Black Sails 2.5: Twist!

Black Sails 2.5 was chock full of surprises and revelations, tonight - the first and foremost being -

The affair that Flint was having in London before he became Flint was not with Thomas's wife Miranda but with Thomas.  This explains a lot of things, including the somewhat strange relationship he had with Miranda last year, and the way Flint was drummed out of town by the British Admiralty earlier in the show tonight.  They wouldn't have been anywhere near as angry or disgusted with him, if he had been in bed with a married woman.   Score one for Black Sails in the unexpected, very well played twist department.

And in a lesser but still significant surprise,  Rackham decides to take Max not Anne with him on his ship, when given the choice (according to what he tells Anne) of being able to bring just one of the women on board the ship.  I discount his convoluted explanation to Anne, and assume his decision reflects how much more he enjoys Max and her charms in bed.

And, if that's not enough, we find that Billy is not only alive but freed, after all.   He was one of the top three or four excellent characters last season - bringing him back into the action promises to be good.

The powerhouse revelatory episode ends on a cliff hanger, as have most of the episodes this season. Vane has realized that there's no way he can beat Flint's superior forces, so he goes for the strategy of cutting off the head of the attacking force.  This one-on-one contest couldn't have happened at a worse time for Flint, as he's just come back in touch with his love for Thomas, thanks to Miranda.   There's no way the series will allow Vane to kill Flint at this point - not to mention what that would do to our novelistic knowledge of the pirate - so it will be interesting to see who and what gets Flint out of this.

But he will now be a different, far more complex character in this series, not just interested in gold, but in finding some equilibrium for himself in this unforgiving world.

See also Black Sails 2.1: Good Combo, Back Story, New Blood ... Black Sails 2.2: A Fine Lesson in Captaining ... Black Sails 2.3: "I Angered Charles Vane" ... Black Sails 2.4: "Fire!"

And see also Black Sails: Literate and Raunchy Piracy ... Black Sails 1.3: John Milton and Marcus Aurelius ... Black Sails 1.4: The Masts of Wall Street ...Black Sails 1.6: Rising Up ... Black Sails 1.7: Fictions and History ... Black Sails 1.8: Money

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pirates of the mind in The Plot to Save Socrates