A closed mind is the worst defense against the supernatural. If it happens to you, you’re liable to have that shut door in your mind ripped right off its hinges!
i already know i’m gonna get a knee jerk “oh so you wanted them to show hole onscreen???? you think the only way to show love is by fucking and sucking????” reaction to this bc it’s what ppl always say when the shows portrayal of like instances of Gayness b/w edstede gets criticized (like how rhys and taika visibly brace for impact before they kiss JFJSJCJSHF) but it’s like sad to me that the show never rly engages w Desire like you’re telling me that stede never calls ed handsome? they never look at each other like they’re Attracted to one another? Ohhh all the longing gazes are due to Emotional Desire like OK COOL well i wish they weren’t All bc of that?! “it’s a romcom not an R rated show! what do you expect” Well i would like them to start by having stede call ed handsome and brush a strand of hair off his face and slowly lean in to kiss him for an extended period of time and for them both to emerge out of it looking bashful and shy. this is what i would have them do For starters. if i was a writer in this show
Okay. My thoughts on the Our Flag Means Death finale. Obviously I'm not very happy with the ending, though I'm also not as upset as some people are. I would say I'm discontent. Unsatisfied. Too aware of how it could have been improved, and a bit bitter that we didn't get a better version, but I also don't hate what we did get.
I know a lot of meta has attributed the problems to a shorter season, and absolutely I would have loved to get 10 episodes instead. I would have loved 22 episodes! Why don't we do that anymore? But I don't think the 8 episode length was the ultimate problem. A) The showrunner and writers knew they had only 8 episodes, so they needed to choose a story that fit into that length, but even more importantly, B) my problem is not that they had too much story for too little time, but actually that they had plenty of time and chose to fill it with too little story.
As I've sat with it over the last few days and thought more about the season's arc, it feels to me like we got eight episodes of filler. Filler episodes can be great! Filler episodes can have some of the funniest lines, the greatest scenes, the most intriguing ideas. But filler episodes do not progress character arcs or major themes, and that's exactly the problem this season had.
The only characters who got arcs this season are Izzy, and to a lesser and more rushed extent, Lucius. Which sure is a choice.
Ed and Stede and their relationship did not meaningfully change from S1. (Okay, yes, they had sex, they said I Love You – but these are external changes, not internal. They don't represent character growth. Stede realized he loved Ed and was telling everyone back in 1x10. Ed clearly would have slept with him in S1 if they'd had a little more time.) Ed and Stede in 2x08 are not different from who they are in 2x01. If Ed had asked Stede to be innkeepers in 2x01, does anyone think Stede wouldn't have immediately agreed? One of the big moments in 2x08 is Ed reading a letter that Stede wrote in 2x01! Stede's exact words from the very beginning of the season! What better way to underline that none of the subsequent seven episodes had important growth or changes?
Another one of 2x08's big shippy moments is Ed and Stede running to each other across a beach – deliberately paralleling the dream Stede had in 2x01. What are we supposed to take from this parallel? My original thought was that we're supposed to see how different the real version is from the dream, but there's honestly not many differences. Neither one has a beard, now? The dream mocked how Stede knew they needed to have a conversation about their relationship that he wanted to avoid, but they don't have a conversation in the "real" version either. They exchange about two sentences (which includes Ed's I Love You, yes, which is a big deal but still isn't a conversation) and then they charge right back into the fight, without discussing anything like Ed abruptly dumping Stede to go be a fisherman, Stede killing Ned Low when Ed asked him not to, their differences of opinion on being pirates, if having sex was a mistake or if that's only a thing Ed said because he was panicking, etc etc. They have just as many issues to address as they did in the dream, but just like the dream they act like everything is magically okay without talking about it!
So I think we're meant to take the beach-run parallels as "here's what Stede's been wanting, and after waiting for so long he finally gets it". Which is fine, a very sweet take-away for a finale. But it underlines what I'm saying is the problem of the season: Stede has just been waiting for eight episodes for his dream to come true. Not changing. Not growing. Not doing anything to bring the dream about, other than trying to get himself and Ed into the same physical location. Just... waiting.
This is an extra surprising development, because the show was really good at giving Ed and Stede character arcs in S1! Ed and Stede in 1x10 are significantly different than they were in their first introductions. Also, just to preempt some criticism, by 'progressing' I do not mean 'wrap up literally every loose end and make a firm final ending' – S1's finale is an excellent example of both moving the characters forward and leaving a ton of room for future stories. I wasn't expecting for 2x08 to show us a Stede and Ed who were perfectly on the same page and would never again have a problem. I was expecting them to be somewhat different than they were in 2x01, and I just don't see that.
Instead of arcs, we got little pieces of single-episode growth here and there that never added up to an overall whole. The season brought up a ton of potential arcs for Ed – violence, piracy, guilt, suicide, daddy issues, self-loathing, apologies, redemption, his tendency to idealize escaping into a different life – but didn't do anything with any of these options. Stede had nothing resembling a season arc at all.
Stede works to improve as a captain! Stede kills someone and has regrets! Stede confronts Ed's dark side! <- All potential arcs, but none of which lasted for more than an episode or had consequences. We don't even know what the ending means for Stede: does he want to be an innkeeper because he failed as a pirate in 2x07? Because piracy was always just a displaced search for love, and now that he has love, he doesn't need piracy? What does the crew of the Revenge leaving mean to him? Stede's understanding of their new arrangement literally happens off-screen and we're left to fumble at guesses for its significance to him as an individual.
Ed and Stede's last big conversation in the season is their break-up fight in 2x07, which is a shocking way to send off your main couple in a rom-com. Yes, there's the I Love You on the beach (again: two sentences) and the brief 'let's try to be innkeepers' conversation at the very end, but that's it for them in 2x08, except for their inclusion in some brief large group conversations about their fighting skills and the plan for escaping the British. How can you end your rom-com with the main couple exchanging only a paragraph's worth of dialogue in the finale? None of the stuff was brought up in the fishing fight in 2x07 is ever addressed at all!
Again, I don't think this is solely a matter of time crunch. Instead of using the eight episodes to progress the two main characters, we got a bunch of filler episodes that used the time in amusing side tangents instead of forward progress. I don't think that's the inevitable result of having to work with eight episodes.
Look, I can come up with a better Ed/Stede relationship arc without needing more episodes, and despite only thinking about this for a couple days and not having an entire writing room to work with:
(Note: this only addresses the Ed/Stede relationship. It doesn't fix Stede completely lacking an independent character arc and Ed having about ten thousand of them, none of which went anywhere.)
In 2x05 to 2x07, I would make Ed's motivations in their relationship very clearly that he's pushing Stede away so he doesn't get hurt again. Basically play up Ed's comment about "I was all in" in 2x04, and make him determined not to get 'all in' this time around. This aligns the "let's take it slow" conversation in 2x05, the "sex was a mistake" in 2x06, and Ed running away to be a fisherman in 2x07 into a single arc. He wants Stede, but he's afraid of what that wanting will do to him. He's trying to find a way to have a relationship without making himself vulnerable. He keeps pushing off commitment and openness.
Then, in 2x08, I'd make it more explicit that Ed thinks/fears Stede is dead when he sees the pirate ships burning. I think it's subtext in the episode as-is, but give him a line or two to make it really clear. Ed and Stede still see each other on the beach, have their dramatic run to each other, and Ed says, "I love you". Now this moment is Ed acknowledging his love, exactly what he's been avoiding for the last three episodes.
Near the end of the episode, Ed and Stede have a conversation where Ed says something like, "I didn't want to get hurt again, I was afraid of the risk of falling in love and you leaving again, but thinking you were dead made me realize that never loving you would be worse" (but better written, ha, this is a tumblr post that's already too long). (Also possibly you could tie in Izzy's death here to underline both Ed and Stede not wanting to lose another person they care about, if we must have that plot point for some reason.) We actually get to see Ed asking Stede to come be innkeepers with him, paralleling asking him to run away to China (and paralleling NOT asking Stede to a fisherman), Stede voices some of his worries (paralleling him keeping them inside in 1x09, but also giving him a chance to explain what piracy and love mean to him and why he'd give up one for the other), but ultimately they agree that they at least want to try.
This both puts them into a much clearer place for a happy ending, has clear growth from S1 and the beginning of this season, but also leaves open a ton of room for S3, because welp, it turns out trying to have a relationship entails all sorts of problems! Especially with these two. It also would make me feel like they'd at least addressed some of the issues between them.
Right now I feel like S3 will have to spend at least the first few episodes running through exactly the same "don't talk – break up – get back together dramatically" arc that Stede and Ed have already done twice but have never discussed and never learned from. I liked it, but I don't need to see it yet again. That will – ironically – feel like yet more wasted time, more episodes that are just churning through beats without moving the characters forward. I wanted them to have new, different fights in S3, but now I don't even feel like they've made enough progress to have a fresh set of problems.
I really wish I could get over all this considering I actually never thought OFMD was amazing television, but currently obsessing over how messy the Jim and Oluwande arcs have been for no reason.
Just... why on earth did they give them a lovely friends-to-lovers arc in Season 1 along with Jim's revenge arc, have them torn apart by circumstance in the finale, and then in Season 2? Oh yeah they're just not together anymore. Yeah, they both have separate brand new love interests we have to get quickly invested in with very little screentime. No, no mention of Jim's family or Oluwande's possible leadership journey either.
And the thing is, I'm easy. I love Archie and Zheng and like both Archie/Jim and Oluwande/Zheng, especially Archie/Jim because there's slightly more time for us to see them interact and get attached. I just don't understand why Jim/Oluwande were broken up and there was never even an in-universe reason given. I could've accepted, for example, that Jim was struggling having thought that Oluwande was dead for months and being deeply traumatized by everything that happened on the break-up boat. Maybe it felt easier for them to be with someone who was also on Blackbeard's crew, or just someone "harder" than Oluwande. But the show didn't even bother. Instead, they broke up because I guess Jim likes Archie now, and I suppose it's too much for us to believe that Jim and Oluwande might be okay having an open relationship, or that Jim might be able to love two people at once.
I genuinely spent 3/4ths of the season delusionally convincing myself that they were in an open relationship and it was just entirely implied and off-screen (also weird and bad writing) but no. They're just exes now and they don't even have any feelings about being exes.
One of the strangest things my mind keeps fixating on is the opening sequence to the season, where Izzy and Stede are sword fighting, Stede kills Izzy for crimes against Ed and Stede, and then Stede and Ed run into each other's arms and all is forgiven without actually addressing any of the issues. At the time, I thought this as Stede's dream was really fun and great because it highlighted how much Stede needed to learn and how much more complex the real show would be. Ed's actions had escalated in a way that Izzy clearly didn't want and that he wasn't in a position to try to stop. Stede had been the one to leave Ed, which wasn't actually Izzy's fault. Ed was furious with Stede and they definitely wouldn't just be getting back together without any proper communication.
And then, in the end, it wasn't meaningfully contrasted by the actual end of the season. Ed and Stede run across the beach into each other's arms after having fought/broken up/a fundamental disagreement about what they want to do with their lives. And all that happens is that Ed vaguely apologizes for being a dick and says he loves Stede. Did they talk about anything that actually happened? Is Ed the (only) one who needed to apologize? Did that solve anything deeper? No, and they never do more later in the episode, either.
Izzy dies, and he dies apologizing to Ed for his actions in encouraging Blackbeard, despite none of this occurring or being brought up the entire season. Like Stede's dream sequence, it feels outdated compared to the information we currently have, a relic that might've made sense in Season 1. And then Stede and Ed go off happily.
Obviously Stede didn't kill Izzy (though he did die during the execution of Stede's plan) and now Stede likes Izzy. But when David Jenkins said something about the opening sequence coming back at the end, I had several theories, and a few involved Izzy dying. I thought the key would clearly have to be the importance of the Stede, Ed, and Izzy dynamics as a trio. That Izzy would get hurt protecting Stede or Ed, that Stede would save Izzy's life, that Stede and Izzy would be fighting together to rescue Ed, or that as a twist Ed and Stede would be attempting to rescue Izzy. But in the end, it was all meaningless. Izzy got shot in a totally random way that could've happened to anyone. Neither Stede or Ed had any proper interactions with or were thinking about Izzy in the episode until Izzy was dying, and even as he was dying, Stede's only role was to go get bandages and then stand around awkwardly with the rest of the crew.
This contrast from the beginning and end of the season could've hit so hard on rewatch. But right now it feels like a lot of the season: a shallow parallel that doesn't actually say anything.
Also Izzy spending his whole death scene apologizing to and reassuring Ed sucks in the sense that he'd become a bigger character and had a lot of things going on other than Ed this season that maybe deserved to be spoken about, but it also just kinda sucks in paying off their relationship and for Ed's character.
This season, a lot of things happened that needed resolution/pay off in some way. Some of it could've happened in a Season 3, but even if that season happens Izzy is already dead. Izzy asked who he was to Ed and never got an answer. Ed did say he loved Izzy, best he could, but this came directly after he thought Izzy had killed himself. After Ed came out of his spiral and started to heal, there was clearly a struggle about Ed needing to apologize and heal his relationships with those he had hurt. Izzy tried to move on but still couldn't help but ask what Ed had said about him to Stede, specifically, and had to make up a story about his shark biting off his leg, which served him right. And then he has come to the realization that the reason Ed shot him is because Izzy told him he loved him, and Ed is a complicated man. That's just a lot going on!
And how much of it came back in the end? Ed did eventually apologize to Izzy, but it was a shitty small one and I really assumed there would be more conversation about all that. Never happened. Ed's answer to Izzy's question might have been that Izzy is his family, but that wasn't really presented as something that reassured Izzy as he died and affirmed how much they care about each other. Instead, it's a vehicle for Izzy to say that everyone loves Ed. The crew he tortured who wanted him banished from the ship a week ago! And Ed never told Izzy he loved him. Before this season, I never thought he would (and I don't mean romantically, just in general) but it was set up so clearly in episode 1/2 and then mentioned again in episode 7! It would've been perfect and beautiful growth for Ed to be able to say it, and to say it when Izzy can hear. He's complicated, but he's growing and able to be vulnerable and it's another answer to what Izzy is to Ed. That would be closer to actual closure.
Izzy dying like a week after trying to commit suicide and saying that he's ready to go was incredibly fucked up to me, but Ed was also suicidal for an extended period of time (including season 1), and it was never really addressed after episode 3. I'm not sure Stede ever properly found out or realized the extent of Ed's mental health struggle. Obviously preferable to what happened to Izzy because Ed is alive and happy(?) but it's... weird? It just ended up feeling like actually Stede coming back did fix him, despite their miscommunication and fights, and now everything's okay because of true love. Just feels weird that all of that happened while Stede was gone (and because Stede was gone) and Stede never saw it and they never really dealt with Ed at his lowest as a couple. I don't know!
I really wish that I was just disappointed with one element of the finale and enjoyed everything else. It might make me more bitter, but at least I could say that they did a great job somewhere. But unfortunately, I actually think they made a whole mess of the Ed/Stede arc and with Ed in particular.
Ed goes off to become a fisherman, and he sucks at it. Someone he calls Pop-pop shoves and hits him, telling him to go do what he's good at, and Ed, after being scared that Stede has been killed, does. That thing is killing people, something that Ed had tried to directly avoid/repressed the fact that he's doing for so long. He embraces Blackbeard. Then Izzy dies, tells him to just be Ed, and he decides to forego revenge and open an inn with Stede. All that on paper is like... yeah! I don't hate it, but I would also assume reading it that I was looking at an outline for a multi-episode if not full season arc. And that there would be a lot more fleshed out we get to see on screen. Instead, this all happens in 30 (25?) minutes and is rushed through, so I'm left with not really understanding what the point of half of it was.
Are we supposed to agree with Pop-pop, despite this being a father figure who is physically hurting Ed and telling him (without knowing what he's telling him) to go back to being a pirate who kills people? I'd assume no, but Ed going back reunites him with Stede and some of the killing is shot and written in a triumphant/badass and lighthearted way.
And then you might think that what Ed is so good at is actually the fuckeries and the planning and the sailing knowledge! He's brilliant. But none of it gets showcased here. Stede is the one who comes up with the plan. Ricky tells Izzy that Izzy is the underrated one who is really responsible for Blackbeard, and it's not refuted. Are we just supposed to think Ricky is buttering Izzy up, or saying this because he's racist? I can assume because we've been told before how brilliant Ed is and how much Izzy admired that, but it's never outright refuted or dismissed in the scene.
And okay, maybe the real build up was to Ed and Stede retiring, and Ed being able to move past revenge. Since there's nothing pointing to Ed having the skills to run an inn, the message should be that this doesn't matter. Sometimes you shouldn't do what you're good at if it's just hurting you, and you can instead pursue what makes you happy with the support of loved ones. But this isn't even discussed onscreen! If Ed was able to do this because of Izzy's last words about just being Ed, we can only really assume. But Izzy's last words also included Ed having a family in the crew. Now that isn't at all true or earned, because the only people who are shown loving or even being okay with Ed other than Izzy are Stede and Fang. But it also doesn't happen because they all sail off without him.
Stede deciding to retire when it's empathetically not something he wanted isn't discussed either, so we can't know if Stede changed his mind. Was he impacted by one of his crew dying during a plan he'd come up with, or by the killing he'd directly done starting with Ned Lowe in episode 6? Or maybe it's him sacrificing piracy for Ed. We just don't know. Ed and Stede moving too quickly and their fight in the last ep isn't discussed beyond Ed vaguely apologizing for being a dick.
Will Ed and Stede be happy retiring and running an inn? I feel like several things point to no, from the lack of discussion and Stede's love of piracy to "Hornigold" pointing out that Ed wouldn't do well in customer service and to Anne and Mary being miserable in retirement and burning their house down in episode 4. And honestly I'm fine with a more ambiguous ending to the season and possibly series where Ed and Stede are together but may or not be happy in all their decision-making. But they didn't really lean into that aspect at all. So I guess everything's fine probably?
I think my biggest problem with Izzy's death (aside, from, you know. Izzy is dead) is that it felt completely disconnected from the rest of the story. So many things in this episode felt like they had branched from an alternate universe season 2, or maybe a planned season 3 and they'd just squeezed the ending to that in. Which may actually be what happened; why they'd think it was a good move, I have no idea.
In the death scene, Izzy said things about needing Blackbeard to exist because it was both of them, that he had been encouraging Blackbeard to exist for years, etc. That's interesting and everything but where is it in the text? You can extrapolate from season 1 that some of this may have been happening, but then instead of expanding on it in season 2 to make Izzy's apology really hit hard, they went in a completely different direction. Season 2 Izzy wasn't preventing Ed from being himself and he didn't seem particularly invested in Blackbeard existing. In episode one, he had been pushed to his limits and tried to get through to Ed as a friend, and when he couldn't try with Ed anymore he focused on protecting the crew and mutinied. Then he spent episodes 4-7 trying to move on and strengthening his bonds with the crew, and only started interacting with Ed at all in the last few episodes. Ed, similarly, has been trying to figure out what he wants and who he wants to be. Where exactly is the emotional impact in Izzy ~finally~ encouraging Ed to just be Ed when the last episode had a scene where Izzy encouraged Ed to follow the feeling he had when he threw his leathers away, and then Ed went off to try and become a fisherman?
Izzy's death representing the death of the Blackbeard role and also the golden age of piracy, etc, is fine I guess. I'm not going to pretend I'd like it but if it had been set up as those arcs driving the season for Ed and Izzy, that's a different story. But looking at what actually happened in Season 2 and the Ed/Izzy arc in it, it was more about grappling with what had happened in the first two episodes. So following from that arc, what does Izzy's death symbolize? Ed being free from accountability and guilt over what he did to Izzy?
Don't get me wrong, that's not what they were going for at all. I actually don't think it symbolized anything and was just (unsuccessful and badly done) emotional manipulation, which is what happens all the time with characters dying. But it really does make Izzy's death far more upsetting, and not in the weirdly enjoyable way that you can love a tragedy. They went so far with Ed's actions in the first two episodes, and at the time I loved it! But it's become clear that OFMD doesn't really have the emotional range to handle a storyline like that. So they just didn't, for the most part.
So now we have a story arc where Izzy got mutilated repeatedly, got shot, got his leg amputated, attempted suicide, started to heal and move on and form meaningful connections outside of Ed while adjusting to his disability, and then dies. While spending his entire death scene apologizing to and reassuring Ed, and while the whole crew he'd been bonding with just sort of stand around looking vaguely sad. And mind you the timeline of this whole season has been like two weeks.
i agree with a lot of the complaints about the pacing issues in s2 and have made plenty myself. but in a way i do think they're also overblown--this season is great! and if you're really gonna focus on the pacing, s1 also very much had these issues. i'm not someone who thinks the show needed ed and stede to meet to work, but a lot of the earlier episodes especially are a little messy and it's the latter half of the season that really came together for me. so while i'm sure the move from 10 -> 8 episodes hurt things, this is also just kind of a flaw of the show period.
also, i've seen people complain that the first three episodes should've been condensed to make more room later in the season, and not gonna lie wildly offended. you don't mess with perfection, i.e. the 2.02 breakup boat episode arc
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