Crossbones 1.2: Wheels within Wheels

Crossbones put up a good second episode on Friday - good enough that I've decided to regularly review it here.

Blackbeard - he doesn't like to be called that, but it's a better name than "Teach" - pulled off a good play.  Dissatisfied with his notable fellow-pirate's refusal to take part in Blackbeard's complex plan, he decides to kill him.  But how, in a way that doesn't point to Blackbeard?  He gets some guys to attack him, Blackbeard, so convincingly, that it easily fools the audience.  And he's able to pin this attack on his uncooperative colleague.

Actually, we might have seen this coming if we had paid really careful attention to how Blackbeard handled the attack and its aftermath.  After mortally wounding his last living attacker, he pleads with him to divulge who hired him, and he pressures Lowe to use his medical skills to keep him alive a few more minutes.  Lowe is unable to due this, due to the severity of the wound - which should have raised the question, why did Blackbeard wound the attacker so badly in the first place, if he wanted the wounded man to speak the name of the man who sent him?

It's fine tunings like this that may make Crossbones a really superior show, if the wheels within wheels continue on this level.  Meanwhile, it's good to see Lowe and Kate passionately kiss, even if she does profess and evince some kind of love of some sort for her husband, mostly unable to walk, and not 100% clear what else he may be able or unable to do.

Selima is also emerging as an interesting character - someone whose advice to Blackbeard indeed seems to be always be in his interest, a rarity in this world.   Not quite clear, though, is her relationship with Kate, and how one word from Kate saves Lowe from the execution, which we the audience know that Selima was right in thinking Lowe deserved.

All of this is making for an intriguing and even compelling series, and I'm looking forward to more.

See also Crossbones: Slow Start but Possibilities

 
more ancient than Crossbones, and even more erudite

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