The wait’s over folks!

Warning: Spoilers for the first season of Our Flag Means Death

It’s time to find out how Stede and his crew survived (thrived?) after the events of the last season, and some of our burning questions finally get answered, such as, what happened to Lucius (Nathan Foad)? how did Ed deal with the heart break of Stede leaving him? (spoiler: not well) and most importantly, where do the pirate lovebirds go from here? We’re still waiting on the last one.

There are reunions, some joyous, some not quite so.

Stede (Rhys Darby) has been living with the guilt of leaving Ed (Taika Waititi), and blames himself for Ed’s downward spiral into madness and the creation of the dreaded persona of Blackbeard that Ed only projected earlier, but has now become. Stede and Ed left the last season apart and confused and heartbroken, and have to deal with the fallout of their relationship before it had even truly begun. The coming episodes will show their growth together, and as individuals, where Stede has to contend with his guilt, and Ed has to confront his self-hatred and destructive tendencies, and truly become Ed again after spending a rage-filled while as Blackbeard.

The beginning of the second season finds the motley crew with a familiar bar owner, who is working them down to the bone because they are in her debt. Their debt to Spanish Jackie is paid off by Susan, a soup stall owner, who brings them on board her own, far more meticulous and disciplined ship. I was anticipating a run-in of the two ships, with Stede’s crew, now serving ‘Susan’, confronting The Revenge and the crew of familiar (and some new) faces, led by the now-maniacal Ed. After all, who could pose a threat to the greatest pirate who ever lived, than perhaps the better greatest pirate who ever lived? Alas, it didn’t exactly pan out that way, and given that Ruibo Qian is credited as a guest star and not a regular cast member, I am not very hopeful about her return. Fingers crossed though.

Speaking of the cast, the only major cast member from the first season to not make an appearance in the second is Guz Khan, who played Ivan, a member of Blackbeard’s crew. Khan cryptically tweeted that he was inexplicably dropped from the show and that was just how the industry worked. Khan’s disappearance is explained by Ivan’s offscreen death sometime before the start of the second season.

It seems there is still a long way to go, for the crew to get used to being back together, with how their separation changed their dynamics (and for some, maybe their feelings too), and for Stede and Ed to finally talk it through (as a crew).

Rating: 4.75 out of 5

Where to watch: Max