User Reviews

I absolutely did not expect Will Arnett in this show, he was pretty awesome in this and I really enjoyed it. The conflict between Stede, Blackbeard, and Jack are pretty good and I'm very excited to see where the next 2 episodes go.

Y'know. I've spent this entire series going, "I can't tell if Taika Waititi and Rhys Darby just have really good onscreen chemistry or if they're playing this gay." Well, this episode we got our answer folks! Our Flag Means Death = Rainbow flag.

Poor Will Arnett. Great actor. Loved him in the Lego movies and that Netflix detective show. But unfortunately for him...he's so good as skeevy, sleazy, dirty, disgusting, '70s pornstached partier, that I now HATE Will Arnett. I will never be able to see him in anything again without smelling Calico Jack Rackham's beer burps and BO in my mind.

Ed's thrilled to see his old partying buddy, but Stede is ready to chew his own arm off to escape the shenanigans.

A couple of twists in the end of this episode, and the single greatest use of a rock song in television ever. You'll know exactly which one I'm talking about.

Be on the lookout for the foot touch.

Will Arnett is fantastic in this episode as Calico Jack. Poor Ed just wants all his friends to like each other, but Calico Jack (for reasons that become clearer later in the episode) and Stede rub each other the wrong way and just can't get along.

What I really love this episode is how the split between Jim and Oluwande and the split between Ed and Stede are paralleled: Jim and Ed both have a duty that they feel that they need to follow, Jim to their family and Ed to his old friend. But Ed comes back when Stede needs him (despite Jack's urging).

Also, of course, this episode has two absolutely amazing moments: I never would have thought the staredown with the seagull would have been so funny, and the sequence with the Chain is easily one of the best and most hilarious moments in the show so far.

This was an improvement over some of the clunkers we've got recently. I still feel like the show is running on fumes right now and they're out of ideas, but the ending set the stage for an exciting conclusion.

We learn more about Ed's backstory in this one as he starts our with a tale about the Kraken. Just wait, though, there is always more to it.

Stede wants to try out his new lesson in a big, frame if way while poor put upon Izzy wants Blackbeard to actually follow through with their plan from the fourth episode. Poor Blackbeard is conflicted as he's having the time of his life clearly.

Stede ours on the most dramatic show worthy of the Bard himself while Ed is haunted down his past. They come to an agreement and finally admit their friendship in the end.

An angry Izzy has one trick up his sleeve - unfortunately it doesn't quite work out like he thought.

The whole show is a delight but this episode may be my favourite. There are so many good moments - right from the beginning there's the Buttons/Calico Jack encounter: "are ye a filthy phantom" and Buttons' sarcastic "smooth" when CJ misses his shot. We get fierce Stede with his "get off my ship", drama queen Stede with the telescope "not a good dancer", the CJ/Stede pissing scene and Stede's heartbreaking lip-tremble when Ed leaves with CJ. There's also time for the hilarious whippies and CJ's final moment (ha!). To top it all there's the now-classic Fleetwood Mac sound-tracked crew capture at the end. Perfection!

Wil Arnett as Calico Jack is both the most detestable character in this series so far and yet I can't imagine it without him now. I love to hate him. It's complicated.

In my head, this episode is peak 'girl finally sees sweet sensitive guy friend transform into annoying frat boy around his other male friends.'

Stede looking unimpressed that Ed torched a ship with the crew inside, all memory of the Prussian party boat he torched totally erased - girl, what are you doing? "Jack, I hate to ask, but.." and proceeds to ask anyway. I adore this bitchy fancyman and in this episode, against Jack, it is completely justified.

I really love the way this episode shows us that the time Ed and Stede have spent together is NOT the way piracy typically goes in this universe. Jack's presence alludes to a more brutal, chaotic way of life that really messes people up, and it puts the time he spends on the Revenge into perspective. Stede told us in the pilot that he was trying to do piracy differently but we're really seeing it, here. Jack's 'anything goes at sea' makes us question the standing of queer relationships elsewhere in the world of the series, as it is so incongruent with the way queerness is normalised on the Revenge. And it generates frustrating, but very intelligently written miscommunication between Stede and Ed.

Ed leaving with Jack ("do you see me now?") reminded me of this quote from Miranda July: "Then I realized that we all think we might be terrible people. But we only reveal this before asking someone to love us."

Stede's 'informing the kids of the divorce' speech was soooo funny and the perfect thing to dispel my otherwise growing emotional distress to that point.

The ensemble once again smashes it out of the park. Jim/Jackie solidarity is so precious to me, especially seeing as they're having drinks with not one, but two corpses nearby like its no big deal.

Frenchie and Wee John reconciling themselves to the fact people might come VISIT them now that they're Room People - me too, guys, me too.

The lore of Buttons goes deeper and deeper. Nude moonbathing? Incredible. And my condolences to him. There has been much killing and maiming in this show played for laughs but dammit, I mourn Karl. (And Ewen Bremner absolutely slayed the delivery of that curse).

Lucius does not get paid enough to be everybody's counsellor. (His little comforting rub on Stede's knee means so much to me, though.)

Anyway pour one out for The Chain by Fleetwood Mac, that was a masterful choice, with some masterful editing to back it up. I don't expect to feel those emotions in that order again for probably a decade. And g'bless Taika and Rhys once again for the improvised foot touch.

Here you can see a full seminar of how discommunication goes! Jack is notthe problem,Ed himself is! It's not his guilt, though, as far as it's not Stede's one. Two traumatised dudes can't be sincere to each other, one sufferring from kinda school bullying, the other taking it for rejection of his true self, which he fears more than anything in the world, because he himself does not accept who he is... Oh guys, still don't you know what a hell, darkness and ultimate madness this small misunderstanding will end up with... Still, I am proud of Stede here, because he learned to protect his boundaries firmly, with no compromise as it was like in the first episode. Because, no matter what a good friend of Ed Jack is, no one and never dares to make Stede Bonnet's family suffer!

This episode begins with a visit from a former shipmate of Blackbeard's played by the hilarious Will Arnett who is wild to say the least. He is an extreme partier using rum, whippies, and yardies to bring craziness onto the Revenge. Stede is really taken back by the dynamics between Ed and Calico Jack, but agrees to try and like him based on Ed's relationship with Calico. There is a hilarious scene on the beach that is so ridiculous that even Stede walks away and returns to the ship. Things get heated leading to a show-down between Stede and Calico where Stede bans him from the Revenge. Surprisingly to Stede, Blackbeard leaves telling Ed that this is who he always was. Heartache continues as we watch Stede pine for Ed while he observes the antics on the beach through his telescope. Things progress and Ed learns he was betrayed by Izzy and that the English are on the way to destroy Stede. In the most romantic and sensitive scene so far in the series, Blackbeard returns to the Revenge to be with Stede as they are invaded by the British. In a touching improv scene, Ed touches his foot to Stede's while they are both face down on the deck, hands tied behind their backs. Even though this seems dismal, the two are together again. Cue The Chain and the soundtrack has once again melted our hearts.

Argh, Calico Jack! Even on multiple rewatches, it's still believable that he really is just an old friend of Blackbeard's fallen on hard times, rather than being hired by Izzy Hands to 'rescue' him from Stede Bonnet. It's all fun and games for the crew until Karl the seagull is killed in an accident. As sad as it is to see Karl dead and Buttons devastated, it's also lovely to see how seriously everyone else takes it - they're becoming a family and it really shows in this episode, especially towards the end. The boarding by the English is of course a huge twist in the story, but Ed and Stede's love for each other begins to shine through even as they lie awaiting their fate on the deck of Stede's beloved ship.

Minutes into episode eight it's hard to remember how hopefully episode seven finished. Will Arnett is skin-crawlingly perfect as the awful, awful Calico Jack. The viewer's heart breaks for Stede as he sees what Ed's other friends are like, and the kind of fun they have together. Ed naively thinking that getting his two favourite people together will equal double the fun... he has a lot to learn about how people work. This episode has one of my favourite lines, when Lucius tried to interrupt Stede's completely normal surveillance of Ed and Jack on the beach. I'd join Ed to watch a turtle fight a crab any day.