Recap / Black Sails S 1 E 1 I

"I'm not just gonna make you rich. I'm not just gonna make you strong. I'm gonna make you the princes of the New World!"

1715: The Golden Age of Piracy. New Providence is a lawless island, controlled by history's most notorious pirate captains. The most feared: Captain Flint.

A merchant ship is run down by pirates. In the cabin's hold, we see a man tear pages from the third volume of four books. He wraps them in a leather wallet, stows them in his jacket, and then hides in the hold, alongside a young man named John Silver. The pirates are almost upon them.

The two interrogate each other on their hiding. Silver is new, unknown. He explains that he simply isn't a fighter. In turn, the man claims he's a cook, which is always a job in great demand at sea. But the wallet he has is exposed, and Silver suspects a greater reason.

On deck, the captain and his men barricade themselves in a cabin and fight the pirates as they break in, but are overcome. Once the battle is over, a pirate crewmember, Singleton, preaches to the surviving crewmates, proclaiming them victims of a tyrant who gave them no choice - their captain. We meet Billy Bones, a newcomer on the pirate ship, Mr. Gates, the bosun, and Captain James Flint.

Over the course of the episode, Flint searches for the missing pages, bargains with Mr. Guthrie, and duels Singleton over a claim of theft. Charles Vane's crew, Max, and Eleanor Guthrie all also make their first appearances

Tropes:

• Aloof Leader, Affable Subordinate: Flint is shown to be mysterious to his crew, while Gates is more present and approachable.
• Always a Bigger Fish: The Walrus has to make tracks after the opening when they spot the Man O' War ship Scarborough (essentially a floating fortress) on the horizon. The ship itself is a herald of the British and Spanish empires starting to come down on the pirates.
• Audience Surrogate:
  • Like the audience, Billy Bones is a newer member of the crew who wants to know what's going on with no ulterior motives.
  • Silver plays the other half of this, being unfamiliar with the pirate way of life and needing things explained to him.
• Badass Boast: Flint's, seen above.
  • He also has another earlier in the episode.
    Flint: If we are to survive, we must unite behind our own king.
    Bones: We have no kings here.
    Flint: ...I am your king.
• Badass Crew: The crew of the Walrus are introduced this way.
• Batman Gambit: Flint does one right after a Xanatos Gambit (see below). Not having the missing pages, but needing to sell the crew on the heist now, he pretends to take them off of Singleton's corpse and hands them (actually a blank piece of paper) to Billy Bones. Either Bones has to call Flint a liar in front of the whole crew after he got them riled up, or he can lie about it and let Flint finish his pitch. Flint correctly guesses that he'll do the latter.
• Bisexual Love Triangle: Eleanor is recently exes with Vane, but is shown to be having sex with Max in the present day.
• Combat Breakdown: Flint and Singleton start out dueling, but start punching each other pretty quickly and, with the breaking of one sword, devolve into ground-and-pound brawling, that ultimately ends with Flint bashing Singleton's head in with a cannon ball.
• Cool Ship: The Walrus, Flint's ship.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Richard Guthrie makes his living running the stolen cargo the pirates take and selling it to legitimate operations.
• Duel to the Death: Between Flint and Singleton.
• Dumb Muscle: Downplayed in the case of Singleton. He's very strong in a fight while also being cunning enough to secure a majority vote before he challenges Flint for the Captaincy. The "Dumb" part comes from the fact that despite these qualities, none of the main cast believe him to be a very good sailor or leader. Vane and Rackham were actually planning to exploit this, with the end goal that Singleton's incompetence would end up driving many of the Walrus crew to defect, allowing Vane and Rackham to recruit them themselves.
• The Easy Way or the Hard Way: Flint tries to get a name from Richard Guthrie with a pitch, but when that doesn't work, he resorts to arm-locking him until the pain makes him give it up.
• Enemy Mine: Silver and Max don't know each other from Adam, but the promise of mutual profit lets him trust her to set up a buyer for his stolen pages.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • Silver hides from open combat, but kills the cook offscreen to take the valuable information he knew he had, then bluffs his way onto the Walrus's crew to make use of it. He's not traditionally brave, he's opportunistic, and he jumps into situations without being sure how they'll shake out.
  • Flint refuses to share information with the crew, kidnaps Richard Guthrie given a chance, but then beats Singleton in a duel and wins the loyalty of his crew with a speech. He's standoffish and improvising, but visionary and a badass when it comes down to it.
  • Eleanor Guthrie calls out someone when they talk back to her in a very sexual way by saying she'll excuse it since he's a top earner for her business, before turning his insult back in a funny way. She's a leader, a businesswoman, capable of being rude, and a sexual being.
  • Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, and Charles Vane are introduced together. Bonny kills a larger man with little effort, Vane says not a word but is recognized on sight, and Rackham simply watches.
• Fanservice: In addition to Max's scenes, several undressed prostitutes are seen.
• Improvised Weapon: Flint uses a small cannonball to harden a blow against Singleton.
• Indy Ploy: Flint goes to Richard to get information, but when authorities arrive to investigate him for corruption, Flint has to kill them and kidnaps Guthrie wholesale to keep him - and his black market - out of their hands.
• Kingmaker Scenario: The dark-skinned crew member Mosiah and his bloc of crewmates end up being the deciding votes for Flint remaining Captain. Gates manages to convince him, but then Vane kills him.
• Let Me Get This Straight...:

Gates: "Where is the schedule?"

Flint: "Minor obstacle. But we're getting close."

Gates: "Let me see if I have this right. This is the fourth prize in a row from which the profits will barely exceed the expenses it took to win it. Singleton's out there trying to convince your crew to torture that poor bastard of a captain simply 'cause he hasn't worked out how to get them to do it to you. But all is well because you've discovered that the information we can't tell anybody we're looking for exists on a page- (snaps log book shut) that we don't have."

Flint: "Don't have yet."

• Ms. Fanservice: How Max makes her debut.
• The Mutiny: Flint is in danger of this as the search for the Urca has resulted in a stretch of unprofitable raids and his popularity waning.
• Mr. Smith: Flint introduces himself as Mr. Smith when he goes to see Richard Guthrie.
• The Reveal: Flint reveals his vision of taking the Urica de Lima about 35 minutes in.
• Rousing Speech: Flint's, at the end.
• Rules Lawyer: Singleton is seen vigorously exhorting a raided ship's crew to join the Walrus, but Gates notes that it's probably because he wants their votes for him as captain.
• The Smart Guy: The ship's accountant, Dufresne, who tallies up the take from each raid.
• Spotting the Thread: When Silver sneaks on to the Walrus in order to match the missing page with the logbook, he unwittingly leaves a white feather from Eleanor's Inn on the floor. Flint discovering this clues him in that not only did somebody sneak into his quarters, but that it had to be somebody from his crew.
• A Storm Is Coming: Flint warns that all the civilized nations of the world will soon be coming down on pirates.
• Truth in Television:
  • As in real life, pirate captains are selected by the crew's votes, and the candidates have no choice but to comply, since it's impossible to run a ship if a majority of the crew don't feel like it.
  • Despite being a Badass Crew with a Cool Boat, the Walrus crew beat a hasty retreat when faced with a Royal Navy Man O' War. Contrary to popular belief, pirates very rarely engaged actual navy ships in open combat without either fire superiority or overwhelming numbers as most pirates ships were not purpose built warships like the Scarborough but repurposed merchant vessels.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Flint is hard to get along with, but declares his goals necessary to save the pirate way of life from the long reach of the empires.
• Xanatos Gambit: Not knowing who has the missing pages and needing to end the incipient mutiny, Flint accuses Singleton of having stolen them and thus instigates a duel to the death. If he did steal them, he'll get them off his corpse. If he didn't (which he knows is likely), he can still end the mutiny by killing its leader, and use the whole event to sell the crew on the Urica de Lima heist. It works perfectly.