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“Black Sails” recap (3.07): Rebuilding bridges

Previously on Black Sails, Eleanor went from prisoner to…well, just better taken care of prisoner but also trusted advisor; Max found out that Jack warned Anne to hide the gold she promised Rogers; Silver and Princess Madi bonded on Maroon Island; and Flint convinced Vane to join his mission to take back Nassau.

We open in the middle of nowhere, where Max is waiting for Anne.

Not looking forward to saying goodbye again.

Max promises she’s alone and explains that the Spanish Intelligence needs the cash back or it will level Nassau. Anne doesn’t give a parrot’s ass about Rogers and his plan to civilize the island, but Max says she should, because they have Jack.

Anne says, “Fuck you,” because she knows Max would have opened with that if she wasn’t trying to use it to manipulate her. And for being the mouthpiece for the enemy.

I liked the first goodbye better.

Max promises that Jack will go free if she gives over the treasure.

Max goes back to Rogers and says she convinced Anne to give back the cash. I mean, she didn’t technically agree to it, but Max knows that the thought of Jack being tortured will convince her. It might take time, but she’ll give in. Rogers isn’t sure if that’s enough, and asks how Max could be so sure, but Eleanor cuts him off and says she just knows.

All too well.

The more time they spend together, the more in sync they get, and it sets my skin on fire.

Flint goes back to Maroon island and reports about how Jack Rackham and his gold are wanted on Nassau, and how important it is to Rogers. The Priestess is confused as to why he doesn’t have the fleet of ships he promised, but Flint has a PLAN. If they find Jack and the gold first, the fate of Nassau is in their hands instead of Rogers’s.

His plans also include a battle that would begin with them luring the British Navy to Maroon Island. The Priestess asks for a private word with Flint and asks why on Earth he thinks he can beat the British Navy.

#NotImpressed

He says he’s not quite sure but all he knows is that right now is the only time they’re ever going to have a decent shot at this. She trusts him the way anyone who looks into the fiery depths of his eyes and gets caught up in his schemes, and says that while he’s looking for Jack on Nassau, there’s a bunch of stuff her husband left there that he should grab.

She’s sending her daughter with him because there’s no way Scott’s guards would trust Flint alone.

Rogers goes to visit Rackham in the dungeon and tells him Anne is coming and bringing the cash. Gool ol’ Mustachio knows that this means someone lied to Anne and told her that he was being tortured. Rogers says not to worry, he’s not going to torture him, because he doesn’t want to be the villain of this story. But Jack turns the tables, asking how Rogers would feel if someone told his wife he was being tortured when he wasn’t, just to get some gold. They’re all villains in Nassau.

Handmaiden McShadyface is in the Tavern, being sheisty by pretending to read while actually talking to a man at the next table.

Such a poisonous little flower.

He agrees that if all the Urca gold is returned they won’t attack, but things would go a lot more smoothly if she could convince Rogers to also turn in something a little extra…something mustachioed, for example.

Eleanor finds this out and tells Max, and she’s so mad that the terms that she told Anne have changed, that she won’t be able to reunite the two after all. Eleanor hates it too, but it’s their only option.

“Male ego, so fragile.”

Featherstone interrupts, but he ships it, so he leaves them alone right quick. Eleanor moves closer to Max, but Max can’t even turn around to look at her. It’s too much.

It’s like being in the sun while you have a sunburn.

They stand in silence for a minute, Max casually taking a drink while Eleanor is too afraid to breathe. Max is resigned; she says that Anne will want to put up a fight when she sees that Jack isn’t with the men there to take the gold. Max starts to ask for protection for Anne, but Eleanor jumps in, eager to assure her that she has already FORBIDDEN them to harm Anne. She DEMANDED her protection. Max is genuinely surprised by this, but Eleanor says she did it out of respect for her partnership. And probably a little bit to win her back. Max looks at her then, looks directly at her, looks into her, and maybe she sees something she wasn’t expecting to see.

“A new chance, maybe one that has a touch of romance.”

Max doesn’t know which fate would be worse for Anne, if she died trying to save him, or if she survived but had to live without him. She said it would be like losing half of herself, and I wonder if she’s thinking of the first time Max and Eleanor were split apart.

Without turning around to face her, Max pours Eleanor a drink and slides it over, a peace offering, an olive branch. And Eleanor moves to join her.

“A new hope, something to convince me to renew hope.”

Out in the tavern, Idelle asks Featherstone if Eleanor is still in the room with Max, because I think she ships it, too. Featherstone says he overheard something weird, but thinks better of sharing it.

Up in the room, Eleanor and Max have moved to sitting and actually facing each other and drinking. In a way I doubt they ever have before, as close to equals as they’ve ever been. Both with some power, both vulnerable, both probably feeling a little overwhelmed.

Max looks at the chair that they’ve both now sat in to rule Nassau and says someday when everything is settled, they should burn that chair.

Drunk!Eleanor would be down for sure.

Max says that there was a time when she hated Eleanor, where she thought she would never be able to forgive her for what she did, for breaking her heart. But now that she sits in the chair that Eleanor sat in, now that she wears the same crown, feels the weight of the same ring of keys, now she’s starting to understand. But Eleanor says now her footing is precarious, and Max agrees; the soldiers talk about her and Rogers, saying they’re inseparable, sometimes saying it’s more than that. Max says it like she knows that this is unfair to Eleanor, and like maybe she’s a little worried that it’s true.

I can’t with the looks.

Eleanor didn’t realize the soldiers cared so much and Max warns her that the rumors can complicate things, that Rogers sits in an annoying chair too, and that these rumors will affect him. The implication will either embarrass him, knowing his soldiers are gossiping about his private time, or the implication without the reward will frustrate him, is how I interpreted the danger. Max knows she doesn’t need to warn Eleanor about making her next move wisely, but warning her about this was her token of appreciation, for their partnership, almost as payment for Eleanor protecting Anne.

Eleanor wastes no time and goes to Rogers to secure her place beside him by sexing him up.

Eleanor tries to talk to him after but all he can think about are his dying soldiers and how, gosh darn it, this always happens when they invade previously inhabited places.

No comment.

But the reason he brings it up now, is because even though he just made love to one of the best humans on this damn island, all he can think about is how she’s immune to this illness causing him so much grief. He’s worried, because she might be a good right hand to him now, but now that she’s back on her home territory, she might slip into old habits.

She pinky promises that the woman who her enemies would say was a backstabber might have been right once, but she wants her word to mean something now, she doesn’t want to be the Eleanor Guthrie of old.

Eleanor says she wants to help Rogers, not because her freedom (and life) depends on it, not for revenge against her enemies. He asks why and she just kisses him in response. Eleanor IS Nassau, so if Nassau crumbles, so does Eleanor.

But she’ll let him believe it’s “for him” or whatever.

After taking some advice from Billy that ghosts stories rarely start with the ghost introducing themselves plainly, Flint sends Silver in to scare the locals into being ashamed of their pardons.

When Silver finishes his speech, good ol’ Dufresne stands up and says he’s not impressed. Silver rewards him for his dissent with a mug to the face and a few bashes to the skull from his metal peg leg. It certainly helps make his point.

On the ship, Flint goes to see Silver, who is getting is re-opened stump wound tended to. SIlver says he didn’t feel it when he hit Dufresne, or as they were leaving, but he feels it now. Flint says he wasn’t asking him about his leg, but neither was Silver.

Eleanor runs to the tavern and immediately asks Max if she’s okay. Luckily, Max was not here when it happened.

I love this shot, with Max above her, Eleanor worried. How the tables have turned.

No one can be sure that it was really Silver who bashed Dufresne’s skull in, and no one saw Flint, but the message was clear nonetheless. He’ll be waiting by the beach for recruits. Rogers said that would be the worst thing, for ANYONE to be on the beach when the time comes, pirates or soldiers alike.

Rogers asks Max to make sure no one wants to go meet Flint on the beach, and Max agrees, and the look on her face…I can’t tell if she is just nervous about the future or doesn’t like taking orders from a man when she was the one giving orders not too long ago.

Eleanor warns him that Max can help, but that won’t help everyone. Though she does have an idea.

Max calls a meeting of the Midnight Society and tells them that instead of coaxing secrets out of soldiers like they usually do, they’re going to do a little covert ops prostitution and put ideas IN their heads. She wants them to tell the soldiers that they want peace, that Flint is lame, and that only cowards would join him. Also, Max has too much else going on to be a Madame anymore, so she has invited Madame Mapleton back to help out.

Max goes to get a drink, because it’s been a day.

You earned that, girl.

Mapleton thanks her for trusting her, and Max scoffs at the very idea of trusting anyone right now. Mapleton asks if Max is okay, saying that she watched Eleanor go through this very thing once, and knows how lonely she was. She says that she gave Eleanor advice that she’ll now pass down to Max; people are going to take more than they give, so you have to take from other places to make sure your own needs are met. And at the tavern, you can choose whoever you want to take care of you, and all you’ll owe them is some coin.

And what’s fucked up about that, is that Max was the one sent to Eleanor to meet those needs. Max was Eleanor’s harbor when the seas got rough. But it became more than a job to Max, and more than a way to relieve stress for Eleanor. They both ended up taking more than they intended, but neither of them could hold onto it.

So Madame Mapleton calls a girl called Georgia, and Georgia takes Max by the hand and leads her up to a bedroom like a good little peach.

Who is hopefully older than she looks.

When Flint gets to Nassau, expecting to see a swarm of his old men waiting for him on the beach, all he sees is Rogers sitting alone at a table for two. So Flint goes to meet him and they chat, face to face, man to man.

Rogers explains that technically he’s just continuing what Flint began once upon a time, so he wants to know why he’s resisting. Flint is done with England, though, and doesn’t want her filthy paws all over his filthy island.

Rogers knows Flint wants to make him the villain of his story, but to Jack’s point, he already is one, so he’s going to lean in. He says that the pardons are over and any more pirates that show up will be assumed to be on Flint’s side and hanged. He’s not afraid of Flint, even though that’s like saying you’re not afraid of sharks.

Meanwhile, Featherstone, Idelle and Vane work together to find out where the exchange of Jack for the gold is supposed to happen.

At the meeting place, Anne is met by the Brits, and when they start to take the treasure chest before proving to her that Jack is okay and with them, she knows something shady is afoot.

Ahoof?

She whips out her weapons, and they whip out theirs, but she just looks sad and angry when she sees they won’t fight back. So she stands down and watches the cart disappear. Vane appears by her side suddenly and hopes his plan is a good one.

On Flint’s ship, Vane explains that they have a plan to interrupt the caravan, and Anne says that at the end of it all, they’ll either have their good pal Jack Rackham and a shitton of gems, or they’ll have a chest full of nothing and a bunch of angry Brits.

ANNE BONNY SAILS AGAIN

What did you think of XXV? Do you think Eleanor is into Rogers or was it a power play?

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