Pirate break-ups are murder in the first teaser for Our Flag Means Death season 2
Stede's writing love-letters and Blackbeard's crashing weddings as Taika Waititi's MAX series gears up for an October return
Aux News Our Flag Means Death
It’s been a year and a half since we last checked in on Stede Bonnet, Blackbeard, and the crew of the Revenge in MAX’s surprisingly joyful (and romantic!) pirate comedy Our Flag Means Death. It was a long, occasionally sad parting, especially since the network very decidedly took its time in announcing whether the show would be getting a much-teased second season. Now, though, all is well, as MAX released the first official teaser for the show’s new episodes today, and everything is going… uh…
Kind of violently crappy, actually.
As fans of the show will recall, the first season of Our Flag Means Death didn’t end with the happiest of outcomes. Sure, Rhys Darby’s “Gentleman Pirate” finally, fully commits to his new life, reconciling with his estranged and abandoned wife in the process. But he did so only after inadvertently convincing Taika Waitit’s Blackbeard that he’d abandoned him, and, as it turns out, the most dangerous pirate on the planet doesn’t actually take rejection all that well.
So as much as Stede spends this new teaser penning love letters to “Ed” while Prince And The Revolution’s “The Beautiful Ones” plays, Blackbeard is busy sewing heartbroken hell across the Caribbean. (Note to wedding planners: Do not invite a sad pirate to your wedding! It never turns out well.) The most important thing, honestly, are the hints of tone—suggesting that one of TV’s sweetest shows about awful, horrible historical murderers is still capable of walking that very narrow plank that made the first season so compelling.
Our Flag Means Death returns for its second season on October 5 on MAX—although unlike its first season, the show won’t be dropping the entire season all at once, and will instead be rolling out a few episodes per week throughout October.
25 Comments
Okay I highly curious about this season. Not because I loved season 1, I didn’t. Maybe being a pirate historian just makes me a pain with the subject or maybe making a slaveowner a quirky loveable protagonist doesn’t sit well with me. Anyway, in March when I wrote a paper for a publication I said sarcastically, season 2 will probably feature Anne Bonny, the subject of my expertise. Well I was right she’s in this season, Minnie Driver plays her. I’m morbidly curious to see how it comes out, this is the first major depiction of Anne since Black Sails and the historical understanding has changed quite a bit let’s just say. I’ll probably complain but hey its something.
A pirate historian! Actually, any kind of historian! The Johnny Depp movies must have been a challenge, lol. What kinds of documents and manuscripts do you use? Ship’s logs and captain’s journals’. Any ‘treasure maps’? That’s got to be interesting.
The Pirate films have there ups and downs. David Cordingly was the on site historian and he’s… alright I suppose.This will probably disappoint you but most primary sources for the Golden Age of Piracy tend to be trial transcripts or newspapers like the Boston Gazette if you want reasonable accuracy. Maybe some baptism and burial records if your really lucky. Books like General History of the Pyrates published 1724 are influential but are more akin to the National Enquire in terms of reliability. Lots of half truths when you can double check. Much of Anne Bonnys legend is from General History and its almost all wrong. Young Irish redheaded girl is the legend, the truth is probably closer to 30some London prostitute pushed out by an Anglican governor and joining a loser wannabe pirate for two months.
Not disappointing in the least! One last question, if you don’t mind: do you study the piracy ‘culture’ around the world? Asian piracy or Australian piracy? With all of the back and forth from England to Australia it seems to me there would be plenty of opporunties. Really a fascinating specialty.
Female piracy is my area of expertise. Vast majority of the time that’s gonna be Anne Bonny and Mary Read. I may as well be just a historian of those two. But this also includes other Golden Age pirates like Mary Critchett and Martha Farley. I do know a decent amount about female pirates outside the Golden Age, which is to say a lot are made up or heavily modified. But there are some, like Irish pirate Grace O’Malley, American Rachel Wall and Chinese pirate Ching Shi I can discuss.Also when it comes to piracy it was heavy in a few areas. West Indies for obvious reasons, Mediterranean for the Barbary pirates, and the Indian Ocean due to trade going by Madagascar. There’s also stuff in the South China Sea and just about everywhere had some kind of pirate activity. Also oh don’t limit yourself to one question I love discussing this subject trust me.
Extraordinarily cool. My specialization – British and American Modernism, but I focused on women’s lit. Yes, I will have more question in the future, I’m sure of it 🙂
Oh nice! Funnily enough the best pirate historian I know also is a literature historian, Neil Rennie of Oxford. Modernism is indeed a good subject especially womens literature. Feel free to ask any questions whenever I always got time.
Off subject from the show, but what did you think about the Pirate docuseries on Netfix a few years back if you have seen it?
Lost Pirate Kingdom? Absolutely terrible. A bizarre stealth adaptation of Republic of Pirates that bungles the history hard leaving only terrible acting for entertainment.
Have you read Pirates of Barbary by Adrian Tinniswood? I’m no expert by any means, and that’s the only book on piracy I’ve actually read all the way through, but I found it fascinating. Wondering if you’ve read it and if it’s accurate. I’m mostly interested in structural history, in the sense of how did societies and cultures function, what were the institutions and practices, and not so much interested in the actions of individuals (even famous ones) beyond how they reflect on the society’s values and structure.
I will profess that Barbary pirates are mostly outside my wheelhouse but I recall that book being fine and nothing particularly bad being mentioned.Structure wise pirates are an odd bunch. Crew votes are seemingly more democratic then other ships and contracts could include roughly what you’d call disability pay, but many aspects are similar to the Royal Navy but with less structure. Which makes sense many pirates were former British merchant sailors. Pirates in general were often just a specific extension of British maritime sailors at the time.
Good to hear. Can you recommend a couple of solid (layperson-oriented) books on pirates I should check out?
I sure can! Treasure Neverland: Real and Imagined Pirates is my favorite book on the subject. Its the historiography of piracy from 1695 with Henry Every to 2003 with Jack Sparrow. It gives a super solid overview of Evert, Kidd, the pirates nest of Nassau, the making of General History of the Pyrates and all the literature from Cooper to Poe to Stevenson to Barrie and eventually swashbuckling films. The last chapter is a breakdown of female pirate historiography and basically is a narrower version of what I do. I adore this bloody book.Also Piracy In Print and Performance is really good for stage show history of piracy which Treasure Neverland also touches on.
When you said “pirate historian” I thought you meant a normal historian of, say, twentieth century politics who just happens to also be a pirate as opposed to a historian who specializes in studying pirates. I actually think the former would be cooler although the latter is pretty cool too.
That is an amusing idea. I’m gonna talk about Neville Chamberlains legacy while dressed like Blackbeard. I will say its fun to bring up at parties. Oh yeah just look at citation 31 on the Anne Bonny Wikipedia page you might recognize some names…
Jan Rogozinski?
That guy wrote a book called Honor Among Thieves about pirate democracy in the Indian Ocean and cited Henry Every as an example. A very poor example since Every was a man who mutinied his ship, raided the Grand Munghais fleet and stole millions in gold meant for Meccha alongside raping the women so many times they killed themselves. Its also leaning hard on the myth of Libertalia a wee too hard. Not a fan.
Fascinating – I’ve never heard of Grand Munghais, Meccha or Libertalia before. Guess I know what I’m doing with my afternoon!
Grand Munghai was the emperor of India in the late 17th century, Libertalia was a proposed pirate utopia first mentioned in General History of the Pyrates volumn 2 in 1728 but was clearly based on earlier works concerning pirate kingdoms on Madagascar. All of this is fiction at best there were staging areas on St Marys Island, Henry Every was never a king of piracy he was just a lucky cruel man.
That’s an interesting spelling, had you said “Grand Mughal” I would have got you the first time. Libertalia, however, is wholly new to me; fascinating.
It shows up fairly frequently in fiction. There’s an anachronistic mention of Libertalia in Assassins Creed 4, its a location in Fallout 4, Uncharted 4 has it as the big treasure location. That kinda stuff.
Ah, “Mecca”, OK, yes I have heard of Mecca lol.
Maybe one of the most annoying fanbases I have ever seen for any show. The show itself seems pretty good, though.
Tell me about it. My twitter DMs still have a lot of the Tumblr fans. I don’t hate it for being so pro LGBTQ I think that’s swell. Well in theory, it does kinda feed into a recent trend of pirates being progressive which really has no basis in reality. I swear if I see someone use the word matelotage incorrectly one more time…
I enjoyed Season 1 and didn’t know/expect that there was going to be a Season 2. Normally, I find Rhys Darby’s schtick to be annoying and tiresome, but it works here — I suppose it just took someone writing a character that would be “A Rhys Darby” kind of person.