also i have a longer post abt this cooking in my drafts but i’m so tired of ppl summarizing lucius’s 2.05 storyline as “everyone is dismissive of lucius’s trauma and tells him to just get over it” bc what actually happens in that episode is that everyone else has moved on and lucius is MAD AT THEM for it to the point where he becomes dismissive of their trauma. even pete is just concerned and confused up until the point where lucius snaps at him like “you have no idea what i’ve been through” and THAT’S when pete is like “dude!! i am also fucked up by what happened!!! you’re not the only one suffering!!!” and then izzy gives him the shark and is like “do whatever you need to do to heal but you do need to put in the work, it’s hard but not moving on is worse” which to me feels wildly ooc for izzy to have this much emotional wisdom all of a sudden but redeemed!izzy in general was just a completely different guy from the izzy i knew. i got off topic anyway the point is the show is not dismissing lucius’s trauma it’s addressing a specific type of a poor coping method that i like to call “wallowing in it.” it’s something im personally familiar with and it’s a very easy and paradoxically a somewhat comforting way to try and cope with trauma/mental illness but in the long run it only hurts you and the people close to you. healing is hard and it takes active effort but it’s worth it
I really love the Lucius and Pete interactions in this episode. If you want to be dismissive of Pete, sure, you can read it as “good vibes only, just put on a happy face!”
But if you have any faith in them at all (and I do), it’s so clear that Pete is saying “I missed you, and now you’re here but you’re not here, please be here with me. I’m so fucking glad you’re here.”
And we know that Lucius has faith in Pete, because he responds to that sentiment from Pete. He doesn’t come back and say “I’ll never be sad again”, he comes back and says “I want to be here with you forever, actually” and I just. I just love them so much
the dialogue between these two in these scenes is so good actually because it’s not polished practiced therapyspeak and neither of them are able to articulate very clearly what they actually mean, but this does have the unfortunate effect of making it easier to interpret the dialogue in bad faith. pete doesn’t say “it hurts me to see you so fixated on how blackbeard harmed you that you’ve been ignoring me when i just want us to be able to appreciate how you survived and we’re together when we were both so scared we’d never see each other again” because that’s hard to really put into words. instead he says “come find me when blackbeard isn’t living rent-free in your head” which is funnier but also much easier for someone to interpret as “i don’t want to hang out with you if you’re still struggling to cope with your trauma”
idk that the bad faith interpretation here is due to lack of faith in pete so much as it is lack of faith in the ofmd writers themselves. as well as maybe personal experience with trauma? like i have experienced being told “why are you so miserable, just get over it” during periods of shitty mental health and it’s something that really fucking sucks to hear, so i actually sort of understand how pete’s words can be read as dismissive and how that might have been upsetting for some poeple when they were watching the season, especially on a first watch
when writing stuff like this, where characters are having complicated emotions and messy interpersonal conversations, there’s a balance that needs to be struck between “making the characters communicate clearly enough for the audience to understand them” and “making the dialogue actually sound like something people would actually say in real life.” pete doesn’t say “i respect how much you are hurting but lately you have been so fixated on your own trauma that i don’t know if you realize how much i was also hurt but what blackbeard did” he says “dude! blackbeard did this to both of us! for weeks, i thought you were dead. i cried every night! i’d wake up in the morning… thinking i Heard Your Voice.” and lucius doesn’t say “i didn’t realize how hurt you were, i’m sorry my behavior made you feel like i didn’t appreciate or respect your trauma” he says “okay, yeah, well obviously i’ve underestimated some stuff, i don’t fucking know.”
personally i think the show strikes that balance pretty well and i didn’t have a hard time reading this conversation in a way that wasn’t “pete tells lucius to get over it” but i can sort of see where that comes from. i can especially see why people would stick with this interpretation if they happened to have felt let down by season two as a whole, for whatever reason. but i am still tired of constantly seeing this take levied as a serious criticism of ofmd.
Just had a realisation thinking about the latest bts and how naturally they just come up with silly little songs on the spot when they’re bouncing it off each other. What if this was something they already did during their time together in s1, and Ed composing sad songs in the blanket fort was him trying to recapture some of that magic, and calling Lucius in because doing it alone just doesn’t work, it doesn’t feel right, but it still wasn’t the same as with Stede🥲🫠😭
i’m gonna try and pull together a bunch of things about ed’s arc in ofmd that i think fit together in a way that’s hard to articulate, and i’m thinking out loud here, so this might not be my most coherent meta. a lot of this is stuff people have said before, i don’t know how much of it’s new.
One of the things I most mourn about not getting a s3 is a conclusion to Lucius and Ed’s relationship. There is such an interesting and profound disconnect with Lucius’ anger towards Ed and I wish so badly to see where they would’ve taken it.
Pushing Lucius overboard was, by far, the worst thing Ed ever did during his Kraken era. No contest. Lucius was the crew member who had gotten to know him best, and reached out to him with nothing other than support and sympathy. Ed pushing him was the cruellest thing he ever did, and while we can assume that Ed did that because Lucius was the only person who might see through his Blackbeard act, that’s a pretty shitty excuse for hurting someone so badly.
And Lucius doesn’t know what the fuck he did to make Ed do that to him, of course. All he can assume is that “Stede broke him” (which isn’t even close to true). I’m so struck by his drawings of Ed in s2e5, because saying there’s a disconnect between the anger and Ed is honestly an understatement. He draws Ed as he knew him best, with the beard, and the drawings are beautiful and soft and flattering. Even though the Ed that pushed him overboard was beardless, I think remembering that Ed is still too hard to hold true anger towards because Lucius remembers him vulnerable and hurting and crying and human. Lucius called him “Ed” before he was pushed overboard; in s2 he only calls him “Blackbeard,” in a tone that makes it very clear he means it as an insult. He is clearly struggling to reconcile the man who hurt him so badly and needlessly with the friend he had.
Both Ed and Lucius are left unsatisfied with their attempts to get closure. Pushing Ed overboard gives Lucius momentary satisfaction but not much else, and later he tries to get Izzy on his side to chop Ed’s leg off - he doesn’t just want Ed to make amends, a part of him wants him to suffer, and that’s so incredibly striking coming from this character. His closure comes from turning to love instead and focusing towards the future he can have with Pete. Ed is happy to let Lucius push him, but he’s clearly unsure what else he can do. It feels like they’re left on an unfinished note because it is unfinished.
Ed and Stede being so joyful at Lucius and Pete’s wedding was a healing moment, but I wanted to see them talk it through.
Who on the revenge just had a cat collar ready to go. There was no cat.
Something unaddressed on the show is how much kinky sex the crew was engaging in just off screen, inclusive of the cat collar
Wee John originally made it for Frenchie. Role-playing as a cat helps with his fear of them. He first realized it when Wee John dressed as his cat during the fuckery in s1e6, and after they got the room they discovered it worked better the other way. You can see him really lean into it on the Kraken crew. The only reason he didn’t have the bell then is because Wee John always kept it for him when they weren’t playing. Pete knew about it because eventually they lost the room and so their play became public. Also, it being made for Frenchie explains why Ed found it too tight, because Frenchie is a bit slighter than Ed.
I rest my case. qed.
It’s also a similar make to Wee John’s necklace in s2, so this checks out 😌
A little amends comic that is half trying some new brushes and also half wish fulfillment. I understand Lucius’s perspective as a fellow efficient gay in the work place & all his bitterness in my bones lol. I think all things are fine on his end after not getting killed off by the British tho, but he would appreciate it anyway
thinking about ways i would change the pacing of events in season two to give them more room for breathing, while keeping to the same number of episodes that were available, this is probably what i’d have done:
Episode 1: Impossible Birds: add back in the missing cutscene with izzy and ed featuring ed throwing a knife past izzy, with tally marks - use that scene to explain that these tallies represent the number of raids they’ve gone on since the end of season 1. izzy is complaining about ed’s blackbeard routine, ed snipes that he thought izzy wanted them to be pirates, well this is what pirates do. he’s taking that record, putting blackbeard back on the map, isn’t that what you wanted, iz? izzy acknowledges to himself that this is not what he wanted.
Episode 4: Fun and Games: right off the bat, i think they could have, instead of the crew voting Ed into a banishment that lasts a single day and which the crew are therefore pretty easily swayed on, they put him on probation in ep 4, with black pete suggesting the bell and frenchie and wee john the outfit, and stede pointing out that ed’s very injured so it’s not like they couldn’t overpower him if something goes wrong. ed’s annoyed about the whole thing and still half dead and fucked up from the gravy basket, and after hearing the terms, the crew says he has 12 hours to think about it before they’re leaving this area. he takes off for shore, grumbling about it, meets the rabbit and then mary. meanwhile, stede and buttons follow to convince him otherwise and so buttons can explain the gravy basket. they still encounter anne and mary, they still do that whole thing, buttons changing is what convinces ed to do the probation, we end the episode with ed wearing the probation outfit and begrudgingly thumbing the bell. expand the scene where the crew are working on izzy’s leg, just to have them talking in general a bit - oluwande is talking to jim about zheng, saying he misses her a bit.
Episode 5: Curse of the Seafaring Life: at the start of ep 5, we imply that it’s been a few days to a week maybe, and ed is still on probation. he gives his corporate apology as part of his on-going efforts to show penitence and make up for what he’s done, and we get a sense that he’s been doing grunt work around the ship - repairing sales, fixing things that were damaged and broken - throughout. the crew’s responses to the apology are pretty much the same as in the show, with some “it has been nice to have someone else doing all that shit though, right” about how he’s been working. their acceptance of the apology is now equal parts because of the work he’s done as well as a joke about corporate apologies working. Ed still feels frustrated about being on probation and stede has had more time to say he hasn’t really felt like a captain, so he and stede have their captain voice exchange pretty much verbatim from the show. ed and lucius have been more or less avoiding each other all week, adding more nuance to ed living rent-free in lucius’ mind, and ed offering to let lucius push him overboard. ed fishing with fang is part of him finally getting to meaningfully connect with another crew member again since the probation started, and is overall less about sitting with himself and more about him sitting in the moment, not just rushing to plan the next move, fishing is a great activity for having to be here, in this moment. the end credits stinger is the scene with zheng, ricky, and auntie.
Episode 6: Calypso’s Birthday: finally, now on ep 6, probation has ended, we indicate that it’s been a few weeks, someone mentions off-handedly that lucius and pete have been having a lot of all day marathon sex ever since they became engaged. when they head off to get party supplies, someone mentions maybe they should fetch them, and they all decide to leave the lovebirds too it. because of the added scene to episode 1, we’ve heard of ned low, and realize aw shit ed planted a seed of trouble back when he decided to go after that record. no other changes. meanwhile in town, olu sees signs of zheng’s presence and that she’s been here and laments a little about missing her, and wondering if maybe that’s a good thing, if she’s still pissed at him for what happened.
Episode 7: proceeds as happened in the show, that little bit strengthened by the passage of time, and also olu having actually been talking about zheng.
LOVED to see Frenchie running scams again and recruiting the Revenge crew to help. Replica planks. Lucius signing fake Stede autographs for Black Pete to sell. Wee John doing Stede tattoos. Use your captain’s new found infamy to grift everyone in sight. You’re doing amazing babes.
Well, mythical creature. Anything to say for yourself? Fuuuuuuuuuck yooooooou.
Bear with me because this may get rambly, but I find it fascinating that Izzy chooses to pick a fight with the figurehead on the ship. Given the history of figureheads as both identifying markers on a vessel and talismans to keep their crews’ safe, I got thinking about the fact that for Izzy, Blackbeard is a figurehead.
Literally and figuratively, Blackbeard’s identity looms large. Ed said it himself: he doesn’t even need to be on the ship. People recognise the flag and the vessel and that’s enough.
When the crew ‘kill’ Ed, Izzy is the one to keep his body on the ship. Which means that Izzy is the one to cover his head, leaving only his body visible. Only then, after Ed turns out to be alive again, Izzy goes and hides with the figurehead and - significantly - picks a fight with it.
Did Ed ever tell Izzy “I’m the kraken” (ie. a mythical creature)? Who knows. But even if he didn’t tell him, Izzy said way back in 1x04, “I was honoured to work for the legendary Blackbeard”. Blackbeard who is a legend and a ghost and a mad demonpyrate. A mythical creature, if you will.
For Izzy, he really seems to be redirecting all the rage he didn’t/couldn’t direct at Ed towards the unicorn. The subtext in the first scene between him and Stede at the bow is… uh. Quite telling.
Stede: He’s seen better days, hasn’t he? Izzy: At least he’s still got both legs. Stede: Yes! Oh, he can’t hear you. He’s got no head. You’ve got a head, though, which you should look after.
Given that “losing your head” was another euphemism for insanity and Ed said himself “they think I’m a bit crazy” and Izzy described him as “going mad”, Izzy really does seem to be projecting everything on to the figurehead who lost its head.
And then, in a drunken rage, he hacks the legs off the unicorn, dragging them along and throwing them down in front of the crew, declaring “There! It’s done! Maybe next time he’ll think twice about doing his fucking job”.
We know that this is a triggering sentence for him. We saw it in episode 1 when he tries to bring the crew to order, and the memory of hearing it from Blackbeard - knowing he’s expendable and not as valued or trusted or safe as he believed himself to be - led to him having his breakdown in front of the crew.
For him to bring this back up again, this open wound that led to the meeting with Blackbeard that then led to the confrontation and the shooting that cost him his leg, all ties in together with the unicorn.
Initially, I didn’t twig why he was doing it beyond grief and misery and being drunk off his tits, but then in episode 5, it clicked. Specifically because of this exchange:
Izzy: Flipping the tables on Blackbeard didn’t quite numb the pain? Lucius: Maybe we try what he did to you next. Izzy: What who did to me? Lucius: Blackbeard. Because he… chopped off your leg.
Which is what Izzy was doing in episode 4: trying what Blackbeard did to him by hacking the legs of the unicorn. Only it didn’t help… until it did when the crew took a piece of the damage he had done and made something new from it to support him. (Hello, I am rolling around in the symbolism 🥰)
What I also find especially compelling is that he recognises that Lucius is trying to process his trauma the same way as he did: by doing unto others what was done unto him. Only Lucius does it by pushing actual Blackbeard overboard while Izzy takes his frustrations out on a myffic wooden pony.
