Previously on Black Sails, Hornigold declared that he wanted to captain his men plus Flint’s men, Max supported Anne even after she went on a bit of a violence and murder spree, Billy got offered pardon for him and nine men if he turns in Flint, and Eleanor kidnapped the kidnapped Abigail Ashe so she could bring her to Flint to bring to Lord Ashe.
Eleanor is sitting in Abigail’s cell while she reminisces about her life before she was taken as a prisoner. She remembers music, and a woman who made her mother laugh like her father never did. Her name was Miranda Hamilton, and she remembers thinking the woman was the prettiest woman she’d ever seen. Eleanor assures her that Mrs. Hamilton, still the kind woman she remembers, is waiting for her on this very island. Abigail is holding a note from the artist formerly known as Mrs. Hamilton in her hand, but she’s confused; Captain Vane promised her no harm would come to her. Eleanor says that things have changed, that Captain Flint will protect her now. The walls Abigail had started to let down slam back into place; Mrs. Hamilton she remembers by face, but Flint she remembers by name. Her father told her that he was the Meanest Meanie in all of Meantown. Eleanor pink swears that she didn’t come down to the dank dungeons just to lead her to certain death and asks Abigail to trust her, to trust Mrs. Hamilton.
In John Silver’s absence, Billy reports the projected results of the Flint vs. Hornigold election. Flint isn’t worried, he’s so sure about his plans that he’s sure that his sureness will become the sureness of his men. If you looked up “cocksure” in the dictionary, Flint’s face would be there in absence of a definition.
The pirates hold council and while Hornigold gives his lofty speech, reminding the men of everything Flint has ever done wrong, Silver comes to tell Flint that the men they sent to watch the gold are back far sooner than planned, because the gold is gone. This, unsurprisingly, causes a bit of a ruckus.
Back at the brothel, the bloody clothes from Anne’s temper tantrum are being burned, but Max saves Anne’s hat just in time. She brings the hat to Anne and tells her that all the evidence is gone, that the story they crafted to cover Charlotte and her lover’s absence is being spread as she speaks, that Anne is safe now.
Max tucks Anne’s hat safely away and gives her a dress to wear, saying she knows it won’t fit but that it will do for now. And it’s all so symbolic it hurts. Max says as soon as she’s ready, and not a second before, they will discuss what happens next. As Max starts to leave, she’s stopped by Anne’s voice. Anne tells her that she was married to a man once, a man who hurt her, who “shared” her, who burned her, body and soul. Once she was in a tavern being tossed around when a mustachioed man came and slit her husband’s throat. She was thirteen years old and was sure Jack Rackham saved her life, but now she wonders if he took away her chance to learn to fend for herself, like Elphaba and the Cowardly Lion.
Anne says that she went with Jack, and she learned to be like him and his men, learned to be a pirate. But now she doesn’t know what she’s become, and she doesn’t know who she really is. She’s truly a ship lost in the ocean and it breaks Max’s goddamned heart.
Idelle and her breasticles are standing outside Anne’s door when Max leaves, and she has bad news for her Madame. You see, they’re not afraid of men; men are a predictable sort of monster and they’ve learned to handle themselves around them. For example, having a machete on hand at all times. Anne, on the other hand, is a different animal entirely. And if she killed Charlotte, who had never done anyone any harm, what chance did the rest of them stand? Idelle is worried Max is just as scared as them, and says that they can find some men that can…”take care of” Anne for them, which is the point where Max stops listening politely. Max says that not a soul on this godforsaken island gave a single, solitary fuck about what was happening to her on the beach except Anne. (Which isn’t true, because Eleanor did, but whatever.) Anne saved her, and it’s the least she can do to save Anne right back. Max says that if she so much as hears a whisper of a rumor of someone trying to “take care of” Anne, they will regret it so hard.
However, if any of the girls would like to talk about their feelings, she’s really good at processing.
Flint convinces Silver to keep being the mouthpiece for his cause, despite the Urca gold being gone, and while he’s giving his soapbox speech, Dufresne and Billy muse over his power of persuasion. Dufresne cannot stop thinking about the pardons Billy told him about and says he’s going to round up eight men who would be more than willing to throw Flint under the bus (buggy?) and sets out to find them.
Meanwhile, Anne puts on the dress Max gave her and looks at herself in the dirty mirror as though she doesn’t recognize the girl in the reflection. When she comes downstairs, she’s shy and hunched, but Max takes her hand, sits her down, and tells her to eat.
She tells Anne she has some work to finish up but will be right back and while she’s gone, a man sits down to make small talk with Anne. He’s all flashy smiles and devilish grins and she asks him if she knows who she is. When he doesn’t, she lets him ramble on about who he is and who he wants to be. He holds out his hand to her and she looks at it like it’s a dead squid, so the man’s friend tells him to just take her upstairs and stop with the pleasantries. Anne asks him why he chose her and he tells her she was new and seems nice, which is probably something no one has ever said to Anne before in her life, so she follows him upstairs. He starts rambling on, asking her what her prostitute rules and rates are, but she just stares. She considers her options and she wonders if this is the role she was meant to play, if this is who she is.
She takes one step forward, one step in the direction of whoredom, when Idelle flounces in and makes up a lie about her leaving a john downstairs. She takes over for Anne and mouths for Anne to leave, which she does.
Anne collapses against a wall and hangs her head, which is how Max finds her a few minutes later. Max lifts Anne’s chin to meet her eyes and Max sees her pain and feels it, too. Anne’s tears break her heart all over again and she holds on tight to her LadyPirate.
Abigail asks how Eleanor arrived on Nassau and Eleanor says her father brought her here as a child. Abigail says that her father wouldn’t let her go to the Carolinas with him because it was too dangerous, but wonders if she too would have become a boss ass bitch if she wasn’t so sheltered as a girl, if she was exposed to such hardships as Eleanor. Just like Anne, she wonders if she missed out on a chance to fight her own battles. Eleanor doesn’t say anything, but knows she wouldn’t wish her fate on anyone. They come across a gate in the tunnel and Eleanor unlocks it, but when she tries to pry it open, it won’t budge.
When the girls hear Vane’s men coming, Eleanor rips a torch holder off the wall with her bare hands and with the strength of those mothers who lift cars to save their babies, opens the door wide enough for the two of them to slide through. Eleanor starts to lock the gate behind them when Vane appears, leaving both Eleanor and Abigail quite terrified.
Vane can’t believe her betrayal, especially after he killed Lowe for her. She says there’s no way he did that just for her, and he accuses her of turning on anyone as it so suits her. He says she has two options, return the girl and they’ll pretend this never happened, or lock the gate and walk away, potentially condemning Vane to death, and definitely making an enemy of him. And HBIC Eleanor locks that damn gate. She locks it good.
At the Inn, Max tells Anne that Nassau can provide just about anyone a life and a future, you just have to want it badly enough. There are limits to what you can do alone, and she has big plans that will involve taking on a partner who is familiar with the deep blue sea. A partner she can trust.
Eleanor brings Abigail to the bar and when Mrs. Barlow steps forward and introduces herself as Mrs. Hamilton, Abigail remembers her and wraps her arms around her; finally something familiar, something safe.
Eleanor goes back to her room and drinks a thousand drinks to numb the pain in her probably-broken-from-slamming-it-in-a-dungeon-gate hand and in her probably-got-one-of-my-lovers-murdered soul. Mr. Guthrie joins her on her balcony and hesitantly puts his arm around her. Eleanor, weary of fighting, weary of loneliness, desperate for comfort, rests her head on his shoulder and allows herself to be comforted.
On the beach, Billy and the rest of the men turn on Dufresne and the men he has marked as traitors. He is Team Flint and he always has been, probably because he’s madly in love. When he reports the news of these “deflected” men to Flint, he recommends electing someone from Hornigold’s crew as quartermaster to really solidify the team. Flint is all, “No offense, but why on earth should I trust that you’re trying to genuinely help me after I sort of Mufasa’d you into the ocean?” Billy says that he really did fall, and Flint really did grab him, and then he really did fall in earnest, but who is to say whose fault it really was? Can’t their love overcome a little attempted manslaughter? Their lovefest is interrupted by a man saying Eleanor has sent for Flint.
When Flint gets to the tavern, he sees Abigail sitting there.
Mrs. Barlow sends him over to introduce himself, staying close by. Flint lays his weapon down and when she realizes he must be Captain Flint, he tells her that his name is James. Flint is just the mask he wears.
Dufresne, who Billy stupidly did not just axe-murder when he kicked him off the crew, finds a fleeing Hornigold and offers to pair up with him to get rid of Flint once and for all.
When they’re alone again, Flint tells Eleanor that they will sail at first light, and Eleanor, in exchange, tells him that her father went off to find happy faces for Lord Ashe to see upon his arrival. Flint is feeling cockier than ever since he can tell the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t just a mirage. Eleanor makes sure Flint knows that she kidnapped the kidnapped Abigail, and wonders aloud if Vane survived the wrath of his men. He’s one more thing she sacrificed for this lofty plan of theirs, for Nassau. One more person she loved that she betrayed. She tells Flint that he better make sure it was all worth it or so help her she will rip his throat out with her bare hands. (Okay maybe that last bit was just implied.)
Silver finds Max in the brothel and asks for a private word. He confesses that when he realized that the Urca gold was no longer Flint’s priority, that he needed to make moves. When the gold watchers returned earlier than expected, he panicked. He thought Flint, in all his mania, had somehow managed to make the gold disappear with sheer will power. He says that the men told Flint the gold was gone, but Max is cut from the same cloth as Silver; she’s in the business of finding out secrets, and she’s no stranger to spinning stories, so she asks him: They told Flint the gold was gone, but what did they tell Silver?
You see, the watchers didn’t come back because the gold was gone. The watchers came back because the Spanish men guarding the gold were. A smile starts to creep on Max’s face, and when Silver asks her if she would happen to know of a crew that could help him on his new endeavor, Max starts smiling in earnest.
Meanwhile, deep on the island, Mr. Guthrie’s buggy comes to a stop in the deep, dark night, and three floating lights head toward him like a headless horseman through the fog. Which surely can’t mean butterflies and rainbows are on their way.
What did you think of “XV”? What are your hopes and dreams for the last three episodes of this season?
