Our Flag Means Death - Thread 4: Roll up, roll up! Come join us for more pirate obsession!

[TriceratopsRocks]

Ahoy again mateys! Can you believe we are now aboard thread 4? Stick around for chat about this brilliant show, its cast, its music, fan edits, fan fiction and more than 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 and join us 😀

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, three 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 be aware that it's a show that needs time. It’s structured like a theatre production, with a prologue and 3 acts. The 2nd lead arrives (briefly) in episode 3. Episode 4 is the start of Act 1, where the tone changes and the main story begins. You need to give it at least 4 episodes, and from there it just gets better and better. 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. And again. And again! If you like Good Omens, What We Do in the Shadows, Ghosts or even Bridgerton, this might well 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
Thread 3: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/5101662-our-flag-means-death-thread-3-its-still-utterly-brilliant-we-are-still-obsessed?reply=137315706

That's one of my favourites, MrsJ 🥰

@DJ47 it’s a shame they aren’t doing a group photo, but I reckon that would be a lot of money. I’m tempted by the joint Nathan/Con one too, but at another £70, I need to start drawing the line somewhere. I’m happy with the Rhys pic, I think.

@TriceratopsRocks I want that pose on my photo. 😁

I am VERY excited. Thanks for making your room available for overexcited Mumsnetters during the Sunday, @MrsJellybee !

So far I think MrsJ and I have gold tickets and Tri is totally going to get one but just hasn't quite admitted that to herself yet 😀

I haven't signed up for any photos. I was also hoping we could have one with all of them but that seems not to be an option.

Thanks for making your room available for overexcited Mumsnetters during the Sunday

No worries. I’ll let you know my rates. 😁

Haha I'm sure you are right!! 🤣

I've booked!! Thank you all for excellent advice. I'm ridiculously excited but feeling more than ever like I've joined a cult. I really thought I'd be over it all long since but it seems not.

I told my son I was going to a pirate convention at Heathrow and after he'd stopped laughing, he told me about this:

WI 'pirates' welcome Somali hostage victim - BBC News

Now why would you want to do that?

Yay!!! Now we are 5 😁 Any more for any more? And I remember that BBC story when it happened 🤣.

Did you book standard or gold, Lizzie?

Omg stop 😍

On a totally different topic, I randomly introduced DD to Braveheart this evening. When Mel Gibson was rallying his troops at Stirling Bridge I googled the battle, to find that today was the actual anniversary of it. How's that for a coincidence! I'm clearly a fan of historically inaccurate TV/Film - I enjoyed Robin Hood Prince of Thieves too 🤣 (although really that's because of Alan Rickman 😁)

I mean is it even theoretically possible?

I booked gold, @TriceratopsRocks, as realistically I would've dithered about upgrading for another few weeks, then decided to do it fractionally too late when it had all sold out. I wanted to have no further decisions as I'm not good at them. Although now there's decisions about photos, but I think I probably won't sign up for them.

Ooh can I join in too??? 😁

😂You're all terrible. Don't stop.

Does this help? I think Jemaine speaks for us all at 0.56

I love that video but I think my favourite is the Taika and Rhys lie detector one 😍

I’ve had a too busy couple of days and not got round to saying that you so much @TriceratopsRocks for those wonderful BTS treats – I particularly like the one with Minnie Driver – haven’t seen that before.

I think it’s a mix of what @MrsJellybee says about RBF and what carter says about not liking being filmed and sometimes just being quietly exhausted and needing to recharge. I think Taika likes to always be in control of when to be in each mode – so laughing with David Fane is fine, but being filmed doing it when he doesn’t expect it might feel intrusive and like he suddenly doesn’t have control of the situation. As a director he can be full of energy as he’s in ultimate control of the context and can choose how to create the mood/energy on the set, and choose when he wants to be ‘on’ and when he can be more reserved, but with BTS he doesn’t. Needing to withdraw, having run out of resources, can come across as aloof and in Taika’s case I think it sometimes comes across as arrogance too – the RBF comes into play. He often seems to play up the goofiness and the posing for the camera and, as @CarterBeatsTheDevil says, that does get more tiring at nearly 50.

I posted this interview before but probably a couple of threads back and the first few paragraphs reflect on exactly this question.
Taika Waititi Is a Bundle of Contradictions | WIRED

It's such a joy! And interesting in the context of Taika and his contradictions, trying to work out what’s really him choosing to present himself with no filter, and what’s a carefully constructed personality. Eg ‘I'm celebrated for that role’, ‘I thought I was here to get another award’, 'all the stuff you have to do to not get an Emmy', is all very direct, but then not wanting to admit to being upset about the sleeping at the oscars thing. Also there are a couple of times in interviews with Jemaine where he gets annoyed at not being the centre of attention for a moment and draws attention to it. It comes across as a bit like a three year old behaviour, and a bit graceless. Surely by now he'd be able to keep this in check? It's confusing - does he think it's coming across as funny or endearing?

I'm not sure I'm explaining this very clearly. I may have just watched/listened to too many Taika interviews/podcasts.

There's a video where he's answering questions from the internet one of which is "Who is Taika Waititi?" and he answers "Ask my therapist" which I think is probably an absolutely straight answer. I don't think he always knows exactly who he is.

A bit like Ed then 🤔

Oh, so this.

That video where they’re drinking as part of the interview, and the interviewer says after pouring another glass ‘I’m just going to keep going until someone tells me to stop’. And Taika responds something like, ‘That’s how I live my entire life’.

The answer to his wide character range is ‘my range is me’. As in, these are all just aspects of my personality. I’m not acting.

So - I’ve been accepted into the Facebook group for the convention. Looking back at posts I saw a comment that they were trying to get someone signed up who had never done a convention before! Even though this obviously fell through as we have our guests I’m intrigued. Who HASNT done a convention before? Most of the main cast have. Taika- (but he’s too busy). Joel (too reserved). Ewen? Guess we’ll never know now!