Awesome / Black Sails

II

• A new captain is debating terms of sale with Eleanor, and finally declares that he'll just take his cargo and sell it in Port Royal instead for a better price. Before Eleanor can say anything else, another man says that doing so is a bad idea. That the last man who did so ended up dead, with his cargo taken back to Nassau for sale. While the new captain proudly states that he'll not be so easy to kill, for he is 'James Bridge, of the Demeter.', he quickly back-pedals and agrees to Eleanor's terms. Why? The man simply states who he is.
  "Charles Vane, of the Ranger."

VI

• When the slaves in the Andromache's hold charge up and attack what remained of the ship's crew, they did quite well for themselves, given the fact that they had no weapons. Special mention goes to the first man through the door: he gets shot in the chest, and his reaction is to shoulder-tackle the man who shot him and keep hitting him while he's down.

VII

• Charles. Goddamn. Vane. Beaten almost to death and then buried alive by the giant Albinus, he drags himself out of the grave, stabs Albinus to death, then takes command of his men. Stark naked.
  • Vane's Dare to Be Badass speech to Albinus' men is also awesome, showing that, as formidable as he is physically, it's his mind and his way with words that make him truly dangerous.

VIII

• The Spanish Man o'War. The Walrus and the Ranger manage to maneuver it in between them and pepper it with volley after volley from both sides before a small explosion aboard makes their crews cheer, thinking that they've rendered it helpless. Then the warship starts turning, presents each with a broadside of several dozens of cannon, and effortlessly decimates both ships simultaneously. One season later, the Walrus has required extensive repairs to even be able to float home. The Ranger is never seen or mentioned again (with a second or so in the actual battle showing a magazine detonation eating about a third of the ship).

X

• Flint's plan to regain his captaincy after being deposed using Batman Gambit and Reverse Psychology on the crew: as "penance" for his failures and lies he attempts to advise Dufresne on taking a course that would allow the ship to avoid enemy vessels. Dufresne and DeGroot decide against it and take the first ship they encounter to solidify the acting captain's position...only to go pear shaped after they do and the other captain resists after realizing Flint's not in command. Dufresne is undermined, the rest of the crew vote to restore Flint back to captain. The best part is how Dufresne comes to realize this and can only relent to Flint as he has no chance against the man; the last scene of the episode is Flint standing alone in the captain's quarters victorious.

XI

• The fate of Ned Low. After three episodes of terrorising Nassau and slaughtering anyone who crosses him, his severed head is found on a stake in the street. The note attached: "I angered Charles Vane."

XVI

• Charles Vane killing Richard Guthrie. Though the actual killing couldn't have been that impressive, Charles accompanies it by pinning his manifesto to Guthrie's body, which makes it clear that his killing of Guthrie was a tool: not only did he hit Eleanor where it hurts, but he also declared his resolve by killing someone so opposed to his ideals. And of course, the note itself, read by Charles in a voice over, is awesome in its own right.
  "I was once a slave. I know too well the pain of the yoke on my shoulders and of the freedom of having cast it off. So I'm resolved, I will be no slave again. And as I am free, I hereby claim the same for Nassau. She is free today, and so long as I draw breath, she shall remain free. Richard Guthrie was engaged in an effort to see her return to the rule of a king, to see the yoke returned. He betrayed Nassau, and thus, as always, to traitors. As far as you and I, I was warned about you, warned you would betray me. I'd hoped you and I shared a love to make such a thing unthinkable. I'd hoped those warnings were wrong. But I know you too well, so I prepared in case they were right. You removed the girl from my possession, but in turn, the man-of-war moved on from the bay, moved on from a position of heightened security. Moved on to a place where its attention, Captain Flint's attention, will be so very occupied on the danger that is Charles Town and in the state of apprehension in which the last thing any of them will be watching is the water. I made clear the price for the girl. You should have known me well enough to know, one way or another, I was going to claim it. And once I do, I'll be returning to Nassau to settle the rest of my accounts."

XVII

• Though it didn't end well for her, Miranda's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Peter Ashe. The man's actions directly resulted in the death of her husband and the destruction of another man she loved, and she holds back none of her spite. Her final words of "I want to see you hanged, and I want to pull the fucking lever myself!" are some of the most awesome yet delivered.

XVIII

• Charles Vane rescuing Flint from the gallows — effectively destroying an entire city along the way.
• The battle on the water while the aforementioned is going on: On board the man-o-war, Silver withstands several minutes of torture that eventually costs him his leg rather than sell out the crew, and after enough time has passed, he cheekily asks his torturer if his subordinate has seen the keys to the rest of the crew's shackles since they took Silver away from his men. Cue the crew of the Walrus charging in and rescuing Silver, with Billy himself killing the torturer.
  • Immediately after, the three pirate-hunter brigs in Charlestown bay scramble and attempt to flank the man-o-war. The man-o-war opens fire on the ships, and though we don't see what actually happens, when next we see the bay, the three brigs are all capsized and the man-o-war is non the worse for wear.

XXV

• Silver's confrontation with Dufresne. Culminating in him knocking Dufresne down, stomping his head into bloody paste with his peg-leg, and warning all present that they're going to have to choose which side they're on.
  "My name is John Silver. And I've got a long fucking memory."

XXVI

• The battle on the road. Not only is the cinematography great, with a brilliant use of The Oner from the moment Vane, Flint, Bonny, and Bones attack the convoy to after the carriage is forced off the road and flipped over, but the characters come through as well. Charles Vane of course does great, but so too does Woodes Rogers, personally taking part in the defense. The best part is the fight between Woodes Rogers and Charles Vane: both are wounded, the former from being thrown from a carriage, the latter from being shot in the thigh, but both power through their pain and beat each other half to death.

XXVII

• The death of Charles Vane. He's tried and condemned by an ad hoc Kangaroo Court set up by Eleanor Guthrie, and then taken to be hanged in the morning. After being told by a pastor that even men who are fearless begin to fear death on their walk to the gallows, Charles truly shows none. When Billy is about to stage a rescue attempt, Vane catches his eye and gives a small shake of his head, telling him not to go through with it. He knows the chances of his escaping hundreds of redcoats are next to none, and he doesn't want Billy to die pointlessly. More than that, Charles wants his own death to make a point. He addresses the crowd with a short speech; when he begins, they're jeering at him, when he finishes, they all look like they're fighting back tears, and they even look disgusted. He tops it all with some of the most hardcore last words ever uttered, to his hangman: "Get on with it, motherfucker." This moment was supposed to be a moment of victory for the British, where they hang one of Nassau's most notorious pirates and symbolically destroy the pirate threat. Instead, it's Charles Vane's finest moment, and all the British get is the beginning of the resistance in Nassau.
  "These men who brought me here today do not fear me. They brought me here today because they fear you. Because they know that my voice, a voice that refuses to be enslaved, once lived in you, and may yet still. They brought me here today to show you death, and use it to frighten you into ignoring that voice. But know this: we are many, they are few. To fear death is a choice, and they can't hang us all."
  • What makes it even more awesome is that Flint himself feared that Charles' death would send entirely the wrong message, and had Billy stage the rescue attempt for that reason alone. In one swoop Charles proves that he understands the hearts of the people of Nassau much better than the most feared pirate in the world, and that his belief in freedom and anarchy really is more than just an excuse to do as he likes: he's truly willing to die to facilitate Nassau's eventual rebellion. And so he does.
  • Two men out of the crowd (only one of them Billy's revolutionaries) grab Charles as he's hanging and tug him down to hasten his death. It's a sign of mercy to the condemned when the hanging isn't a short-drop neck-break, and it shows with utter clarity that Charles' message hit home.
  • Furthermore, watch how Charles dies. The wagon he's standing on starts moving and he doesn't let it be pulled out from under him, he walks off of it. He chooses to die, rather than be killed by his executioners. Even in death, badass thy name is Charles Vane.

XXVIII

• Anne Bonny's amphibious assault on HMS Orion, which forces the entire Royal Navy flotilla to retreat. To clarify, she leads a boarding party swimming under water to take Hornigold's ship. Her party then takes control of the chaser cannons on the stern of the ship and fire on Rogers' flagship, scoring perfect hits that decimate the gun crews, crippling its ability to fight back.
  Commodore Chamberlain: "Get the gun crews to resume firing."
  Junior Officer: (surveys the damage and the large number of wounded sailors) "...how, sir?"
• Captain Flint's ambush of an entire company of royal marines. In the wake of a long string of apparent defeats for the combined pirate/maroon force, dozens of men burst out of covered shallow holes in the ground and tear the marines to shreds. The best moment in this ambush, and quite possibly the most badass thing Flint has ever done, is his killing of Hornigold. He and Hornigold make eye contact from across the field, and Hornigold spurs his horse at Flint, intent on riding him down. Flint drops to one knee and calmly reloads a musket before taking Hornigold through the chest.
• To give the antagonists their due, the Red Coats show just why they're the most feared army in Europe. Despite taking heavy casualties establishing a beachhead, they're disciplined enough to form up into firing lines in good order, and once they do, their barrages are devastating. Watching the Redcoats march, form ranks, aim, and fire with utter precision lets anyone wondering know exactly why there's a British Empire at this point in time.
• Billy Bones mythologizing Long John Silver as the new leaders of the pirates assemble.
  "I've watched her (Nassau) follow mad men. I've watched her follow rich men. I've watched her bow before tyrants. But now, it's time she had a king. When we're ready, when he's ready, he'll step into the role we've created for him. And lead an impossible army into an unwinnable war... and win it."
  • And of course, there's the letter he sent to accompany the hanging of Captain Throckmorton:
    "I was no one, and then you came and my island fell, and I became something else. On the night I confiscated the pardon rolls, on the night I started becoming... I made clear my position, that there will be two sorts of men on this island going forward. Those like Captain Vane, determined to stand by their oaths to the very end, and those like Captain Throckmorton, happy to be the first to betray it. And thus, as always, to traitors... Captain Throckmorton's Black Spot will not be the last. Ignore it, and join him. Heed it, and reclaim your place amongst us. Until then, I remain, Long John Silver."
  • Max is the one reading this letter, and her conflicted emotions sell the scene. She and Silver had never been close, but they had been partners upon a time, and she knows full well how clever and resourceful he can be... and how he seems to refuse to die no matter who tries to get rid of him. That she actually believes he might be this new phantom is a testament to just how much she's seen him come into his own since the first season, or Billy's scheme would have fallen apart the moment it came into contact with her.

XXXI

• Blackbeard's death. After having been captured by Rogers and his men in an ambush along with Rackham and Bonny, all of the Revenge's officers and crew face keelhauling: an absolutely brutal naval execution wherein a sailor is slowly dragged with ropes along the keel of a ship, being cut to shreds by the barnacles and splinters beneath. It's considered near-impossible to survive a keelhauling. Teach survives three of them. In the end, it takes Rogers shooting him in the head to put him down for good. This is Truth in Television as well, as the real-life Blackbeard was recorded as having been just as difficult to kill.
  • What makes this doubly great is that Rogers had intended to keelhaul the officers first in order to break the morale of the crew - and Rogers singles out Jack to be next in line. Yet after three keelhauls, Teach is not only alive but awake. Rather than intimidate his captives, Rogers ends up looking like a petulant child, sending the exact opposite message than the one he intended. As such, he orders the rest of his captives brought back to Nassau. Teach saved not just Jack's life, but the lives of everyone on his crew.

XXXVII

• Flint vs Joji. The fight lasts a good few minutes, and Joji gives Flint probably the toughest one-on-one challenge he's faced in the whole series.