from Not That Complicated:
https://notthatcomplicated.net/2020/05/black-sails-season-1-episode-4-recap

Black Sails S1 Ep 4
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Hannah New as Eleanor Guthrie and Hakeem Kae-Kazim as Mr. Scott. Photo courtesy of Starz.


Recap by Elizabeth Wright

This episode contains explicit language, racism, slavery, rape, and violence.

We return to Black Sails to find Flint’s crew making plans: with Gates taking over the Ranger, Billy Bones is elected as quartermaster. He’s still unsure of himself, and Gates’ ease at swinging the crew behind his chosen successor is contrasted immediately with Billy’s struggles over the ship’s careening. He fails to convince the crew to forgo their usual “fuck tent,” and, more worryingly, lets Flint shove aside DeGroot’s concerns without protest.

The only dissenting voice comes from Morley, one of Singleton’s erstwhile supporters… and the man who’d spent last night telling Billy about Mrs. Barlow. The Urca chase isn’t the first time Flint’s lied to his crew about a prize. Years ago, Flint chased a merchantman, the Maria Aleyne, which turned out to carry none of the riches he promised – but did carry passengers. Morley witnessed Flint murdering a man in the hold, and, later, telling Mrs. Barlow “they’re dead.”

“All those men we lost,” he tells BIlly, “they died so Flint could settle some personal vendetta. For her.”

Miranda’s next scene doesn’t answer any more questions. She and Flint share a remarkably passionless sex scene, and then break into an argument over the Meditations. Flint is furious that she gave the book to Guthrie, but Miranda strikes back that she is “no longer willing to bury it on a shelf and pretend it has no meaning for me!” She misses the life they shared with her husband, Thomas, and life isolated on Nassau is killing her slowly. At the mention of Thomas, Flint’s anger seems to dissipate. He promises her that things will get better, but then, once again, leaves her behind.

This episode introduces the concept of Thomas Hamilton, but he remains an enigma – clearly important to both Flint and Miranda, clearly gone. Hints of Flint’s true relationship with him are subtle, and only really visible in hindsight.

Meanwhile, Vane, having lost Eleanor, the Ranger, and most of his crew, has opted to collapse in an opium filled stupor. Jack lists off their assets – “eight loyal men, my wits, and an unshakable candor” – but Vane is having none of it. The candor is shaken, Jack’s wits cost him a small fortune in pearls, and the eight men are kept loyal by dint of keeping Max in slavery.

Her attempts at making the best of things are interrupted to see her once again brutalized, because heaven knows we haven’t seen enough of that already. Because this is season one Max, we cut away instead to her once-and-future love interests.

Anne is seated outside the tent, hacking pieces off a suspiciously phallic bit of wood and clearly growing angrier with the situation by the second.

Eleanor, meanwhile, is facing losses of her own.

Vane’s takedown has worried the pirates, Mr. Guthrie’s near-arrests has worried the merchants, and Eleanor’s bullheadedness has worried Mr. Scott. Captain Bryson of the Andromache, their last merchant, is unethusiastic about loaning a pirate captain his guns. Eleanor is willing to take them by force, but Scott warns her that the consequences will be worse than she can afford.

Their relationship has been crumbling since the first episode, and it’s agonizing to watch – but this time, in a good way. Scott cares for Eleanor, more than her father does, but he sees her goals as self-destructive and she resents anyone who gets in her way.

Mr. Guthrie, preparing for the meeting, makes Scott’s status more clear – idly explaining how Scott used to be his “personal houseboy” to Miranda as Scott helps him into his coat, and otherwise ignoring him completely. Eleanor, at least, treats him as a human being, but she also ignores the fact of his enslavement, glazing over the problem in a way the show pointedly does not.

The Walrus sets up to careen on an overly steep beach, “fuck tent” in place.

Silver, despite his efforts last episode, is still having trouble fitting into the crew. He serves up a half-raw pig, and has to be bailed out by Flint. This leads to their first real bonding moment, short-lived as it is: Silver spotted Morley talking with Billy on the ship, and again on the beach – even if the second time was only Morley blessing Billy out for refusing to stand up to Flint. He warns Flint that Billy’s having doubts over his decision to lie about Singleton and the schedule.

While this is true, it’s also true that Silver is scrambling for any edge he can to survive, and Flint snaps at him that “trying to play me against my own crew will not help your cause.” Silver stalks off, but despite Flint’s best efforts, it’s clear the conversation has gotten to him.

The Silver-Flint (or Silver/Flint, and trust me, yes, I ship it) relationship will become the backbone of the show, two people who don’t really know what to do with each other but are drawn together all the same. Even this early in the show, with the characters this antagonistic, Silver can get underneath Flint’s skin.

Captain Bryson, meanwhile, has one question for Mr. Guthrie: “Have you lost your mind?” His boss in Boston – Eleanor’s grandfather – will never approve, and Bryson senses desperation in Nassau. He saw the British warship in the harbor, and now he hasn’t even been able to unload his cargo – revealing to the audience for the first time that the Andromache isn’t just a merchantman, but a slave ship.

This doesn’t endear Bryson to the audience, and nothing about the conversation has endeared him to Eleanor. He eventually demands to speak to her father alone, and upon leaving the room, Scott discovers that Eleanor has posted armed men outside. Despite her promise, she has no intention of letting Bryson leave with his guns. Luckily, her father’s promise of profit has swayed him… Or so it appears.

Eleanor has betrayed Scott’s trust, again, and this time for nothing. Even her father seems to see the cracks in their relationship. As Scott walks him back to Miranda’s, he strikes.

This episode, we’ve finally started to see the side of Mr. Guthrie that gave him his power in Nassau. If Hornigold, last episode, was a foil for Flint, he’s a foil for Silver: manipulative, greedy, and willing to play multiple sides for his own ends. But where Silver is beginning to climb, Guthrie is trying every means at hand to break his own fall.

Eleanor, he warns Mr. Scott, will get herself killed, and all for the sake of a dying city and an impossible dream: “a place where she matters. A place where you matter.” Nassau, where a queer woman and an enslaved man can run a business empire on the backs of pirates.

“But in your heart,” he says, “you know the truth: places like this aren’t meant to last.”

Nassau isn’t the only thing teetering on the brink of collapse. The Walrus is tied to palms to keep her on her side for careening; unfortunately, the pirates are distracted by the fuck tent and not impressed enough by Billy to listen to his orders. One of the trees is unstable, slowly cracking down under the weight of the ship and providing a useful visual metaphor as the episode cuts back to it repeatedly.

Eleanor visits Flint; she’s seeking reassurance after her fight with Scott, and, unusually for someone chatting with Flint, she finds it. He’s the only person who believes in the Urca plan more than she does, the only person who needs it more.

Their conversation is interrupted by the palm finally giving way. The crew scatters as the Walrus shifts – all but Randall, who runs to retrieve his cat. He’s trapped, and then we see the truth in Billy’s words from the first episode, as Morley and Flint dash into the danger zone to free him. There’s no time to dig Randall free, and it looks like they’ll have to leave him or be crushed – until Silver, in a moment fraught with foreshadowing, throws a cleaver their way. As the Walrus resettles, Flint stumbles from the dust, Randall slung over one shoulder… and Morley dead beneath the hull.

The episode leaves the moment of his death ambiguous, but it’s obvious what Flint has gained, losing an opponent and showing to his crew that they have a captain willing to put his life on the line to save the assistant cook.

Only Billy seems to suspect him, and, as he admits to Gates, he blames himself: he doesn’t trust Flint.

He fears him.

In the meantime, Jack continues to try and salvage what’s left of Vane’s crew, but no one on the island will trade with him. Anne, finally, asks him the obvious question: why are they sticking with Vane? Other captains need manpower, and other offers have been coming in… for her. Anne Bonny is an “asset to any crew,” in Jack’s words, one of the most feared fighters in Nassau. Jack Rackham, on the other hand, is a failed quartermaster. After the mess with the pearls, no one else will take him on in a position of any authority or respect, and respect is all Jack wants in life.

Their conversation is interrupted by Noonan, the owner of the whorehouse, who wants Max back… not, however, out of any concern for her welfare, but because the loss of his property is costing him money. This is the point at which Anne, up to this point a shadow behind Jack and Vane, snaps: if Noonan wants Max, he should come take her himself. If Jack doesn’t understand why she has a problem with this whole arrangement… “Fuck you.”

Mr. Guthrie’s next target is Miranda Barlow.

Isolated, harassed by her neighbors, fighting with Flint… Guthrie thinks he has a read on her, and thinks they have something to offer each other. He also thinks he knows who she is. He lays out our first version of the story between her, Thomas Hamilton, and James McGraw. Lord Thomas was the son of the Lord Proprietor of the Bahama Islands, and a popular figure in London; when he discovered his wife was cheating on him with his best friend, he went mad, and eventually killed himself in an asylum. His wife and her lover fled England, and haven’t been heard from since. He can’t offer Miranda her old life back, but he does offer her a new one, in the more forgiving social climate of Boston.

Guthrie has given up on Nassau – and he intends to see the pirate republic destroyed. And while we don’t yet see Miranda’s answer, the scene is staged to suggest she’s tempted.

There are two final threads, neither featuring Eleanor in the flesh, both heavily spun around her.

Vane hallucinates first her, and then a mysterious bearded man, and the visions send him stumbling from his tent and into the streets of Nassau. He finally falls to his knees outside the brothel, Noonan’s henchmen holding a pistol to his head. This could be the end of Charles Vane, but it’s an eighteenth century flintlock, and the ensuing misfire brings him back to life. He kills Noonan and his men before heading out into the night.

At the docks, meanwhile, Scott has made his decision. He knocks out Eleanor’s guard, and allows Bryson to leave with the guns still aboard.

Diplomacy has failed. Now, it’s time to be pirates.