Review: Our Flag Means Death returns with more quirky melodrama on the high seas

Our Flag Means Death, Max’s charming pirate dramedy, returns today; the first three episodes of season 2 are all available to watch right now. If you haven’t yet jumped on board, now is a good time, because the show is as good as ever.

“Good” is the operative word here. I liked the first season of Our Flag Means Death. The ensemble cast, which includes Rhys Darby as irrepressibly optimistic “gentleman pirate” Stede Bonnet and Taika Waititi as the fearsome Blackbeard, runs deep. The jokes are generally pretty gentle; most of the time they involve contrasting our cast of sensitive buckeneers with the harshness of criminal life during the golden age of piracy. So our sensitive hero Stede, say, will wince in genteel Victorian shock as Spanish Jackie (Leslie Jones) slices the nose off someone who crossed her. (She keeps noses in a jar; she’s quirky like that.)

And then there’s the romance…The most shocking part of the first season of Our Flag Means Death was learning that it wasn’t really a comedy, but a love story. Stede Bonnet and Blackbeard (or “Ed,” as Stede calls him) have the unlikeliest of courtships, with the foppish Stede softening the heart of the grim Blackbeard.

I didn’t expect HBO to produce an expensive period show with a gay romance at its center. But queerness is at the heart of why Our Flag Means Death developed such a passionate fanbase so quickly. There are multiple queer romances on the show. The irritable pirate Black Pete (Matthew Maher) hooks up with dandy scribe Lucius (Nathan Foad). Non-binary actor Vico Ortiz plays warrior pirate Jim, who in season 2 is caught in something of a love triangle with their male lover Oluwande (Samson Kayo) and their new crewmate Archie, played by Madeleine Sami.

And all of this is allowed to happen without a cloud of period-appropriate prejudice hanging overhead. The characters are in danger of heartbreak and misadventure, but not bigotry. Our Flag Means Death isn’t trying to accurately depict history — everyone cheerfully speaks with 21st century lingo, for example — it’s here to have a good time, and it does.

All of the elements that made the first season of Our Flag Means Death so fun return in season 2: the tongue-in-cheek gags, the earnest romance, the impressive sets and costumes, the unapologetic queerness, etc. The pieces are all there, but I don’t think Our Flag Means Death quite does enough with them. The show is funny…but it’s never had me gasping for air. It’s dramatic…but it’s not gonna tear anyone’s heart out. Our Flag Means Death is pleasant. It’s easily digestible, nice to look at, and fun to watch, and that’s great. But it doesn’t take the kinds of big swings that make me love a show. So far as these first three episodes go, I’m happy to settle for liking it.

Our Flag Means Death review, Episodes 201-203

As for what actually happens in these episodes, we catch up with Stede and Blackbeard after Stede left him at the alter, so to speak, in the season 1 finale. The show made an interesting choice with that moment, since it’s never explicitly spelled out why Stede chooses to return to his wife rather than run away with Blackbeard. Maybe he just needed to try straight married life one more time to make extra special sure it wasn’t for him. At the start of season 2, he’s back with his crew trying to save up enough for a new ship.

So Stede is doing relatively okay after leaving Blackbeard, still nursing the hope that they’ll back together and channeling the spirit of Ross Geller by telling anyone who will listen that they were only “on a break.” Blackbeard, on the other hand, is destroyed. He goes full sea demon, slathering himself in emo makeup and raiding weddings at sea just to ruin everyone’s good time. Eventually he shoots his first mate Izzy (Con O’Neill) in the leg and then steers the Revenge into a storm hoping to end it all, which is what finally pushes his crew to mutiny.

Taika Waititi is known mainly as the director of movies like Thor: Ragnarok and Jojo Rabbit, and I wasn’t sure about the idea in a lead role on a dramedy. But he’s a highlight. His comic sensibilities are excellent, he looks the part with his scraggly hair and mad darting eyes, and he effectively sells Blackbeard’s more poignant moments, like at the end of the premiere when he pontificates about birds who are born in the air and fly their entire lives through. In Episode 3, Blackbeard gets an extended dream sequence where Waititi gets to shift between confused, playful and existential. Honestly, I could stand for the show to sit a little longer with one tone sometimes, but the point is that Waititi is game for anything.

Meanwhile, Team Stede joins us up with a pirate queen played by Ruibo Qian, who’s probably my favorite new addition to the cast so far. Everyone on Our Flag Means Death talks like they belong in the 21th century, but her manner is so matter-of-fact modern that it makes me giggle, especially given her position of leadership and fearsome reputation. She also has a thing for Oluwande, so that love triangle I mentioned above may actually be a love square. More as it develops.

The third episode ends with Stede and Blackbeard finally reuniting, because of course it does; they know we want to see them together again and they’re going to make us wait a week for it. And I’ll be there. Sometimes the simplest pleasures are the best.

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