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!

Ooh yes. I have expunged that from my mind, for good reason I think.

I suppose the truth is that I don't laugh at those things because I don't find them funny at all.

Actually that brings to mind another anomaly. When Calico Jack tells Stede that Ed once set fire to a ship and left them all to burn I am somewhat surprised that Stede doesn't remember the fate of all those poshos in 105.

Thinking some more about that early draft, the unrequited bit must have been dismissed very early on. All of DJ's interviews have talked about the 3 season arc, right from the start. S1 is Stede's journey - they find each other but although they are in their late 40s, they have the maturity of 14 year old boys. S2 is Ed's journey, and he said this season they have grown up a bit, their relationship has developed and they now behave as if they are in their late 20s (if I remember right). S3 was going to be them having fully matured and learning how to make their relationship work as grown adults. He's said this loads - the show is the relationship. And S3 was the one he was really keen to make.

So I can't help but think that the first draft was only a very short lived idea and that, particularly once Taika and Rhys were cast, it very quickly changed to become the show we have. They clearly put so much thought and effort into every scene - there is absolutely no way these were last minute changes.

Actually that brings to mind another anomaly. When Calico Jack tells Stede that Ed once set fire to a ship and left them all to burn I am somewhat surprised that Stede doesn't remember the fate of all those poshos in 105.

Yes that is a rather curious one isn't it. If I'm being charitable, maybe Stede saw they had lifeboats...

Yes I have seen loads of interviews and articles saying just that about the three season arc. I am still gutted that it won't happen.

And I'm going to be charitable regarding the tea and say Stede had something lovely like Twinings Lady Grey and the English were accustomed to Tetley (or period equivalent)...

LOL.

I have to admit, I haven't totally given up hope. It's there in the back of my mind that one day a miracle might happen. I realise it's very unlikely, but who knows what changes might happen in the future? Other cancelled shows have returned a few years down the line. I have no expectations, but I will keep on enjoying the 2 seasons that we have, plus other things the cast are going on to do, and the fan community, while it lasts. And I'll keep that little nugget of hope, buried away but still there, just in case :)

I'm just finishing a new introduction to thread 2. I figure it doesn't hurt to try and grab some more converts :) So I have a question for you all. Do I mention the central romance? I kept it spoiler free the first time, but seeing as that's the whole point of the show, it feels wrong to leave it out.

And I'm going out in less than half an hour, so if I don't get it posted before then, you'll have to keep an eye on the thread length. I'm back at my PC again at about 3.45pm though, so figure we should be ok till then.

Edited to add - I have said there is romance and finding love so it's in there - I just haven't said that the love story is the point of the show.

I have hope as well but I think I am probably completely deluded. As I might have said before I think the longer the hiatus the less chance as the cast move on with their careers and it becomes harder to get everybody back on board (pun very much intended).

In terms of a second thread I don't think it would hurt to mention the romantic angle. If I was going to be recommending it to anybody I would certainly sell it to them as a love story rather than a comedy.

I have hope AI might come to the rescue in the future. I know it’s not quite the same, but I would take an AI version of season 3 of the story in the next 10 years over nothing. Hell, I’ll take a flip comic book at this stage filmed on an iPhone. But it’s buying the rights off HBO Max or whatever they’ve merged into.

@TriceratopsRocks mention romance, but not directly who it is.

I don’t have a problem with the aristocratic boat burning in 1.5. They did it to themselves and Stede didn’t prevent anyone from leaving. It also wasn’t his intention to cause a fire, but rather an outcome of their self-inflicted pandemonium. BB seems to have locked a crew inside a ship and torched it. It’s completely different.

I took the tea comment as an ‘excuse’ to be racist… ‘made by savages’.

Yes I assume they implied Frenchie and Roach made bad tea because they were "foreign".

I agree, @CarlaH Both the snail fork and the good maim lines jar massively for me and they did the first time I watched it, back when I didn’t realise it was a love story. Even then there was too much of a clash with the version of Blackbeard who loves a fine fabric and desperately wants to be liked. Any comedy in the bathtub scene feels misplaced when we’ve just watched Ed crawling out of the room, terrified.

I don’t think the reminder of who Blackbeard is/was/will become in the CJ/boat burning reference works either – fine for CJ to talk jovially about their drunken and debauched past but the coldblooded cruelty of the boat burning doesn’t work for me. I am perhaps just too much in denial of the brutality of pirate life for this show – I love the comedy but really I'm in it for the tender, sweet moments - thankfully there's an abundance of them.

I felt a physical pang when I read somewhere that a filming block for S3 was booked for May so we should have been starting to see leaked photos from the set around now. I’m keeping a tiny wee window of hope (just a fool’s hope, perhaps, to quote LOTR, but look how that quest turned out!) that something will change and we’ll get some kind of S3, or a special… If not, by the time all chance of that is definitely gone I will hopefully be a little less invested - surely I can’t stay quite this obsessed forever – it’s so time consuming!

For the new thread, I’d definitely mention romance as I think people sometimes give up before they get to that, particularly with what were to me the doldrums of 1.3. It really becomes a romance/drama with some excellent one liners and wonderfully absurd situations. Also, there will be multiple spoilers throughout the thread anyway.

I think I’m wired differently… I found the bathtub scene funny, and absurd and moving and powerful and romantic. The whole show is like that for me, it switches within scenes and even brief conversations.

The only bits I can’t watch are the Ned Lowe torture scenes, I can’t stomach them at all.

You have summed up my feelings exactly in your first paragraph. I am both hoping for the obsession to lessen because it's hard not being able to talk about it with the person I love best (he really isn't interested at all) but then I worry I will feel lost without it.

My DH is just like “are you watching those Australian blokes AGAIN” and I don’t even know where to start with that so I just ignore him 😂

I think I’m wired differently… I found the bathtub scene funny, and absurd and moving and powerful and romantic. The whole show is like that for me, it switches within scenes and even brief conversations.

No, I think I’m the same as you. I have such conflicting emotions during many scenes. Ed’s flinch as Stede hammers on the door is the most powerful moment in that scene for me. Contrast that with Stede’s ridiculous ‘And is that still on the cards?’ comment after learning he nearly had his face burned off!

The merstede scene is peak OFMD. I was sobbing the first time I watched it, watching Stede cry ‘sorry, Ed’, Ed’s desperation to undo the knot, the underwater scream, Stede pounding on his chest… and then Rhys Darby appears as a fuckin’ mermaid! And I’m laughing now at the absurdity, and how ridiculously beautiful it is. And the bloody audacity of such a scene! It’s part of the addiction. The way the rug is pulled out from under you. Your schemas are being constantly challenged by this show. The sublime and the ridiculous co-exist. They co-captain!

And don't forget soundtracking the whole thing to This Woman's Work by Kate Bush. One of the most heartbreaking but uplifting songs ever.

Afternoon all - thread 2 is up!!!

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/5076581-our-flag-means-death-thread-2-still-utterly-brilliant-and-we-are-still-obsessed

I have to run now but will be back later :) see you all on the other thread in a bit!