★★★★☆

I own the complete Black Sails boxed set. Before I bailed on DirecTV like 98% of America I was watching the series on Stars as it was new. I didn’t get to the end on Stars, but the few seasons I saw made me purchase the boxed set when it came out.

Women like to diss this show saying it is just canon battles, sword fights, and naked women for twelve year old boys. While that’s true for as far as it goes, it is well short of the series writing and acting. Women that actually watched it found that there were quite a few hard bodied men in sprayed on leather pants walking around with their shirts off and unbelievably strong women. While it definitely isn’t a series to let the little kids watch with its TV-MA rating, the females in the audience should really call this series

Power. How to get it and how to use it.

My apologies to the author of the book with that name or one very similar. I remember hearing the title when I was in college. Women think they know what power is and how to use it. No you don’t.

Hannah New

A surprisingly good actress given her role of Eleanor Guthrie, daughter of the man who started the pirate enterprise. She is a shining example of “today’s woman.” So confident that she has power and knows how to use it. She thinks she can control and play men at her whim because she has power.

No she can’t.

Constantly flitting between men of actual power trying to dance between them claiming her power for her own. You actually start rooting for her demise.

Jessica Parker Kennedy

This girl is a treasure. I recently watched a younger her in The Secret Circle and I gotta say she is amazing. (Review of that show will hopefully be posted here soon!) Her character is Max, just a lowly whore Eleanor Gutherie pays for the privilege of keeping to herself. Male customers can only get a tug, if they are allowed to purchase anything at all. She gave her character a great accent.

Max rises in this twisted world of “honor.” Oh, not before she is kidnapped and raped hundreds of times by the crew of a ship, but that time taught her what power really was. Her rise to Madame and blinding wealth is a story line worth watching.

Note: There is one episode where she is teaching a “career whore” (for lack of a better term) the difference between “just F-ing a man” and seduction. That ladies, is why most of you will continually fail on your Eleanor Guthrie type journey through life, you don’t bother to learn how to do it right. Jessica’s delivery in this scene is without equal. You have to watch it, even if you learn nothing from it.

Clara Paget

This girl’s acting ability is obviously a gift from God to the human race. Makeup and wardrobe get huge kudos for making her look like a woman grizzled before her time. Her character, Anne Bonny, is one of true power in this weird world of “honor.” Bit by bit her back story gets revealed. How she was married off at 13 by parents that couldn’t afford to keep her to an abusive man who used to share her with his friends. One day Jack Rackham saw her hubby hurting her and killed him.

Been by his side ever since.

Anne Bonny

Early on in this series she doesn’t have a lot of lines. Mostly cold stares from under the edge of her hat and brutal acts of violence. Anne Bonny knew hers would be a short life and that she had nothing left to lose. She also shows some unbelievable shyness when she is at a point of being completely lost, yet under the protection of Max.

Louise Barnes

Louise Barnes plays Miranda Barlow, yet another powerful woman in Black Sails. You don’t find out about her power up front. The back story gets bled in over time. It’s really difficult to review what is great about her acting and character without giving too much of the massive (and initially unexpected) sub-plot for this series.

What is worthy of note is that in shows like this, ones many women despise as “sexist”, they always seem to find out-sized roles for women over 40. Contrary to the chatter from the peanut gallery, Black Sails isn’t the “naked women and fight scenes” series they wish to paint it as.

Toby Schmitz

Toby disappears so completely into the character of Jack Rackham that it is difficult to envision him in any other role or anyone else playing this role. Trying to get by in the world of “Pirate Honor” on just his whits (and Anne Bonny’s killing ability) he is both a central figure and comic relief. His trip to the bottom is the funniest story in the series.

Don’t worry, he rises again to become Captain Jack Rackham. The story of him and Anne Bonny is so intertwined you find yourself watching just to find out more about it.

Hakeem Kae-Kazim

I have written about Hakeem before. A truly gifted actor who seemingly took any role offered and just ran with it. His role as Mr. Scott is no different.

The story of Mr. Scott comes from out of nowhere in Black Sails. He starts out as just a slave watching over Eleanor as she runs her father’s business. Later we learn he had been her father’s body man, was taught to read, write, and do math so that he could teach young Eleanor. Basically he earned the role of mentor, protector, and spy. Oh, but that is just his cover story.

Sadly the world lost Hakeem not that long ago.

Zach McGowan

Probably the most interesting character in the series is that of Captain Charles Vane, played by Zach McGowan. One could be forgiven for initially assuming he was cast as eye candy for the ladies.

This dude can act! Hopefully he got paid well for eating nothing and living at the gym. You will also find him mentioned in this review.

Some time after having watched this series a few times I listened to an interview with the shows creators. His was the character they took the most liberties with. Captain Charles Vane was not a man filled with honor who inspired loyalty in a crew. That, however, isn’t the character we see on the screen.

Black Sails Period and Tenants

The period is important. Kids today tend to dismiss that which is obvious when you know the period. This story is set in Nassau on New Providence Island around the time of the Seven Years War, before the American Revolutionary War.

  • Few people actually knew how to read. A Captain and a Quartermaster had to know how to read, write, and perform basic math.
  • Books were actually treasured. They were few and far between. Given most of the crew could not read they didn’t bother taking the books when plundering a ship, those were left for the officers to decide.
  • People didn’t bathe. Maybe once in a while they would dip some water out of the ocean while on ship but things like deodorant soaps, tooth paste, etc. did not exist. Even back on the tropical island they used to just take a dip in the harbor. There is thankfully only one scene pointing this out concerning “morning in the brothel.” Before you think this time period was romantic, think about how it smelled.
  • There was no toilet paper. On the ship, we find out, they have to hang their butts over the side and wipe with “the stick.”
  • Skills were valued. A cook or carpenter would be spared in a fight if possible so they could be recruited.
  • Pirates recruited from the crews they just defeated. Keep in mind people couldn’t read. It’s not like the pirates could run an advertisement in a newspaper telling the navies of the world where the pirates were hold up. Most of the people on a merchant ship were conscripted from prison anyway. Getting them to join a pirate crew wasn’t a big leap. The only reason they fought is they believed the pirates would either kill them or sink the ship.

Black Sails – Battle for Independence

Much is made of pirate honor and voting in this series. No democracy existed. The American Experiment was the first attempt in known history to create a country that had a rule of law without a king/dictator/absolute ruler. Pirates were recruited during the American war and called “Privateers” because America had no navy.

You’ll never sail under the black again.

Pirate threat

However much truth there was to this threat we will never know. During this time there was a global desire for independence and/or a vote in the things which impacted your life. We live in America and it was created out of this desire.

Summary

This is a series worth owning and watching many times over the years. Keep the DVDs around for when the Internet is down. If you want to read how Black Sails compares to the real-life pirates appearing in it, read this post.

For more movie rental ideas please see list one and list two.