Black Sails Season 3 Finale: Throckmorton

Who exactly is Captain Thockmorton and why is he important to the season 3 finale of Black Sails, just shown on Starz?  Well, he has a great name, doesn't he, but I'll say no more except stay tuned to the end of the episode.

Until that great send-off into season 4, we're treated to a great sea battle, with Jack, Anne, and Blackbeard in top clever and conquering form, and an equally rousing fight on the land, in which Flint and freed slaves literally rise up to beat the English. It's nights and fights like these that show why the Brits lost the American Revolutionary War.   They're good, but ultimately no match for Western hemispheric intelligence.

And the Pirate Republic thing is, as I've mentioned before, a template for the American Revolution, in terms of the limits of British power and the restless, irrrepressible success of the democratic impulse.

Interestingly, the season ends short of the battle for Nassau, with Eleanor and Rogers still the devoted couple, and Vane still hanging from the public gibbet.   Our pirates are seated around a table in the last scene, intercut with a reading by Max of a letter by John Silver, introducing the aforementioned Throckmorton, and signed Long John Silver, which has the effect of making his name, the sound of his name, something to be respected and feared, along with Throckmorton.

Earlier and throughout the episode, in a crucial conversation with Flint, Silver explicates what it is that now makes him unique among this pirate force: he is not only feared but liked, and that's a powerful combination, unique into its capacity to truly move the men.

It will seem like just a blink before season 4 continues the story, and I'll be in my customary front seat in the audience, right in front of my big glimmering television screen.


See also Black Sails 3.1: Restored ... Black Sails 3.2: Flint vs. Sea ... Black Sails 3.3: Gone Fishin' ... Black Sails 3.4: Mr. Scott's People ... Black Sails 3.5: Alliance ... Black Sails 3.6: The Duel ... Black Sails 3.7: The Blackening of John Silver ... Black Sails 3.8: Whether Vane? ... Black Sails 3.10: Wither Vane

And 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!" ... Black Sails 2.5: Twist! ... Black Sails 2.6: Weighty Alternatives, and the Medium is the Message on the High Seas ...Black Sails 2.7: The Governor's Daughter and the Gold ... Black Sails 2.9: The Unlikely Hero ... Black Sails Season 2 Finale: Satisfying Literate and Vulgar

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

#SFWApro

 

pirates of the mind in The Plot to Save Socrates