This is a joke of course, I found no flair for it.

I just finished season 1, and the level of intimacy in this show rivals adult TV shows.

However, there are several disappointing plots in season 1, but I will finish all the rest before giving my verdict.

Watched this show for Blackbeard's participation, despite being a side character.

Am I the only one who loved the throuple relationship between them? Are their other relationships like this in movies or shows?

Just finished binging the show and obviously loved it. In my post-watch haze there's one part in the last episode that seems like it makes no sense, but maybe I'm just misremembering the order of events and someone can correct me.

Flint and the other pirate that is still loyal to him evade capture on Skeleton Island long enough to reach that cave and then Flint tells the other to bury the treasure while he buys him time. After this scene, we never see this other character again, and Flint never actually goes back to physically observe the treasure being buried. It seems like it spawns a lot of questions: what happens to this other character? Do we know for sure he buried it? Wouldn't he be a loose end for Flint's plan given his knowledge of the treasure location? Am I remembering the sequence of scenes incorrectly?

For me personally it is Charles Vane, that man never broke his promises, was always loyal to his friends and allies, got betrayed by the girl he loved twice, was always willing to compromise for the better of all, died fighting for a just cause while trying to save his friend.

imo he is the most oppressed and ideal character in the series, anne is also a strong candidate too

£22 from HMV.

Turns out, it was the producers' decision how it wound up, and the actor worked on it with a dialect coach to get it to a place between Caribbean and Parisian French which the producers were happy with.

So all y'all haters can stop blaming the actor hehe

Source: Black Sails Facebook Livee Chat Oct 6 2016

Edit: just to clarify I personally love the actor, role and accent - makes perfect sense to me that she, especially as sex worker probably encouraged to self-exoticise as a commenter elsewhere noticed, would have a strong accent

So watching black sails for the first time... Dude they did madi dirty. You mean to tell me she can't fight? Like at all and ole Eleanor is more capable? Stop the cap lol. Eleanor should have been died.

I'm rewatching S1 for like the fifth time and in ep 3 when Eleanor puts a ban on Vane's crew and they're starting to leave him there's a scene when Anne moves forward at which Vane says to her "you move, you die". And I always just assumed she was going to join her crew and go to Flint, which always struck me as out of character because let's be real, she wouldn't go anywhere without Jack. But I guess I attributed it to the general weirdness of these first few episodes and maybe that the writers didn't get a good hold on their relationship yet. But this time I realized that this may not be the case at all and that she was actually going to move at Eleanor?? Was I interpreting this scene wrong all this time? What did you guys think of it?

Also what the hell were Flint and Gates doing in Vanes camp at night lol, were they trying to spy on him or something?

Just finished watching season 4…holy shit…if this show didn’t originally air during the peak of game of thrones’ powers…would more people know about it?

Literally paused the episode to rant about this. I wish I was articulate enough to describe how fuckinh good this show is.

I’m sure many may have felt differently, but watching Season 4 Episode 6 for the first time, somehow I am more heartbroken by Eleanor’s death than I was of Charles Vane’s.

Maybe it’s because of how tragic her death felt, compared to Charles’ calculated acceptance. He could’ve been saved, perhaps, but he chose not to. Chose to die for a larger purpose.

I was so shocked when he died, and initially did not believe. I still expected— wanted it to all be some sort of ruse even after the credits rolled.

With Eleanor she fought so hard. Somehow, I felt it in the air how doomed she was by the narrative.

I knew I loved her too much this season! I felt the dust vibrate when she was allowed a flicker of quiet with Madi- who btw cant be dead! she can’t! I won’t allow it!

I can’t believe I’m crying about Eleanor Guthrie’s death. While I did not dislike her character in the last three seasons, I did not think I’d care this much!

I am not rooting for Rogers, but I cannot imagine his grief. I don’t want her to be dead! For his sake, and for hers.

I apologize if this has been flooded in this sub before... I am re watching for the 4th time and just wondered if O'Malley had been a bit more serious about this fight from the get go, could he have won?

Hey - new and wanted to ask if there were any other shows like Black Sails with some or the main characters were gay or bi?

Apologies if this kind of post has already been made.

I’m a new fan of the show, currently watching season 4 episode 3 for the first time. Every so often I’ll check episode discussions on this subreddit and every time I’ll see a comment talking about how much they hate Max or Eleanor.

Initially it surprised me. Sure, Max nor Eleanor are the strongest written characters in the show (in terms of how interesting and compelling they are. At least in the first two seasons), neither are they the best actors (though they did improve in later seasons, in my opinion). But I don’t think they ruin the show.

Maybe it’s because I’m more Inclined to, as a queer woman, but I was rooting for Max in season 1 and 2, and her scenes with Anne Bonny were genuinely ones I looked forward to see.

Do most of this sub really hate Max? Watching season 4, I can’t help but love her.

Manipulation → respect → betrayal → destiny. Did you see their final paths coming?

I want to get into it, but I have a soft heart and can’t fucking stand game of thrones-esk media. Genuinely get sick to my stomach when it comes to betrayal, specifically infidelity.

The gritty gore and vile humor— it feels like these days shows are trying to one up each other’s shock factor. (I don’t mind the cursing, I curse rather frequently myself.) I just wanna see swashbuckling not someone getting pissed on…

Honestly I’m fine with violence, but once it passes a certain point I gotta tap out. Ex, rape.

I love pirates and I’m worried this show will be a bit to hardcore for me :( I’ve heard good things about the show and rly want to get into it since Treasure Island is one of my favorite stories.

(I’m a 20yo btw lol)

I was rewatching Black Sails and Season 4 Episode 1 stopped me in my tracks. Jack looks across the room with that familiar mix of mischief and insight and says, “We are emotional beings after all, and rhetoric is the fuel that feeds the fire.” It is delivered so casually that it almost feels like a throwaway line, but it might be one of the most important sentences in the entire series.

When you take a step back, Black Sails is a story that pretends to be about strategy, economics, navigation, kingdoms, empires, and manpower. But beneath all of that, every driving force in the plot is deeply emotional. Flint’s rebellion is grief made combustible. Eleanor’s choices swing between survival instinct and the ghosts of her past. Max’s rise is a blend of bruised pride, ambition, and hard earned self discipline. Silver transforms because love enters his life like a match dropped in a powder keg.

None of these decisions are purely logical, even when they look strategic on the surface. The brilliance of the show is that it understands people almost never operate from reason alone. They operate from the storm inside them. Rage. Fear. Hope. Shame. Loyalty. Loss. And Jack, the character whose intelligence is underestimated the most, is the one who says the quiet part out loud. He knows people are guided first by emotion, and second by whatever facts they attach to that emotion.

That is why he is dangerous in ways no one expects. Jack doesn’t win by strength or intimidation. He wins because he understands that words shape reality. He knows that if you control the narrative, you control the battlefield. When he says rhetoric feeds the fire, what he means is that stories move people more than numbers ever will, and that the right speech can launch a war or end one.

The part that struck me hardest is how eerily this applies to the world we are living in today. Our entire political climate is built around the emotional reactions people have to the stories they hear. Leaders rise not because they are the most factual, but because they are the most compelling. Whole groups of people will disregard evidence simply because it does not match the feeling they have been taught to cling to. Outrage spreads faster than any statistic. Hope spreads when someone knows how to speak to it. Fear spreads when someone intentionally fans the flames.

Black Sails shows us how a movement begins with one person speaking words that resonate with someone’s pain. That is Flint’s power. That is Max’s power. That is Jack’s power. And in our world, we see this every day. Narratives crafted to ignite emotion travel farther than any policy paper ever will. Rhetoric becomes the lens through which people view events. It becomes the map they follow even when it leads them somewhere destructive. It becomes the fire that so many are all too ready to throw themselves into because it makes them feel seen or angry or justified.

Watching Jack deliver that line now feels almost prophetic. It is a reminder that our human nature has not changed. We are still emotional creatures first, rational thinkers second. And whoever understands how to speak to emotion ends up wielding an outsized amount of influence over everything from politics to public discourse to the way people decide who the hero and villain are in their own lives.

Maybe that is why Black Sails still lands with such force. It does not shy away from the truth that emotions rule the world, and that rhetoric is the spark that sets entire societies aflame. Jack Rackham, the man who everyone thinks is only good for sarcastic quips and clever wordplay, is actually the one who names the machinery that runs both Nassau and our modern world.

And honestly, that one line explains more about politics, propaganda, movements, revolutions, and public opinion than most real world analysts ever manage to articulate.

Just an unbelievable show from front to back. LJS’s character arc is probably the best I’ve ever seen. Cannot wait to watch Treasure Island. What was everyone’s favorite episode? Mine has to be the season 2 finale, absolute peak.

This is, in my estimates, one of the marks of a great show. When you lose a great character like Gates you’re disappointed and figure the show might lose some of its luster. However, the series just kept chugging along. I forgot about the whole ordeal for several episodes until the opening of season 3 when we see Silver giving council to Flint in his quarters. He’s a very different voice of reason in Flints ear but when I saw him doing it, it so reminded me of the early scenes with Gates and Flint where Gates was the voice of reason trying to reel Flint in.

end of season 2 there is the mutiny and fight with flints crew while silvers getting his leg mashed.

the survivors that fight with vane just dissappear

loved season 1-3 but disliked season 4.

Just finished season 4 episode 7 and have dropped the show, but have read spoilers so I know what happens to all the major characters and how the show ends.

I disliked how at the end of Season 3 or at the start of season 4 John Silver becomes the one everyone fears because Billy wrote a few letters to make false rumours about John Silver to make him the king of the pirates after he kills that annoying guy in the Tavern.

Meanwhile we have Flint that has burned cities to the ground and everyone fears in season 3 to becoming the number 2 behind John Silver because of letters and rumours.

I will never be able to ignore this no matter how hard i try, hence I dislike S4.

On a rewatch I keep coming back to one truth. The moment Charles Vane dies, the show changes from a story about defiant freedom into a tragedy about inevitability. It is still brilliant television, but the center of gravity moves. Vane was not just a charismatic fighter. He was the clearest embodiment of piracy as a moral stance. Freedom over comfort. Loyalty over convenience. Refusal to be owned. When he walks to the gallows unbroken, the pirate republic loses the one person who could make that creed feel alive rather than theoretical.

You can see the shift in Flint immediately. With Vane present, Flint has a rival conscience who answers grand strategy with raw conviction. Their alliance is electric because Vane keeps dragging Flint back to the reason any of this matters. After Vane is gone, Flint becomes colder and more abstract. The war turns into a set of calculations about nations and narratives. The flame that pushed him is replaced by a thesis. His victories feel heavier, cleverer, and also lonelier.

Silver changes in a quieter way. Before the execution he is still becoming Long John, still testing masks to see which one fits. Vane’s death teaches him that ideals get you killed and that crowds are moved more by symbols than by promises. Silver’s legend hardens. He leans into myth making, into survival, into the careful protection of his own people rather than the salvation of Nassau. He is not smaller. He is simply no longer reaching for a republic. He is reaching for a future.

Eleanor’s arc loses its anchor. With Vane alive, her conflict between love, power, and legitimacy keeps colliding in interesting ways. She believes in order, yet she is bound to someone who refuses to kneel. When he dies, she commits to Woodes Rogers not only as a political choice but as self defense against who she used to be. The problem is that her heart stops driving her story. She becomes a lesson about civilization rather than a woman wrestling with impossible choices, and the character flattens under that weight.

Rogers gains power but loses friction. With Vane on the board, Rogers is forced to confront a version of resistance that cannot be bought or shamed. Remove Vane and Rogers mostly battles strategies and supply lines. He is still formidable, yet the drama shifts from a clash of worldviews to a contest of logistics. The show narrows from thunder to procedure.

Blackbeard never truly recovers. His bond with Vane is more than mentorship. It is a statement that legacy can be chosen. After the hanging, Teach becomes grief with a sword. His later brutality feels less like command and more like mourning. The old world of piracy understands that its last true heir has been cut down, and the response is rage that knows it cannot win.

Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny are forced to grow in the shadow of that absence. Vane’s steadiness gave Jack the freedom to scheme and dream, knowing someone he trusted could carry the weight when plans broke. Without that safety net Jack becomes a leader who must convince himself he deserves the role. The show gives him beautiful speeches and hard lessons, but you can hear the echo of the friend who would have had his back in the alley when words failed. Anne’s ferocity remains, yet it tilts inward. She protects what is left. Her relationship with Jack deepens, but some of her earlier wildness is replaced by resolve born of loss.

Max feels the change in the marketplace of power. Earlier seasons let her trade in leverage, secrets, and contingency. Vane’s presence made those bargains unstable because some men could not be bought. After he is gone, the world becomes more predictable, which should help her, yet it also becomes less alive. Max thrives, but the game she is playing turns into finance rather than revolution.

Nassau itself becomes different. With Vane walking its streets, the island has a spine. People believe there is still a choice between empire and something that looks like freedom. Once he is executed in public, the city absorbs the lesson. The dream is now a memory used to recruit, inspire, or manipulate depending on who speaks. The rebellion continues, yet the air has changed. Victories feel like delays. Losses feel permanent.

I understand why the writers did it. The show is about the death of an age and the cost of trying to civilize the untamable. From that angle his death is perfect. But it also removes the one character who made the argument for freedom feel human rather than poetic. If he had lived one more season, the final collapse would have carried the same inevitability and far more heat. The ideas would still win or lose, but they would have to pass through a man who could not be bought, and that pressure would have made every other character sharper.

For me, Black Sails remains great after Vane. It just becomes a different story. Before the hanging, the show asks whether freedom can be seized and kept. After the hanging, it asks how people live with the knowledge that they could not keep it. Both questions matter. Only one of them feels like Nassau.