Faced with the prospect of an appropriate bloody battle in the first episode of Our Flag Means the Death of HBO Max, Pirate Captain Sted Bonnet (Rhys Darby) receives a terrifying realization. “Oh my God. I made a mistake,” he cries. “I’m not a pirate. I’m an idiot.” He is right: an aristocrat who abandons his spoiled life more or less on a whim, Stede has no job trying to plunder the high seas, but his wrong choices in life lead to a fascinating comedy and ultimately to a surprising heart.
Created by David Jenkins (People of the Earth) and freely based on the real Stede Bonnet, Our Flag Means Death comes with an echo of several other series: This is a workplace comedy about an awkward boss who is no different from The Office, but and a cheeky genre subversion like What We Do in the Shadows (with whom he shares an actor, pilot, and executive producer in Taika Whitey), with honest sunlight that could have been borrowed from Ted Lasso. But if our flag means death has only one defining quality, it is “sweet” – and, yes, it is a compliment.
Our flag means death
Conclusion Sweet comedy about not so bloodthirsty pirates.
Broadcast date: Thursday, March 3 (HBO Max)
actors: Rhys Darby, Taika Whitey, Nathan Food, Samson Cayo, Vico Ortiz, Ewan Bremner, Joel Fry, Matt Maher, Christian Nairn, Conn O’Neill, Guz Khan, David Fein, Rory Kinnear, Samba Shut, Nat Faxon, Fred Arm Leslie Jones
Creator: David Jenkins
The main premise of the series, which takes place during the Golden Age of piracy, but focuses on the notoriously indifferent pirate, instead of the famous, is cute. The jokes that come from it are also sweet, aimed at laughter rather than belly laughter. Some of them rely on the accidental stupidity of, say, crew member Buttens (Ewan Bremner), who basks naked in the moonlight while talking to his beloved seagull friend. Others copy the stark contrast between the show’s violent period and Sted’s softer, often more modern sensibilities. In a world where a pirate of fear like the Spanish Jackie (Leslie Jones) can hold a “nose jar” to keep the noses she has removed from her enemies, Stedi pays her crew a regular salary and encourages them to express their feelings. and read them bedtime stories.
As the season progresses, the misfortunes of Stead and his crew gradually develop into more emotional (but still quite entertaining) storylines, which can also be described as sweet – but also tender and strangely touching. The more serious distortion does not come entirely as a shock; even in the pilot, retrospectives of Stead’s miserable marriage and even more miserable childhood show that Our flag means death means to humanize and sympathize with Stead, not just laugh at him and the alien morals of the era in which he lived . But this is the arrival of the legendary pirate Blackbeard (Whitey) around the fourth episode, which directs Our flag means death to deeper, more mysterious waters.
Intrigued by the news of this strange “gentleman pirate”, Blackbeard searches for Stead and the crew of his Revenge – and when he arrives, he sees Stead as an opportunity to shake off his annoyance. The entry of Blackbeard reorients the weight of the series: he is not just a recurring guest, but a full-fledged co-protagonist, and the perverted relationship he creates with Sted becomes the basis of the whole series. Whitey and Darby, who work together from Flight of the Conchords, form a wonderful strange couple, Whitey’s bizarre charisma reflects Darby’s agile nervousness. The funniest part of the season reverses their momentum, sending Blackbeard into the insidious unexplored territory of a French high society party with Steede as its leader.
Meanwhile, the sadder moments of the series are hidden in the prehistory of both men and in the way their unhappy past has informed the people they have become today. But our flag means death handles the darker aspects of its history with a light touch. The show rarely dwells too long on Stead’s guilt for abandoning his family or the painful memories of Blackbeard from childhood before turning into some other madness. In this regard, although Stede mentions the “mental devastation” of the testimony of violence in his first lines of dialogue and although he and several other characters will suffer serious injuries before the end of the season, the actual violence portrayed in the series is never enough graphics to upset.
Such restraint prevents Our flag from dying to say something truly new or profound about trauma, class, masculinity, or any of the other larger ideas it calls for. However, he also maintains the tone of the show on a steady keel as an ensemble comedy. There’s room for more silly characters like Nat Faxon’s to wander around, describing his symptoms of scurvy in the same episode in which more grounded characters like the deadly Jim (Vico Ortiz) and the gentle Oluvande (Samson Cayo) reach a key moment in their long-term relationship and guest stars like Nick Kroll and Kristen Shaal have enough leeway to do so.
Our flag means death will not be the deepest show you have seen about the midlife crisis, or the most dramatic – but if you are in the mood to relax in mostly warm, mostly gentle waters with a charming group of strangers, this will fall in place.