Black Sails. Ah, Black Sails.
Cult classic pirate show. Overlooked gem. Attempt to answer that old, burning question, “What if we made a prequel to Treasure Island where no one was straight?”
It was the last bit that sold me on the show initially, around the time of season three. I tore through it in about a week, read Treasure Island for the first time, started and never finished a rambling Temeraire crossover fic, and then let season four lead me up and down an emotional rollercoaster before landing on that rarest of things: an in-character, emotionally resonant, and genuinely satisfying ending.
Black Sails is a character driven show; as alluded to above, about half the main cast is canonically queer and the rest can be argued for (a running fandom joke for a bit was that Jack Rackham was the “token straight,” right up until season four left folks speculating he’d been in love with his former captain, Charles Vane). In the process, it answers one of the common complaints with regards to rep – what’s the easiest way to manage dead, villainous, or sterotypical queer characters?
Have more than one.
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