I want to talk about episode 5 and how it’s the perfect bridge between the end of 4 when Ed reveals the plan to kill Stede, and episode 6 when he’s decided he doesn’t really want to
Because 5 is the only episode where Ed acts like Blackbeard to Stede and around him. He’s repeatedly rude and mean to him and just generally violent around him. And every time he does it Stede meets him with kindness
When Stede is “raiding” the library and Ed tells him to stop and knocks the books out of his and Lucius’ hands, then right after Stede is teaching him how to dine and being patient as he learns
The captain then insults Ed and Ed yells at him and Stede tells him not to debase himself by talking to the man, insinuating Ed as a pirate captain is above the merchant captain
Ed then tells Fang to skin and kill the captain, which clearly freaks Stede out because hey he’s now living on a ship with a guy who after one misstep will have that done to you, but when Ed is still upset about the insults Stede gently asks what’s wrong and tries to help
At the party, Ed realizes he can get the other rich people to like him more by insulting Stede (notably he never does this again, even when in front of people like Jack he’s trying to look cool to he’ll stand up for Stede and not make fun of him) but at the party he immediately jumps onto insulting Stede for his own benefit so Stede goes to sit outside while he gets the benefit of purposely humiliating him. Then the rich people turn on Ed and he runs out of the room and Stede immediately comforts him, uses his Dad Voice to get Ed not to kill them, then he ruins the lives of everyone in that room to the point they set their own ship on fire to get back at them for what they did
And then again on deck Stede tells him despite his missteps at the party and his upbringing that he “wears fine things well” aka is still a respectable gentleman in his eyes and instead of judging the silk Ed carries he treats it with respect and incorporates it into Ed’s outfit, all of which had been bought by an actual wealthy gentleman, showing that Ed and that world could coincide and weren’t incompatible
After this in 6 and on Ed stops doing a lot of his Blackbeard persona and beyond occasional impatient snapping like on the treasure hunt he’s always nice to Stede and sticks up for him because Stede saw him as his as rude and cruel and violent self and still treated him with kindness and respect and didn’t see him as a monster
The whole reason he wanted to kill Stede in the first place is because he’s sick of being Blackbeard but after 5 he realizes he doesn’t have to be Blackbeard, or the Blackbeard he was, and he can relax out of that persona and still feel safe and be treated with respect
