Our Flag Means Death: Thread 2. Still utterly brilliant and we are still obsessed!

[TriceratopsRocks]

Ahoy there mateys! Hop aboard our ‘safe space ship’ thread 2, where we can continue to wax lyrical about our favourite show.

If you haven’t yet seen Our Flag Means Death, what are you waiting for? Do go watch it (on BBC iPlayer) and then come back here and join us.

You may have heard that this is a comedy about pirates and think that's not for you. But it’s actually about self-discovery, healing and found-family with a love story at its heart. It does begin as a sort of pirate workplace comedy, but in episode 4 the tone changes and that’s where the main story really starts. The joint leads are both damaged by abusive backgrounds and think they want what the other has. The show is about their healing and their respective journeys. It’s tender, romantic, funny, emotionally intelligent and utterly refreshing. It subverts genre expectations. There is comedy, absurdity and a good amount of heartbreak and despair - sometimes in the same scene! The acting is outstanding (Taika Waititi and Rhys Darby especially). But the writing, music, costumes, sets, the sheer attention to detail – for a show with only 18 half-hour episodes it is still keeping us talking, a full thread and many re-watches later. Can you tell how much I love it?

If you think this might appeal, do watch it, then come back and talk to us. It would be lovely if more were to join our crew. But be aware it's a show that needs time. The 2nd lead doesn’t arrive until the end of episode 3 and that’s when the main story starts. You need to give it at least 4 episodes. It then took me several more to fully appreciate what I was watching but then I was hooked - and had to immediately watch it all over again. If you like Good Omens, What We Do in the Shadows, Ghosts or even Bridgerton, this might be the show for you.

(I’ve kept this spoiler free, but if you scroll down you will no doubt find many, so beware!)

Thread 1: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/5008593-our-flag-means-death-its-utterly-brilliant-and-i-am-obsessed?reply=135294204

Golly guys {fans herself vigorously}. What are you doing to me! I go out for the evening and come back to.... WOW 😍😍😍😍😍

I saw the posts here when I was in a remote car park, but Reddit wouldn't let me open the Rhys legs thread until I had installed the app. Which I couldn't do due to lack of mobile signal. So I knew it was there but couldn't see it! 😱 Torture! Had to wait till I got home. Luckily I had Rhys to listen to on the journey.

Thank you so much @lizziesaurusx for that Reddit thread. There are some utterly gorgeous pics of Rhys on there which I am fully appreciating. I'm going to be staring at it all evening now...wow. 🫠

@BillStickersIsInnocent . You may have worked this out by now, but there are 2 ways of searching on AO3. The most customisable is not to use the search function, but instead to use Filters. To get to these, you first need to select Fandoms, TV Shows, O, and scroll down to Our Flag...

Then click Filters. The beauty of the filters is that you can both include and exclude individual characters and relationships (and other stuff too). Just keep playing with the filters until you get a reasonable number of fics to look through.

I just tried a search of completed fics that included the Lucius/Pete relationship and excluded every other relationship except Jim/Olu. There were 18 pages of results. Hopefully there's something there to entertain you 🤞

@MrsJellybee At this point I’m so desperate to see more of them all that I’d even put up with a seven minute Pop-pop scene.

@TriceratopsRocks Laughing at the idea of you in a remote car park desperately seeking enough network to download an whole new actual app just to catch a glimpse of Rhys’ calves. I think that nicely encapsulates the pirate lunacy we’ve all been infected with. I’m glad it was worth the wait!

@MrsJellybee That pic of Ed/Taika is in my top three.

Obviously we now urgently need to know what the other two are.

I know 😂. It's mad isn't it. And when I got home the TV will no longer connect to the internet. Technology is out to get me tonight. But at least the WiFi still works, so I got to gaze on the glorious Rhys {happy sigh}.

@TriceratopsRocks Our iplayer keeps being really dodgy and I live in fear of the evening I have to go without my late night pirate fix.

I've had to resort to the PC in the office. It's either blazing light or pitch black in here. Need a lamp. But at least I got to watch 1.8, which was the plan for this evening. How I properly laughed at bitchy Stede "How could I have known his crew mutinied. Although in hindsight I probably could've guessed" 😂

I love Roach cuddling his onions at the start. And my favourite telescope scene. But poor Stede 😭almost in tears when Ed left. And again when telling the crew, who were all so supportive when Pete was going on about BB. And I spent more time than I should trying to work out if Karl and Olivia were played by the same seagull! Jonathon is credited as playing Karl, but I can't find a credit for Livy, so I was curious. I'm still not sure! Have some pics :)

Sorry I can't work out how to reply on the app without quoting the whole message. That's so funny - that was my pick for tonight too - not long finished as I was waiting up for my teenage son. He rolled in off the last bus just in time to chuckle knowingly at 'long night?' 'I don't know' and then quote the rest of Lucius' breakup lines despite claiming to have only watched it twice. Shockingly, he admitted to never having noticed the foot touch and was impressed that I had, so I explained it's pretty entry level fandom knowledge. We had a lovely few minutes discussing cutest Stede/Ed scenes (he was trying to guess my current home/lock screens) - I'll make a proper fan of him yet.

Apart from the seaweed eating line,and never left, my favourite bit is still Stede having his own fuck off nature moment with the palm fronds. Also 'now get off my ship'. I didn't like this episode much first time round but there so much excellent Stede content to enjoy that it's really grown on me.

Great pics - the lighting in that first one is amazing.

I just looked again at that first photo - all that light radiating off Stede, he's just glowing, and Ed hardly lit apart from the reflected light from Stede that's just touching his face. I know it's really the moon on Ed, but the way it's set up and the light/dark contrast between them is both sad and beautiful.

It’s a gorgeous picture. Absolutely stunning. They light them both like this often. The first YWFTW, Ed walks into the darkness and Stede into the light of his cabin. Stede carrying the lantern down to Ed after he ‘died’.
https://www.tumblr.com/celluloidbroomcloset/752590671693676544/mister-brightside-our-flag-means-death-1x05?source=share

Just saw this and thought we might all enjoy his company… 🤷🏻‍♀️

https://www.tumblr.com/celluloidbroomcloset/752558254641594368?source=share

Get off my ship Stede doesn’t thrown Jack off until he starts to hurt his crew. Stede has found Jack’s company excruciating from the start, but his altruism and lack of self-esteem means he can’t advocate for himself. It’s not until he hurts Buttons via Karl’s death that Stede acts. Stede’s like the nice Mom-friend. Won’t see their mate bullied.

Stede is the light to Ed's darkness. I love that they showed that so often.

DD is the only one in my family who has seen it, and she now clearly thinks I'm just embarrassing. She gave me a proper 'look' when I went off out in my Jeff's Inn by the Sea t-shirt yesterday 😂. It's the merchandise that I think has tipped her over the edge.

Actually, is Stede a lighthouse? Ed's lighthouse?

Can't edit as on app. Actually, Stede can't be a lighthouse because we know you are supposed to avoid those! I'll stick with Stede being a guiding light. Or the sun, lighting and drawing others into his orbit, his care for others bringing warmth. Anyway, the lighting effects are good! 😁

Stede is definitely the lighthouse. He is a guide, but also contains danger. Both Stede and Ed need careful handling. I love it in 1.4 when Stede offers the literary interpretation of lighthouses as a ‘guide’ because his life so far is all book-learning and theory. In contrast, you get Ed’s definition which is a practical understanding of needing to avoid lighthouses in case you ‘crack up on the rocks’. Ed fails to heed his own warning and cracks up on Stede’s rocks at the end of 1.10.

Look at these two images. Ed strangles an older, abusive man against the backdrop of a lighthouse. The first and second awakening of the Kraken. But Stede is there. Even when Ed was a boy. The promise of Stede is there in his future.

Stede is definitely the lighthouse. He is a guide, but also contains danger.
Ooh I like this, @MrsJellybee . I had noticed before the 2 lighthouses in the background of the scenes you pictured, but had forgotten this morning. Memory like a goldfish, me!

I just love that the lighthouse is there in the flashback. It’s such an horrendous scene and moment for young Ed. The lighthouse is everything.

My daughter’s way too young for the show yet. I keep trying to work out when it might be age-appropriate to show her. She’s currently nine. 🤣

😂 A little way to go then. My DD is the one who introduced me to it. I suspect she is regretting it now!

I love how it shows that Izzy is the abusive father in their relationship, rather than the disgruntled ex boyfriend that some fans have him pegged as.

Which reminds me, I read the other day that the scene with Izzy's "Ooh Daddy" to Lucius/Pete was more improv.

Which reminds me, I read the other day that the scene with Izzy's "Ooh Daddy" to Lucius/Pete was more improv. apparently it went on for ages 🙈

I also read the looking over the Act of Grace doc was improv including ‘Ten human years’ 😆

Yes I read the same - and that much of Ed and Stede's chatting about the document was improv. Also some interesting character snippets like it was Vico that suggested adding in Jim's Spanish dialogue.

Wow @MrsJellybee I'd never spotted the significance of the light in the kraken scene, or thought enough about it to work out it's actually a lighthouse. On Stede as light, in the merstede scene he appears as just a light at first too.

Stede’s like the nice Mom-friend. Won’t see their mate bullied.
That's why it's so great when Lucius steps in and advocates for him with Ed. Then Ed himself, of course, plus the whole crew, in 1.9.

It’s a gorgeous picture. Absolutely stunning. They light them both like this often.

The lighting in the still rather than the same moment in the show is really heightened too - that or my TV is really dark. And poor Ed walking away in the darkness in YWFTW with only his piece of glowing red silk for comfort. I just looked at a still for YWFTW 2 and they both have the light on them in that one, and Stede's in red, Ed in white(ish) so together they make up the red and white that Stede has in that still in 1.8.