throwing all logical predictions for the finale out the window because this show has consistently chosen to do the most batshit insane things that I could never even dream of in a million years so here are my new theories for things that are gonna happen in episode 8:
-Ed and Stede open up an Inn together in that ramshackle house we saw in the NZ videos
-We won't get a Zheng/Olu/Archie/Jim polycule but we WILL get a Pete/Lucius/Izzy polycule but Izzy is only there to be a bitch and blue ball himself. and also whittle cool things
-Buttons and a massive legion of seagulls descend upon a navy ship and just pick it up and fly away
-Wee John gets hired at Spanish Jackie's to do a drag show every night and a drag brunch on the weekends
-Roach and Fang hookup
-Frenchie meets an honest-to-god mermaid, possibly after falling off the boat and being rescued by them
-Rick coins the term "Getting Rick Roll'd"
-A THIRD BADMINTON BROTHER APPEARS AND IT'S RORY KINNEARN ONCE AGAIN
-Anne Bonny and Mary Read show up on a dope ass ship to help kick the navy's ass and also hookup with Zheng. Calico Jack is also there with a comically dented abdomen from getting cannonballed in s1 ep8 but he makes plenty of jokes about being an inny now
-Doug, Mary, and the kids stay at Ed and Stede's Inn so Ed and Mary can bond over Stede's quirks and Stede can bisexualize Mary's boyfriend again. Also Alma just has a lot of knives
Edâs journey this season is going to perfectly mirror addiction and recovery, and I am so fucking here for it. Watching these first three episodes of S2 was like watching a highly dramatized AU of my own descent into rock bottom (except everyone was dressed wayyyyyy cooler than I ever was), so I have a lot of thoughts, reactions, and insights that I want to share with other fans. Iâm sure many of us who have struggled with our mental health connected with Ed in these episodes, but I think addiction is the most appropriate lens through which to view him because addicts (more often than people who struggle with other mental illnesses) so wholly destroy their own lives and utterly devastate those of their loved ones. I want to share - from the perspective of someone who has steered her own ship straight into a storm and woke up alone to face some very hard choices - what is going on with Ed at the start of this season and what I think is coming.
Let me start by saying that Ed isnât literally addicted to any one thing, despite his heavy use of drugs and alcohol, but his goal is the same as that of all addicts: escape. He does not want to sit with the pain of Stede leaving him on an immediate, surface level; on a deeper, more habitual level, he doesnât want to sit with the pain of his own self-loathing. Of course the two are related: the former brings the latter to a head. Stede abandoning him dredges up and brightly illuminates all of his insecurities, and now Ed has to run. Get out. Escape. Donât think about it. So he is fighting, stealing, drinking, snorting, shooting, killing - whatever it takes to not think about it.
âDemon? Iâm the fuckinâ devil.â People in recovery often talk about addiction as if it were a separate, sentient monster living within them. Ed taking on the mantle of demon - a creature known specifically for possession, for removing the hostâs free will - is intentional. So is his insistence that heâs not just any demon but the demon. The worst there is. (More on that when we get to The Innkeeper.)
Izzyâs confrontation of Ed in the captainâs cabin and then on deck is a form of intervention. Izzy is trying to help Ed, but of course this goes terribly for him and for Ed because interventions (I cannot stress this enough) are maybe the worst thing you could do to an addict. All addicts know things are bad, but they cannot be pushed to change one single second before theyâre ready. Ed knows things are bad. Heâs well-aware of how heâs spending his time, how his crew feels about him, how disappointed Izzy is. Being confronted with all of those truths by Izzy was always only going to make him do two things: 1) dig further into his unhealthy coping mechanisms, never mind that they donât have nearly the effect that they used to; and 2) lash out at the person who forced him to think about it. Izzy lost his leg the moment he stepped into Edâs cabin.
The impossible bird. You guys remember the song Chandelier by Sia? The one about her addiction to alcohol? The whole thing may as well come right out of Edâs mouth at the end of that first episode, because that experience is exactly what heâs trying to convey to Frenchie. Nevermind that Frenchie has the temerity to tell him the bird canât exist, that it has to come down sometime, that flying forever isnât sustainable. The bird can come down on its own terms, or crash⊠but Frenchieâs definitely not going to say that much. Still, âthat sounds like something that canât existâ hits Ed, and leads us to the next episode.
Now weâve got Ed forlorn, heartbroken, almost catatonic while playing with his cake toppers. We donât actually see him crying in the opening of the episode, which is the point. Heâs done crying now. The impossible bird canât exist, and Ed has already resigned himself to this. Heâs decided to die. The only sure-fire permanent way to not think about it.
When next we see Ed, he seems to be doing better, but this is a huge red flag for anyone who knows to look. Heâs giving away his responsibility to Frenchie; heâs cleaning the cabin for the closure. He knows the end is coming fast, and the relief that knowledge brings him leaves him weirdly at peace. It is he eeriest part of these episodes, IMO.
Then he goes to find his first mate, the person who knows him better than anyone else in the world, the man he just fucking shot and ordered killed. Ed needs his low opinion of himself validated, and of course he thinks heâll get it from Izzy after everything heâs done to him. He wants the one person who has stuck with him through everything to confirm that heâs now irretrievably broken and no longer worthy of his love. Ed wants someone to tell him that heâs right: he should die.
He doesnât get that from Izzy. Interestingly, Izzy doesnât tell him he should die. He says âClean up your own mess.â Izzy has learned the lesson now that Ed isnât ready to get better and that he canât make him be ready. (This post isnât about Izzy, but hoo boy - I have big feels about that man.)
Ed has been indulging in various forms of self-destruction in order to not feel his feelings, and steering the ship into the storm is his worst indulgence yet. This is the worst of his crimes - not beheading or arson or a red wedding. Itâs when he tries to bring down everyone who has ever loved him into his misery, into believing what he believes. The audience generally (and Edâs audience of Stede specifically) can forgive him for hurting strangers and for the non-specific mayhem whose victims weâve never met; but it is much less certain that anyone will forgive him for hurting the only family heâs ever known.
The storm itself is the perfect metaphor for Edâs attempt on his and, incidentally, everyone elseâs lives. One of the most common metaphors used by friends and family members of addicts is that of a hurricane: that their addicted loved-ones tend to destroy everything they touch, anyone who was foolish or brave enough to stick around. And, like hurricanes, addicts arenât malicious. Edâs primary goal here is to get himself killed, not to kill everyone else. He wants the ship to go down so his death is certain. His firing a cannonball into the mast and asking Jim and Archie to fight to the death isnât malice: itâs utter and complete nihilism. Nothing matters anymore. Nothing and no one. The end is near, and heâs so fucking drunk and high off these distractions that he couldnât think about it if he tried. Heâs manic with relief. (See also: âFinally.â)
And now for the finale: Purgatory. Buckle up, because this is where the addiction analogy gets real *chefâs kiss.* Purgatory is the equivalent of the morning after the worst, most rock bottom binge night of your life. You wake up with no one for company but the ghosts of your former selves. Now what?
Well, first - who is Hornigold to Ed? Why is he the guy Ed sees? Itâs because Hornigold is another addict, if you will, but one who is (in this Purgatory hallucination) farther along in his recovery. He can impart some wisdom from that place, but he can also stand in as someone Ed can loathe because theyâre not as different as Ed once thought, even if Hornigold can say heâs grown.
Hornigold tries to give him soup. He tells Ed, âGotta get these nutrients into you,â and then literally shoves soup down his throat. Thatâs what itâs like in rock bottom. You donât want to take care of yourself, but some lizard brain survival instinct takes over and makes you drink water, eat a piece of fruit, take yourself to the hospital. These things donât really happen voluntarily that morning after, but you can still count on that instinct to kick in with some damage control.
Ed telling Hornigold how he âgot here.â Hornigold says âMutiny. Itâs always mutiny.â Ed insists his mutiny was special, worse somehow. This whole scene is exactly what happens in your first recovery support group meeting. You go in thinking no one has ever been as fucked and fucked up as you are, which makes you feel isolated and alone. But then you get there and everyone else in the circle has done the same shit, been through the same shit. Edâs not actually the devil; heâs just another demon, like many demons before him.
Ed worries heâs insane when he reflects on everything heâs done. Hornigoldâs reply that âFeeling bad isnât going to rebuild an abdominal wallâ is a concept that people usually learn a little bit later in recovery, so I expect weâll see more on this theme from Ed. Guilt is a useless emotion that only serves to conversely make the addict feel better but doesnât help the harmed party: the addict feels like their suffering is cleansing, but itâs not - feeling guilt is just more self-indulgence, more self-destruction. Hornigold - a fellow addict in this moment - is trying to get this lesson to him early. Itâll return.
âYouâve got to move on or blow your brains out.â Weâre getting back to Purgatory as the metaphor for the morning-after rock bottom, because this is the exact calculation that every person in recovery has done. They all had to answer that one big question. Your whole life is a mess, and you made the mess. Do you want to clean it up? Or quit? (Or make some soup? Yeah. That big question canât be answered without basic needs having been met. So letâs eat. Letâs start there. Itâs easier.)
Now we have Edâs fantasy about opening an inn: This is also a common part of the morning-after rock bottom. You start thinking about the wrong turns you took, the mistakes you made, the way your life was supposed to go and all the reasons youâre not where you wanted to be. (And all the people you can blame for the fact that your life didnât go as planned.) And when that honest part of yourself starts telling you that actually itâs all your fault⊠well, a) you donât wanna hear it, and b) you canât silence (kill) that monster, no matter how hard you try. Youâve got to face it. Face all those truths youâve been running from for years. Now you have to think about it.
So now the big question, the inevitable math. Hornigold suggests looking at the pros and the cons. Thatâs the easiest way to break the calculation into manageable variables. This is probably my favorite moment of the episode, because when youâre sitting there, morning after the worst night of your life, everything is fucked - these are the exact variables that go into your equation. Do I really want to live? You ask yourself that, and because your life is in fucking shambles, you come up with the stupidest goddamn reasons to keep going. You wanna see the next seasons of Good Omens and Loki. You wanna eat your momâs spaghetti again. Sometimes itâs nice when someone hugs you. Itâs never the big things that save your life; itâs a bunch of the littlest things. The smallest comforts. The big things⊠theyâre too unattainable. Theyâre too much to hope for, and theyâre more than you could possibly deserve. What are the pros of living for Ed? Warmth, good food, orgasms. This is a stunningly accurate representation of the things that will keep you alive once youâve hit rock bottom.
And then the cons: âI donât think anyone is waiting for me.â This is why addiction is the better metaphor. There is no human experience more isolating than addiction. You are alone in more ways than youâve ever been before. You have pushed away or pissed off everyone who ever cared about you. And even the ones who will maybe still be there for you - they canât help you clean up the mess youâve made. You have to do the work alone, even if theyâre still willing to stand next to you. And this con⊠itâs the scariest one. Your list of little pros looks so pathetic next to the horror of being utterly fucking alone. Who is going to brave that for some stupid shit like Tom Hiddleston sexily flipping his hair back in that Loki way he does? Why should Ed carry on just because blankets are cozy and marmalade is pleasant?
This is where we get to the moment on the mountain, and what Stede represents. Hornigold tells Ed âYouâre unlovable, and youâre afraid to do anything about it.â Ed could do two things about being unlovable: He could try to fix it, or he could end it all. Hornigold represents the worst part of Ed: his weaknesses and cowardice. And if Hornigold is in the driverâs seat, heâs going to end it all. He throws the rock off the cliff, and Ed gets dragged down into the water to drown. (Letâs also talk later about how often addiction is compared to drowning, and how nothing else in the show actually threatened Edâs life - not Izzy with a gun, not all the rhino horn, not Jimâs cannonball - like drowning in his own mind.)
But then thereâs Stede. Stede is how the pros win over that one big, horrifying con. Stede is hope. Stede is just a glimmer of hope. Hope is the most important thing you need in the morning-after rock bottom. As much as I enjoy the idea that it was love that saved Ed, I donât think thatâs a wholly faithful interpretation. Because Stedeâs love for Ed doesnât solve anything, doesnât fix anything - it certainly doesnât fix Ed. It cannot fix Ed. Hornigold just told Ed that heâs the one who has to âdo something about it,â because Ed is the only one who can save himself. But even if Stedeâs love for him in itself isnât what saves Ed, Edâs trust in Stede combined with that love gives him hope. Stede loves Ed, truly loves him, came back to him even though he knows Edâs nature, knows his list of crimes, knows what heâs done to Stedeâs friends and family. And maybe Ed can find in himself what he trusts Stede truly sees. Itâs a âmaybe,â not a certainty. But itâs hope. Someone loves him. Maybe he can love himself, too.
This Womanâs Work: I read this song as referring more appropriately to Edâs relationship with himself, in no small part because Ed literally made himself the woman in the cake topper couple. All the things that should have been done, should have been said - theyâre things Ed needs to do and say to himself. Heâs got a little life and a lot of strength left. The journey has just begun.
I want to pop back quickly to a few other moments in The Innkeeper that resonated, starting with Stede and Izzyâs discussion about what happened to Ed: âHe went mad. He was a wild dog.â Izzy describes Edâs breakdown as if he was no longer the same person he once was; this is exactly what addiction does to a person. Ed hasnât been himself; heâs been held hostage by his need for escape, and heâs become something else. Possessed, if you will.
Izzy: âYou and me did this to him, and we canât let the crew suffer any more for our mistakes.â Iâm not writing an essay on Izzy (yet), but this is a very interesting perspective that says a lot about Izzy. Stede and Izzy both owe apologies to Ed, but they are not responsible for his actions. I predict weâre going to see this theme explored in later episodes as a part of Edâs healing process and recovery. And also hopefully in Izzyâs growth.
Frenchieâs line that âWeâve been living second-to-second for a while nowâ is a callback to the impossible bird idea. Which, again, is just Chandelier x Sia. âIâm holding on for dear life, wonât look down, wonât open my eyes, keep my glass full until morning light âcause Iâm just holding on for tonight.â
So whatâs next? For me, it was learning to sit alone in a quiet room with my thoughts. It was apologizing to the ones I hurt, because even if I didnât mean to hurt them - even if I was suffering also and worse - they still got hurt, and in the end it didnât matter why. It was developing the habit of liking myself, and acting on whatever self-love and affection I could conjure up. And yes⊠it was new seasons of Good Omens and Loki, my momâs spaghetti, and hugs.
So I think Ed has a lot of accountability, reflection, and breaking of old habits in his future⊠but also warmth, good food, and orgasms. And good for him. Thatâs the beauty of recovery: we get to come back.
@obsidee is watching OFMD for the first time. We're 1.5 episodes in and these are their predictions.
0. "This [the Revenge] is a homosexual ship."
1. Stede will die in the first episode and Lucius will take his place as main character
2. Jim is Blackbeard's estranged child.
3. At the end of Season 2, the crew will kill Blackbeard and Black Pete will take his place as the new Blackbeard
4. Stede is going to come out as gay. He will realize he is gay through a rival pirate captain. This will happen by them having a "fight" that starts with swords and then Stede gets either shoved into a wall or pinned down and then it gets homoerotic.
5. We will meet different pirate crews.
6. Jim is aroace and their one true love is murder and revenge.
Not to get involved in Izzy discourse, but completely apart from how much I do or don't like him, I actually think that Izzy's story is going to be that he eventually, reluctantly, accepts Ed and Stede's love, and in the end plays a key role in helping them live happily ever after.
*Correction for clarification: Fang being gone wasnât a WISH it was a prediction, because I did in fact not know that the actor said he wouldnât reprise the role when I made this, I just came up with that âtheoryâ due to his absence in the teaser
okay wild shot in the dark but it just occurred to me that ANYONE could find stede's message in a bottle and learn about his and blackbeard's relationship... and potentially use that relationship as leverage... ANYONE at all, u know, like perhaps a minor prince with a newfound grudge
