Dark Men To Do Dark Things

Add another Frontier Partisans drama to January’s riches. First we get Taboo on January 10, then Frontier on January 20. And then, on January 29, Black Sails begins what can only be a very bloody cruise into the sunset. Interestingly, all three series have a similar theme: resistance to the spreading tentacles of British mercantile imperialism.

The STARZ pirate drama will end with this, the fourth season. I will binge-watch Season 3 to set it up and then swing on board for the final cannonade.

(Spoilers)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0UYpfzBFR8

Black Sails, it turns out, is a political drama as much as it is anything. Some felt that Season 1 slighted action in favor of the politics of the Pirate Republic of Nassau. I see where they’re coming from, though I liked the intrigue and maneuvering. Season 2, which I watched in the space of a week last winter, amped up the action a fair bit, while retaining the Machiavellian crosses and double-crosses.

I haven’t watched Season 3 yet, but I’m looking forward to starting it as early as next week. I mean, Ray Stevenson as Edward Teach? C’mon.

Black Sails features several strong female characters, handled in a realistic way. Anne Bonny is a badass (borderline psycho) woman warrior, but believable (and believably tormented). Max, born a slave, horribly abused by pirate Charles Vane’s crew, emerges as the unlikeliest of power players — an intel broker and a lesbian temptress. Eleanor Guthrie is a hot-head who is willing to go to any length to stay on top of her commercial empire, but whose constantly boiling rage leads her to rash mistakes.

Each is, in her way, glorious to gaze upon.

There’s a lot of sex, and sexual politics, at play. As mentioned, Max leads more than one lass to her bed. One way to forge alliances. Some folks got their knickers in a twist over a homoerotic subplot in Season 2 involving a younger James Flint, but I found it very much true to the 18^th Century setting. There’s plenty of heterosexual action as well, again fraught with hidden (or explicit) agendas.

The attempt to establish and hold onto a Republic of Pirates in the face of an assertive British Empire has historical foundation, though it’s heavily fictionalized here. As an early imbiber of Robert E. Howard, the theme of barbarism vs. civilization resonates, of course, and there is more than a little truth in the notion that the Empire was piracy writ large and legalized.

The tale is a prequel to Treasure Island, and one significant arc is the transformation of John Silver from a craven, charming manipulator out only for his own petty and short-term interests into an operator and a leader — with one leg.

Benerson Little, whose work on the authentic world of the pirates I greatly admire, is a consultant on the series, which looks great, drives hard and spins a fine yarn of the vast, rich maritime frontier of early 18^th Century.