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

Well, just finished the series and such a shame so few episodes (it's like Firefly all over again!LOL😂).
Really fun, quirky, unique show. I love something that subverts expectations.

Also new AO3 ship to add to the list....woo hoo!😎

Thrilled to see Impossible Birds getting so much love. I still can’t rewatch the Ed/Frenchie scene. Someone has it pegged on TikTok as the best scene in the show. It’s brilliant and excruciating. The Pygmy Love Song just seals it.

Welcome, @Magpie50 It certainly does subvert expectations. It’s a goldmine of missed symbolism too and worthy of a thousand rewatches. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Two instances of mirrors in Stede’s marital home I can see. The above and the full-length mirror he looks at himself in as he prepares to leave his marriage. It’s the ‘who even are you?’ moment we see echoed in S2 by another character (I’ll wait for your rewatch and critique of that and not steal your thunder further @TriceratopsRocks 🤣). So, mirrors in Stede’s home as he journeys towards self-discovery, but no mirrors on his ship. Stede becomes who he wants to be so much more easily then Ed. His character is never fully-realised at any point, because we needed another series for that, but he is at least halfway there.

When Ed arrives on the Revenge, mirrors reappear again and again. Ed is fragmented, unmoored, a walking identity crisis. He masks so much better than Stede and struggles to define himself which we still see verbalised by Ed in 2.7/‘I don’t even know who I am’. What’s interesting is that for Stede, his identity character arc is way ahead of Ed’s, but in terms of their relationship, Ed’s character arc outpaces Stede’s. And we wonder why angst occurs.

Amazing mirror work yesterday, @TriceratopsRocks

You are quite right, he is dressless and fancy free 😀 Until I stopped subscribing they just were always popping up either to show how Ed can finally be himself (in a big frilly skirt and Mary Janes, when I suspect she wasn't looking for the Grayson Perry vibe that throws up 😀) or just full on for her pornstar story. She had this habit of including all the stock photos she used as inspo and they were always women, thongs and bustiers and the like, which I found off putting, my Eds and Stedes do NOT wear camiknickers 😀
But her characters are good, I just can't with all the melodrama she shoehorns in. Sometimes less is more, people😀

Welcome @Magpie50 🙋 Glad you have joined us. Oh Firefly - I really enjoyed that show. Another one screwed over by their network. But they got a film to finish the story off, so I'd be thrilled if OFMD were actually like Firefly all over again 😁

🤣

More mirrors!! Thank you so much for looking for more, @MrsJellybee , and for that wonderful analysis. I particularly love the first one you found. I mean, who displays a picture in front of a mirror? That alone makes it so obvious that it's been placed there for the symbolism. Mirrors and lighthouses. Ed and Stede.

I think Stede's self discovery was easier than Ed's because he had a dream and already knew who he wanted to be, and crucially, he was able to leave behind all the people and expectations that had previously been forcing him to keep his mask up. He needed to learn that his original dream needed tweaking somewhat 😁 but he managed to find his way onto a path that kept his empathy, his thoughtfulness and his consideration for others and married that with what he learned about pirating. His growth in confidence as he found his own, better way to do things was wonderful to see. Stede freed himself from the person he had been because he left that other life behind completely. Going back in 1.10 made him realise he had grown and wasn't that person any more. After that, in S2, he was totally free to become who he wanted to be. As you say, he's not fully there yet - he still has insecurities/self doubt and needs reassurance - but he's proved himself and is definitely well on the way.

Ed had it so much harder. He'd also been forced into a role at a similar age, but he hadn't made the break that Stede had done by leaving home. Ed was still fully enmeshed in that toxic world, with people around him who expected and needed him to keep his mask firmly on. It's so much more difficult to break away when you are stuck in the middle of everything. He still needs a lot of time and care, away from traditional pirating. Having your whole identity bound up in a person that is fundamentally a role you took on to survive, and is not who you are deep down, takes a whole other level of effort and self discovery to escape from especially when you keep living in that world.

Ooh that's actually a pic I haven't seen before! I thank you most kindly for that one, @MrsJellybee

@TriceratopsRocks I also think there is a fundamental class and race issue at the heart of Stede and Ed’s different character journeys. Whilst Stede is indeed broken by his childhood, it is softened somewhat by the fact that his basic hierarchy of needs is met. He has likely never gone hungry nor been cold. He is also told that he gets to have things i.e. he will inherit the plantation, he just doesn’t deserve it because he isn’t a ‘real boy’. But Stede is the ‘right’ class and race. So for Stede, the expectation that he gets to have ‘fine things’ is a given. He’s a hedonist and leaves his marriage to become a pirate because it’s what he wants. He even has the confidence to try to bend the culture of piracy to fit his character rather than bending his character towards piracy (although it somewhat gets him in the end). That’s class confidence. That’s race confidence. And it’s not really about money.

Ed has money. He has ‘more riches than you can shake a f*** stick at’. So if that’s true, Ed can leave piracy, become whomever he wants. Money creates choice. But he can’t. Ed is Stede, but from an indigenous servant class background. Not only is he soft as a boy, unlike Stede, he isn’t inheriting anything. Not even non-stolen fine silk. And he has to kill to even be allowed to try to live safely. He is poor and the ‘wrong’ colour. It’s why the ‘donkey’ comment by the French captain cuts so deep. Ed is dehumanised in that moment. It’s Stede who in fact insults the captain, but the reply is to Ed. The one who isn’t ’one of us’. I do wonder at the significance of the snail fork comment. The snail and the subsequent fork is a symbol of French stereotype. To ‘skin’ the Captain with it is Ed attempting to redress the balance, to turn the racism back on the Frenchman. You referenced my skin, I will now make you painfully aware of yours. Ed is starting his character arc from a place so far away from Stede’s… is actually too painful for me to contemplate further.

Well, that was cheery for a sunny Wednesday morning ☀️

This always cheers me up ❤️

Just popping in to say thanks for the "Gentleman's Guide" fic rec. That was very much in the spirit of the show! Loved it ☠️ 🏴‍☠️

It's very clear the effect that having money, lots of money, all your life has had on Stede.

Despite being completely unsuited temperamentally to being a pirate captain he just goes ahead with his plan because he believes (correctly for the most part) that people will do what he tells them to.

He lies through his teeth when it suits him, telling Mary that he isn't having the ship built but, despite his insecurities as a result of his childhood, he just goes out there and does exactly what he wants.

Even making his decision to go back to Ed. He does occasionally reference his doubts as to how he will be received but off he goes nonetheless.

@CarlaH absolutely. Stede not only understands money, but how to use money. How clothes are power, behaviour is pageantry. Ed has riches, but doesn’t know how to use it. He has so much treasure in season 2, Stede is moaning about falling over it. Ed has no confidence in how to use wealth to empower himself because he never learned what Stede took for granted as a child. But also Ed lives in a society that won’t let him empower himself. Stede’s leaving him in 1.9 reinforces the rejection by the French aristocrats in 1.5. Stede is one of them after all, Ed thinks. Ed feels subject to exoticism, played with, then discarded.

I don’t know how I feel about how racism is handled in the show. It’s subverted in the second episode (?) where they are captured and imprisoned as white men whilst Olu is treated favourably. It’s overtly covered in the boat party episode and of course with the donkey and snail fork scene.

But otherwise it’s sort of left, like a loose end that if you pulled too hard on would be too tricky to handle. Because Stede almost certainly would have made his riches off the sweat and blood of slaves. And the western view at the time was racist. I do feel uncomfortable within that context about the whole blonde Stede as a golden angel and dark Ed as a demon.

I’m left feeling unsure if we’re supposed to read the casting as colorblind, because the script explicitly refers to skin colour at points. But otherwise it feels like that is the intention.

Or maybe as with many aspects of this show it can be all the things, all at once.

@BillStickersIsInnocent Some really great points. It’s minefield and I’m not sure the show always pulls it off, but I think it really does take race seriously. I completely agree that Stede’s background is problematic which I think it’s so important he renounces his wealth at the end of series one.

Race isn’t overt in Ed’s storyline because it functions at a different level, but I don’t think we are ever meant to consider him a white man. I think the casting of Taika changed the show in that way. And the casting of Simone Kessell who is also Māori as Ed’s mother is a deliberate choice. ‘People like us’ is a reference to race as well as class.

I don’t actually mind the initial angel/devil trope because it is so quickly subverted. Stede’s a maniac and Ed’s a soft sweetheart.

The show is colourblind until it intersects with the colonialists or the colonised, which is why we only get the racist slurs from the English and the French, and the discussion of white oppression from the indigenous islanders.

What is going on in the low comedy scenes in 1.5 with overtly racist comments towards Olu and Frenchie is meant to feed into our understanding of Ed’s ‘high’ comedy scenes in which the racism is very subtle. He is ignored until he has something to offer in the way of ‘entertainment’. They are laughing at him not with him really. He is questioned about cannibalism which in 1.2 we are overtly directed to understand is a racist trope about people of colour. Ed continues with his story, true or not, but doesn’t realise they are revelling in his exoticism as he tells it, with Antoinette publicly saying he can ‘finger her dents’ anytime. He is being ‘othered’. At the table, Antoinette objectifies Ed by plucking the hair on his beard without consent. That Frenchie is there as the person of comfort when Ed flees is so important to me. The ‘What did they do to you, man?’ is a moment of quiet brotherhood - he calls Blackbeard ‘Man’ not ‘Sir’ like in the previous episode. Even Stede fails in that scene at first though he comes through eventually.

An empowering line from Ed is when Chauncy asks what his brother looked like and he says ‘All of you. You all look the same, you know’. Who all look the same? White people, he means. It’s a brilliant subversion of racism. It comes moments after Roach has been called ‘Darkie’. Ed is not aligning himself with being white at all here because he isn’t.

Yes to all of that @MrsJellybee, you explain it very well!
If we are directed to take into context race, I guess I would have liked to have Stede’s rejection of that wealth made explicit. That would fit with his progressive nature - deconstruction of masculinity, compassionate team leadership etc. Why didn’t they go there?

Maybe it would make it too earnest, too obvious? All the queer relationships aren’t commented on really are they, just accepted.
But that comparison falls short as race is mentioned.

@BillStickersIsInnocent I know. I think it’s such a minefield. I would’ve liked an explicit rejection of his wealth for more noble reasons than faking death to be with hot boyfriend too.

I think there are two ways in which the show tries to demonstrate that Stede is a ‘different type of white person’ than the times. First through the indigenous island chief who lets Stede go after seeing his distressed response to murdering. And second, through Stede being the only one to question the depiction of Ed in the wanted poster. He says something like ‘They’ve made him into a ghoul’. But if this isn’t a racist Jewish stereotype, I don’t know what is (again, Taika being all over this show and its choices).

@BillStickersIsInnocent this is all very intense. 🤣 I hope I haven’t lectured you. Have a Woodstock Stede 🙂

Ha ha @MrsJellybee not at all!
I know the show draws on history eclectically based on what suits the artistic purpose of the episode / arc and that’s part of its charm. But the choices around race don’t feel particularly coherent.

You haven't lectured, @MrsJellybee. I definitely agree that the show takes race seriously and you have said it so well above. There are so many examples. In 1.1, Frenchie seems the most visibly distressed by the overt racism at dinner and was the first to answer back. His immediate empathy with and support of Ed in 1.5 was therefore totally understandable and immediately noticeable.

In 1.2 the cannibalism references may not only relate to 1.5, but also to Buttons, who talks about eating people several times but is never taken seriously. Contrast this with Stede and Pete's shocked reactions in 1.2 where they seemed to instantly, genuinely believe it.

As for Ed, we see the racism in 1.4 and 1.5, but at the party he didn't seem to realise at first that he was being treated as something exotic, a diversion. He mistakenly thought there was ever a way for him to 'win' the interaction. It's only at the meal that he realises they saw him as a plaything all along. Maybe this is because in his pirate world, he is respected and has power. Even though he was subjected to racism from the French captain, perhaps he thought his lessons with Stede and his dressing to fit in would help him do so? Stede always treated Ed with respect and just maybe that blinded him a little - and made his distress at the way he was treated so much worse.

Even Stede in S1 is not immune to bias. That touch analysis we discussed on the earlier threads shows how he only initiates physical contact with the non white members of his crew - mostly in a paternalistic sort of way. And as you say, @MrsJellybee, his initial response to Ed at the party was not at all supportive with his "Oh how could you" response to Ed using the wrong cutlery. Thank goodness for Frenchie! At least Stede then came good with his excellent take down plan 🔥.

Excellent point too about Stede renouncing all his wealth. I've always thought of it as going 'all in' with his pursuit of Ed. Keeping a backup pot of cash so he can choose to buy himself out of future problems would have undermined his commitment to making things good with Ed. It hadn't occurred to me to consider the conflict in the source of his wealth. I've always shied away a bit from talking about racism in this show because I don't feel qualified to do so and worry about getting things wrong. And that is just one example of something I missed.

My contribution is now a nice cup of tea...

It’s why ‘You Wear Fine Things Well’ is so important. I should imagine Ed has had a lot of sexual attention over the years during his time in piracy. Stede’s interaction with Ed here is entirely something else. He does not objectify or define him as exotic. He doesn’t define him as cute or good-looking. He speaks directly to his personhood in a genuine compliment stating that Ed has the sophistication, inner character and bearing to carry off fine things. There is no motive behind this comment other than sincere kindness. And in that moment, Ed is transformed, forever. 🙂

Oh @MrsJellybee that’s a lovely post. That scene is so romantic.