The season 2 finale of Our Flag Means Death, Max’s queer-friendly pirate dramedy, aired the other week. The season ended with lead characters Stede Bonnet and Ed “Blackbeard” Teach settling down and running an inn together, which could mark an end for their journey.
Then again, show creator David Jenkins says he has plans for a third and final season, if only Max renews the series. As of now, we don’t know whether that will happen, and HBO CEO Casey Bloys sounds like he’s on the fence about it. That according to Decider senior critic Meghan O’Keefe, who tweeted from a press event where HBO and Max unveiled what they have planned for the coming year. HBO CEO Casey Bloys himself took the stage:
The one thing I will tweet out from this Max 2024 Slate Preview I'm at is Casey Bloys was just asked about #OFMD S3 and said it's too soon to say. They're looking at how it performs in a longer window. Says it's a "great show," figuring out if a greenlight "makes sense."
— Meghan O’Keefe (@megsokay) November 2, 2023
So according to Bloys, HBO is waiting to see how Our Flag Means Death performs over a longer period of time before deciding whether to bring it back. I think that’s probably a good sign, because Our Flag Means Death is the kind of show that fans will return to. People get passionate about this series. Reports indicate that it’s always been the sort of show to grow in popularity over time as more people discover it. So I don’t think Our Flag Means Death fans need to give up hope.
What would Our Flag Means Death season 3 be about?
If Our Flag Means Death does return for season 3, what would we see? In an earlier interview, Jenkins talked about how the first season found Ed and Stede falling in love in the way that “immature” teens might do it, all flush with excitement over this rare new thing. Season 2 was about “people in their 20s trying to learn it if they want to move in together,” and the third would explore…
"[W]hat happens after you start a small business together? How does that work? How do you keep a relationship going? What are the problems in a relationship that are more than just like, oh, does he like me or does he not like me? How do you be a person for that person, and continue to grow with them? What happens if one of them stops growing and you keep growing? That, to me, is a natural outgrowth of what we like in happily ever after. Just because you’re not emotionally in your 20s doesn’t mean the love story stops…We need more love stories where we see this love mature."
Of course, Our Flag Means Death has characters other than Ed and Stede. At the end of season 2, most of them were sailing off to get revenge on Prince Ricky Banes, who destroyed the Republic of Pirates. They’ll be involved, too.
“I would very much like to see pirates come to America,” Jenkins continued. “Historically, they were in New York City and the Carolinas. And now, in the story, the Republic of Pirates is gone… I think that stories about piracy are a little bit like stories about the West. They’re stories about these things that are going to end inevitably…In some ways, I think then seeing them have to deal with some of these things in a country that’s coming together would be good. And I think it would be a good way to end the season, and see how they adjust to it.”
Here’s hoping that Bloys and company like Our Flag Means Death enough to give it a proper ending with a third season.
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