@TriceratopsRocks thank you for 2.5. You’ve covered loads here. I love your recognition of Pete. He is so chuffed to get his cat-bell idea actioned. I think Pete’s character arc outside of Stede and Ed is one of the most interesting across both seasons.
I find Ed’s ‘cannonball’ highly emotive considering, you know, he had his head bashed in by one. I think it’s part of the healing and reframing motif. Moving on.
I agree Ed needs to talk. I don’t like his being shut down, but I do love how Fang handles him here for the most part. The foggy weather behind is obvious pathetic fallacy (ooh, it’s like doing A level again).
Just to add to the other already excellent comments…
Izzy. He still doesn’t get it. He tells Stede he finds him fascinating. Because he’s never met anyone with such a distinct lack of skill who continues to remain alive. What he means by ‘skill’ is the skills of traditional piracy and also toxic masculinity. Yet two episodes ago, Stede rescued his entire crew using chamomile tea and tea towels. Including Izzy. Whom Izzy seems to forget he tried to thank. Izzy just never gets the strengths of Stede’s Gender-nonconforming Masculinity. I don’t think he’s being obtuse, just cannot understand or see it.
Compare Ed’s sword-training methods in 1.5 to Izzy’s. Ed’s training is fun. It’s play. Izzy’s methods as said above are humiliating. I’m convinced that Stede’s asking Izzy to train him in combat is about bringing Izzy back into the fold. Or into the fold at all. Has he ever been in it? This is Stede’s Unconditional Positive Regard again. It also means the devil can’t make work for idle hands. Give Izzy a role. The line ‘Blackbeard says you made him the Captain he is today’ though is so loaded! Because Ed isn’t Captain anymore. And that’s down to what Izzy did to him. Stede knows…
I’ll try and keep this short. The Red Suit.
It’s many things, including Stede’s learning to put the crew first. But he has often put the crew first, so what lesson is Stede specifically having to learn here? The Red Suit is Ed. The suit itself is Blackbeard, all costume and glamour. But it’s cursed. It’s synonymous with the Kraken now - we keep hearing the music. Both Stede and Ed need to let Blackbeard, and all of the perceived glamour of piracy, go. Stede struggles to, but the crew mutiny - again - against Kraken Ed, and Stede finally lets the suit go. But keeps the shirt! Ed himself, the best part, the softness underneath.
So to the second YWFTW. ‘I got rid of the suit. It was cursed. But I kept the shirt’. Metaphor all the way. And we keep mourning the loss of Ed’s red silk, but it’s back! Stede’s wearing it in the form of the red silk shirt. He is covered in the softness that Ed has craved all of his life and becomes the embodiment of the lost red silk as well as mirroring who Ed really is.
The thumb-war play at the end is exactly what they need. If you look carefully at 1.9, after the beach kiss, they are holding hands and Stede’s thumb is on top of Ed’s. In 2.5, Ed’s thumb ‘wins’ and Stede tells him so. It’s a call back to 1.9. A veiled apology. It empowers Ed. This time you win. You win the game, you win life, you win me.