When I first became aware of the comedy series Our Flag Means Death, I was immediately excited. I like pirates, so that checked a box. I’m a fan of Taika Waititi and Rhys Darby, so another check. It was going to air on HBO Max and therefore could be more adult, check. The more I looked, the more I liked what I saw. Then the first trailer dropped, which I watched as soon as I was able, and it didn’t make me laugh once, but I did smile. Hey, I thought, a smile’s not bad.
After all, the premise was a slam dunk. It’s the early 1700s and Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby), a wealthy but bored land-owner, decides to take to the high seas and endeavor a life of piracy. Of course, the affable buffoon is in over his head, with his crew equally incapable, and thusly shenanigans ensue. Over the course of Stede’s adventures, he’ll encounter the ornery British Navy, the scourge that is scurvy, and eventually Blackbeard (Taika Waititi), the legendary pirate captain. So okay, the trailer wasn’t particularly amusing, but this a premise that these talented people can’t possibly mess up, right?
It turns out they can. Our Flag Means Death, despite all the talent involved, fails to maximize in any way its setting and themes. The first thing any prospective viewer should know about this show is that it’s not strictly a goofball comedy, nor is it strictly a pirate show. Yes, the characters are pirates and often do pirate-y things, but OFMD is as much a romantic comedy about a bunch of outsiders as it is anything else. For long stretches of season one, the characters could have be reworked as basically anything, say Vikings or Samurai, and it wouldn’t have changed the plot all that much. The pirate aspect is the hook, it’s the thing that makes you click on the thumbnail. It is not, however, crucial to making this show work.
Inevitably, people will compare Our Flag Means Death to What We Do in the Shadows, as the Waititi/New Zealand connection is hard to ignore for us cinephiles. While that isn’t fair, it’s not like the similarities aren’t there. WWDitS is a comedy about a group of dimwitted vampires thrown into a number of chaotic scenarios. OFMD is a comedy about a group of dimwitted pirates thrown into a number of chaotic scenarios. See what I mean? The main difference between the two is that WWDitS is always committed to its vampire schtick, giving the show a strong foundation from which to build its comedy. OFMD does the opposite of that, focusing more on its characters and plot than it does its schtick, which makes the pirate side of the series feel unessential. To some, this won’t matter in the slightest, but to others who signed up for pirate-y laughs, it’s quite disappointing.
This is why, around episode four or so, I shifted the lens through which I viewed the show, when it became apparent to me that any comparison to WWDitS (or similar programs) was misguided. I also had to remember that, while Waititi directed the pilot and stars in the show, he’s not the showrunner; that credit goes David Jenkins, who previously created People of the Earth for TBS. Jenkins is clearly more interested in the people drawn to piracy than he is piracy itself. I should confess, I was caught off guard by this, as well as the sheer amount of romance throughout the season’s ten episode run. After all, the first thing people (like me) think of when imagining pirates is swashbuckling adventure; not arranged marriages and homosexual dalliances. However, that doesn’t mean these romantic elements don’t work, because they certainly do most of the time. In fact, I found them to be the most charming part of the show.
At its core, OFMD is a show about outsiders, about people who feel they just don’t belong in “civilized” society. Stede Bonnet’s crew is full of people who, to this day, are considered outsiders. For example, Oluwande (Samson Kayo) and Frenchie (Joel Fry) are black and therefore not very welcome in most parts of 18th century society. Then there’s Black Pete (Matthew Maher) and Lucius (Nathan Foad), two crew members who are openly gay, another trait that was and still is taboo in large chunks of the world. There’s even a non-binary pirate who uses they/them pronouns.* All of these characters end up relying on each other in pretty much the only occupation at the time that would grant them any sort of acceptance or representation. And naturally, many of them become romantically involved. These are romances I couldn’t help but root for, as they all felt like little acts of rebellion against and amidst the masculinity, tradition, and violence of the age.
Let’s not forget Stede Bonnet, who’s forced into an arranged marriage at a young age because of his wealth, depriving him of proper love and adventure. It’s actually somewhat understandable that he’d abandon his family and turn to piracy, and when he meets a fiercely independent man like Blackbeard, it’s also understandable that Stede would be drawn to him. Conversely, Blackbeard is bored with piracy and instantly finds Stede’s dogged decorum intriguing, meaning the interest is mutual. This bromance is a thrill to watch, and even when there are hints of something more, I didn’t mind or find it distracting. The line here between bromance and romance is razor thin, and the writers walk that line deftly. Of all of OFMD’s subplots, the romantic ones are the most engaging.
Again though, this was marketed as a pirate comedy first and foremost, and it simply didn’t make me laugh all that much. Sure, a pirate flag sewing competition is funny, so is a pirate talent show. But the more the show has the crew doing un-pirate-like things, the less they feel like pirates. Instead, they all come off as a bunch of bumbling idiots. This ultimately means the main gimmick, the one where we watch fictional pirates do things that you can’t imagine the real-life ones ever doing, has diminishing comedic returns. To be fair, the writers do try to throw some swashbuckling stuff in there from time to time, e.g. an episode that deals with a treasure map, but that plotline is almost immediately thrown out in favor of a notably less humorous and pirate-related one. The funniest gags end up being the most physical ones, like people getting stabbed or shot, but even those wear thin as the season goes on. Not even the normally funny actors that guest star – like Fred Armisen, Leslie Jones, and Will Arnett – are able to add much to the mostly unamusing tomfoolery on display.
However, none of that matters as much if the main character, played by the supremely likable Rhys Darby, is someone you can always root for. Darby’s Stede Bonnet is essentially the Ted Lasso of pirates, and I noticed that even though I wasn’t laughing, I often found his well-mannered hijinks pleasant to watch. That is until Blackbeard showed up, at which point he became the only character I really cared to see. Waititi’s performance is thoroughly spellbinding, so much so that I began to feel irritated when the camera left him for too long. If Stede Bonnet is the vanilla ice cream of pirates, Blackbeard is the cookie dough. Sure, some people hate cookie dough, but if you like it, you really like it, to the point that vanilla becomes inconsequential. Crap, now I want ice cream… you get my point, I hope.
To put in a nutshell what I’ve been trying to say, Our Flag Means Death completely lacks finesse. Many of the things that really work, like Blackbeard, keep other things from working as well as they could, like Stede. This lack of finesse is perhaps most acutely noticeable in the show’s inconsistently anachronistic portrayal of society in the early 1700s. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why, in one episode, English officers were incredibly racist to the black characters, but in another, there’s a nun who openly supports a non-binary character. Also, no one seems to care at all about any of the gay relationships. I understand that this is a highly fictional version of that era of history, but if that’s the case, why not make it idyllic for all of the minorities, rather than just the LGBTQ+ ones?
If there’s any reason to be optimistic about Our Flag Means Death’s future, it’s that its season finale is the best episode of its run. There’s actually meaningful adversity in that episode, providing greater stakes for the more discerning viewers. For a show that often gave off a Ted Lasso-but-pirates vibe, this nuanced and dark episode helped set it apart. It felt, dare I say, a bit pirate-y. Another reason to stay optimistic is that the show looks incredible. The set, costume, and production design are uniformly stellar, often providing humor and intrigue when the story lacked both. The cast’s performances are similarly effective, even if their characters are lacking depth. Con O’Neill’s performance as Izzy Hands is probably my personal favorite, and I wish I could dedicate a whole paragraph as to why. In short, his character has the best conflict to navigate, and I found his performance as a fragile, toxic buccaneer entirely convincing.
So there we have it, my somewhat pedantic and overly-long review of Our Flag Means Death, a not-so lighthearted pirate comedy. Gosh, I really wanted to like this show. Everything about it seemed up my alley, from its premise to its cast and so on. But at the end of season one, a presiding feeling of meh came over me, despite its admirably inclusive narrative. That’s likely down to OFMD being adrift on a sea of uncertainty, rocking back and forth between rom and com (and dram). Hopefully it finds its heading in season two.
If I had to score it, I’d give season one of Our Flag Means Death a 5/10.
Notes:
*I want to applaud the writers for including LGBTQ+ characters without going through the normal clichés, like coming-out scenes or anything like that. It’s all normalized, and I can’t say I’ve seen that in a show like this before.
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