GOOD BUT ULTIMATELY DISAPPOINTING | Analytical Review (and history lesson) For Our Flag Means Death 

It doesn't look like anyone's jumping down your throat, and I'm glad. I think probably your detailed, thoughtful, critical, analytical approach encourages the same in others. Love to see people disagreeing respectfully! Re: Stede, I don't think any of us are going to disagree with you about the selfish aspects of his character; his frequent self-centered words and actions are widely discussed. But one of the things many of us love about him is that he's a lot more complicated than that, and I feel like you've short-changed him by not acknowledging the times when he is selfless, giving, caring, and generous. In the very first episode we see that he pays his crew a salary, provides a number of benefits to improve their lives, shares his precious library openly (although his class-based naivete in not realizing no one can read is a well-established character flaw) and puts a lot of effort into creating and modeling a non-toxic environment, encouraging feedback and open dialogue, thoughtfully listening to and incorporating suggestions from his crew rather than employing violence and punishment. This is correctly presented as radically unusual, a divergence from a culture built on cruelty. He also is never seen to treat anyone differently based on race, although we see several times that racism is real and thriving in this world (have to acknowledge again, however, his class- and race-based naivete in not always understanding how race and class have affected others). In episode 6 when Ed tells Stede that *he was planning to murder him and steal his identity*, Stede immediately brushes this aside in favor of comforting a friend who is hurting. And then there's leaving Ed and returning to his family, which was A GIANT FUCKUP but was not selfish. It was not what he wanted and he did not expect to benefit. Although he selfishly left his family, he spends the entire season wracked with guilt and worrying about their welfare, and he returns because he thinks it's the right thing to do, even though he knows he'll be miserable there. He leaves Ed because he legitimately thinks it's better for Ed for Stede to not be around him, dragging him down and ruining his life. He DEFINITELY SHOULD'VE TALKED TO ED, but, well, that's a classic romance-novel conflict right there, and we've seen that Stede does not practice what he preaches when it comes to "talking it through". I think the contrast between Stede at his most selfish and Stede at his most selfless is what makes him such an interesting character to me. Re: Lucius, it's true that we don't *want* him to be dead, but it's a lot more than wishful thinking. Any behind-the-scenes S2 spoilers not withstanding, the show is a romcom, emphasis on both comedy and romance, and all the genre implications therein. It simply does not make sense for one of the most important characters in the entire show to die *offscreen*, when no other important characters die that way. Furthermore, although you have repeatedly said that you don't see how this show can possibly end well, the rules of the romance genre tell us to expect otherwise. We can expect Stede and Ed to get back together, and for the other couples on the ship to get happy endings as well-including Pete and Lucius. The ending of S1 is a genre-typical Conflict that the two leads will have to overcome in order to strengthen and continue their relationship. While it's important for Ed to *think* he killed Lucius, actually killing him would almost certainly be unforgivable and unrecoverable, in terms of Ed's relationship to Stede, and to the rest of the crew. Completely separate from the narrative, you also have not been in the same year-long interaction with David Jenkins that the fandom has, during which his favorite game has been dropping constant jokes referencing or lamenting Lucius' death in order to troll us. Every time that man tweets my already 100% confidence in Lucius' survival manages to increase. I have no idea *when* he will appear in S2, but I am confident he will be there, alive, either hiding in Stede's "secret passages" (emphasis on the plural) and maybe *pretending* to be a ghost, or following the show's usual Looney Tunes logic/complete disregard to geography or realism and getting fished out of the sea by someone and finding his way back to the crew. I think your discussion of a lot of the show's flaws is fair, especially when it comes to some of the other characters' arcs. I have to imagine a lot was left on the cutting room floor; I don't know for sure whose decision the number of episodes was, but it would not surprise me if this was all David could get out of HBOMax, which consistently failed to advertise/hype/and support the show, even *after* it had gained such incredible and surprising success. On the other hand, a lot of what can be considered flaws, we have decided to embrace as features; I have immense fondness for and derive great enjoyment from the nonsensical elements of the show and I'm not entirely sure I'd love the show as much without them. ...That turned into a longer essay than I'd intended, whoops. XD; Anyway, I'm glad you mostly enjoyed it, and I'm sorry you found parts of it frustrating. Thank you for approaching the material so thoughtfully and critically, it made your reaction videos and final review really interesting and engaging.

i think what makes stedes selfishness seem more forgivable (at least to me) is that most of it is ultimately rooted in self hatred and though it definitely doesnt justify his actions it makes him infinitely more interesting as a character. he flaunts his higher status in the ways that he can because he doesnt feel like he deserves it, he abandons ed and his family because he thinks hes not good enough for them and is going to hurt them anyway. the part where he blamed roach about the oranges pissed me off as well, but i saw someone on tumblr point out that roach was (although rightfully) calling him out for being gluttonous, and stede has a history of body dysmorphia as shown in the scenes with badminton so he was probably deflecting his insecurities by trying to make it somebody elses fault instead. not sure if that one was intentional bc i heard the actor who plays roach improvd that argument, but it does contribute to the theme of stede being an asshole bc of his self fulfilling inferiority complex love watching more objective analysis like this, this show is my current special interest so its nice to see the flaws i missed since i just get a total dopamine overload from it LMAO

This is a fantastic analysis (speaking as a fan of the show); I also subscribe to the theory that Lucius should appear as a hallucination of Ed's and only appear later. I DO want him to be alive, and major deaths on the show tend to be onscreen. I do think Ed should think that he killed him and have to deal with the gravity of that. ... As for Stede, I feel like all his "get out of jail free" moments are an extension of his old life - as a rich guy from Barbados he didn't have to deal with reality beyond schoolyard bullies (as difficult as that was for him). I hope that now that he's lost everything (his fortune, his ship) he'll be forced to grow as a person, deal with reality and have to work for his relationships.

Enjoying your thoughtful analysis as always, but just wanted to make a small note of correction: they are on Stede Bonnet's ship "Revenge", not Edward Teach's ship "Queen Anne's Revenge". I KNOW, CONFUSING, why did Teach name his ship so similarly to his buddy Bonnet's like wow you could try a little harder, Edward Teach

I'm curious whether you plan on watching season two. I'd certainly be interested.

SEASON 2 SPOILER BELOW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I'm on my way to work now so I won't share all of my thoughts on this video (yet), but I did want to chime in to say that OFMD director Fernando Frias, who came back to direct s2 episodes, posted a selfie he took of some of the s2 cast and crew to his Instagram stories a couple of months ago. Nathan Foad who plays Lucius is front and center in the photo so we know for a fact that he's going to be in this season. He also has a full beard instead of his s1 mutton chops and a new outfit, which makes it very unlikely that he'll appear only as a hallucination since the show established in s1 that hallucinations appear as they were when they d**d. I think you could be right that he won't appear until later in the season, but no part of me believes he's actually d**d. Stealing Frenchie's e10 line, d**d Lucius was a grabby marketing hook to keep us talking between seasons and it absolutely worked. Also, in terms of the way the show treats death, we hear that Calico Jack was mutinied three times in the last year and it felt pretty personal when his crew was tying an anchor to his leg and throwing him overboard. Yet we have a still alive Calico Jack showing up in e8. Example two is Roach jumping from the yardarm and bashing his pelvis on the side of the ship in what would have definitely have been a fatal injury, yet he's completely okay just a couple of scenes later. I agree with you about the episode/season length though and thought you made a lot of good/valid points here. I hope you do end up reacting to s2 when it comes out!

I love how nuanced and thought-through your takes are on these types of shows. No piece of media is ever going to be perfect, and I think myself and a lot of other people truly miss there being space for complex feelings when discussing / reviewing entertainment. Keep doing what you're doing, please, and don't let criticism from ride-or-die fans of these types of shows ever make you feel like your honest opinions are unwelcome. Also, I was on the fence about whether I wanted Lucius to be either alive or dead, but I love your idea of how they could use his death as a teaching tool or a reminder that actions, especially those that cost human life, have consequence. It's won me over. I hope that's what they do, especially concerned how it could also help shake Pete's unquestioning hero worship of Blackbeard and childish desire for violence, bravado, and prestige.

Tbh your points are very well made and they make scenes. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this

Thoughtful and detailed, as always.

Please please tell me you'll watch Black Sails if you haven't already! Oh and the first 3 episodes of season 2 of OMFD are an improvement compared to the first season imo

No one should complain that you didn't find something satisfying when you've clearly put in so much thought into reviewing it, especially when I and others gave up on it a couple times with similar issues. That the creators had to promise a 'happy ending' to resolve the audience's dissatisfaction at the ending is telling? The show is frustrating at certain points and feels like it wasted a fair chunk of it's time on wacky shenanigans at the expense of pacing (yes, how did Jim get back on the ship?!). I think my favourite parts are the way the characters just don't fit into the same world, with different genres and rules bouncing off each other. The actors clearly having a blast with their characters is great. I liked the whole 'amateur theatrical production' nature of it, the competing expectations of all the outside characters like the royal navy, the twins and Nana matching the needs of Izzy and the people in the bar for the characters to be the nearly cartoon villain version of themselves. I think I like shows with a fair amount of chaos. It's been a pleasure watching your videos, I'm off to have some nice scrambled eggs for breakfast!

(Good matching of clips to script! The apple in the hand was on the nose, but in a good way!) This show was like "Zootopia -- the TV show" for me: a lot of people really liked it, but I came away from it with predominantly weird vibes. [disclaimer: Zootopia is trash, this is much better] I really liked the supporting cast, but I found the core relationship of the show sort of hollow. I don't know if simply having more chemistry would have solved it for me, or if it was also a pacing issue, but I had trouble buying it, and, by extension, buying the ending that they tried to hang on it. Maybe love wrung out of isolation and desperation is supposed to clang...