Our Flag Means Death: Thread 3. It's still utterly brilliant. We are still obsessed.

[TriceratopsRocks]

Ahoy again mateys! Set sail aboard thread 3 where we still wax lyrical about our favourite show, its cast, its music, fan edits, fan fiction and more 😁(there may also be just a little obsessing over our fabulous leads - pictures extremely welcome)!

If you haven’t yet seen Our Flag Means Death, what are you waiting for? Go watch it (on BBC iPlayer), then come back here and join us. But be warned, some of you may find yourself as hooked as we are 🎣.

You may have heard that this is a comedy about pirates and think it's not for you. But it’s actually a show about self-discovery, healing and found-family with a love story at its heart. The joint leads are both damaged by abusive backgrounds and 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, two full threads and many re-watches later.

If you think this might appeal, do watch it and come back and talk to us. It would be lovely if more were to join our crew. But it's a show that needs time. The 2nd lead arrives in episode 3, so you need to give it at least 4 episodes as that’s when the tone changes and the main story starts. It still took me several more episodes to fully appreciate what I was watching, but by 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
Thread 2 : https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/5076581-our-flag-means-death-thread-2-still-utterly-brilliant-and-we-are-still-obsessed?reply=136060611

@Phineyj I’m so glad Jenkins chose to do this. I am so glad they were all found and shared! The stills are like an alternative narrative. I love them so much. And as @lizziesaurusx says, they offer a chance to look at the costumes and designs at a slower pace. I like that we have the blindfold image after the unforgivable editing decision in 1.9. The Ed still after the mutiny conveys such a depth of horror and emotion. What is going through his mind there? The mutiny takes place on the exact spot of the foot-touch…

In case anyone needs some Taika this morning. From 2010 and glorious (18 mins).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1100&v=pL71KhNmnls&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fsafe.txmblr.com%2F&embeds_referring_origin=https%3A%2F%2Fsafe.txmblr.com&source_ve_path=MzY4NDIsMjg2NjY

I was thinking about the stills some more - possibly for the costume designer's portfolio? Surely someone somewhere is writing a thesis along the lines of: "'You Wear Fine Things Well: an analysis of the social role of textiles in Our Flag Means Death." 😀

Am I doing something wrong I wonder? I keep trying to play this and it jumps immediately to some other guy. I see Taika for a few seconds and then he's gone and I get this guy - The art of innovation | Guy Kawasaki | TEDxBerkeley

Try to refresh. Or see if your progress bar is at the 18 minute mark. You might need to pull it back to the beginning.

Yes refreshing seemed to work after watching the spinning circle of doom for a while.

Thanks very much for the help.

Well, one would hope! it would be fascinating to read. I think ‘social attitudes’ towards clothing would be a really interesting study.

My brain’s being chewing on this all day since I read your comment. Stede really is the epitome of aestheticism. A bit of what Oscar Wilde called a ‘flâneur’. Items can’t just have a purpose, they must contain beauty also, and one should wander through life constantly looking for this beauty. We see it in Stede’s clothes, his living space, his trinkets, his attitudes to lighthouses (guides) compared to Ed’s practicality (danger). It’s why Ed is so fascinated by Stede. Ed lives practically. Practical clothing (well, sort of). His ship seems to contain mementos of his raids, trophies, but there is no whimsy. No lightness. No beauty for beauty’s sake. Maybe his tattoos, I don’t know. It’s partly why Ed can’t cope with the ‘treasure hunt’. It’s beauty for beauty’s sake. Nature, moths, pretty maps, petrified oranges. They’re flâneuring about without much aim. Ed’s only calm when they’re eating the snake because that, to him, has purpose. And there is definitely a class fault-line running through all of this.

So, I was thinking that Stede Bonnet is basically Dorian Gray, but without the immorality. He’s invented moral aestheticism before the immoral kind even existed (late 19th C.) And he’s obviously (and beautifully) middle-aged, of course.

Oh @MrsJellybee. You should definitely write that thesis!

Emmy nominations out tomorrow 🤞🏻

That TED video was very interesting. He spoke about a lot of things he is and has done but I think maybe he's a surrealist at heart.

Plus bonus is Taika in 2010 was approximately the age of Ed in "The Reno Cure" 😁

Yes. That did cross my mind…😍

I love how the whole routine is made out to be him shambling along when it’s in fact a carefully crafted meta stand-up routine. Look how he starts with sharing the talk checklist they gave him as if he’s an amateur, when he’s really dismantling and subverting what he’s been asked to do. He’s all about unpacking the process. You see his fingerprints in that regard all over OFMD. He’s a very, very smart guy.

His art is amazing. Surrealist. I like that @Phineyj I forget which artist he said he admired.

I have it marked on my kitchen calendar 🙈

@MrsJellybee amazing!

What else do you have on there?

Henri Rousseau

Hello everyone, I finally got a bit of a break today from the madness that is currently RL, so I'm catching up here and I even managed to watch an episode! It seems I have an exciting Taika TED talk to watch too - looking forward to that! I'm so hoping that our show gets recognised for some of those emmy nominations tomorrow, but I'm expecting to be disappointed. I have no idea why, but it's sheer wonderfulness just doesn't seem to be recognised by the industry. I will be keeping my fingers crossed though, particularly for our glorious leads.

I'm also a massive fan of those stills. The detail is phenomenal and I love the little glimpses of other takes and deleted scenes. It's lovely to see what you have done with them, @MrsJellybee . I'd also never heard of a flaneur, but it so fits Stede, who does see beauty in everything. I'd argue that he sees it in people just as much as he sees it in things. You've alluded to it anyway, but I'd hesitate to call Ed's clothing practical. It's the Caribbean. It's hot. They're always in the water. Black leather?? 😆 On the other hand it does it's job beautifully, which is to project the image of Blackbeard to the world. So in that respect I suppose it is practical. It's also very beautiful in it's own way.

‘DD needs wellies for forest school’ 🤣

I'd argue that he sees it in people just as much as he sees it in things@TriceratopsRocks Definitely. We’re back to unconditional positive regard. In fact, the only person or thing Stede doesn’t apply his search for beauty and UPR towards…is himself. Which is why he gets into the pickle he does in 1.9/1.10. But once he mostly sorts that (he doesn’t entirely, but enough), it’s why his aesthetic/UPR mindset eventually gets him the greatest prize a search for beauty can: Ed.

By my reckoning we should get the Emmy nominations at 4.30pm UK time. 🤞🏻

I'll be on those tenterhooks but preparing myself for disappointment. I so hope that I am wrong 🙏🙏🙏

Taika obviously beautiful in the Ted Talk. I also just watched "Two Cars, One Night" which is very sweet. And continuing to go through OFMD fanfic at 90mph

Nope to best actor category and comedy series. Although Reservation Dogs and WWDITS both nominated.

https://www.vulture.com/article/emmy-nominations-2024.html

Hmm!

Ah that’s a shame.

@CarterBeatsTheDevil any good recent recommendations please?