Previously on Black Sails, Eleanor told Vane to man up and act like a member of her consortium, Ned Low made himself known as the new baddie in town by threatening Eleanor and capturing a woman off a ship, Flint and Silver teamed up and stole a Spanish warship, and Anne Bonny kissed a girl and she liked it.
We open on a beach where a man is wrapped in leather and left out to bake. A shady character talks to him, saying he needs the prisoner’s help and that this weird torture will be how he gets said help. Before we leave this mystery behind, we see that the prisoner is our very own Billy.
Ex-captain Flint says that Silver could be free if he wanted to be and asks why he would want to help Flint take back his crew. Silver says the pirate life just isn’t for him and that this is more beneficial; he helps Flint, gets one big prize, then gets the biggest prize of all: Freedom. Silver asks exactly what the plan is, and Flint says he plans on being captain again in two days’ time. Silver doesn’t look especially like he believes this plan will work but when you voluntarily board the crazy train, you can’t really question its path.
On the ship called Fancy, Quartermaster Meeks asks Captain Ned Lowe if he was really so stupid as to threaten one Miss Eleanor Guthrie. When Ned doesn’t deny it, Meeks says it’s a terrible plan, because they need the relationship, and the reward of being in her good graces is higher than the cost of the mark down she offered for the bloody barrels. Ned Lowe, however, is not as forward thinking as some of his peers; he is not afraid of some little girl and has some pretty vulgar things to say to prove it. Ned laughs with his crew and Meeks look more than mildly concerned.
Meanwhile, on Nassau, Max pays Anne a visit, wearing a lovely blue dress.
They sit in silence for a moment, and Anne finally speaks, saying Jack took her in, and she owes her life to him; but that when you owe someone so much, your life doesn’t feel like your own. She thinks back to last night and can’t find the words to express what it meant to her, how she felt about it. How much she enjoyed it, how much she needed it, how guilty she felt about it. Instead she takes a swig of her drink and sighs.
Max reaches out and touches Anne’s hand, and this time Anne doesn’t flinch or pull away or growl.
Max tells Anne that last night can be a one-time thing, if that’s what she truly wants; she’s not going to push it. But also she’s welcome to make it a two-time thing, or more if she so chooses. Mustachio Jack walks by and sees the hand-touching and knows that if Max is after his girl, he’s in a heap of trouble.
Back out on the ocean, while Silver paces around and tries to figure out how he can become essential to the crew, Flint visits the acting captain and weaves his socio-pathically conniving web of suggestion and manipulation, telling Dufresne about two paths he could choose, and which one he would have chosen when he were captain.Meanwhile, on Nassau, Meeks visits Eleanor in her office, trying to appeal to her compassionate side and ask her for a favor. He says men are stupid and his crew blindly follows Ned Lowe and that he wants her help to depose him. Eleanor explains that it’s not something she performs with any regularity, that it was an extreme circumstance, but he insists, saying her own life probably depends on it. One of her men pop in just then to tell her she’s required somewhere else, so Eleanor asks Meeks to wait for her in her bar and they’ll continue this conversation soon.
Eleanor goes to her meeting of the Eleanor Guthrie Consortium for Pirates Who Can’t Trade Good And Want To Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too and is pleased to see that Vane actually showed up this time.
In town, Mustachio Jack finds Max and asks her what is going on between her and Anne Bonny. Max shrugs, guilt-free, and says she did what she always does: what she had to do to survive. When Jack accuses her of seducing his woman, Max points out that perhaps if he thought on it, this move wasn’t as sudden as he feels it is. Jack does indeed think on it, and asks if he’s meant to believe Anne Bonny killed their entire crew, risking her own life and her relationship with Jack, and saved Max from the torture tent, all because she wanted to fuck Max?
Max says that’s exactly what he’s meant to believe. Jack isn’t going to take her at her word though, and threatens to tell Anne that Max is trying to get between them, but Max says that now that she’s had a taste of it, there’s no way Anne will let this go. It’s not something you tend to just do once get out of your system; in fact, it’s more like you do it once and you realize it’s exactly what your system needs to thrive. And nothing Jack can do will change that.
On the warship, Silver tries to remove the target from his back by doing something he saw a kid do in a home for boys once: Every day, he’s going to use Randall’s intel to read an anonymous list of the crew’s wrongdoings to remind themselves that they hate each other more than they hate John Silver. Flint thinks that plan sounds crazy, but wishes him luck. Pot/kettle and all that.
At the Consortium meeting, one of Eleanor’s men says the besmirched Guthrie name is causing problems, and only threats of Vane’s violence have been getting them anywhere lately, which drives Eleanor bonkers. After the meeting, Vane tells her that her endeavor is dangerous, that she’s a puppy in a dogfight, but Eleanor is scrappy and determined. Vane says he’s just looking out because he cares about her, and Eleanor says she believes a lot of things-that she can do anything she sets her pretty mind to, that Vane resents her, that unicorns exist-but that he cares about her? She doesn’t believe that for a second.
A noise from the bar distracts them, and they go down to see what caused the ruckus. Ned Lowe has Meeks pinned down and slowly but surely beheads him right there in the bar. Eleanor is FURIOUS and bans him from her bar, from her island. One of her bodyguard uses the pointy end of his sword to encourage Lowe’s cooperation, but Lowe pulls out a sword of his own and Eleanor’s man ends up super dead. Eleanor watches on, feeling helpless and horrified.
Vane smirks at her knowingly, like nothing more perfect could have made his point than this perfectly timed display of insanity and violence. Ned Lowe, the psychopath to Flint’s sociopath, says he’s having way too much fun to leave the island and skips out, promising to return with more havoc soon.
Meanwhile, Dufresne has a choice to make: He can take Flint’s advice or go his own way. The quartermaster says sure he could listen to their ex-captain, or Dufresne could prove that he’s fit to lead by having their first haul go well. Liking the way this sounds, Dufresne chooses to go against Flint’s suggestion.
Below deck, Silver keeps announcing the goings-on despite getting smacked after every one by the guilty party, and his suffering becomes worth it when a man who Albernathe’d the dairy goat, gets turned on by the crew and a wrestling match breaks out. They’re interrupted by the announcement that it’s time to pillage a passing ship.
While the ship originally surrenders and Dufresne and his men board without conflict, it’s soon revealed to be a trap and all hell breaks loose. Flint tells Dufresne that they have no hope of taking over the ship and/or getting back to Nassau with their dignity intact unless they sink the ship. When Dufresne hesitates, Flint shouts some orders and his old crew listens. He shouts down to the cannon crews too and they hesitate for a moment, but then take his orders like nothing had changed. Silver watches in amazement as everything unfolded the way Flint said it would.
Cut to Eleanor, who is having the opposite experience, and can’t seem to get a single plan to work out.
Vane joins her and she admits to him that she doesn’t know what to do next. Eleanor says that this is Vane’s chance to prove that he really does care about her and her well being; she asks him to use his men to obtain what she understands to be a valuable asset from Ned Lowe’s latest haul. The only catch is, she has no idea what it was. (And probably wouldn’t have sent Vane after it if she knew it was a live woman.)
Later that night, Anne Bonny leaves Jack’s bed and slips out of the room. Though she was quiet about it, Jack wasn’t fully asleep, and it dawns on him that Max was right.
Anne knocks on Max’s door, keeping her eyes down while it opens, as if steeling herself for the very sight of Max. As she was probably grateful for since when she does look up, Max is standing there looking more stunning than ever.
They begin to make love, and Anne looks almost relieved at Max’s touch; like suddenly this thing inside her that she despised, this thing that she ignored for so long, was finally able to shed all the layers of doubt and fear laid upon it over the years, and she could finally truly see it, to understand it, and it was beautiful.
All of a sudden the door swings open and Mustachio Jack bang bangs into the room. He plops himself down at the table, pours himself a shot, and tells the girls exactly how things are going to go down from now on.
Max is going to give Jack the leads she gets instead of selling them. He, in turn, will use those leads to get a crew of his own. A crew which Anne will help him lead, and all three of them would have a share of. Nassau needs more good captains, and now it has one: Captain Jack Rackham.
Before he leaves, Jack turns to Anne Bonny and says that he understands why she kept this a secret, but that all he’s ever wanted was for her to be happy. He tells her to come to bed when she’s through.
After he leaves, he stands outside the door for a minute, looking like a lion tamer in training who is shocked he survived his first encounter unscathed.
On the Spanish Warship, Dufresne tells Flint that he knows he’s been played, though he still finds it hard to believe that one man would sacrifice the lives of so many just to be captain again; alas, it is so, and Dufresne bows out gracefully, congratulating Flint and leaving him the captain’s office. He looks around the room, and puts on a leather jacket hanging there, and finds both fit him quite well.
What did you think of “X”?
