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“Black Sails” recap (3.09): On the Eve of Battle

Previously on Black Sails, Anne helped Vane and Flint steal the gold and save Jack, but Vane got captured in the process, and Eleanor continued to help Rogers with Max’s advice and admitted she’s not sure what will happen when she’s faced with Vane again.

But we’re going to have a wait a minute to find out.

We open with Jack and the gold on Flint’s ship, Anne sitting silent watch. Flint comes in to update them and asks where the key to the locked treasure chest is, and he says he threw it in the sea. There’s too much riding on that treasure to let sit around open on a pirate ship.

On Nassau, Eleanor goes to Vane’s cell and reads him a plea.

If he signs it, he’ll be killed quietly and privately. If he doesn’t, his execution will be a public spectacle.

Vane thinks the letter she read him is funny, especially coming from her. It lists his misdeeds as piracy when really all she blames him for is the murder of her father. She calls him a coward for killing her father in the middle of the night instead of facing her, for taking him away right when she was starting to reconnect with him. Vane spits at the memory of Mr. Guthrie, saying he was a terrible person through and through, and a few nice conversations with his daughter didn’t change that. He says it’s Eleanor’s way, though; pushing away someone who loves her who is telling her the harsh truth in favor of someone who is telling her pretty lies.

Vane says that Guthrie betrayed his daughter, coming to Vane and trying to exchange her life for his. But Eleanor has heard enough. She starts WAILING on him. Full, closed-fists punches right to his smug face. She screams in anger and anguish and starts hitting him with her words instead. She says he’s not a man and can’t see goodness in people because he has none of his own. She says he’s not capable of base human instincts like forgiveness and calls him an animal.

She storms out and goes to see Rogers, who has been put on bedrest and is surrounded by his council members. When Rogers sees Eleanor, he dismisses his men, telling them that they should talk to her and her alone while he’s incapacitated. Once the men are gone, Eleanor goes to pour him some water, and he notices her bloody hand.

Rogers knows exactly what it’s from and asks if it’s out of her system now. She tells him that she’ll never be able to fully let go of all of it. You can just shed that kind of pain like a snake sheds its skin. But she’s willing to move forward now in spite of it.

Meanwhile, Flint’s ship is still being chased by Hornigold’s. He calls for some fancy maneuvering and ends up anchored broadside to Hornigold’s approaching vessel. Hornigold is ready to approach them from the beach, but then he sees hundreds of Marooners he wasn’t anticipating.

Idelle and Featherstone go to see Billy and warn him that the tone in town is different now and that he might have a harder time getting anything done. But Billy wants Vane rescued, so his plan is to get the people to demand a trial on the island to prevent Vane from being shipped off and to buy them some time to come up with a plan. Idelle wants to know how the hell he plans on pulling that off.

Billy says his plan is to make people care again.

Eleanor is tending to Rogers when Shady McHandmaiden comes in. Eleanor tells her that the room is officially to be considered sealed, and only Eleanor and the doctor are allowed in from now on. The handmaiden asks if Rogers was on board, and Eleanor says he can’t be because he’s delirious with fever; last time he woke up, he was calling Eleanor by his wife’s name.

On Maroon Island, Flint unloads his ship, and Princess Madi goes to see her father. She tells him that Eleanor is there and in a position of influence, at the governor’s side. That she’s one of them now. Seeing that made her realize; he is two people. He is the king of the island; he is Mr. Scott. He has a daughter on either side of this war. But he uses all of his remaining energy to assure her that SHE is his only daughter.

On Nassau, Mrs. Mapleton goes to see Max to say that she found the leak in the tavern, and it’s Idelle. Max looks surprised.

When Mapleton says she hasn’t said anything to anyone yet, Max asks why she didn’t go right to Eleanor with this update; she would have sent Max to do it when their roles were reversed. But Mapleton says Eleanor used to use that bloody chair to make as many enemies as she destroyed and that she’s heading on that same path now. Max understands what’s happening; if only one of the women will rise, Mapleton believes it to be Max, so that’s the horse she’s backing.

She asks Mapleton to only have trustworthy girls servicing the soldiers from now on. Mapleton asks if Max will tell Eleanor herself, but Max is undecided.

But Max does want to talk to Eleanor, so she calls her, and Eleanor comes in a hurry.

You see, Billy has hired a local storyteller to gather some men around the beach, and the number has grown rapidly in the short time between when Max sent for Eleanor and when she arrived. The man is preaching against Eleanor, saying she’s here to return to her perceived tyranny, and that Vane should be tried here in Nassau, out in the open. Eleanor asks if Max can help, but Max only sees two ways out of this; use force and run everything, or give in and hold the trial here.

Eleanor doesn’t love either plan and knows the timing of this is too convenient to be coincidence. Eleanor says she’ll take this to the governor, but Max warns her; anything that happens to Vane can’t be seen as something Eleanor decided. Note that she didn’t say it couldn’t be what she decided, just that it couldn’t appear that way. Eleanor says anything that happens will be the governor’s decision.

Eleanor goes to Rogers’ room and tells his sleeping figure that she never cared what anyone thought of her, but she wants him to understand her, so she hopes that when he wakes up, he won’t hate her too much for what she’s about to do.

And it’s funny, because I do still think she is using him, but I do also believe her when she says she wants him to understand her, and that she cares what he thinks. Not because she loves him, I’m not sure she does, but because she wants to be in charge, and he’s good at being in charge.

On Maroon Island, a horn sounds and the village mourns. Their king is dead.

Featherstone rides like the wind to find Billy and say the people got what they wanted, and Vane was given a trial, but instead of taking days or weeks, it took hours, and it already happened in the middle of the night. His hanging is set for this very day.

Eleanor is watching the gallows be built, and Max comes to be at her side.

Max warns Eleanor that this could be seen as a breach of the predictable law and order Rogers promised and that chaos could break out if she goes through with this.

What Max says next I’m going to quote directly, because it set my shipper heart a-sailing.

“I am your friend. And I will help you weather whatever challenges may lie down whatever road you may choose. But as your friend, I am simply asking you to consider how treacherous this road might be while there is still time to avoid it.”

Max will always be Eleanor’s harbor, even in the worst of storms, but maybe this time we batten down the hatches first?

Eleanor promises that no one is taking this decision lightly and that it was a hard choice but the right one. She speaks as if Rogers had any say in it at all, but I think Max knows the truth.

Vane meets with a priest who warns him of what it might be like being lead to your death, but Vane doesn’t want absolution. He lived his life as he pleased, he’s good with his God. He doesn’t want to be saved. He’s taken to the gallows, people shouting and throwing food all the while, and Billy starts to plan a ruckus to try to save Vane. But when Vane sees him mucking about, Vane gives Billy a short little shake of his head. He doesn’t want to be saved.

Vane uses his last words to speak to the people, that he represents their rebellious spirit, the spirit that Rogers is trying to stamp out. He reminds them that there are more of them than there are redcoats. His final words, though, in true Vane style, are to the executioner: “Get on with it, motherfucker.”

As the executioners get ready, Max watches Eleanor closely, knowing that a thousand emotions must be coursing through her.

Then Vane swings. Billy sends men to pull him down to stop his suffering, and then he’s dead. Really truly dead.

Eleanor looks at him, faces her decision head on.

Billy says that this is the start of the Resistance. The men who were blindly trusting Rogers are second guessing everything now.

On Maroon Island, a goat is sacrificed at Mr. Scott’s funeral, bringing the body count up to three in this episode. Mustachio Jack tells Flint that he knows he’s going to give a ship to someone else in the upcoming battle, but maybe he should give it to him. Vane might be gone, but Captain Jack Rackham is surely the next best thing.

Meanwhile on Nassau, the Commodore is giving Eleanor a hard time about decisions she’s making, but she puts her foot down; she knows Flint, and she knows they have to do the unexpected if they can even hope to win this war.

Across the sea on another beach, a man wades out of the water and says that Vane was hanged in the square as a message from the governor that he’s determined to end piracy. And who is he telling? Blackbeard. One game piece that Eleanor is not counting on.

What did you think of “XXVII”?

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