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

Oh, High on a Rocky Ledge. I listened to it obsessively for months after I first heard it in 1.1. I totally fell in love with that song, which introduced me to Moondog. He was a fantastic character. Used to hang around a spot in New York with a Viking hat on and busk. He was really well known. At one point he was down on his luck and Philip Glass took him in to live with him, saying afterwards that he learned more about music and composition from that year living with Moondog than he did in 4 years at Julliard. Moondog was an inventor too - creating his own instruments. He's worth looking up.

But I digress. High on a Rocky Ledge is such a perfect fit for the show and episode 1 as it describes the whole essence of the show, and Stede's jouney in particular. The lyrics tell of someone climbing a mountain to be with their love. It's a hard journey and they need to take a risk, a leap of faith, so they can achieve their goal and be joined with their love again. In taking that leap, they first need to embrace death so they can change - be reborn. Only after this can they be reunited. You've said a lot of it already, @lizziesaurusx , but I think it's worth putting together with the lyrics.

High on a rocky ledge lives a Mädel, Edelweiß
Shy as a shadow, lovely as lace, and cold as ice
High on a rocky ledge, I pledge my love to her
Ev'ry time I climb up to Paradise
This is the opening. Their goal, their love, seems almost out of reach - inaccessible. It's going to be a tough journey. In the show this is Stede, standing alone on his ship, contemplating the massive change he has made, how scared he is, knowing how difficult his new life is going to be and he has a mountain to climb to try and reach a bit of happiness. How far away that happiness currently seems.

How many times I've been up to see her, goodness knows
Huffing and puffing, dressed in the warmest climbing clothes
How many chances would be taken in my
Hopeless pursuit of the Schnee-Mädel-Edelweiß
It's going to need a big effort. They may be lots of missteps. You need to be resolute and tireless in order to succeed. Again this ties in beautifully with Stede's journey. It will be a difficult road.

Then spoke a spirit, "If you would win your Lady Love
There's only one way: fall to your death from high above
You will begin to grow in snow beside the one
You have waited for to be mated with"
This is the leap of faith they have to take. They have to die so they can be reborn. Only then can they get what they want. I mean, this is what happens. As @lizziesaurusx said, Stede 'dies' in 1.10, he kills off his former persona, renouncing his former life so he is free to pursue Ed, and happiness. (In a similar way, to Ed renouncing his Blackbeard persona). They need to take that risk, to die, in order that they can be reunited with their 'mate', their love and achieve their dreams.

Now, I'm an Edel, vice to my Mädel, Edelweiß
Dying to be with her wasn't any sacrifice
We're so deliriously happy on our ledge
Where I pledge my love to my Lady Fair
Now they are together again. They have willingly given their lives for each other and have been reborn together; reunited. This is where Ed and Stede have got to by the end of the show.

You who are climbing breathless to see me and my love
Snow flowers growing fonder on Lover's Ledge above
If you've the yen to pluck, then pluck us both
For we who have lived as one wish to die as one
Death isn't scary anymore. They have already given up everying to be together, and they are flourishing. But if there are problems, they will happily do it all again - will die again - so that they can stay and be reborn again, together.

I just love this song so much.

And yes to mermaids! 🧜‍♂️🧜I’ve said before Ed is The Little Mermaid, leaving sea for land, willingly giving up a huge part of his identity only to be betrayed in love. But then love saves him in the shape of Merstede, mirroring and ‘seeing’ Ed.
I'd forgotten you had said this, @MrsJellybee but you are right, it really fits. And Ed does like mermaids - he did want to be massaged to death by them after all! I'm sure MerStede would help out there 😉

telltaletv.com/2024/06/vote-for-your-favorite-tv-shows-and-performers-the-2024-tell-tale-tv-awards-final-round/

This poll is still active and in it's last week, if anyone wants to keep voting for Rhys and the show 😁

Ooh thanks for this. I looked yesterday and thought you had to create an account to vote so didn’t bother- but you don’t! So get voting everyone! AND you can vote every 24 hours 😁

@TriceratopsRocks @DJ47

Looks in the bag for both Rhys and OFMD 🙂

@MrsJellybee I love that Stede says ‘I know… I know that.’ To Ed’s ‘I love you… I love you.’ Not only does he continue to respect the boundary (I think he’s safe to say it now), but it’s reassuring. It means Ed can have one of his wobbles and come back. And he will. But Stede knows he loves him. He doesn’t have to prove it every second.

That's lovely - I hadn't worked out the significance of why he says 'I know' rather than say 'I love you' back to Ed and that the important bit for Ed is knowing that Stede knows, through any future wobbles.

I’ve said before Ed is The Little Mermaid

I've never seen The Little Mermaid - that along with Buffy - I'm not doing well.

Thank you for that analysis of High on a Rocky Ledge, @TriceratopsRocks - beautiful - I love all the layers you've found that apply to Stede in particular, and that they put it right in the first episode, for us to work out why.

The music choices in the show are just so fantastic. I have two OFMD playlists, one for the classical stuff and the other for everything else and they’re my default at the moment. I've read a few interviews with Maggie Philips and realised, sadly too late, that despite a complete lack of the relevant skills and experience, music supervisor would be one of my dream jobs.

This interview is really interesting both about the process and some of the individual songs, including Moondog.

https://reactormag.com/interview-with-maggie-phillips-music-supervisor-our-flag-means-death/

@lizziesaurusx that’s such an interesting article. I absolutely too would love to have been a music supervisor in the creative industry. I love how moving image and song combine to create an effect. Teaching aspects of media was always a joy to me. I used to teach some mean lessons on Edward Scissorhands.

I think I have read the section on This Woman’s Work before. It was a bold choice as it could feel derivative, but I think we all agree that scene is transcendental. I’m still in awe at how they edited the song against the images.

Our Prayer is glorious. I remember understanding in that moment that Blackbeard was Stede’s rescuer. I thought he was like God, and would help Stede in some way. I don’t even think I knew at that point Stede Bonnet had been a real person! I looked it up, probably after that episode. Of course, they are each other’s rescuers in ways I couldn’t possibly imagine. I’ve been thinking about the Shakespeare poem ‘The Phoenix and the Turtle’ (Turtledove) in relation to these pair recently, and specifically the line:

‘Either was the other’s mine’.

Either was the other’s mine 🥰

This?… Perfect.

It really is 😍That eye contact. That smile. Ed is confident, finally, about the way they feel about each other. And Stede just reassures. Makes me go all gooey.

I’ve been thinking about the Shakespeare poem ‘The Phoenix and the Turtle’ (Turtledove) in relation to these pair recently, and specifically the line:
‘Either was the other’s mine’.

Aren't they dead in that one? Something about perfect love though? It's about 35 years since I read it. I'm going to have to reaquaint myself :)

Ok. Reaquainted. That is a sad poem, @MrsJellybee . I will need far too much time to try and work it out for myself, so I looked up some analyses.

"The Phoenix was the Turtle's queen. They were each other's reason for living. The fire of their love finally consumed them both."
"the Phoenix and Turtle's love is so unique and their deaths so tragic that even Reason cannot contain his grief"
"The Phoenix's refusal to bring herself back from the ashes suggests that she would rather remain at peace with her lover than carry on without him."

What are you doing to us! Please say you have a happier interpretation, @MrsJellybee because that one is making me want to cry.

@TriceratopsRocks fear not. I’ll be back with a kinder interpretation later. 😉

First, it is certain phrases that drew me also back 30-odd years to the poem.

It’s probably one of the first metaphysical poems so the rules of life and death don’t fully apply. That it’s a funeral doesn’t bother me.

‘Either was the other’s mine’ just perfectly captures Ed (the Phoenix)and Stede (the Turtle).They are so perfectly each other’s it’s unfathomable. I read one take that they are so utterly and uniquely flawed that they need to be together to stop inflicting themselves on others. They are so each other’s person.

‘Reason’ isn’t confounded by their death. Reason cannot understand how two individual beings can also be one. It’s like trying to understand the Trinity.

‘Saw division grow together,
To themselves yet either neither..’

They remain separate beings, but are entirely one entity. It is a paradox beyond reason (Simple were so well compounded).

Ed is the immortal one. He cheated death. He is the Phoenix. Stede is the mortal turtle(dove), but united with Ed he too cannot die as they are one entity.

To me, it’s a funeral of past self, of chastity. The consummation in the fire is finally a sexual consummation in which they fully become one and move into a different state of being. The Phoenix could return to the physical realm, but chooses to stay in the metaphysical realm with the Turtle. Their love surpasses reason, the empirical. They transcend reality, they exist now outside of time and space…

🙊

I’m so sorry, @TriceratopsRocks. We seem to have come full-circle to the fanfic Which-Must-Not-Be-Named 👀🤣

Thank you, @MrsJellybee . I have to say I properly laughed that it comes back to that fanfic 😂. Maybe I will have to re-read it rather than trying to block it out. Although it was actually painful to read, which is why I warned you off it in the first place!

But I think first, some more re-reading and thinking about the poem is in order. Yours is definitely a nicer interpretation.

If you want something short, dark and sad and also a bit brilliant, try this collection of 6 short stories. Some really short (couple of hundred words). Really well written though.
archiveofourown.org/series/3439198 archiveofourown.org/series/3439198]]]]

Thank you for the recommendation. I don't think I can do sad though, so I'll leave it for others. I almost started crying tonight when I was cooking tea and Perfect Day started playing! That's how utterly hopeless I am 😂 I'm only considering the 'fic that shall not be named' as a one off. I've loved several of your other recommendations though, so please keep those coming.

What are you in the mood for?

<peddles crack>

@BeBraveLittlePenguin I need humorous. I so loved Work Experience. Something like that glory hole one also. Not so much the setting or subject matter, but the emotional feel. I like it when they’re a bit dorky 🤣. Also Stede needs to be a proper country gent nerd. Thanks in advance 😋🥰

@MrsJellybee This is really short, but you wanted something funny (rated E).

archiveofourown.org/works/52032907

This is fun - Stede goes to Antarctica, Karl is a penguin

Daft one shot, kinda Cabin Pressure vibes

Not funny but utterly heartwarming and sweet

Ed is a driving instructor, yes really Sure I've recced that before but it's sweet, funny and surprising.

Not funny ha ha but definitely some light entertainment One of Shearwater's favourites apparently.

They're vampires! I definitely remember enjoying this one.

A classic They're synchronised divers in Paris 2024. Light and fairly filthy, absolutely no angst, perfectly entertaining. Author's fics do get a bit samey IMO but this is an early one and it's fun.

Unhinged lunacy. BB has a vampire rabbit

@BeBraveLittlePenguin argh! Now there I was about to start on some (really boring) tasks when I found myself reading a smoking hot fic about Olympic diving. Goodness, considering I'm not keen on sport, that Olympic TV coverage has taken on a whole new light.

😂

@BeBraveLittlePenguin thank you again for your recommendations. Will definitely start with Shearwater’s favourite. It had me at homoerotic sword-fighting… ⚔️

@BeBraveLittlePenguin Thankyou for the recs , much appreciated. I’m a bit behind, still on Constellationism! There are not enough hours in the day 😂

I just read 'divers' 😁 Thank you @BeBraveLittlePenguin for more excellent recommendations.

@MrsJellybee that’s such an interesting article. I absolutely too would love to have been a music supervisor in the creative industry. I love how moving image and song combine to create an effect. Teaching aspects of media was always a joy to me. I used to teach some mean lessons on Edward Scissorhands.

Just imagine the lessons you could teach on this show!

I love how with so many of the songs, when you start to look at the lyrics they're so apt and help to open up our understanding/interpretation of the characters and their motivations/emotions/experiences in a way that would take pages of dialogue. There's another interview (link below) where Maggie Philips talks about watching scenes 100 times, testing different songs to make sure they're a perfect fit. I also love the contemporary and classical mix which seems so natural for this period-but-anachronistic show.

Our Prayer is perfect for that moment - no lyrics, just exquisite harmonies flagging up that this is a significant moment and that what's going to happen is going to be beyond words for both of them.

Our Flag Means Death Music Supervisor Interview (gizmodo.com)