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“Black Sails” recap (2.09): Queen E

Previously on Black Sails, people told Eleanor that she should eliminate everyone who knows about the Urca gold, including Max, Max vowed to protect Anne at all costs, Vane killed Mr. Guthrie, and Flint brought Abigail Ashe back to her father even though it’s widely known that Peter Ashe is a pirate-hater.

We open on Nassau, where Mr. Guthrie’s body is being cleaned for burial. Eleanor sits in her office while people take turns paying their condolences.

Bored now.

Eleanor looks at the line down the street and sighs, knowing this is going to be a long and emotionally exhausting day. She steels herself for her next visitor and looks up to see that it’s Max, with food for her from her girls.

Eleanor thanks her, politely, like she thanks everyone, refusing to show emotion on her face. Max tells her that she knows Eleanor is hurting, that everyone here thinks they’re paying their respects to a daughter who is grieving their father, but that Eleanor’s relationship with her father was more complicated than that. Max says she wishes she could comfort her, to be the one person with whom she can share her true feelings.

“Remember when I was your harbor?”

Eleanor’s expression falters but only for a moment and she tells Max that there’s nothing complicated about her situation. The people aren’t here to pay their respects, they’re here to make sure Eleanor knows they are not her enemy, because there is a war about to begin and they can sense it in the change of the wind. Plus, Vane’s manifesto has been read aloud on the beach. Eleanor asks Max if she’s chosen a side yet, and Max just looks sad.

But can I say, the shot of the two of them sitting tall, facing each other, alone, for the first time since early in Season 1, was one of the most beautiful and powerful and heartbreaking shots of this show.

So similar, yet so different. So close, and yet so far.

Back at the Inn, Jack asks how her meeting went, and she says that she’s seen what Eleanor can build when she’s being ambitious, what she can destroy when she’s angry, but what she just saw was a different Eleanor entirely. She tells Jack to speed up their plan.

Which is a good idea, since In Eleanor’s office, some thugs come to see Eleanor and she tells them they move at sundown.

Across the ocean, Flint and Miranda meet with Peter Ashe, who is only having a calm conversation with them because he’s so grateful that he has his daughter back, safe and sound. But he says that the two people in front of him are not the people he knew. Flint says that now’s the opportunity to get to know him, so Ashe starts interviewing him, asking about how he became a pirate, how he came to murderer Hamilton. Miranda takes the blame for that, saying she’s the one who told Flint where Hamilton was, and encouraged him to kill the patriarch who separated two men in love. She stands up for emphasis but Ashe’s guard pulls his gun and says he doesn’t trust the two of them, and that if they get any closer than she just did, he won’t hesitate to shoot.

Flint begs Ashe for forgiveness, saying that the news of Thomas’s death took a toll on both of them, and that they made bad choices because of it. All Flint is asking is for Ashe to hear them out, and he agrees.

At her father’s funeral, Eleanor contemplates what her father’s death means. He had just finally started to support her, to see things her way, to believe in her. And now she’s all alone again, no family beside her, everyone she loved gone. No Max, no Flint, no Vane, no Mr. Scott, no father. No one.

“Allll byyyy myyyyseeeelf.”

She throws a handful of dirt into his grave and walks away. She wastes no time and goes to Underhill, asking for a private world regarding ambitions.

Flint tells Ashe that it’s time to pick up the plan where they left off, but Ashe says too much has changed. But Flint points out it changed for the better too, because they now have a pirate captain, the traderunner, and hopefully the purveyor of the new world on board. Flint says that once they establish the New Nassau, he can help out with setting up the militia and all that, but then he’ll have to retire his black flag.

On Flint’s waiting ship, Silver decides to go down to get some scoop for Randall for his regularly scheduled announcements, but finds Randall’s dead body instead. Him and his watchman quickly take cover, just in time to see men start killing men sleeping on hammocks. Above deck, Vane’s men seep out of the ocean and onto the ship like a black, rolling fog and start killing people, quickly and quietly, until Flint’s crew starts to realize what’s happening and a full-on fight ensues. Billy had been up fixing the broken foot-rope, so he was a little more prepared to fight when he hit the deck, and ends up taking on Vane one-on-one. But he’s no match for the captain, and is soon taken prisoner.

In Ashe’s mansion and finally alone, Miranda asks Flint if he was serious about retiring from piracy. As an answer, he tells her Captain Flint’s origin story.

A simple, “Yes,” would have sufficed.

His grandfather once worked on a ship, and one night a man named Mr. Flint came on board and shared some rum with the lad, but disappeared when he went to fetch more. He was like a sea mirage, appearing from and disappearing to the sea. Flint had intended to do the same, only wear the guise of the pirate Flint for a short while. And in fact, he’s hated the man he was pretending to be more with every passing moment. So yes, he tells her. He believes it’s time for Flint to return to the sea. (But not literally. To be honest, it was a bit of a strange metaphor. And a really anticlimactic story. Thanks, gramps.)

On the Spanish warship, Silver and his watchman managed to survive in their hidey hole but few others did, and those who did survive are now Vane’s prisoners. As far as Silver sees it, they have two options: Swim to shore and die by noose, or stay where they are and die by sword. But Silver is a survivalist, and when he sees Randall’s knife, he thinks of a third option: Get Vane to surrender the ship.

Meanwhile on Nassau, Eleanor tells Underhill about her plans to return to legitimate commerce, and says she needs his sugar business to kick it off. But Underhill, despite looking like he’s never bathed a day in his life, accuses her of being a plague that is the reason trade isn’t legitimate here anyway, how could he trust her? She tells him that she’s not a pirate. She is a goddamned lady. She’s the end of piracy.

And I woke up like this.

Her proof: when she found out about the Urca gold, she knew it could tip the scales and not in her favor, so she has sent men to take care of everyone who knew about the gold. Though I really hope there was an “except Max” caveat in those orders, something tells me there wasn’t.

Across the island, Anne Bonny returns and apologizes to Jack for leaving.

“And by that I mean, sorry for not properly coming out before leaving.”

He’s so glad she came back and she says she almost didn’t. She’s about to explain why she did return but they’re interrupted by Eleanor’s muscle. Turns out she came back just in time, because Anne Bonny saves herself and then saves Jack. Jack grabs Featherstone and they head to Max to tell her that Anne just saved their asses from men sent to kill them all.

Ain’t nobody fucking with my clique.

Max knows that this won’t be the last they hear from Eleanor, and asks if Jack’s crew can leave immediately. Anne says yes, because she will not let the woman who killed her beloved Max’s heart, so Max sends them off to get their prize, their future. The men leave, but before Anne follows, she walks over to Max and gives her hand a squeeze. It’s a thank you, it’s a request to be safe, it’s a just-in-case goodbye.

Goodbye to you, goodbye to everything that I knew.

And then Max’s army is off.

On Flint’s ship, Silver is planning how to sabotage it so Vane can’t sail away. While he’s cutting rope, Vane goes into the captain’s quarters and tells a tied-up Billy that he’s heard about Billy and wants to recruit him, because he’s heard he’s a proper pirate, a good fighter, loyal to a fault, very…dutiful…on those long trips out at sea with only men for miles. Billy says he hates Flint as much as Vane, but that at least Flint has a plan, has a way to survive the coming changes. Vane rolls his eyes the way one who doesn’t believe in the apocalypse would a doomsday prepper. But Billy says this isn’t the rapture they’re talking about, the threat Flint fears is very real, and Billy has seen the armies lying in wait with his very own eyes. And Flint’s plan is the only plan they’ve got.

Above deck, Silver succeeds in cutting a very important rope that will prevent the boat from getting far. Vane is PISSED and tells his men to get to fixing the rope STAT while he hunts down the culprit himself. It’s been a good fifteen minutes since he’s murdered someone and his knife hand is twitching.

At the Ashe’s, Flint and Miranda are having a lovely dinner with Peter and Abigail Ashe when Peter orders everyone out of the room, including his growly body guard. He’s come to a decision: He will help them with their plan on one condition. Flint has to stand before everyone and tell his story. His WHOLE story, from his affair with Thomas up until this very moment. Peter’s logic is that this will help England see him not as the notorious Captain Flint, demon pirate, but just a flawed man. A flawed man they can forgive. Ashe says that if he does it tonight, they can sail or Nassau to put the plan in motion at morning light.

Flint is about to shake Ashe’s hand and make it so, but Miranda has to give her two cents first. Something isn’t sitting quite right with her, because she recognizes the grandfather clock in the corner from her own husband’s parlor. Ashe says it was a gift from Alfred Hamilton, but Miranda thinks this is awfully shady. In fact, now that she thinks about it, it’s kind of strange that Flint’s name was tarnished so quickly over simple hearsay…so Ashe had to have been in cahoots with the old bigot. She’s furious now, asking when Ashe’s sins will come to light, and asks how it’s fair, what he’s asking Flint to do?

Cleavage for days. (Spoiler alert: Cleavage for minutes.)

Ashe starts to stammer, saying he had no choice because his family was being threatened, that he visited Thomas and already got his forgiveness, but Miranda cannot be calmed. Her husband died, cold and alone in an insane asylum, when his only crime was loving Flint. Miranda cannot forgive him. She wants to see this city burn, she wants to see Peter Ashe hang.

Then, bang.

Ashe’s bodyguard kills her dead.

A tussle ensues and other guards have to subdue Flint in his fury and devastation. Abigail comes in to see what the fuss is about and sees Miranda’s body on the ground and screams.

Despite this episode opening with Mr. Guthrie’s dead body, something about the beginning of this episode – Vane’s promise, Eleanor’s determined look, Silver’s nerves-I was sure someone important was going to die, and I was on high alert. Even when Randall was found dead, I didn’t feel settled; who would it be? Max? Anne? Billy but for real this time? I was flinching at every turn. But this moment? I had let my guard down. I had gotten lost in Miranda’s fire, in her fury. I didn’t see it coming, and I gasped audibly. This show, man. Just when you think it’s going to zig, it shoots someone in the head.

On Nassau, Eleanor is pleased with herself because she got Underhill to agree to her terms. Without anyone’s help, without her father’s shadow looming. Underhill looks Eleanor over and says that her father was good at spinning stories of remorse, but she doesn’t seem to be asking for forgiveness. And she’s not. She’s done with stories, she’s done with games. She says it’s time for the truth. They head out together but they encounter Hornigold, Dufresne and a group of men. They tell Underhill not to fuss, they’re not here for him. They’re here for “the girl.”

“All I need is time, a moment that is mine.”

Vane stalks his stolen ship for stowaways and is delighted when he finds Silver. But he didn’t realize Silver wasn’t acting alone, so Silver’s watchman is able to get up behind him with a knife. Silver asks Vane what he thinks happen next, but before Silver can talk himself out of trouble once again, a crier in a rowboat delivers a message from Peter Ashe: Flint is being held prisoner, because just as they were about to strike a deal, his trust was broken. The rule of law wins, and piracy will end at Ashe’s hand. Flint will get a quick but proper trial and sentencing, and if the boat is still there by the time it’s over, they will seize or sink it. Vane takes advantage of the distraction and gets the knife away from Silver’s man, getting the upper hand, and turning Silver’s own question back at him: What DOES happen next?

Vane leads his new prisoners above deck and announces that Nassau will never be a feared land again if one of their most ruthless captains is hanged, so he sees only one option, and it’s not one anyone thought things would ever come to. Vane has to save Flint.

Eleanor is taken, with a bag over head, and delivered to the guy who offered a ransom for Flint. Hornigold explains that Eleanor is an even bigger prize than Flint, that Nassau can’t survive without her, and even calls her the Queen of Thieves.

Bow down, bitches.

The man throws down the pardons promised and Eleanor is taken away.

What did you think of “XVII”? What are your hopes and fears for next week’s season finale?

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