Welcome to the Legion!

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Another strong episode this week as Flint, Silver, and the rest of the Walrus crew find themselves captured by Maroons, escaped slaves who formed an independent settlement deep within the island. Back on Nassau, Vane narrowly escapes and joins Blackbeard’s crew to send the English blockade a teeny message. But none of that compares to the crazy revelation we get at the end of the episode. Not that you need to be warned if you are a regular reader here, but…spoilers!

HOLY CRAP! Can we talk about Mr. Scott for a moment?

First allow me to explain a couple of details. The queen of the Maroon camp, in which Flint and his crew are currently being held, is extremely adamant about keeping their location secret. Her daughter may have a sympathetic ear for the pirates, but the queen has more faith in putting them all to death if it means keeping their secret. There are a few lines in their conversation that hint to the establishment’s king. It’s previously noted by one of the pirates that while there is a king, they’ve never seen him. Why? Well that’s because the king is away, providing for the settlement on the outside…on Nassau.

Hmmmm. Who do we know is a former African slave AND on Nassau? OH YEAH. Mr. Scott. He’s the away king who has been secretly sending supplies to the island, as well as the occasional escaped slave or two. For YEARS he has done this under everyone’s nose! Under the Guthrie’s noses! Seriously, the revelation was like a boulder rolling down a mountain. The more information we got, the faster I braced myself for the imminent crash.

This is completely rectifies Mr. Scott as a character who was mostly pushed to the wayside amidst all the pirate drama last season and this season. But now he’s being brought up front and center as a crucial character, if Flint and company expect to survive. That is, assuming Mr. Scott lives through the night.

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Earlier in the episode, we hear that the slaves repairing the fort escaped under the cover of darkness. Mr. Scott offers retrieve them himself instead of having some less understanding British soldiers do it themselves. Fast forward to the end, we see Scott helping the slaves escape and giving them instructions on how to approach the Maroon island. They were caught by a pair of British patrolmen and were forced to exchange fire. In an attempt to maintain his cover, Scott tries to appeal to the British that there’s been a misunderstanding. But before he even could form an entire sentence, he was caught in the crossfire and badly wounded. We last see Scott taken by the surviving slaves into their boat. We also know that one of the patrolmen is still half alive. If he also survives the night until someone comes looking for him, Scott cover is most assuredly blown.

Back on Maroon Island, Silver and Billy are both formulating their own plans on how to leave the island alive. Billy is optimistic that most of them can survive an escape with the help of a pirate from a previous, and dead, crew. Silver lucks into an internal struggle between the queen and her daughter, Madi, and believes he can talk their way out of this. Flint, on the other hand, is still in a bad place. He still visits with Miranda in his mind, bargaining for a way to keep her with him. It seems that Flint is still unwilling to let go of a great many things that probably should have left his mind’s shores ages ago. Though while Flint is stuck in some kind of mental purgatory, he still manages to glean into Woodes Rogers’ plan: to civilize Nassau again with the help of a universal pardon. Gee, that sounds familiar. Could it be because that was his plan when first coming to Nassau as a British Naval Officer? There has to be a connection linking Rogers and Flint, but I just can’t see what it is yet.

As for Charles Vane, he barely escapes Nassau no thanks to the hefty bounty hanging over his head. Still holed up inside the fort, Jack, his quartermaster, and Anne devise a plan to blow a hole in one of the fort’s walls and allow Vane to escape. The rest of them will stay and push back any resistance that come their way. As Vane makes his way to the shore, he’s met with some resistance from those who want the bounty. Thankfully, Blackbeard appears just in time to help kill anyone standing in the way.

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On Blackbeard’s boat, Vane discovers that Eleanor is on Woodes’ ship. He and Blackbeard make an education guess and suppose she’s the reason why the universal pardon excludes Vane. I don’t remember her having any sort of hand in this, so I maintain that it was because Vane practically blew up all of Charleston as the real reason he’s being excluded. Flint would likely be on that short list as well if the British weren’t already under the impression that he died in that storm.

In the night, Vane and Blackbeard send a fireship at Woodes’ fleet and one of his ships ablaze. While everyone’s distracted, two ships slip past the line. I can’t tell if their Woodes’ ships are Blackbeard’s. I’m going to go with Blackbeard’s. The overall confrontation this week between the two parties seemed to work as both a message (“Don’t f**k with us”) and as a way to gain the upper hand somehow. We’ll find out next week!

Black Sails “XXII” is another strong episode in what is turning out to be the best season yet. I can only describe the direction on the show as a wonderfully orchestrated chaos. Certain events in the story that take place on one end of the spectrum is effecting what is happening on the other, and vice versa. Yet no one is the wiser. It’s delicious and magnificent, and I can’t wait to see what happens next week.

FINAL THOUGHTS: 

  • Another well-known Treasure Island character makes his way on to the show. Ben Gunn (Chris Fisher) is the last survivor of a pirate crew that came to Maroon Island before the Walrus. He was locked up in with Billy, Silver, and Flint, et al.
  • That fireship, though!

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Christina E. Janke

Christina is the co-host of “Intro to Geek” on Shauncastic and Editor-in-Chief at Agents of Geek. Her love of all things Mass Effect knows no bounds. She also carries an obsession with comic books, video games, and quirky television shows. Her heroes are Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Gail Simone. She hopes to be just like them when she grows up.