Now that was more like it. It turns
that, unsurprisingly, what Black Sails
needed was an episodic focus. Two of its three major plotlines,
Eleanor's and Flint's, are given a direct, specific tension largely
lacking from previous episodes: Flint is attacking a merchant ship,
and Eleanor is attempting to regain control of Nassau's economy. With
straightforward, clear goals for its major characters, Black
Sails is able to make the
presentation of its story more important than the details of its
story. For a show with such strong stylistic potential, this is an
unambiguously positive step.
Flint's story is the more
impressive of the two, so let's start there. Last week's cliffhanger
saw the Andromache, the merchantman which was supposed to be aligned
with Nassau's interests, leave the island without giving Flint and
Eleanor its promised guns, and Flint promises to chase it down. “V.”
starts immediately on the Walrus, with Flint and Billy preparing for
the upcoming battle. Flint's section of the story, while it relates
to what else has happened—Billy asks about Ms. Barlowe, for
example—takes place entirely on those two ships.
This focus
is refreshing because Black Sails' structure so far has been based on the shifting alliances on the
island, but without those alliances coming to fruition. It's been all
rising action, no climax. This has hurt the show because, well,
stories are more interesting when things happen, generally. But more
than that, it's that, as I discussed last week, we know what the
climax of this story is going to be. The plot
details of how Flint is going to attack the treasure galleon aren't
interesting in and of themselves because we know he's still going to
attack it. But the mechanics of how
that attack will occur can still be interesting if done well, like
the sit-down between Vane and Flint was.
The attempt to get
the guns, therefore, turns into a series of obstacles to be overcome,
as opposed to alliances which are made then taken ago. There's a
sense of progress to the former, while the latter feels like the show
is witholding progress in order to take up time.
Black
Sails provides to progress with
both the details of the piracy, and with visual flair. The first
major problem to be solved? The Walrus isn't fast enough. So, Flint
decides to pull off a risky move putting on more sails and
potentially breaking the mast. And while we know that the outcome of
this is almost certainly going to be the Walrus surviving and picking
up speed, it remains interesting due to the visual flair. The ship
becomes unstable, waves crash against the sides, splashing the
characters, and the crisis has a tactile drive, even though it lacks
a plot drive. The formal mechanisms by which the story is tols is
more important than the story itself.
Which is not to say that
the story details are bad in this case. The next phase of the battle,
in which the Walrus crew plans their attack on a superior vessel. I'm
a big fan of seeing tactical planning, then the tactics carried out.
In the past couple decades, there's been a general focus on treating
action sequences entirely as adrenaline-focused chaos, all quick cuts
and extreme close-ups. I tend to prefer action sequences that
maintain a narrative throughout a physical space I can
comprehend—which direction the ships are facing, why it's important
that they do that, how the battle will proceed. Black Sails
managed that.
Cleverly, Black Sails
also managed to provide the chaotic action sequence as well, but
added a story to it. The ship's bookkeeper, Dufresne, has been around
the edges of the show for a while, but he becomes the point of view
character for the fight tonight. This works for the show because he's
a newbie and, being an 18th century nerd, an underdog to root
for. The chaos of ship-to-ship combat can be as chaotic as it is
because Dufresne is new to it, and because we have a general idea of
the big picture.
The twist at the end also serves Black
Sails well. The Andromache's
captain is hiding in his hold, with a bunch of slaves (including Mr.
Scott), and he's called the British war vessel Scarborough in for
help. First, it means that we've probably got another focused episode next
week, except with Flint on his heels instead of leading the charge.
And second, because it helps reposition Flint and the pirates as, if
not necessarily “good guys,” not-as-evil-as the slave traders
they're attacking.
Eleanor's story is pushed to the side
thanks to the drama of the pirate battle, but that helps it as well.
She has a straightforward problem, and she attempts to confront it
head-on. For the first time since glimpses in the pilot, we see
Eleanor as a person who deserves to run Nassau. Instead of
surrendering, as her father wants, she comes up with a workable plan,
and starts to work directly toward it. She gets a cliffhanger as
well—the demand to lift the ban on Vane—but that, too, is less of
a withholding of previously-achieved progress and more of another
obstacle.
“V.” also at least slows down being so horrible
with Max's rape storyline. Max may not have her agency returned to
her, but in scene where she interacts with Anne Bonny, she at least
is given a voice and the sort of subjective perspective missing from
previous episodes. I'm still unhappy with Black Sails
overall about this plotline, but the problems with Max's story didn't
damage this individual episode.
Finally, arguably the most
important aspect of “V.”'s quality is that the characters and
writers of Black Sails
feel more comfortable with the show's characters. There's a level of
cleverness making interactions much more watchable than they have
been. The initial conversation between Billy and Flint, for example,
make me chuckle at least twice. “How can you pretend you
have no doubts about this?” “Years of practice,” and Flint's
wink when asked if that was the truth. There are still plenty of
different ways that Black Sails
can mess up in the future, but “V.” demonstrates that the show
does have strengths, and the people making it do recognize those
strengths.
Stray observations:
- I quite like Mr. de Groot, the man whose job
it is to be right about the ship, but wrong for the story. Usually
that role goes to a nagging wife character.t - Every time he talks to Flint, Billy
believes him “Billy, you're the easily suggestible type.” “Yes,
Captain, I AM the easily suggestible type.” - “We talked like
men, and he saw reason.” “Fuck you.”
“Not you. You're not
strong enough?” “I don't know. But I think it's probably time I
found out.” I have no idea what Vane is doing, but he sure sounded
like it was important.
So, when the captain of the Andromache told
his quartermaster to reinforce the china in the hold, was that him
being totally unconcerned about Flint's attack, or was that code for
them doing the hiding-in-the-hold thing?