Black Sails 4.1: "True Friends and Mortal Enemies"

Black Sails launched its fourth and final season tonight with an episode that made me wish this season wasn't the last.  A tip-top battle scene at the beginning, and lots of soul-searching conversation, my favorite being the one about "true friends and mortal enemies" and no one in between.

The mix of real history and staying true to well-known fiction has always been a bit of a hindrance to the Black Sails storyline.  So we know for a fact, because he lived on in Robert Louis Stevenson's fiction, that Long John Silver couldn't die tonight.

But it was good to see the way he survived the sinking ship around him anyway, from severing his fake leg to being welcomed home by a certain pirate at the end.   It was also good to see him getting some loving in the flashback.

The verbal duel between Billy and Flint was also good, and long overdue, as was the very different but also sensible conversation between Rackham and Bonny.  I could have lived without the Eleanor and Governor scene, but then again, I never liked them as a couple and still don't.

So what will become of our real historical pirates?  History tells us Anne Bonny lives a long life. Blackbeard (Teach) and Rackham die much sooner - and not of natural causes.  It wouldn't be stretching history too much for either or both to be killed directly or indirectly by Governor Rogers, but, pirate romanticist that I am, I hopeful that at least Jack will survive the finale, and live happily ever after in some fictional off-screen world with Anne.


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 ... Black Sails Season 3 Finale: Throckmorton

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

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pirates of the mind in The Plot to Save Socrates