Black Sails 4.2: Bones vs Flint

You can feel the players moving into final place, the characters coalescing one last time, as befits the final season of Black Sails.  What interested me the most was what we see in episode 4.2 between Flint and Billy Bones.

We've seen this before.  But tonight was the closest to all-out break, and fight to the death, interrupted only by the attacking redcoats.  Of course, as I keep saying, it can't be a fight to the death - not between characters for whom either real history or Robert Louis Stevenson's fiction has ordained will live a good somewhat longer. But it's still fun to see.

The thing about Bones vs Flint is that neither is wrong.   In their confrontation, we have a classic case of two lines of logic, both of which have merit.  Flint, as always, is the superior global theorist.  But Bones' more immediate strategy has its points, too.

This is the problem with all the pirates.  The leaders are keenly intelligent in their own ways.  But they can never quite agree on the crucial moves.  Even Teach and Rackham and Bonny can't agree on how to best avenge Vane.  And, usually, the decision is forced by some event that is beyond their control.

But if Black Sails is constrained by history and Stevenson, it does have some compelling original elements.  Woven into the story is not only the power of women, but the alliance between the pirates and slaves.   I'm hoping that, however this fine series ends, we'll see some benefits, real or fictional, from that alliance.

See also: Black Sails 4.1: "True Friends and Mortal Enemies"

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