‘Black Sails’ is on Netflix. Why Isn’t Netflix Pushing It More?

Recently, Netflix finally added the pirate drama Black Sails to its platform. They didn’t widely advertise this fact. But while Netflix weirdly treats their content library as if it was their executives’ search histories, the platform is at least widespread, giving Black Sails another shot at becoming people’s new favorite show now that they don’t have to sign up for Starz to watch it and help promote the misguided notion that Z is an acceptable way of pluralizing words. That is the only thing I can think of that has kept Black Sails from becoming a hit because everything else about it is pretty much perfect.

Black Sails has a lot going for it. It’s technically a prequel to Treasure Island, telling the story of the rise of Long John Silver (Luke Arnold), the fall of Captain Flint (Toby Stephens), and the origin of the titular treasure from Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel. But it’s also a story of real-life pirates like Blackbeard, played the sadly late Ray Stevenson, as well as the turbulent tale of the 18^th-century Republic of Pirates on New Providence island in the Bahamas. More importantly, it’s a gripping drama that’s totally accessible to people with no real interest in Treasure Island or history, offering them, among others…

Some of the Best Naval Battles You’ll Ever See

Think of all the big-budget productions with thrilling and realistic naval warfare, and don’t feel too bad if you can’t name anything besides Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World because you can now add Black Sails to the list. They show even portrays small sailing vessels as having a lot of weight to them as they prowl the waters with the grace of an overweight elephant pregnant with a refrigerator. Unlike in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, you won’t see ships being Tokyo Drift­-ed but rather carefully piloted into the right direction and position like floating buildings. Black Sails reminds us that 18^th-century ships weren’t the trucks of the sea. They were manmade kaiju of wood and iron and their terrifying majesty is on full display throughout the show’s run. As is their firepower.

Movies and TV shows have really underused the cannon. Most people don’t have that one iconic scene in their minds showcasing the kind of devastation these boom-boom murder tubes can rain down on humans. After binging Black Sails, though, you’ll have your pick of the litter.

Non-Insulting Queer Themes

When everyone was going nuts over Our Flag Means Death, I’ve managed to convince a few people to give Black Sails a shot with a simple: “Hey, if you like stories about gay pirates, you should check out this other show.” This will unfortunately turn into a bit of a spoiler if I go into more details but among the core themes of Black Sails, there is a touching gay/bisexual drama that it handles with the kind of care and dignity you wouldn’t expect from a pirate story that originally aired on a channel that once spelled its name with an exclamation mark. But a refreshing number of female characters on the show represent a range of sexual orientations, none of which it ever uses for sexposition.

There’re some comparisons one can make between Black Sails and Game of Thrones, but the former thankfully never reduces non-heterosexual relationships to an excuse to get exposition out to the audience while also making them horny. That’s not just a more mature approach to storytelling, it’s also more efficient.

An Analysis of the Power of Storytelling with a Political Message

How long do you think the “Golden Age of Piracy” lasted? 150 years? 200 years? It was actually closer to 70, taking place from the late 1650s to the early 1730s, and that’s really stretching it. Seven decades. The historical period that created a huge chunk of modern pop-culture lasted for about as long as SpaghettiOs have existed. But in that short time, a bunch of water-type thieves have left an indelible mark on history through the stories that we tell about them. The final speech of Black Sails spells this out, including a fascinating bit about how it doesn’t matter whether a story is true or not.

That part ties in nicely to something that Black Sails has been saying all along. A lot of the pirates on Black Sails are bags of the scum, douche, and dick variety, no question about it. However, many are also escaping the tyranny of the British Empire, finding freedom in piracy that’s not available to them anywhere else, and there is a huge disconnect between how the general public sees them and the reality of their situation. The show might have done a bit too much telling instead of showing with its final speech, but it left figuring out the most important lesson of that scene as an exercise for the viewers.

And that lesson is that making villains is easy. We gladly believe in the irredeemable “bad guy” because they make the world seem simpler, even if there is much more to them. Pirates were thieves and criminals, sure, but what other avenues did they have for achieving freedom? How many were forced into the life? How many performed noble deeds like freeing slaves? We don’t hear questions like that when empires craft villains for their own purposes. But Black Sails asks them. Watch it and find answers to them on your own.