Our Flag Means Death - Thread 5: Ahoy! Surrender! You have no chance of escape!

[TriceratopsRocks]

Hi all!! Roll up for thread 5 and join our chat about our favourite show, its cast, its music, fan edits, fan fiction and more than a little obsessing over our fabulous leads - pictures extremely welcome! It’s utterly brilliant, and some of us are still in the grips of obsession many months after the last episode aired (the last for now, that is… We live in hope🙏)

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. 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. It’s structured like a theatre production with a prologue and 3 acts. The 2nd lead arrives (briefly) in episode 3, and in episode 4 (the start of Act 1) the tone changes and the main story begins. You need to give it at least that long. It gets better and better and 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
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
Thread 4:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/5136377-our-flag-means-death-thread-4-roll-up-roll-up-come-join-us-for-more-pirate-obsession?reply=139560831

Look at him

Oh yes, I am! 😁

For Rhys fans with Tumblr...

https://www.tumblr.com/ofmd-ann/744324270768996352?source=share

❤️

Ed didn’t stand a chance

How many times he steers the convo back to our flag

That's a lovely interview. It does rather look like he's been 'smoothed out' on that photo though. Where are his laughter lines?? They are part of him!

For anyone still considering Gatwick-con, the payday sale finishes at 12 noon tomorrow. Guests are Ruibo, David Fane, Nathan and Con. I have my ticket - yay!!

https://bsky.app/profile/siren-events.bsky.social/post/3llpgp3lt5s2i

Yum

https://www.kudoboard.com/boards/WDOgZaYU

Please tell Paramount why they should invest in OFMD

It's so wonderful to read through all those statements showing how our show is so very loved. It's made me teary! I'm definitely going to add my own later today. Thank you for the link, @MrsJellybee.

Just back from holidays and we have started a rewatch. I haven't watched any for ages because I was saving it up to watch again with my OH.

I did notice something I hadn't before though at the end of episode 4. Blackbeard talks to Izzy about his plans to fake his own death by killing Stede.

He says that it will work because Stede will be in Blackbeard's clothes and on Blackbeard's ship but he won't because they aren't on Blackbeard's ship they are on Stede's ship.

Slight error perhaps?

Is that an error? Wasn't the point that Blackbeard had actually taken over Stede's ship? Viz: Izzy's various "you work for me now" remarks to Stede's crew.

I think he had a small fleet in real life so perhaps his own Queen Anne’s Revenge was the mothership and captured vessels belonged to him as @Needlenardlenoo suggests. Blackbeard does tell Ivan/Fang not to beat up ‘our guests’ in an earlier scene in that episode.

That is a valid point but he seemed to imply that it would be recognised by everybody as Blackbeard's ship so assumed he would have been talking about Queen Anne's revenge.

Good point - he does say that doesn't he.

Blackbeard is a franchise really. It moves from ship to ship, or has a number of ships under its name. There were lots of ships in the fleet. The Revenge is now part of that franchise. Izzy talks about using the crew to mend the ship then executing them. He tells them ‘You don’t get food when you’ve been invaded’. Technically, Ed is now ship’s captain. Episode four he says ‘Captain goes down with the ship.’ Which is partly why we get the situation in episode seven with who is captain? Ed has ceded it to Stede again. And then at the end of the episode we get ‘two perfect people’ as co-captains. By episode eight Stede is saying ‘Get off my ship’ to Jack, and Ed hears that. I think it’s important, and contributes to Ed leaving with Jack.

I finished my lighthouse cross stitch picture last night, which I have been working on for years. I’ve always had a thing for lighthouses and counted 11 in various forms in my house when I checked yesterday but I hadn’t realised that it was all in preparation for a grand passion! I’m going to start on Mary’s lighthouse in fabric next.

That's beautiful, @MrsBruin. What are your plans for it now? Framed and displayed?

I’ll probably just eat it …no, no… I mean thank you, I will frame and display it!

@MrsBruin beautiful!

That is stunning. I love it.

oh… sunshine man

I re-read the Reno Cure last night for the first time in a while, and there are some new little 'ficlets' I the series that are new since my last read. @NeedlenardlenooI spotted your kudos on the main fic, so just in case you hadn't seen the newer ones already, I thought I'd mention them here :)

https://archiveofourown.org/series/3798418

Thanks @TriceratopsRocks!

I have been binging on the newest diving fic and accidentally fell down a rabbit hole of the "Seaglass" series. Wow that is some strong stuff and I'm not sure I'd want to revisit it, despite the writer's skill.

So a revisit to Reno sounds just the ticket!!

It's a long time since I looked at Seaglass, but I remember it's one I stopped reading. I've been in my own little rabbit hole lately of shape changing/non human type fics and although they can still be fun, beautiful or emotional, I needed to get back to a simple love story between our two gorgeous men - hence Reno. It was lovely to go back to it.