Our Flag Means Death. It's utterly brilliant and I am obsessed!

[TriceratopsRocks]

I'm sure I found a thread on this series a while ago, but now season 2 is out I've looked back and I can't find anything apart from the renewal petition.

For anyone who hasn't come across it yet, I would thoroughly recommend. It starts off as a sort of workplace comedy set on a pirate ship, sort of in the style of Ghosts, and with a similar fanbase to Good Omens. When the 2nd lead character arrives at the end of episode 3, it starts to change and it only hit me two thirds of the way through season 1 that I was actually watching a very different sort of show to the one I thought I had started watching.

From that point it's phenomenal. The attention to detail is superb. Both leads are clearly neuro diverse, from abusive backgrounds and damaged because of these. They both want what they think the other one has. It's about them discovering themselves, accepting themselves for who they really are, and healing. There is comedy, but also heartbreak and despair. The show handles these so sensitively and accurately, down to minute details, and Taika Waititi and Rhys Darby deserve every award under the sun for their work here.

I don't think I've ever obsessed about a show as much as this one. I've tried to make this not too spoilery in case some of you want to watch it, but really I just want someone to talk to about it! I've already watched it countless times and the more I rewatch the more I appreciate it. I said I was obsessed and I really am!

The show has sadly been cancelled, despite its popularity, and the producers are currently trying to see if it will be picked up by another network. I have read that they are keeping an eye on the iPlayer numbers as part of this, so I also wanted to shamelessly plug it here 😁

If any of you haven't seen it and fancy giving it a try, it grows into itself in the first season and you really need to give it at least 4 episodes (episode 4 is where the main story really starts). Its not a show I would have thought to watch myself (DD wanted me to watch it with her) but I'm so glad I have.

I don't really know what I want from this thread really. I want more people to find it, but I also want to just talk about it and obviously can't do that without more spoilers than I've already given. Help me out people!

I felt the same about CJ and really wanted Ed to tell him where to go but it was important for the story and at least he got his comeuppance in the end.

I also felt the same about The Chain sequence. Something definitely fired in my brain when it happened and I realised that this show was pure quality.

Yep me too re the Chain sequence - for me the hex was the timing of the hooks on the side of the ship with the music, and then of course the wink and the foot touch. I watched it again and again, it’s brilliant.

Mind you the foot touch was improv and the director only noticed it later. Could you imagine seeing that for the first time as a director - spine tingling!

Yes exactly, the hooks! I'd love to say that's when I got hooked but I was already really.

I totally understand, but that episode is so important. The telescope scene is such a favourite of mine; Stede's expression as Ed returned to the ship really did it for me, then 'you came back' and the foot touch. And Lucius a breakup counsellor for a couple who haven't even acknowledged their feelings yet.

CJ became an easier watch as I got used to it, partly because we see how Ed has changed, and he starts to admit it too. Also Stede standing up to a bully is a great moment showing his development too, especially knowing that CJ is important to Ed.

Oh yes. Taika inhabited Ed so well, and Ed loves touch - he knew what was needed. Wonderful!

I have to say that the more I watch the more I appreciate Lucius. His empathy and support for Stede in We Gull Way Back is glorious and then the way he deals with Ed is just so lovely. I certainly assume that he was pushed off the ship because he had seen Ed so very broken.

Agreed. But also because he was the one person on the ship who would understand that the Kraken was a response to Ed's pain, and once Ed was set on that course, Lucius is the one who might bring him out of it. Ed knew this, so he had to go.

Re: the Chain… it was the drummer in time with the beat. I was like, what? Is this Fleetwood Mac??? Then, the hooks, the jump of the English sailor onto deck, then the backwards run by Lucius and Roach… that backwards run… my neurons went berserk.

And Frenchie with his lute. It's a truly wonderful piece of filmmaking.

Lucius was also their Cupid. I really think his comments to Ed on the treasure hunt crystallised Ed’s feelings for Stede. Lucius gives Ed the language tools to describe what’s happening in the same way Mary does for Stede later. So in some warped way, Ed blames Lucius, because the ‘bizarre little man’ wasn’t into him that much after all.

Why is Frenchie playing the lute here? Is he fiddling whilst Rome’s burning?

😂 Purely for the theatre of it, I think.

That's a very interesting take and one I hadn't thought of. The fact that Ed wanted to stay in Kraken mode until he could somehow engineer his suicide.

Oh yes, definitely this too. Lucius gave Ed the confidence to acknowledge his own feelings for Stede when he couldn't tell that Stede was interested. I hadn't connected that with Ed blaming Lucius for Stede leaving but it totally makes sense.

This too is an interesting idea that hadn't occurred to me. Ed did feel he had been made a fool of as evidenced by his comments when under the yellow blanket in Fun and Games until Stede was able to convince him he was wrong about that.

Ah, thank you. I can be a bit literal where visual humour is concerned and not always get the joke. I suppose it is funny because it’s ridiculous.

Oof. That’s good! He threw his antidepressants overboard.

It also fits well with the guitar in the song. They had to make the most of it :)

Like naked Buttons who is doing anything but ‘running in the shadows’ 🤣

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

All this talk is making me want to go back to S1 again. I still haven't moved past The Innkeeper on my latest rewatch because I keep rewatching 2.1-3 (I've also revisited 1.4-6 and 1.8-9 recently). But the end of 1.8 through to 2.3... I must be a sucker for punishment because I find it so hard to move on from those episodes.

I saw someone describe the show as a prologue followed by three acts:

Prologue 1.1, 1,2., 1.3
Act One 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8

Act Two 1.9, 1.10, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3
Act Three. 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8

Act Two is basically The Empire Strikes Back. It’s all the sturm and drang. It’s addictive.

That's it! Lol at the empire strikes back. But it fits, and those 'Act' groupings really work. It's often how I watch them, but I had never thought of it in those terms (and I meant 1.9-1.10 above btw - although watching 1.9 always means starting near the end of 1.8).

Act Two for me all the way. Definitely the episodes I have watched the most although I have watched 204 a great many times as well.