when people write about why ofmd is important to them usually they talk about representation, mostly, and why it's such a big deal, and why ofmd's approach to it is different from most other tv, even stuff with overt & obvious queer themes. in particular stede's arc through s1 tends to resonate deeply with queer people on a metaphorical level; most of us are not abandoning our kids to pursue a life of violent crime but nevertheless coming out, especially later in life, does tend to feel like you are throwing your entire perfectly nice life away and betraying everyone who's ever cared about you in order to do something stupid and ridiculous that's probably just going to get you killed, and yet it's what you have to do if you're going to live honestly as yourself. (and, i mean, for a lot of queer people that's less of an exaggeration than it sounds like, especially before VERY recently.)
so anyway that's all true and important but i'm not going to talk about it here because many many other people have already said it better, instead i am going to talk about something that really impresses me about season 1 of ofmd on a pure writing-craft level, which is how it handles the tone shift.
you're watching the first episode for the first time and it's this funny little workplace sitcom about pirates and it's enjoyable in its own right but you do not think for one second that it's ever going to make you sad, right? and you can proceed through seven or eight episodes continuing to think that, and then the last two hit and you suddenly experience like fifty different shrimp emotions you are absolutely not prepared for, and right as you are absorbing that it ends on a cliffhanger that is completely focused on the relationship you have just developed a bunch of entirely new feelings about.
i know this is the point where i got weird about the show, because i have this very distinct memory of watching the first nine episodes - yes, all nine, even after the kiss - and liking it a lot but in a basically normal kind of way. and then after the tenth i remember just sitting on the couch kind of stunned for a minute and then going outside to walk the dog and being unable to stop thinking about it and just feeling like i was going insane, which i guess i did because i am still here talking about it.
the weird thing about this is how much the shift doesn't feel jarring, though? like there's other media i can think of that goes through a dramatic tonal shift. anime does it more often than western tv for some reason; puella magi madoka magica and the original 1998 trigun anime both famously start out very light and happy-go-lucky and then proceed to break your heart. but those don't really feel like what ofmd's doing. in both of those cases it feels like a change in the story - a sudden one for madoka, more gradual for trigun. but with ofmd it feels more like the curtain is being pulled back to reveal what was always there.
when i rewatch season 1 of ofmd i always feel sort of like i am watching two narratives at once. the first one is the surface-level story, which is a goofy sort of adventure-comedy about a silly frilly rich man and his absurd guybrush threepwood quest to become a mighty pirate. and then buried underneath it, the entire time, is this much more earnest and heartfelt story about queer self-discovery and romantic melodrama.
in the first episode that subtext is buried so deep i don't think anyone would see it if you didn't know it was coming, it lives mostly in the image of a little boy bullied for liking flowers and derided by his father for his inability to do "a man's work." but it's there, this dark space at the center of the story that no one's allowed to name, a silhouette you can barely make out lurking under the water, and for the rest of the season it gradually, relentlessly draws closer and closer to the surface: not all beards are beards and then jim's reveal to the crew then i was just uncomfortable in a married state then you want to do something weird? then we don't own each other then you wear fine things well then take your sword and run me through then this is happening.
and then calico jack says you two buggering each other?
and that's the subtext kicking the door down, that's the thing nobody was willing to say out loud before that point. izzy thought they were already fucking and lucius thought they should be fucking but neither of them would say it, but jack didn't know the rules, now he's said it and you can't put the genie back in the bottle, the subtext has become text, after that you get the chain and what makes ed happy is you and pining for his boyfriend (that's another word nobody was allowed to say out loud before this point!) and his name is ed.
this is a trick you can only do once; season 2 really could not possibly have repeated anything similar even under ideal circumstances, and in fact that's part of why the season opens on a scene you could see on the cover of a romance novel, to indicate that we're done with subtext and we're living in romance world now. (and despite this a lot of viewers seemed to buy into the surface-level story so completely that even after the way season 1 ended they're still confused by the shift; you can see this in several of the mainstream reviews of s2 that liked the season but sound genuinely baffled by stede suddenly appearing to care much more about pursuing true love than about his pirate ambitions. sorry guys the piracy was always a metaphor!)
anyway that's the thing i really admire about season 1; it's so carefully constructed around that one elegant trick, and i don't know if i will ever be able to pull off anything like that in my own writing, but i think from here on out i will always be trying.
titsay
kianamaiart
baratheonpilled
pixelskylines
izzy806
origamiaround
