Pirate break-ups are murder in the first teaser for Our Flag Means Death season 2
Stede's writing love-letters and Blackbeard's crashing weddings as Taika Waititi's MAX series gears up for an October return
It’s been a year and a half since we last checked in on Stede Bonnet, Blackbeard, and the crew of the Revenge in MAX’s surprisingly joyful (and romantic!) pirate comedy Our Flag Means Death. It was a long, occasionally sad parting, especially since the network very decidedly took its time in announcing whether the show would be getting a much-teased second season. Now, though, all is well, as MAX released the first official teaser for the show’s new episodes today, and everything is going… uh…
Kind of violently crappy, actually.
As fans of the show will recall, the first season of Our Flag Means Death didn’t end with the happiest of outcomes. Sure, Rhys Darby’s “Gentleman Pirate” finally, fully commits to his new life, reconciling with his estranged and abandoned wife in the process. But he did so only after inadvertently convincing Taika Waitit’s Blackbeard that he’d abandoned him, and, as it turns out, the most dangerous pirate on the planet doesn’t actually take rejection all that well.
So as much as Stede spends this new teaser penning love letters to “Ed” while Prince And The Revolution’s “The Beautiful Ones” plays, Blackbeard is busy sewing heartbroken hell across the Caribbean. (Note to wedding planners: Do not invite a sad pirate to your wedding! It never turns out well.) The most important thing, honestly, are the hints of tone—suggesting that one of TV’s sweetest shows about awful, horrible historical murderers is still capable of walking that very narrow plank that made the first season so compelling.
Our Flag Means Death returns for its second season on October 5 on MAX—although unlike its first season, the show won’t be dropping the entire season all at once, and will instead be rolling out a few episodes per week throughout October.