Episodes 1 & 2
As of this issue of the P&P Newsletter, only the
first two episodes of Crossbones
had aired. This first review installment covers the
first two episodes of both shows.
It’s a “Piratical Review”
because, let’s face it, if you’re on this website
you aren’t as interested in cinematography, acting,
or effects. Rather, you’d like to know which series
does the best job of portraying pirates
as we expect them to be.
Black Sails is a fictional story based
on fictional characters. It’s a prequel to
Stevenson’s Treasure
Island. Crossbones is a fictional story
loosely based on the factual account of the Republic of
Pirates by Colin Woodard. Although the plots
are dissimilar, both main characters are on a quest
to obtain something.
A pirate attack begins both
series. Captain Flint (Black Sails)
leads his crew to attack a merchant vessel. Some of
the men are in scary costume or make-up. They bang
on the ship and make other terrorizing sounds. The
gun crews mostly aim at the rigging to disable,
rather than sink, the vessel.
Once the hulls crash
together the pirates board in an all-out attempt to
kill the crew and end their resistance. The master
of the ship is tied to the mainmast as both crews
gather to watch him be tortured. Flint confines his
attention to locating a logbook expected to hold the
schedule of a rich treasure ship.
On Crossbones,
the pirate crew attacks a naval vessel to steal the
prototype of a chronometer (used to determine
longitude), thus depriving the Royal Navy of a
potential navigational tool that may seal the
pirates’ doom and give any pirate equipped with the
chronometer an edge in attacking rich ships and
settlements.
The ships trade gunfire
briefly before crashing together and the pirates
board. Despite heavy resistance, they carry the
ship. The chronometer is damaged by gunfire.
Following both attacks,
Flint’s ships head to Nassau, the Pirate Kingdom in
the Bahamas, while the other heads to a secret
location.
Flint’s crew disembarks to
join in the revelry on the island. There’s plenty of
liquor and prostitutes, and the crew enjoys both.
Arrival at the island on Crossbones
starts with the stolen plunder being assessed by a
merchant. Subsequent scenes show a bald,
clean-shaven Blackbeard in command of the island and
his crew, who are a seemingly sober private army
always at Blackbeard’s beck and call.
The second episode of each
show mostly takes place on the islands, where some
of the real pirates seen on Black Sails include
Charles
Vane, Calico Jack, and Anne Bonny. On Crossbones
the islanders engage in pirate justice (regrettably
off-camera) and condemn a man to hang.
All things considered, if
you had to pick just one story to watch, I recommend
Black Sails based on the first two episodes.
A
historical note from Cindy
As Irwin points out, pirates did bang on ships,
shout, curse, and make a variety of other loud
noises. This was called “vaporing.” Crossbones
asks viewers to forget that Lieutenant Robert
Maynard and one of his men slew Blackbeard and cut
off his head in 1718, eleven years before the
television series takes place. (
There has never been any doubt that it
was Blackbeard’s severed head that was put on
display. In a future installment of my Pirates
and Death article, you’ll discover that
such displays were common, whether the whole
body or just part of it was exhibited. The
reason for doing so was to warn others who might
consider straying from the straight and narrow
not to. They might well end their days this same
way.
While
John Malkovich plays an interesting Blackbeard, who
can be as intimidating and mercurial as the real
Edward Teach, it’s problematic to believe Blackbeard
comes back from the dead since Maynard took Teach’s
head back to Virginia while dumping his body into
Ocracoke Inlet immediately after the battle.
As for
the chronometer aspect of the story, this particular
version is fictional, but the search for a
chronometer was extremely important. The first
successful one, though, wasn’t invented until the
mid 18th century. Until then mariners had to guess
as to where they were when it came to how far east
or west of their destination they were. Conditions
at sea made it difficult to maintain any precision
on a clock, a necessary element in determining
longitude. Not being able to accurately determine
this meant ships could be far off course or they
might run aground, which is what happened in 1707
off Scilly, when a British squadron sank and 2,000
lives were lost. England, France, Spain, and other
European governments offered rich prizes to the
person who could solve this problem.
Pirates
and Privateers
