with that chest.
Silver: This is not what I wanted. But I will stand here with you for an hour, a day, a year while you find a way to accept this outcome so that we might leave here together. For if not then I must end this another way.

"And then what?" seems to me a question people really should have been asking all along, as I think often the characters have been so caught up in their planning and strategies and tactics and visions that they haven't generally thought all the way through.

Here it is then. Silver an Jack have seen a way out of War with England and that means Madi and Flint must lose. Silver is deciding FOR Madi and her people, which infuriates me. It's paternalistic an exactly the sort of thing white men do too often when it comes to women and people of colour. It reminds me of what Billy did when they took the Underhill Estate. In both cases it's a white man over riding what woman who had been enslaved wanted. In both cases it turns out well for white men, but not so well for enslaved people. Sure, Silver's decision keeps Madi safe personally, but it absolutely betrays all the enslaved people in the Islands Madi was hoping to free. She repeatedly rejected the offer from Woodes Rogers that Silver will now force her to accept and there is zero ambiguity about how she feels about that offer. It is her life to risk, not his. I'm not saying he's wrong about their chances and the incredibly high cost in lives. I am saying that in situations like this it's the formally enslaved people who should have the final say as to what happens. Yes, this is what I said about Billy Bones and the Underhill Estate too.

Flint's darkness speech is a beautiful distillation of his themes. He is still battling for control of the narrative, from England, from Silver. He is still defying the civilization that denied him and the Hamilton's happiness and pruned them because they did not fit. He is still unashamed of his love as Thomas bade him, and still wanting freedom on his own terms, a life outside of the safe boxes civilization tries to shove people in. He is still fundamentally unwilling to bow to civilization and still wanting them to apologize to him. Flint told us himself, "They took everything from us. And then they called me a monster. The moment I sign that pardon, the moment I ask for one, I proclaim to the world that they were right. This ends when I grant them my forgiveness... not the other way around." He is still raging against the machine, basically, and I do mean raging. There is also a fundamental underlying desperation in the performance here. I think it's more than just him trying to convince Silver. I think he is trying to convince himself about creativity in the darkness. I think this desperation also comes from the hollowness I have often written about in Flint, that without his mission and his rage, he would be empty, that losing Thomas hollowed him out and if he stops fighting all that will be left is grief and emptiness.

Silver isn't wrong about the rage and the loss as fundamental motivators in Flint's crusade. After all, Miranda told us in Season 2 "I think you're fighting for the sake of fighting! Because it's the only state in which you can function. The only way to keep that voice in your head from driving you mad!" She was wrong about the shame, but I think she was spot on about the rage. The thing is though? Vane and Madi and the Queen were all in it for rage against slavery and colonialism. A political stance isn't invalidated by the rage against the injustice having a personal element to it. Again, I'm not saying that Silver is wrong about the outcome, or the character analysis, I'm just saying that that it doesn't invalidate the experiences and choices of someone who has lost so much to homophobia and all the characters who have been literally enslaved. For most of Silver's rage speech, we are watching flint's face. The long profile shot in particular is painful in Flint's vulnerability and the sense that he really is on the edge of despair. Luke Arnold's performance suggests that Silver knows this intimately, that he regrets, that he empathizes, yet he persists, sure he is right, as sure as Flint so often is when he hurts people.

There is this beautiful hint of dark amusement in the curl of Flint's lip and the angle of his brows as he asks whats next, a wry tone, a touch of sarcasm, beautifully nuanced. It was very real and reminded me of some life or death conversations I've been a part of, the dark humor when hope is lost or nearly so. The kind of conversations one has in an ICU or ER or late at night when things have gone terribly, terribly wrong. He has come to terms with the fact Silver is doing this terrible thing, but is still fighting in his understated way with his best weapon.

I have questions about the "compromises in place." Presumably, Jack's deal with Grandmother Guthrie is one of them, and not bringing back the treasure and using that as an excuse to back Julius and factions that aren't keen on fighting the war especially without funding, and his plan to smear Flint. Does it or does it not include kidnapping and sequestering Flint, or does it assume Flint's death. I'm guessing if they did get the gold he'd have to give it to Jack to get it out of play. Can he return to Jack with Flint but without the gold and still send Flint away? I am agnostic here, which we'll talk about in a minute.

Flint is looking at true and total defeat, and his expression shows that devastation under his fury. The sacrifice of Thomas, Miranda, Gates, and so many others is to be rendered pointless by Silver's choice. Ouch. I need to pull out the line, "Defined by their histories distorted to fit into their narrative until all that is left of us are the monsters in the stories they tell their children." Flint is aware of the power of story consciously, much as Silver, Rogers, and Rackham are. It's explicit here that he knows what he is doing and that who tells the story MATTERS. I do love the way this references both Treasure island and the book RL Woodes Rogers is going to write about the pirates of Nassau without directly saying that's what it's doing. It also references the everyone being a monster to someone theme woven all through Black Sails.

Silver insists that he doesn't care what sort of narrative other people make about them. After all, he is a man who refuses to make his life into narrative, about whom all naratives are fictional. *shudder* I believe he believes it. I also think Flint is right in the long run and that he is giving Silver both an oracle and a curse. "You will. Someday, you will. Someday. Even if you can persuade her to keep you she'll no longer be enough. And the comfort will grow stale. And casting about in the dark for some proof that you mattered and finding none, you'll know that you gave it away in this moment on this island. Left it in the ground along with that chest." Brutal and very likely true, especially given how things go with Madi, and him eventually going back to hunt the treasure in Treasure Island. Flint knows Silver so very well despite the absent back story. This is right the way Silver's talk of Flint's rage is right. Silver thinks it's enough but it won't be. Toby Stephens' performance is so nuanced. Flint mirrors Silver's empathy and regret, as well as his equally stubborn belief that the other man is terribly wrong and making a mistake that will ruin everything forever, all this while retaining the fury from the monster speech and shading towards contempt to make it sound like a death curse by the end. that is a long journey to make in such a short speech, but he makes it work.

Luke Arnold makes me believe in Silver's regret and resolve both, also a hard thing to do. A friend points out that the sentence "This is not what I wanted." is used three times in Black Sails. (Here they are together in one place if you'd like a visual: http://jonquility.tumblr.com/post/159142566908/this-is-not-what-i-wanted). The first time was when Flint murdered Mr. Gates. The second is when Peter Ashe's minion murdered Miranda. The third is here. This is a data point on the side of Silver murdering Flint. In the same speech though, Silver talks as if he is still planning on the kidnap to Savannah. "But I will stand here with you for an hour, a day, a year while you find a way to accept this outcome so that we might leave here together." The cut to Hands, jungle birds, and the minions reacting to something in the direction of the conversation without giving us an unambiguous sound for them to react to, like say, a gun shot, plays into the ambiguity.

* We get a brief cut of Anne in Philadelphia spotting Jack and their embrace, and max arriving in time to see it. I am not best please that we lack a definitive statement on how the Max/Anne relationship ends up. I suspect they thought the scene last episode when they hold hands in the snow, plus the set up towards the end of the Nassau framer suggests the triumvirate is back in force, but without the tensions and jealousies of the first time around, but I really would have liked something clearer and shortening the scene in the hold could have given us the extra minutish to do it in. Given the shitty way media treats queer characters generally, and the tendency towards poly erasure in media generally, it would have been nice to have more than a lesbian and bisexual woman briefly holding hands and some lovely face acting as Jack Rackham and Max see each other while Jack holds Anne. It wouldn't have taken that much. An open inviting arm and a group hug would have taken seconds, and they could have followed it up with say, Anne taking leave of Max in the background of Jack's Nassau framer in a way suggesting romantic and sexual intimacy. A kiss, maybe and a lingering hand, enough to make things less ambiguous. I really do thing this is what the end means, but it wouldn't have taken much to make things clearer. As it is, it just seems cruel to leave it hanging given what the rest of the episode is doing.

* And the reason I am furious is that from this point on, the rest of the episode is told by unreliable narrators, except for the framing bits, which means that much as I want to believe the happy ending, I can not trust it. Fuck that! Seriously, fuck that! I have a high tolerance for, nay, even a preference for ambiguity in my storytelling, but eve though it is thematic and I get the reasons for it as commentary on the theme of narrative and power of story, I very much needed to know for sure how this particular story ended. This story is too rare and beautiful and unusual in being actually relevant to me, and that is a gift I am hardly ever given. I am furious that I've been robbed of a firm ending to Flint's story. I feel manipulated by things like the cut between conversation and reaction at the end of last scene and the way the entire ending is structured.

* Anyway, on to the unreliable narrators. First we get Jack telling Grandmother Guthrie the Flint spin and Jack and Max negotiating the deal whereby Grandmother Guthrie doesn't get everything she wants, but she gets a decent compromise. Flint removed, Max in charge, Featherstone as Max's figure head without benefit of marriage, a similar accommodation with the pirates that Philadelphia has, with Jack pretending to be respectable but actually being a pirate. Yes, I'm conflating the Philadelphia framer and part of the Nassau framer, but it makes sense to put the clear bit together in this way.

Jack Rackham: Flint is gone.
Grandmother Guthrie: Gone? Gone where?
Jack Rackham: Retired from the account. He was persuaded that his efforts were no longer viable, that those closest to him had grown tired of them. And of him. He then chose to walk away from it all. He's no longer a concern of ours.
Grandmother Guthrie: This sounds somewhat less definitive an end than I had expected.
Jack: But far more effective. For if our intent was to extinguish his war, feeding it a martyr seems like an odd way of going about it. Flint had allies who would've only been emboldened by his death. Some of whom, had they the desire, could and would have fought his war without him to honor his memory. Instead of a martyr, we have fed it a story, a tragedy that diffused their fighting spirit, and enabled the more moderate voices among them to press for a more moderate solution.

A data point suggesting a live Flint is that it would have been in Jack's best interest to tell Grandmother Guthrie he'd killed Flint even if Silver did it, as long as Flint was actually dead. Telling her Flint's retired only makes more trouble. The argument on the other side is unfortunately that this version might be ultimately for Anne's benefit. She did not react well to the kill Flint plan before he left, and it would simplify things with Anne long term if Flint had been sent to a farm upstate instead of euthanized as it were. It could explain the serious we need to talk face he gave Max during the reunion hug. At the same time, the political explanation for retiring Flint instead of killing him does make a certain amount of sense, and is very Jack in the way the plan for destroying Woodes Rogers makes sense. Jack doesn't shy away from blood shed he considers necessary (That time he slit the throat of the Captain of the Goliath and got pummeled by a dead man, that time he shot the man in front when they came for Charles at the fort to discourage others, the battle on the Eurydice this episode come to mind), but he does tend to kill as few as he can get away with killing when he's doing the planning, and generally prefers political solutions. No dead if he can manage, one dead to save many, accepts surrenders in battle gladly. Jack's learned to think sideways and I think exposure to Max, his season two mistakes with Anne, and his imprisonment by Woodes Rogers all played a part in developing his sneaky sideways narrative focused big picture thinking that he uses to further his smart not hard minimal casualties natural tendencies. Jack kills people, but I never got the impression he likes it the way a lot of the others do, treating it more as a necessary evil. (Silver and Flint had a whole conversation about liking it back in season three; Israel Hands, Ned Low, and Blackbeard pretty clearly enjoy killing; and you can't convince me Charles, Billy, and Anne don't enjoy fighting on some level).

Anyway, in Jack's version they spun a story about Flint that made it so no one would fight on in his name (As Flint did for Thomas and Miranda, as Silver would have for Madi, as Jack did for Vane and Teach in the first flush of grief. I think his love for a living Anne was a moderating influence on Jack. He is anchored to her and has something to live for beyond revenge, and his revenge was personally directed at Woodes Roger and Eleanor rather than requiring endless resistance to England.), so having Flint run away with the money fundamentally discredits him and takes away the funding for the revolution all at once. As long as the gold doesn't immediately resurface. I'll get back to that caveat later. As Jack's version of events and Silver's framer both include the acceptance of Woodes Rogers' treaty over Madi's strong objections, we can take this as likely true.

Jack further muddies the Schrodinger's Flint issue with the following two clever by half coda, "I can tell you whatever it is you want to hear about Flint's whereabouts. He's dead. He's retired. The truth of it matters not at all." Jack, you shit!

I do love Jack twisting the knife on Woodes Rogers. "Affidavits that will shape the official narrative of the default. The failure. The humiliation. For a man like Woodes Rogers, how difficult that will be to sit helpless while history records such an unflattering end to what was once such a promising story. I suppose what I'm asking is once the time comes to submit that affidavit, I'd so love to help you write it." Note that he specifically references narrative. Woodes Roger's student on PR has indeed become the master. Woodes Rogers' expression is beautifully bleak in his little scene under Jack's voice over.

* On to the Silver and Madi framer, where Madi shows that she is no fool. She accuses Silver of doing this, of stopping her War. He owns up to his Flint smear being a lie as she had assumed because she knew Flint and thus that the story made no sense. Madi quite sensibly assumes that Silver murdered his friend and is rightly repulsed. Silver says quite possibly the creepiest thing in all four seasons of the show. "I did not kill Captain Flint. I unmade him. The man you know could never let go of his war, for if he were to exclude it from himself, he would not be able to understand himself. So I had to return him to an earlier state of being. One in which he could function without the war. Without the violence. Without us. Captain Flint was born out of great tragedy. You know this. I told you this. I found a way to reach into the past and undo it." It is, of course, in his best interest to claim he didn't kill Flint to Madi. At the same time he does agree with Jack's first version which was not in Jack's best interest.

There are some other interesting features. This is the opposite of the speech James gave about how he made Flint, that he feared what he was creating, so gave him the name of the strange visitor that seemed conjured out of the sea and returned to it as mysteriously. Flint was a fiction James McGraw made, just as Long John Silver was a fiction Billy Bones made. Here, Silver has grabbed hold of the McGraw/Flint narrative and turned Flint back into McGraw. Notice that Silver is echoing the Miranda quote from season 2 I referenced earlier about Flint not being able to function without his war. If you think about it, Silver's arguments this episode have had the ring of Miranda about them generally. Silver wants something very akin to what Miranda wanted both for themselves and for James. Remember the letter she sent North to try to give him an out, and her desperate attempts to find a way to stop him from being self destructive. I couldn't possibly have guessed in the first season that by Season three he would start to become Miranda and that my the end of Season Four he would BE her. Miranda's apparition, like Miranda was "trying to save your life." Miranda's apparition said Flint was not alone, which could mean Silver and/or Thomas from an end of series perspective. From the Silver side, it was season three Billy who pushed Silver to learn from the way Gates and Miranda used to manage Flint, and Silver came to identify with his predecessors to the point he feared a similar death for himself. Now he is paraphrasing things he never heard Miranda say.

The motto on the gates appears to read not for himself but for others, BTW. Platitude or commentary? You decide.

His description of Flint's fate is poetic, so I'm just going to quote it because it's beautiful, "The man whose mind I had come to know so well whose mind I'd in some ways incorporated into my own. It was a strange experience to see something from it so unexpected. I choose to believe it because it wasn't the man I had come to know at all but one who existed beforehand waking from a long and terrible nightmare, reorienting to the daylight and the world as it existed before he first closed his eyes letting the memory of the nightmare fade away." That image of Flint and Silver having blended into each other echoes Billy in the hold with Madi. I have felt all season like the spirals are getting smaller and smaller. Here Silver is echoing a conversation Billy had with Madi something like half an hour ago our time. Billy spotted a conflation that Silver is aware of. Billy Bones made Long John Silver who was half Bones and half Silver; James McGraw made Flint but Silver became half Flint; John Silver destroyed Billy Bones and unmade Flint. O.o I'm not sure I've managed to word this in a way that conveys my thought, but it's going to haunt me, I know.

I worry about Silver's story, because the way they cut this episode, they could easily have not really known one way or the other if Thomas was there. He could have died in transit or on the plantation. He could have never been there in the first place. He is trying so terribly hard to convince Madi Flint stopped fighting of his own accord. Jack's version backs Silver's, but jack isn't at the plantation. We see Tom Morgan, Israel Hands, and the NPCs from the Flint capture. We don't see Jack in the images under the Silver voice over. Did Jack verify this happened or did he just believe Silver? I very much want this story to be true. Thomas' moment of disbelief before his smile and embrace. James melting in his relief, that kiss. I want so bad for it to be true. I've come close to talking myself around to it, but there are all these little things on the other side, just as there are all these little things on the side of hope.

Madi is clever and Madi follows the implications of his story to figure out that Silver had been plotting to betray Flint and Madi since well before the Fall of Nassau. It was very much Madi's War as well as Flint's. Silver didn't just do this terrible thing to her in the heat of the moment when things were coming unglued, he planned it when thing were going well, behind her back and against her interests. She kicks him out and good on her. He plans to stay like a creeper and wait her anger out. Eeeew. er performance is beautiful, BTW. Her understated devastation as she realizes the extent of his treachery, and the way she hardens in her anger.

* We return to Jack as narrator, now a bit sozzled telling some version to Mary Read in Max's rebuilt Nassau. He echoes the Schrodinger's Flint theme from the end of the version he told Grandmother Guthrie, changing the alive/dead dichotomy to true/untrue. "A story is true. A story is untrue. As time extends, it matters less and less. The stories we want to believe those are the ones that survive, despite upheaval and transition and progress. Those are the stories that shape history, and then what does it matter if it was true when it was born? It’s found truth in its maturity, which if a virtue in man ought to be no less so for the things men create." This of course cast further doubt on what really happened to Flint, at the same time, if a story is true because we want it to be true and the truth at origin doesn't matter, does wanting our Ginger and our Tom to both be alive and happy in Savannah make it true even if there are things that argue that one or both cats are dead in the box are they still alive in a fictional story in which narrative told within the story by characters can bend reality Munchhausen style? is that enough in the end, or are we left empty and frustrated?

The next bit continues the muddying, "Long John Silver's story is a hard one to know. The men who believed most deeply in it were ultimately destroyed by it, and those who stood to benefit most from it were the most eager to leave it all behind. Until all that remains of any of it are stories bearing only a passing resemblance to the world the rest of us lived in. A world we survived. A world that is no more." All those men dead over a story Billy made in hopes of using Silver and Silver used against Billy and Flint in the end. Silver walked away from it sure, but isn't he going to walk right back in treasure Island when it suits him. And we KNOW Jack is lying at the end, because we get proof of it shortly, that the world isn't completely gone. Which rather casts doubt on the rest of what he said, doesn't it.

As Jack talks about the ones that were "destroyed by it" we see Billy washing up on shore on Skeleton Island, presumably back in the past as he'd clearly have drowned by now otherwise, exactly as I expected him too when he fell from the mast. I'm of the opinion that Billy searched and found the treasure. After all, the tracks would be reasonably fresh the day of the battle or the day after. He might have tracked back to the place Hands and Silver fought Flint, as they weren't being careful when they ran off to try to help the Walrus survivors and at this point there was Dooley's dead body there not far from the cave. He could do a circular search out from the body and find the cave and the fresh digging. Silver didn't have time on the day of the fight and by the time the battle was over, he had a strong vested interest in the money staying hidden. This gives Billy, big ridiculously strong with super bulgy muscles Billy, plenty of time to move the chest to the more open area where they find it in treasure island. This also suggests that Billy, not Flint, moved (probably Dooley's but it could have been any of the six's) body to use as a marker as is consistent with treasure island. we know from the end of Jack's second framer that he'd been periodically searching the island for the treasure. Did Billy stow away? Talk his way on board? If so there is plenty of time for him to self medicate his PTSD into cirrhosis in the approximately 20 years between Black Sails and treasure Island. Was he marooned there until Ben Gunn's ship turns up later and end up aboard that ship? (Ben Gunn's account is as follows: "Well, I was in another ship three years back, and we sighted this island. 'Boys,' said I, 'here's Flint's treasure; let's land and find it.' The cap'n was displeased at that, but my messmates were all of a mind and landed. Twelve days they looked for it, and every day they had the worse word for me, until one fine morning all hands went aboard. 'As for you, Benjamin Gunn,' says they, 'here's a musket,' they says, 'and a spade, and pick-axe. You can stay here and find Flint's money for yourself,' they says.) In that case he only had three years to kill himself with drink which seems less likely, though after that much isolation on top of all that trauma he started with, I can imagine he might have strong motivation to numb himself. It's just harder to do that degree of damage in three years as opposed to most of two decades. In any case, when Billy left the island, he'd have no idea that Silver prevented the war. If he got off reasonably early, he'd have had strong motivation to leave the chest in the ground lest it be used to reignite the pirate cause. It would make sense to find out what the political landscape in the Island looked like, and if he was stowing away or hitching a ride with pirate treasure hunters, it's not like he could have reasonably brought a honking big chest with him, though if he tucked one or two of the pouches away on his person, it would explain the weird mix of coin found in his sea chest at the Inn in Treasure Island. He likely thought he would come back for the rest later and wrote the map to help him remember where to find it, only "drink and the devil had done for" him as well as "the rest."

At "benefit most" we cut to Silver looking out to sea on top of what I strongly suspect was that dune he talked to Flint on top of. Madi approaches and they stare at each other ambiguously. I hve no proof, but I am inclined to think Flint's prediction/curse came true, that she did take him back, but it was forever soured by Silver's choices on both sides and eventually restlessness, Long john Silver's return, and Treasure Island.

For the "stories" bit of Jack's voice over, we get Mrs. Hudson reading to her children. Is that Woodes Rogers' pirate book? It's too large, isn't it? Did anyone with a better TV catch what book it was? In any case, it looks like Mrs. Mapleton kept her word and Mrs. Hudson DID help team Jack/Featherstone with their incredibly successful mission, so she picked the winning team in the end.

We get back to a depressed looking Jack on "a world that is no more," and I did want to point out how good his acting was in this sequence. The touches of bitterness and loss, the not quite slur subtle thickness of his tongue, the hints of grief for all of those lost along with that world, all mixed in with vaguely pompous Jack blather. It really was beautifully done.

Mary Read's attempt to get on the account fills in a scenario that sounds an awful lot like Philadelphia's relationship to their pirates, confirming in it's way that Max's bargain with the Guthries is working. Mr. Featherstone revealed as governor, with Idelle right up there nearby, Max and Mrs. Mapleton conspiring and clearly the real center of power all ties up that end of the plot nicely, except for the whole failing to disambiguate if the private side of threesome is going well thing. The look Max and Jack exchange could be read any number of ways, though I hope it relates to the planned pirating and not a renewal of rivalry.

I am a little concerned that the retirement conversation between Anne and Jack just before Blackbeard's death is dropped. At the same time, I feel like this is Jack taking Mr. McCoy's advise about not retiring. This DOES seem like a middle ground sort of thing. They are respectable in Nassau, but do a bit of piracy and treasure hunting on the side.

Look, I can see how Mary Read's inclusion might look like pure fan service, but it also suggests that the historical bits with Jack, Anne, Mary, and Beauty Dave come AFTER Black sails, something had had been quietly worrying me all along. That means that eventually they WILL get caught and Jack's hanging, which I spent two seasons dreading, is still in his future. That means we still don't know what happens to Anne, but we can hope she slips away to Max's arms and they live long happy lives together. That means that their world WILL end, and thus maybe Jack is more reliable than he looks. I don't know.

From Anne's expression, I'm pretty sure she's spotted Mark's birth sex, though damned if they didn't do a good job with realistic pre-1900 tech person assigned female at birth going for a soldier or sailor. I've looked at a lot of surviving photographs of U S Civil war era trans men soldiers and women disguised as men soldiers and Mark Read is spot on for the ones that were most successful. (I tend to be wary of labeling people too early in time to self identify, but if a person spends literal decades living as a man or goes to great lengths to conceal for an extended period and is in obvious distress on being forced back into dresses etc., I tend to lean trans man. I cases where it's short term for stated goals like following a partner, needing the cash, etc., I tend to avoid the trans label as it looks more situational than identity based, even though it's possible they could be trans. I don't have enough data on Mark/Mary Read to make a determination, so I tried to use the name that made sense in context in the discussions above, based on things like clarity).

I love the little final Jack and Anne exchange:

Jack Rackham: You could be more welcoming to new people. Would it hurt?
Anne Bonny: Planning on bringing them all on?
Jack: All of who?
Anne: All the fools that have heard you may know where to find Captain Flint's treasure. The ones thinking you may go looking for it again. Thinking you'll make them rich. The ones I worry might just convince you to do it.
Jack: I've chased Captain Flint's treasure. I've had Captain Flint's treasure. It never ends well. Rather than rush off after it again maybe let's just do this a while longer. Maybe...Oh, is that it?
Anne: Still don't understand what was wrong with the one we had.
Jack: Because what's it all for if it goes unremembered? It's the art that leaves the mark. But to leave it, it must transcend. It must speak for itself. It must be true. It's fine. It's fine.
Anne: Get us underway.

I love how light her tone is, the banter between them, the self knowledge. I love Jack's partially sour grapes but still true "It never ends well." It really never does. I love that we circle back to Jack's pirate flag obsession, which is and always has been an expression of his central concern about narrative, reputation, and legacy, not just his, but that of the ones who came before, like Avery, and the ones he knew better, like Vane. Just like he tried to protect Vane's reputation with the Philly Fanatic (I know, I know, but I'm twelve hours in on writing this, exhausted, ill, and getting silly), just like he's been spinning Flint and Silver's story and thus his own into legend, the flag really is important to him even though pragmatic Anne teases him about it and is amused by it.

I think Jack's last speech might also be a data point on Schrodinger's Flint. "It's the art that leaves the mark. But to leave it, it must transcend. It must speak for itself. It must be true." So is his art true? Is Silver's? Is their Flint happy ending true? I started out pessimist, argued myself around to live Schrodinger's cats, then back to dead ones, then back to the middle. The second Jack unreliable narration leaves me with hope, even though I can never quite trust it entirely.

Update: A friend pointed out that Madi could hire someone to go to Savannah as see if Flint and Thomas were a live. That actually makes sense to me. She's the only person left with a motive to do it and she certainly has the means to do it. it would be a reason she might have softened in that last shot of them.



*****
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