The defeated and bloodied king was chained to kneel in front of his enemy and he says weakly: "Is my wife still alive?" His enemy nodded.
"You fools," he said smirking, and the king starts laughing as the sounds of explosions getting closer shake the room.
Sketched some abusive Ed and Izzy action woohoo 🎉 probably gonna finish it at some point
Okay so now that I have your attention can we talk about how Izzy’s arc is probably one of the best things in the 2nd season? Like it’s not perfect and we all heard the general criticism of this season but Izzy for me went from Ed’s slightly annoying guard dog to one of my favourite characters and the most fucking tragic character in the entire show. Like. The love, the unwavering loyalty to ed, no matter what and no matter how, the commitment - the things about himself he took pride in all broke him in the end. The fact that Izzy’s and Ed’s story is all about Izzy suffering because of his own attachment, laughing at Stede for being “Ed’s pet” not realising that he himself is even in the worse position - Ed’s toy. A toy with no feelings, one that can be broken but still usable because all it is - is just a wooden doll. Of course, Ed didn’t think that way and didn’t hurt Izzy out of malace but that’s somehow even worse because Izzy saw those feelings through Ed’s horrible actions and used them as hope, as something to grab and never let go no matter what. And Ed didn’t see that. Ed was forgiven too quickly and too easily for breaking Izzy’s body and mind. He made him feel useless and replaceable. He took apart his body piece by piece. And in the end Izzy still forgave and still loved and was happy to be able to say a proper goodbye. Izzy deserved the right to die in Ed’s arms. But Ed didn’t deserve to hold Izzy in his final moments.
I’ve been seeing a lot of takes today about Izzy’s death which I disagreed with, but there’s one specific take that I want to actually address because I think it’s a really insidious way of blaming the audience for being upset.
I’ve seen a couple of posts and comments that are like “well everyone dies, (no kidding) and queer people die, and you can tell queer stories where queer people die and that’s ok, so you shouldn’t be mad at Izzy dying.”
And yeah. Of COURSE that’s true, we all know it is. I love a fair bit of queer media that ends DEVASTATINGLY, and that’s fine.
But the thing I take issue with here is that that is not what we were promised. That’s not what the show sold itself as. OFMD is a comedy, and more specifically it’s been sold to us repeatedly as a queer comedy for queer people. In fact, it adheres to its comedy status so stubbornly that sometimes I think it undercut the show’s emotional core. It’s a historical show where the silly little gay people get to be happy, and stuff like being stabbed in the liver is non fatal, and wounds only get infected if plot relevant and generally heal instantly, and people can be brained with a canonball and then walk away through the power of Mermaid Love. It was sold and discussed as a piece of queer media where it’s audience could relax, because we were safe. And then, when we’d all relaxed and stopped jumping at the stab wounds, we found out that we shouldn’t have lowered our defences at all.
I’m not angry that OFMD is a queer show that kills its characters. I’m angry that it’s a queer show that specifically and repeatedly said that this wasn’t going to be one of those shows, that this wasn’t going to conform to real history, and then killed off one of its most central, compelling old queers in the last 5 minutes.
In the context of season two, I struggle to reconcile the intersection of sincerity and comedy, and the idea of what pains and traumas we are meant to understand at the deeper level of what trauma is with those that serve only the purpose of comedic timing. This isn’t limited to one character, but rather to the season as a whole.
Season one highlighted childhood trauma and the ability to move on from that, becoming the best adult version of oneself possible. We see this evident in Ed, Stede, and Jim specifically as we are allowed to explore their pasts and their traumas — and we can presume that no one on the crew of the Revenge is without trauma (Fang’s dog, anyone?) of some kind that they carry with them. Stede handles his traumas and how to process them through running away and avoiding the issue until he no longer can. Ed does something similar, though he is able to craft a facade to use as a shield and a weapon, even if he never delivers a killing blow himself. Jim dedicates their life to revenge.
We witness all of these characters allow the defining characteristic of love to be allowing themselves to be saved and valued for who they are — not for what they can offer.
When season two opens, we as an audience see Ed at, arguably, his worst (I say arguably because we didn’t see Blackbeard in his prime, so… do with that what you will, I suppose). We see how this affects beloved and treasured characters, as well as new characters that we have yet to fall in love with. We see Fang fall apart not once but twice within the first two episodes alone. In episode two, we see Ed — a much beloved and adored character who we know intimately — lash out when confronted for his behavior. He lashes out at his crew and physically mutilates his closest confidant for daring to question him. “But that’s piracy!” And you’re right! But don’t we watch the first episode of season one highlight how much Stede Bonnet wants to change piracy? Isn’t this show supposed to be about found family, and getting better, and finding healing? In which case, we’re watching Ed behave abusively in the wake of his mental struggles as he once again attempts to hide behind the same facade that has protected him in the past. Ed suffers this breakdown in response to not one but two perceived rejections from the two people he would claim to be the most important in his life, and in a classic mental illness fashion, he barricades himself off and settles into the persona that is everything he doesn’t want to be.
His crew fears him. They’ve been kidnapped and essentially held hostage under the man they believe to have murdered their crew — their friends — and are watching him continue to devolve. Enter Izzy Hands and Jim Jimenez. Izzy is well aware of his hand in Ed’s state. “Well, he instigated it!” He did. He wanted back a version of Blackbeard who he saw as safe territory: a necessary evil for the continued survival and safety of the crew, ship, and Ed and Izzy themselves. And then he watched Edward “Only Ever Killed One Person Personally” Teach fulfill the legend he’s always been known as, and watched him become someone who couldn’t care less about life or death or anything in between. Ed surpassed and buried the version of Blackbeard that Izzy wanted to return, and he was force-fed the consequences of this with an unavoidable cruelty. “Well, he deserved what he got! Violence was always on the table, because it’s piracy!” But once again, we’re operating under the assumption that the big themes of this show are healing from trauma and being worthy of being loved even if we’ve done bad things.
While we’re on that topic, though, let’s explore that. Ed’s childhood trauma comes from his abusive father. He carries the weight of that abuse with him well into adulthood, as well as the weight of what he had to do to survive it. What he had to do to save his mother. This season sees him abusing those around him. Despite this, despite his erratic behavior and the mistreatment of his crew, he is still loved (by crew and fandom both, if I may add). He is still loved by Stede, despite the trail of blood he leaves in his wake. Stede is still longing to find him, despite knowing what he’s done and what he’s now capable of, and this continues to reiterate that idea of you deserve to be loved even when you’ve done wrong.
And then, Stede finds him.
We as an audience witness Ed make the choice to stay alive. We watch the thought process, we see that he chooses to fight for that love that comes alongside being saved. Being wanted. Being seen for who you are and loved because of it. And up to here, I’m on board. I’m excited to see what’s next and how Ed will reconcile for what he’s done and the harm he’s caused at the hands of his mental illness — because the truth is, we harm people when we aren’t adequately being responsible for our mental illness. This is a real-world thing. We lash out when we’re hurt, or when we’re rejected, or when we’re struggling. When we’re suffering, we often can’t see past ourselves to see whether or not we’re also causing others to suffer. This does not make us bad people — and it didn’t make Ed one. And then the “apology” came and went. The only member of the crew Ed really sits and ever has a drawn out conversation with about anything is Fang, and even this is somewhat shallow. Fang absolves him and moves on. We don’t get to see whether or not Ed ponders this conversation long-term or whether or not he battles with himself over how to move on.
We’re left with a traumatized crew who semi-accepted a half-hearted apology and a beloved character who hasn’t actually been held accountable at all. “But he apologized and wore the bell and fixed that door latch!” Yes, and? He physically mutilated his first mate, instructed him to be killed, traumatized an entire crew — and this all takes a backseat to his relationship with Stede. And what a stunning scene between the two of them in the moonlight, where Ed finds it in him to ask to take things slow. Where he recognizes his needs and vocalizes them. I left this episode feeling so hopeful, because half-baked apology aside, Ed is actively learning to vocalize his thoughts and ask for what he needs when he recognizes in himself that something is going to be harmful to him. We had a kiss, we had Ed asking for help when he needed it, we had a proposal, we had “not moving on is worse,” and even knowing only three episodes remained, I left feeling like we had been so perfectly set up to see how things were only going to keep improving.
In the first episodes of the season, we see murderous raids and mutilated first mates and two suicide attempts (though I suppose one was more of a mass murder-suicide attempt?) and these are all thrown together. In episode six, Stede deescalates a raid from a bloodbath of his own crew and sends another crew on their way with the lessons and values that he has been pursuing since the first episode of the first season. He then, in a parallel to the French ship of season one, causes a man’s death. This is highlighted as a turning point, something that can’t be ever moved on from. (“There’s no coming back from that.”) But what about the other traumatic events of the season that are treated as jokes? Izzy’s drinking, day in and day out, bottle after bottle after bottle — coping with the reality of his life and the way it’s been altered beyond recognition. The mop he used as a makeshift leg snapping, forcing him to pull himself away from the crew with his own hands. Lucius’s mention of being sexually assaulted and Stede’s look of disgust, the way he literally runs away from the conversation. Lucius never gets to air out his traumas, not really, not with someone who listens and tells him he’s safe and allows him to talk things through. Even Pete gets ill instead of being able to offer support.
I struggle to reconcile what is and isn’t comedy in this season, or what violence is meant to be taken for what it is. The Ed and Izzy breakdowns in episodes one and two sat far too close to my chest for me to look past them into comedy — and the suicidality of both men was glossed over and moved on from so quickly, never explored. Did Izzy’s “I wanna go” in the final episode mean he never moved on? That some part of him was still lying in that room with a gun to his head? You don’t become non-suicidal in a matter of days — is there still something lingering in the back of Ed’s mind? There was never a conversation about it, and there was never anything between the two of them that could allow me comfort in knowing that they had reached some sort of understanding. This season pulled domestic abuse, alcohol abuse, and suicidal tendencies straight from my own traumas and never held anyone accountable for any of them. There was no healing. There was no real talking it through. “Well, it’s not a rom-com, so—” Except it continues to be presented as one. Shortcomings of storylines of characters that seem to have been cast aside or mischaracterized this season aside, I cannot for the life of me reconcile how a show about kindness and moving on and being loved amidst all of your flaws could have a season so wrought with traumas and yet never discuss them. Never explore them in a way that allows me to move on. I love this show and there were so many good things about this season; I love these characters, and yet I feel so disconnected from it for the first time in over a year. Not moving on is worse, sure, but moving on without accountability leaves wounds unable to heal. How do you move on from that?
Okay yes Ed and Stede are going to be objectively very terrible at running an inn. Just the worst anyone has ever been at it probably. But can you imagine what it would be like to stay at this place.
There's literally a grave right there in the front yard.
Ed and Stede both have a very intense "compliment my boyfriend or I'll blow this whole place up" energy. Ed glares at you until you compliment the interior decor. Stede makes very unsubtle hints for you to rave about how good Ed's cooking is.
Towel service is fucking immaculate. And Ed probably keeps rooms stocked with all the good soap.
You can't sleep because those two are going at it all night long. You probably assume they're having some weird orgy because they're really into cringefail roleplay sex and you hear several different names as they try to find a good plot. You hear a cat bell ringing but they definitely don't have a cat.
Ed offers to take you fishing with him but spends the entire morning waxing poetic about his boyfriend while you do all the actual fishing.
It takes half an hour to get to your room because they just keep doing bits and talking about all the knickknacks they've got.
They're just absolutely embarrassing. No customer service is being done because Ed is too busy sitting in Stede's lap.
Continental breakfast is like. Just a whole fish and marmalade set out on a table. You have to eat it anyway because Stede's face makes it very clear you're not leaving that inn until you do.
Keep It In The Box : An Essay on OFMD Season 2 and the Failure to Heal
(here in is my season two reaction. It contains many many spoilers. It's also about 3k words long so you know what you're getting into.)
“See, I have a system for dealing with all the terrible things I've seen. There's a box in my mind, and I put the things in the box..” -Frenchie, Season 2 of Our Flag Means Death
…..and then he never opens it. Chekov’s locked box has no key in season two.
On first watch, it seemed clear to me that Frenchie’s declaration was a narrative plant. Clearly the whole season would be about that box of pain and trauma being opened, sorted through and at least the beginning of healing. The show had developed a reputation after season one of being kind and focused on queer narratives of healing from childhood. Ed and Stede’s parallels in their childhood traumas were frequently on display through season one and were repeated in flashback throughout season two. Jim’s season one arc about becoming someone who doesn’t think just of revenge and can now forge meaningful connections was profound, beautiful and often funny. Izzy is an antagonist because he doesn’t want Ed to move on or stop acting like the trauma-response version of himself. The antagonist wants to stop healing. The point is to grow, to change, to learn how to love. It’s one of the things that made season one work for me at the time, despite reservations about pacing and tone.
So naturally season two should follow suit. It’s a kind show! About healing and falling in love!
For the first several episodes, the remaining crew on the Revenge go through a gauntlet of trauma, forced to do and receive violence at Ed’s whims as he careens from self-destructive behavior to self-destructive behavior. This is the wounding setup. It was dark, but it seemed like it would have a payoff and at first it did.
Perhaps one of the most beautiful moments of the season comes in one of the small respites in those early episodes as Jim recounts Pinnochio to Fang to soothe him through his grief. That was the show that I expected. The kindness of that moment struck me very deeply. It gave me some understanding of Archie too, who seems to fall for Jim right at that moment.
That scene is the show season one promised. Season two led with packing Frenchie’s box full to bursting. Here is the fight to the death between lovers, there is a first mate who is mutilated and rotting in the very walls (the rot of the Revenge itself), and there is the storm of Ed’s rage and pain that threatens to consume all of them.
So surely these remaining episodes would concentrate on finding the humor in healing from those moments. That is the setup. Frenchie has a box. The box must eventually open.
Except time and again, all the characters who suffered are told that the only way to deal with what they’ve been through is to stick it in the box and never open it again.
Pete tells Lucius that he’s unable to move on and needs to let it go. Izzy has a story about a shark. Ed’s apology to the crew which doesn’t even contain the words ‘I’m sorry’ is just…accepted. I kept waiting and waiting for a meaningful apology to the people Ed had hurt the worst with his actions, but it seems all we get is Fang saying ‘eh, no problem, I got to hit you back so I feel better’.
The playful theme of ‘pirates are just violent sometimes’ from season one becomes a grinding horror machine in season two when every atrocity visited on someone is forgiven because the narrative needs it to be. Ed and Stede spend more time making amends with each other over the bloodless night on the beach than either of them spend trying to repent for their actions towards anyone else.
And let’s talk about Ed. Arguably this season pivots on his narrative, on his path to healing and growth. A path that starts at a very low point. His moment in the gravy basket, deciding he wants to live because there are still things to live for is so great! So one might assume that what would follow would be him pursuing those things, making amends, making connections. He and Stede have a wonderful moment, talking about being whim prone and how they’ll work to avoid that, build a relationship by going slower.
Yet, at no point do either of them stop following whims. They never heal or learn from what’s happened to them. They both keep running from thing to thing, particularly Ed. It’s a whim to sleep with Stede, it’s a whim to run off to fish, and the finale gives us just more of their whims. Ed drops fishing as fast as he picked it up. He finds those leathers in the ocean, murdering the symbolism of leaving them behind. Even the inn is a whim, one of those things Ed decided he’d be good at without evidence. And Stede joins him in that without a single on screen conversation about it ahead of the moment.
Ed needs to heal himself and to do that he needs to confront what he’s done and do the work to heal the wound. Instead, he doesn’t meaningfully apologize to anyone, besides Stede and Fang. Despite Izzy’s dying words (we’ll get to that), not only do we never see the crew caring about Ed, working to make him family in the same way they do with Fang and even Izzy, he also doesn’t choose to stay with them. So what is the point? Where is the healing? Or does even Ed, beloved main character, have to live with it all stuffed in a box?
He ends the season in the leathers he threw away, in a relationship that’s barely stabilized, going to live in a house which we are told by the narrative (in that they are very very clearly paralleling Anne and Mary with Ed and Stede or why do we even get that whole Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? episode) will only end in them setting fire to each other to stay warm.
But Vee, I hear you cry, it’s a ROM-COM. This is all meant to be ha-ha funny and you are taking it so seriously!
Cool beans. Then why the hell isn’t it funny? Healing is often filled with comedy because people deal with pain with humor. You can heal and laugh at the same time. The finale especially is almost entirely devoid of laughs, almost entirely devoid of joy until the last minute for that matter. The episode that should show off with a flourish how far everyone’s come, mostly serves to show that no one has grown.
Okay that’s Ed. I want to talk about Lucius next. Our former audience surrogate (that’s taken away in season two when he doesn’t get enough screen time to perform that role and no one takes his place) really goes through the wringer. He experiences many many terrible things, including sexual assault (which is made into a grimace-laugh line that doesn’t take away from it’s seriousness because oh hey, that can be done as it turns out). He’s nervous, he’s smoking, it’s clear he’s suffering.
There’s a beautiful moment where Pete tells him ‘hey, I was also in pain. I grieved’ and that’s great. It’s good that Pete sets a boundary about Lucius not obsessing over the past to the point of occluding their future.
We even get our comedic moment where Lucius pushes Ed off the boat (still not apology, but I’d lost hope for that by then) and that doesn’t help enough. So Izzy comes in with a shark and the advice that you just have to move on.
Just…you know. Play pretend. Forget.
Shove it in a box. Ed didn’t take my leg, a shark did. Ed didn’t kill you, a shark did. Live with the person that tried to murder you because it’s your fault you dangled your leg over the side of a boat. That is the show’s message. I thought on first watch, that surely this would also come back up and be explained that you can’t live that way, that that is no way to heal. That it would become clear that this was no way through. You cannot make everything into sharks.
Lucius can move forward and still carry pain. He can still want a meaningful apology and still want to talk to his lover about what he’s dealing with while moving forward toward a brighter future.
And what of the flirtatious promise of relationships and connections being the way to heal?
Look to Oluwande and Jim, whose heartfelt romance from season one was relegated to the bins of history in favor of a narrative that made him a brother Jim once had sex with. They could have had Archie AND Oluwande, who in turn could also have Zheng, but that never seems to be an option. With a single short conversation, they are broken up with, despite a brief tease at the birthday that they still ‘dance’ together, it never actually manifests. Jim and Archie never talk about what they went through. It’s swept under the rug as fast as knives are lowered.
Lucius also no longer flirts with other people, the solution to his pain is to propose and get married (but not too married, lest we forget that they’re two men, they don’t even get to be husbands or even the more respectful mates, no. They’re mateys.) This season proposes that the only happy endings are monogamous ones, where no one talks about anything painful that went before.
To ensure that message, beyond assuring the success of Oluwande and Zheng’s relationship, Jim and Archie almost entirely disappear from the narrative. Sorry you guys were given layers of trauma and no growth and not even much to do this season, we need to make sure that everyone remembers Oluwande is the break in Zheng’s day so when he says that to her five minutes later we know exactly what he’s referencing. No time for Archie to learn what an apology is or for Jim to get one line in with Oluwande that isn’t affirming their newfound broship. Must do more flashbacks to things we just did two episodes ago!
The show even dangles the conversation of the Revenge being a safe space. Why would any of them ever feel safe when the man who tortured them is allowed to walk among them and they are expected to forgive and forget? What’s safe about that? The ship is never made safe for any of them, but that’s never addressed.
And Zheng! Amazing, hysterically funny Zheng! She loses her ships, her entire way of life, the kingdom she built for herself and then…she doesn’t even get to captain the Revenge. We don’t know what becomes of her fleet, of her plans, her ambitions. Don’t worry about it, she has a romantic partner and isn’t that what every lady wants in the end?
(But Vee, I hear you cry again, there will be a season three! Maybe it will be All About Zheng! To which I say: then why did they present us with the most series finale feeling episode ever? If there’s more, I have no idea where it’s going. BUT VEE: BUTTONS AS SEAGULL ON THE GR- Fine. It’s time.)
Let’s talk about Izzy Hands.
Izzy manages more healing than anyone else this season. He reaches his lowest point, suicidal in the bowels of a ship that’s become a prison (very much in contrast to Ed’s suicidal low). The person he loves most in the world has shredded him physically and emotionally (and if you’re in the camp that thinks Izzy deserves the abuse that Ed gave to him, I would really like you to sit quietly with yourself and ask why you think there is ever anything anyone can do to deserve that treatment). He’s low, he shoots Ed to protect everyone, and then seems to plan to drink himself to death, mourning his losses.
And then another beautiful moment! The crew move past their own pain to help him. They work together for the first time and it’s to give Izzy mobility back. He treasures it. He cries over it. He uses that kindness extended to him to reach a new understanding of Stede and help him succeed, doing the work to make real amends. He sings in drag, he’s vulnerable and beautiful, celebrating the side of himself that he must’ve loathed in the first season. He’s an elder queer man, coming into himself.
He never gets an apology though. (‘Sorry about your leg’ without eye contact is not an apology. There is no responsibility taking, no acknowledgement of the weeks of torture that came with it.) Izzy also never really has an honest conversation with anyone about what it means that the man he loves punished him so severely for the crime of trying to protect the crew (yes, lest we forget, Izzy lost his leg because he was trying to keep Ed from re-traumatizing the crew and himself).
Izzy does all this work, but even he’s not allowed to take it out of the box. It’s a shark, not Ed. Ed is just ‘complicated’ (the language of abuse here is so upsetting and I think not even intentional).
And then he dies. His last act? To apologize to the man who tortured him and shot at him. To have done all this work, to take on all the blame. And then die.
In a rom com.
This show ends in a profoundly unfunny moment of telling the audience: this is the one character that did the work, that made amends, that tried his hardest to accept the parts of himself that he had a hard time embracing and formerly embittered him. He’s fully accepted his queerness and turned it into beautiful music. He’s disabled, and he worked hard to accept that. The man he loves will never love him back, so he worked hard to make Stede able to meet Ed on an even playing field. The Giving Tree gave up its limbs and its trunk, and it’s not even allowed to be a stump to sit on.
Kill the queer elder, who has managed to figure out how to live and in his own way how to heal. Kill him before he manages to teach anyone else how to meaningfully move forward (he almost gets it with Lucius, almost, but it’s meant to be rule of three, you know. Cigarette..shark…and then…and then fuck it, Lucius doesn’t even get to say a word at his funeral).
The message of this season again and again is that there is no healing, just moving forward. Like a shark. Like a bird that never lands.
That is not a kind show.
Season two is not a kind season.
It splinters people up and jams them back together without purpose or reason. It tells everyone who experiences pain that they should shove it in a box and not deal with it. No one who really needs one gets an apology of any sincerity. No one puts in the work to gain forgiveness. (Ed wearing a onesie is not The Work. Ed fixing a door is not The Work. Ed broke people that the show wants us to care about. Ed never does the work of making those amends. He fires off a Notes app apology at best. After all, it’s what he told himself via Hornigold in the gravy basket: you move on or you blow your brains out! Good thing he took his own advice and therefore had to change nothing to get his just rewards.
I would’ve taken just fifteen minutes of Ed trying to actually make amends. It could’ve been hilarious! Imagine awkward Ed trying to dance around what he’s doing with Jim and the two of them having a knife throwing competition about it. Or him and Frenchie attempting to make music together, writing a song about the raids they went on! It’s not just the crew robbed of their healing because of this, it’s Ed himself. He never meaningfully changes or makes amends. How is he any different at the end of the finale then he is standing on the edge of that cliff with Hornigold? He hasn’t moved on, he hasn’t healed. He tried one thing (fishing) that doesn’t fucking work and then he runs right back.
No one leaves this season better than they went into it. They’ve lost an elder queer, they’ve lost their joyous and queer polyamory, they’ve lost a chance for meaningful reconciliation with Ed and Ed lost any chance of looking like he gave shit if they did. Stede grows enough to accept the crew’s beliefs as important and then leaves them behind without a care.
Izzy gets a beautiful speech about piracy being larger than yourself. Ed and Stede, within twenty minutes of that speech, leave piracy. They are incapable of giving themselves to something bigger, apparently. They haven’t learned to be a part of a community. They haven’t healed from their childhood trauma or their fresher wounds. They are still just following their own whims.
Zheng’s life work is in tatters, but it’s fine, she has love. Oluwande and Jim aren’t together, but it's fine because they both have dedicated monogamous partners. Lucius was deeply scarred by what happened, never recovers much of his first season personality, but hey he got-well it’s not married exactly- but you know good enough!
Frenchie, who has a box forever locked in his head, is captain. Because the key to success is to lock it all in a box and never open it. What a message. What a show. Conceal, don’t feel. Smile because it’s a happy ending. Don’t mourn the dead, don’t try to tell people what happened to you (they will literally run away or cry too hard to listen and really you’re just bumming them out), and any meaningful change you make is only rewarded with death.
Frenchie is now a pirate captain with a box in his head full of trauma that’s never been opened, leading a crew with more wounds than scars. Wonder how that could turn out? Wonder how many years before he might want to retire and then happen to run across a gentleman pirate. As if no one learned anything at all.
The final shot of the season is actually Izzy’s grave, outside of Ed and Stede’s cottage. “I think him being buried near them is a lovely image,” he said. “And there’s a reason that that happened. I think they both were sad to see their friend go. And I think they’re both thinking, ‘let’s make this work not just for us, but in memory of Izzy’.” [source]
Okay. Great. This shit. Just perfect.
I mean, does Jenkins even hear himself when he says this? Is this supposed to be a sufficient explanation for Ed and Stede burying Izzy in their fucking garden instead of giving him a funeral at sea that would be proper for a lifelong career pirate? Are we supposed to feel better after reading this?
Because it's not fucking working on me, David. Because what you did is that you took a beautifully complex man who in the end turned out to care about his crew and his community way more than he cared about ANY single person and you literally reduced him to a motivation for Ed and Stede to try and be better. (It bodes so fucking well for their relationship if they need to look at Izzy's grave every day to be reminded that they love each other, by the way!)
Izzy's last scene is fucking ALL about Edward. He apologizes to his abuser (yes, they were mutually abusive but Izzy NEVER went as far as Ed did and he never took pleasure in it). He tells Ed the crew are his family (the crew who took Izzy's side when Edward was abusing him, the crew who are IZZY's family, not Ed's, and the crew whom Ed abandons literally two scenes later). And then he says he wants to go so that Ed's conscience can be clean (Izzy "I'm not dying, not for that ponce and not for you" and "indestructible little fucker" Hands says he wants to die!!!).
And if that wasn't bad enough, they make his final resting place all about themselves as well. We KNOW a burial on land is not what Izzy would have wanted. Not to mention the mockery they make of the grave itself in hanging Izzy's cravat with his ring on the marker rather than burying him wearing it. But sure, Ed and Stede need a reminder to be decent people, so let them take all of Izzy's agency away and disrespect him even in death.
The way Jenkins talks about this, we should see all of it as sad but sweet and touching. For me, it's none of those. It's disrespectful in the worst possible way. And I seriously don't think I will ever recover from that.
Fuck. I'm so devastated I forgot about another vital point here. Izzy's whole character arc in S2 is kicked off by Edward abusing him to the point of physical mutilation. Yes, the arc is about redemption and learning the value of community, but it is ALSO about Izzy realizing just how terribly codependent and mutually abusive his relationship with Ed is and learning who he is outside of it.
It's about him FINALLY finding himself after almost killing himself in order to get out of a toxic, destructive relationship. It's about him getting away from Edward and learning to be free. It's about him becoming his own person. And then they fucking bury him in their garden as a reminder for themselves. After all the painful growth he went through, to decide to keep him close, literally trapped in their garden, and to reduce him to a warning for themselves is so incredibly insulting that I can't imagine either Ed or Stede wanting to do that.
And it's not just insulting to Izzy. It's insulting to the fans as well as we are told we should accept that because we were given a topless scene and La Vie en Rose in drag.
Some fans believe that we should not vent our anger and frustration to show creators. I don’t believe that. The thing about being a professional is that receiving criticism is part of your job—especially if you have done a terrible job.
OFMD went from groundbreaking to disappointing overnight.
There was a momentum to create a queer media that is smart, fun, sexy, and most importantly, respectful. In the way they are writing these queer characters. Especially older and disabled queer characters, a reflection of a generation of marginalised communities that have gone through so much. To give audience a glimpse of hope in their escapism.
But sir, you choose to Remus Lupin him instead.
This is not just about killing off a character. Hell, I might be willing to accept it. After all, I have read and even written fics with MCD in it—involving my favourite character.
But I want you to know that this is a special case. It is not just another popular character being killed off to drive plots.
I have issue with how you kill off a queer character that represents many marginalised communities in his arc.
Izzy is an abuse survivor who becomes disabled as a result of it. Izzy is a queer elder. Izzy is suicidal but manages to overcome it with the healing power of love and community.
Having him killed off just like that is a huge slap for fans who have gone through what he has gone through. Turns out, even in fiction, in our escapism, there is no joy. Only despair.
Also. Father figure? Where does that come from? Ed has never been shown to have any level of respect for Izzy. So let me ask you again. Where does “father figure” come from?
You have an opportunity to make a difference with OFMD; to be remembered in history for the right reasons. Yet somehow you choose not too. You choose to turn this into cheap, sensationalist entertainment where death and torture are thrown around for shock value.
It is like you have no idea how much power you have by being a professional storyteller.
OFMD has truly become an overnight failure. I don’t know how this happened. I would like to blame budget cuts, but your Vanity Fair interview makes me realise this is all deliberate choice.
So, what is next for us Canyonites?
If anything, this convinced me that queer and disabled people should write. And continue to write.
We can no longer trust major media to speak for us. We definitely can never trust David Jenkins again. Any form of progressiveness that he showed earlier was just coincidence, apparently.
As my friend Sam beautifully puts it, Izzy belongs to us now. We reclaim that character and give him all the happy endings he deserves in our fic, our art. We transform the works. We write about queer, disabled, suicidal characters the way the deserve to be written. If being a published writer is the path you choose, make sure you make wiser decisions than David Jenkins.
I do wanna be clear that Stede was fucked after that first kill and we see from Izzy and Ed's reactions that you have to be a true maniac (Ned, the English) to enjoy it but the second one comes a lot more naturally to him, and that is partly tied with the applause he gets and partly with the last few months having shown him that killing is a necessary part of the world of piracy he so idealises. It's not ooc for stede to kill and to kinda be swept up in the fame of it all - it's how Ricky got inside his circle too. Stede is very prone to flattery, it doesn't even have to be the good kind. It's his growth as a character, the next stage for him to know to pick his enemies, and what he's wanted all along is to be taken seriously in this world. This man has never had a kind word spoken to him most of his life, of course he wants the infamy and the emotional riches of people patting him on the back and having his face tattooed on their bodies. Of course he wants to be a proper pirate, he's always said that, we've always known that.
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