Black Sails Season 1 Finale: Money

The only thing wrong with the season 1 finale of Black Sails is that it ended too soon. Seriously, I appreciate a good cliff-hanger as much as the next viewer, but I would have really liked to have seen just a little more on that beach at the end.

Otherwise - whew, great television:  I got Flint and Gates completely wrong in last week's review.  I thought Gates would turn around and support Flint in the end.   Instead, he continues to tow the line we saw last week, between loyalty to the crew, live and departed, and loyalty to Flint.  And Flint surprised me not by not being willing to go along with Gates's plan, but by killing Gates to seal the non-deal.   Nothing can get in the way of the money.  Except, I think Flint was clever enough to figure out a way to proceed towards the loot without sacrificing Gates.

Still, I was rooting for Flint when he called for his cannons to fire on the Spanish ship, and I hated that the newbie quartermaster shot him.   In fact, I dislike the quartermaster so much I was sorry to see him survive.   But not so Flint and Silver.   And their partnership, emerging in the way Silver came to Flint's aid, speaks well of what we may be seeing next season.  Silver, like Flint, is guided by one thing: getting that gold, and applying their considerable intelligence to that goal.

Meanwhile, back on the island, it was good to see Vane getting into a partnership, too - with Eleanor.   He confesses how attractive he finds her, but his motivation is also business.   As is Eleanor's for allowing the sharing of the island.   These pirates and the women around them are ancestors of the people we see in The Wolf of Wall Street.  Amassing wealth reigns supreme.

The battle of the ships was a sight to see, an outstanding piece of cinema for television.   I could almost feel my room shake when the Spanish ship rounded on Flint's, and opened cannon fire.   Black Sails is fine new addition to the new golden age of television and one of its best specialties, historical drama. I'm looking forward to more.

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
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Like historical fiction?   Try The Plot to Save Socrates ...

Black Sails 1.4: The Masts of Wall Street

If you think of most of the action dramas on cable television these days - whether taking place in the present, like Banshee and Strike Back, or in the past like Da Vinci's Demons and Vikings - the story moves along pretty quickly, sometimes at blinding speed (in the case of Strike Back), with every episode whipping the narrative forward around sharp and dangerous curves.   In contrast, Black Sails is dangerous, all right, but it's story almost seems to stand still at times.   And that's a change of pace for television that I very much like.

In episode 1.4, much of the action centers around a ship in the sand, and the pirates' attempt to make it more suitable to their needs.   The ship stands there, like a majestic skeleton to a nearly forgotten past, except in Black Sails it's very much happening.   The ship, of course, as would be any massive sailing ship, is an emblem and enabling technology to the life and pursuits of the pirates.   In a world before planes, the sailing ship was the only way to move across great distances.   But in Black Sails, this distance is as much political and economic as physical.

Richard Guthrie provides us with some important back story, including the way Flint and Miranda got together and its social context, but also his take and opposition to Flint's vision of a utopian pirate island untrodden by the monarchies of the day.  We already knew that Flint and Miranda are cultured people, and that money is the lubricant of this whole on-the-margin society, but in 1.4 we get a taste of the economic sophistication of many of the major players.   The pirate leaders and their colleagues, male and female, are in many ways more akin to The Wolf of Wall Street than any show now or ever on television, and that makes Black Sails worthy of note as well.  Or, looked at in other way, we could say that the pirates represent the 99% in the Occupy Wall Street of that day.   The ship in the sand stands at the fulcrum of those two forces.

Any way you look at it, Black Sails is as much a feast for the intellect as it is for the eyes, and a pleasure to see on television.

See also Black Sails: Literate and Raunchy Piracy ... Black Sails 1.3: John Milton and Marcus Aurelius

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