review of Black Sails season 2 finale 

Black Sails Season 2 Finale: Satisfyingly Literate and Vulgar

Black Sails season 2 finale last night was satisfying and everything it should have been and needed to be to offset the punch-in-the-gut depravity at the end of last week\'s episode.

That ending - the slaughter of Miranda by the Governor\'s body guard, by a shot to her head as she was passionately remonstrating the Governor - was the worst and most infuriating death we\'ve seen on Black Sails.  True, the shooter had warned Miranda previously not to get so close and voluble to the Governor, but his act was nonetheless an outrageous, horrendous bolt from the blue.

Certainly Flint thought so, and that one act erased once and forever all the good thoughts he had been having about working together with the authorities.   This in turn set up the season 2 finale, in which the two main pirates in our story, Flint and Vane, fight together to destroy whatever they can of the Governor\'s city.   It was truly a pleasure to behold, from the freeing of Flint by Vane to Flint\'s ordering a barrage of cannon fire on the city after the two are safely aboard their ship in the harbor.

Lots of good developments on the ship back in the Nassau vicinity, too, with Silver finally getting promoted to quartermaster at the end, and getting set to get his peg leg, for which the character is so renown in the fictional Robert Louis Stevenson history.  Not that it was good to see Silver lose his leg, but his moving into quartermaster and soon to have a peg leg clicks another piece into place of this pseudo-history that we know so well.

And Max\'s ascendancy to the Queen of Thieves on the island - great moniker given for Eleanor last week - was also good to see.  Eleanor being brought back to England for trial and who knows what else promises some more colorful scenes in London in season 3.  (The London scenes in season 2 were always welcome.)   Not to mention the glimpse we got of Black Beard - another real pirate, like Vane - in the preview of season 3.

Black Sails at the end of two seasons has done well for itself.   Unpredictable, exciting, literate and vulgar mix of fiction and history - what more could you ask for in a pirate story?

See also Black Sails 2.1: Good Combo, Back Story, New Blood ... Black Sails 2.2: A Fine Lesson in Captaining ... Black Sails 2.3: "I Angered Charles Vane" ... Black Sails 2.4: "Fire!" ... Black Sails 2.5: Twist! ... Black Sails 2.6: Weighty Alternatives, and the Medium is the Message on the High Seas ...Black Sails 2.7: The Governor\'s Daughter and the Gold ... Black Sails 2.9: The Unlikely Hero

And see also Black Sails: Literate and Raunchy Piracy ... Black Sails 1.3: John Milton and Marcus Aurelius ... Black Sails 1.4: The Masts of Wall Street ...Black Sails 1.6: Rising Up ... Black Sails 1.7: Fictions and History ... Black Sails 1.8: Money

Labels: Black Sails, Robert Louis Stevenson, television

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