Black Sails XI (S2E3) review
Spoilers for up to and including E11.
"You'll either be the death of each other or we'll all end up working for you someday."- Charles Vane
Finally the end of Ned Low, thank fucking god. Vane's reasoning for the whole endeavour is a little all over the place. Max isn't exactly wrong in calling him out on being motivated by his feelings by Eleanor and using the "prize" to explain his moves to his men. I also get the sense that neither of those are what he uses to justify the efforts he went through to himself, though. There was something about Ned Low that felt a little like Charles Vane going completely off the rails and seeing his worst aspects reflected back couldn't have been fun. Still, maybe he's more at peace with his feelings for Eleanor than he normally seems, as he doesn't accept Max's offer of teaching how to stop caring about her (it would be interesting to know what exactly Max would have said if he'd said yes, though). Speaking of Low being Vane's worst traits reflected back at him, that whole interaction between them is unhinged. Low wants a partnership with Vane, as he can only see and appreciate the physical power that Vane holds in having control of the fort, a crew and being a strong fighter himself, and not the type of tactical, political power that Eleanor holds, and thinks that with the might of the two of them combined they'd have no issues whatsoever. Normally this would sound like Vane's kind of reasoning, but, whether it's because of his feelings for Eleanor or him maturing in his reasoning, he doesn't take him up on the offer. Instead, we get an absolutely feral fight between the two of them, which really emphasises the "two sides of the same coin" thing, alongside Vane's crew swimming up to Low's ship with fucking knives in their mouths and then killing the rest of his crew. Honestly, by the time Low's head ends up on a pike in the middle of Nassau, I'm not sure whether Vane was a better option.
Whatever it means for Nassau, Vane killing Low definitely gets him back in Eleanor's good books (jesus christ those two just keep making each other worse). I love that he still insists to Eleanor that he didn't kill Low for her. I'm not even sure what he was trying to achieve by telling her that, regardless of what his intentions were. Honestly, maybe he's just a man. And he has Abigail Ashe now. Great.
One upside of the whole Vane/Low/Eleanor debacle is that, as a favour to Max, Vane publicly forgives Anne and Jack. He didn't even seem that bothered by what they'd done to his crew so he was either a) faking nonchalance so they don't know they've gotten to him, b) only pretending to be mad at them because condoning killing your crew isn't a good look, or c) he is literally incapable of holding one opinion or feeling for more than a week. Honestly, I'm leaning towards c, given what we've seen so far, although he does make sure Jack and Anne know that he's only forgiving them as a favour to her, I guess just to keep us all guessing.
Regardless of their career prospects, all is not well between Jack and Anne (but, honestly, when is it ever). Anne is spending more and more time with Max and, as a result, less time with Jack. In return, Jack is going out looking for a crew (albeit unsuccessfully, prior to Vane's intervention) without Anne. Despite this, they actually end up communicating (a rare win)! Anne knows that Max might be manipulating her, Jack knows that Anne can't help her feelings for Max (and is shockingly relaxed about the whole situation), and Anne decides that the solution to this whole dilemma is for them to all sleep together, and, honestly, it seems to work? Good for them. It's also worth noting that this is the first time that Anne is actually undressed around Max, and honestly the connotations of Jack being the only one she feels safe around are both heartbreaking and heartwarming. What a trio, I'm sure nothing will ever go wrong with this.
Meanwhile, over on the Walrus, an equally complicated partnership seems to be forming between Silver and Flint. Dufresne is still quartermaster, which is honestly a very smart and Flint-like move, both in the "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" sense and also because Dufresne did actually make a decent quartermaster, but Silver now holds equal, if not greater, power with the crew. His reports have continued and, as the whole crew now joing in with the foot stomping thing, we can see that, as he predicted, him and his reports are now both needed and appreciated. He's no longer just talking to the crew about the crew, though-- he's also passing down messages from Flint. Against all odds, he's managed to make himself valuable to both crew and captain. In this sense, he definitely holds more power than Dufresne, and is possibly heading towards rivalling Flint. For Flint, all this change is something that he knows he'll have to explain to Eleanor, and, as Dufresne points out, he'll have to, one way or another, justify Gates' death, whether he tells the truth or not. What Flint doesn't expect, however, are the changes that have happened in Nassau since he left (he still references Hornigold controlling the fort, taking for an unchangable fact, as it has likely been the case since he came to Nassau).
We also see that Miranda has not been idle since Flint left (good for her). She seems to have given up on any hopes of getting out of Nassau for the time being and has instead turned to the inner islanders for some level of community. This, of course, is something that Eleanor knows and wants to exploit. Look, I really want to like Eleanor as a character, but it's hard. She starts her conversation with Miranda by implying that she is unremarkable, and that Flint doesn't see her as important, then tries to leverage Miranda's relationships with the inner islanders, then starts questioning Flint and Miranda's relationship. Like Pastor Lambrick, she assumes that Flint and Miranda must hold some kind of leverage over each other that forms the basis for their relationship. Unlike Lambrick, however, she doesn't assume that Miranda is a passive victim in this situation. Somehow, people seem to be incapable of believing that Flint and Miranda just care for each other, or whatever more complicated variation of that that we're slowly learning about through the flashbacks. For her part, Miranda lends weight to the suggestion that it is their shared past that brings her and Flint together. As she tells Eleanor, we, as the audience, and the pirates on Nassau "perceive the effects of Captain Flint's demons, echoes of their voices [but she] know[s] their names. [She] was there when they were born" and, as a result, she knows more of Flint than Eleanor could even understand. Eleanor, after all, doesn't even seem to recognise who Miranda is talking about when she first refers to Flint as James, and apparently has no idea of what his past (the past that we are starting to learn about) might include. So, Eleanor leaves the interaction with very little gained in terms of political power, but potentially more knowledge of Flint (insofar as knowing that there's stuff she doesn't know can be counted as knowledge) and, as Flint arrives in Nassau, she's about to learn a whole lot more.
Flint now trusts Silver enough to make choose him to acompany him into Nassau to get provisions. Almost immediately, they notice that things have changed as Hornigold's flag is now on the beach, but, at least from my perspective, very little of Nassau itself has changed. We are reminded of just how much has happened since they left when Flint arrives to Eleanor looking for a new bodyguard (the Walrus crew were away for more or less the whole Ned Low situation). Honestly, as this series continues, the Eleanor/Flint dynamic really grows on me, and I love that hug between them. They (at least to an extent) trust each other and were evidently worried about each other as they were managing their respective crises, but neither of them is entirely happy with how those crises were managed. Flint is just generally bitter about anything that Vane does (and vice versa) because of the rivalry they just keep up because they can. Eleanor tries to convince Flint that he's being a little bit dramatic about the whole thing, but, as we all know by now, once Flint's made his mind up about something, nobody can convince him to change it. I can sympathise much more with Eleanor's concern about Flint's story-- I don't doubt that she knew he could be violent (he is a pirate captain after all), but murdering his second in command and best friend to pursue a course of action that was evidently a bad idea to begin with is a new level even for Flint. Even turning her use of "what was necessary" back on her doesn't reassure her or convince her that it was the only reasonable course of action, and, even by the end of the conversation, she still seams much more wary of Flint than she was when they were first reunited, a wariness that remains when she later tries to confront Mr Scott about him. She sees that "something is different about [Flint]" from when they last talked and, in all fairness, killing his best friend, surviving a mutiny and a shipwreak and then retaking his position as captain really has taken a toll on him. Flint is, somehow, even less trusting, and even more haunted. Eleanor also tries to talk to Flint about Miranda, but, as we've seen before, getting this man to open up about his past is basically impossible.
While Flint and Eleanor are discussing Gates' death, Hornigold and Silver are having a very similar conversation. Hornigold points out, not incorrectly, that Flint seems to be very good at getting rid of anyone who gets even remotely close to him, but Silver is unbothered. Despite his growing connection to the crew, he still argues that he's only in this whole thing for the money, and that, so long as he doesn't start to believe in Flint, he's safe.
Despite Eleanor's reassurances, when he and Silver reunite, Flint's still pretty mad about Vane holding the fort. Even Silver tries to talk him down, trying to remind him of the irreversable changes he could bring about by directly confronting Vane and so obviously aligning himself with Hornigold. Really, when Silver tells you you're going too far, you should know there's a problem, but Flint decides to go ahead and make another one of his speeches. Ending the episode on "I will rain holy hell down upon him" can't be a good sign, can it?
Then there are the London flashbacks. James and Thomas are getting close and are working better and better on trying to resolve the Nassau problem. Meanwhile, things are developing between James and Miranda. It almost looks like the backstory that Richard Guthrie gave is coming to fruition, but, while the actions by themselves match up with his story, the attitudes of the three of them don't. When the three of them are in a room together at the beginning of the episode, it doesn't seem like James and Miranda are somehow keeping secrets or even considering anything like that. Instead, we see the easy companionship between Miranda and Thomas that they are both inviting James into, in this case, through books. It's worth noting that Don Quixote, the book that Miranda gives James, saying that it might help him manage Thomas, is about a man who goes mad and decides he's a knight on a mission to vanquish some vague evil (this is a massive oversimplification, but I read it a while ago and can't remember a whole lot). Essentially, I think Miranda is joking that Thomas will fight for what he thinks is right, regardless of whether it's achievable or what other people think is happening. Given the nature of their relationship, I don't think she's maliciously implying that he's wrong/mad, more just affectionately teasing him about his "impossible" mission. It's also a sweet but also painful parallel to Flint saving La Galatea (another book by Cervantes) for Miranda. They just really love to draw comparisons between those two time periods just to make us hurt, don't they?
We then get a little bit of just James and Miranda. To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about this whole scene (for now I'm shutting off the gay part of my brain that short circuitted seeing shirtless McGraw). On the one hand, Miranda, as a woman, seeking out a relationship and taking that initiative is subversive, and, especially given the historical context of this show, it doesn't have the same dynamic as it would if a man sought out a woman's house and showed up unannounced, but there's also the class element to the power dynamic. As someone from a working class background, whose career is more or less dependent on being on good terms with the aristocracy, McGraw doesn't necessarily hold all the power in this situation, and Miranda showing up at his place without warning could actually put him at a very real risk. There are always two sides to a situation, and Miranda isn't wrong when she tries to convince James that "there is an inverse relationship between the degree of one's happiness and the concer one suffers for what the neighbours think", and making him aware of the less traditional relationship structures that can exist with the consent of all parties is well-intentioned and has the potential to be a really valuable thing for James, but what she doesn't fully recognise is that, while she and Thomas are okay with rumours, as they can ignore them, James has every reason to be more wary. Ultimately, quietly taking Miranda back to her house was probably the most tactful response to this situation. During this, Miranda takes the opportunity to read him like a fucking book. I don't have a neat way to integrate all these quotes but I feel like they need to be included: "I imagine there are two kinds of men who make their life at sea. Those whose sense of duty forces them to leave any snese of permenance or identity behind them and those for whom that is the attraction"; "I think you're someone who's very good at managing how you're perceived and perhaps getting what you want without anyone ever knowing that you did it or perhaps even if it ever happened". Like, damn, she can just read him like that. It also emphasises a number of similarities between James as McGraw and James as Captain Flint, suggesting that maybe he hasn't fundamentally changed as a person in the years between these two plotlines, but more that different situations have brought different aspects of his personality out. Ultimately, Miranda does seem to figure out the source of James' reluctance to enter into any kind of relationship with her (once they'd both established that Thomas is okay with it), that "[he's] more concerned with whether or not people talk about what [Miranda and James] are doing behind closed doors than with what [they] actually are doing", even if she maybe can't fully grasp the reason behind him feeling this way. Then there's the kiss, suggesting the beginning of their relationship. As I wrote earlier, the external situation seems to be set up as what Richard Guthrie recounted, but what the characters themselves have said doesn't match up-- especially the care that both James and Miranda have for Thomas, and his acceptance of any kind of relationship they might have.
But clearly something happened, as we now see Flint and Miranda in Nassau. Although Miranda has now found some kind of community among the inner islanders, it's a big difference from what we see of her life in London.
Then there's the inscription in the book Flint leaves for her. It's so soft and intimate, and yet it also reminds us of their fight in season one. Miranda is happier, but Flint wouldn't get them out of Nassau, and now Miranda is building a kind of life wihout him, much like he did with his life as a pirate.
We can see the beginning and the end now, but not how the two link up.
