(courtesy IMP Awards)
How often do we really get to follow our heart?
Quite a bit if we’re so inclined in this far more freedom enabled age but back in 1717 at the height of the Golden Age of Piracy? Not as much as you’d think.
Sure, as Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) beautifully if haphazardly demonstrates in Our Flag Means Death, if you are an actual pirate, it’s technically all freedom of expression and a big finger to the polite, non-theft oriented norms of polite society; after all, you are regularly stealing from the British Crown, you exist in a society that does have its own laws and regulations even if they are brutally and unmercifully enforced, and you are doing what you want when you want.
But are you really? For much of the second season of Our Flag Means Death – read my review of the first season – Stede and the crew including Oluwande Boodhari (Samson Kayo), Frenchie (Joel Fry), Jim Jimenez (Vico Ortiz), Black Pete (Matthew Maher) and Fang/Kevin (Guz Khan), and even a grizzled and resentful Izzy (Con O’Neill) eventually (long and sort of sad and angry story), don’t actually have much choice at all.
After Blackbeard (Taika Waititi) and Stede, who have ———- SPOILER ALERT !!!! ———- have gone their separate ways, and regretted not falling into each other’s arms (their love story was a delightfully unexpected outcome of the first season which roamed from Monty Python-esque hilarious silliness to some quite meaningful ruminations on life, love and colonialism), Stede and the gang found themselves at the mercy of everyone from Spanish Jackie (Leslie Jones) who takes the Swede (Nat Faxon) as her 20th hubby, the Pirate Queen, and captain of all the all-female ship, the Red Flag, Zheng Yi Sao (Ruibo Qian), who’s a brilliant addition to the show, and the British in the form of minor prince Richard “Ricky” Banes (Erroll Shand) who ends up losing a precious body part (not that one; mind out of gutter, please) in his Stede-like quest to become a pirate which leaves him angry, resentful and leading an anti-piracy campaign.
One of the key things season two of Our Flag Means Death explores is how there might the allure and image of freedom attached to piracy which comes with a brisk devil-may-care bravado and zest for indulging your inner lawless brigand but which is just as constrained as a more conventional life.
In a season where Stede sort of kind of becomes a more skilled pirate – yeah, not really, but he thinks he is and it’s Darby’s hilarious riffing on that idea and the firm dismissal of his delusional skill base by the likes of the wisecracking, fantastically competent Pirate Queen, that makes the show such a treat to watch.
Our favourite aristocrat-turned-pirate remains convinced he has what it takes, but as in the first season, much of his success, such as it is, stems from being around the right people in the wrong place at the right time.
To be fair he does improve somewhat, thanks to tutoring from an unlikely quarter, but much of this much darker season’s humour comes from the way in which he remained trapped between aspiration and execution, which wouldn’t matter so much if that kind of deficit had the very real, almost daily, potential to have to killed at the end of a very angrily-wielded sword.
So, yes, there is much humour to be had and not just as Stede’s benefit; there are discussions of profit sharing, ship feng shui, self fulfillment and a glorious scene where a repentant Blackberd “apologises” in the modern corporate way where reference is made to “safe places” and emotional honesty but the word is, thinking about it afterward as the crew humourously does, not actually uttered.
You will find yourself laughing a lot because Our Flag Means Death is an inherently silly show that gloriously thumbs its nose at complete historical accuracy but you will also find yourself facing some very dark moments too.
Blackbeard and Stede are in love but apart and Blackbeard is not taking its well, taking out his lovelorn heart on a bloody campaign of murderous serial killing and ship killing while Stede is desperate to find him, throwing love letters into bottles on the waves in what is observed as a haphazard mail delivery system.
In a show that becomes a love letter to queer love itself in all its gender defying and heteronormative f**k you forms, with Black Pete and Stede’s scribe Lucius (Nathan Foad) marrying, Jim and Archie (Madeleine Sami) joining forces and almost every crew member not batting an eyelid at it – oh that the world now was this accommodating and richly, emotionally complex and inclusive! – one of the standout of the second season is how wonderful it is to follow your heart but how many limits there are to doing so.
Sure, everything points to Stede and Blackbeard getting back together and consummating their ferociously passionate love affair which becomes the unconventional beating heart of a show dedicated to thumbing its nose at convention every chance it gets even as it acknowledges the limits of such a strategy (not in a defeatist way, more a be-aware and find ways to counter it fashion), but the path isn’t easy, yet more evidence that following your heart whether in love or piracy is not even remotely a safe and sure bet.
But god love Our Flag Means Death it goes hell for leather anyway with dark execution and comedic intent to push its characters to find their own way and it does so in an age where Enlightenment is preaching freedom but the real world of the likes of our favourite pirates, whom Izzy rather wonderfully are pirates because they have a community where they are worth something after everyone told them they are nothing, want to hold them back, forcing them to go hard anyway and hopefully not get blown up on the way!
Our Flag Means Death is a darkly-hued joy that throws plenty an obstacle, of the heart and otherwise, in the way of just about everyone, not least Stede and Blackbeard who you stan like crazy all the way through, and knows how little the world lets your queer, freedom-craving heart run free, but which urges its characters, and you by extension anyway, to do it anyway and screw the consequences which actually might turn out to be so bad and could be better damn good!
Our Flag Means Death streams on Max and in Australia on Binge.