When I was reviewing Turn – for all of two episodes – my chief complaint was that I wanted a damn spy show and I kept getting a historical drama. That’s to be expected when you have a hook like “Revolutionary War spies” or “John Malkovich as a pirate.” When you say that, I want to see Malkovich as a pirate, and I want it to be Malkovich as fuck. Luckily, “The Covenant,” while not a perfect episode, seems intent on being a solid hour of “rated ARRGGH for pirates” television, and for the most part it succeeds.
Blackbeard is visited by an old compatriot, Captain Sam Valentine (guest star Stuart Wilson, doing his best Malcolm McDowell impression). To ensure the island’s secrecy, Valentine’s crew are all hooded on their voyage over, which is a pretty striking image. Blackbeard wants Valentine to take the chronomoter and sell it back to England’s William Jagger (Thomas’s boss), to throw Jagger off Blackbeard’s scent. Actually not a bad idea, but Valentine – who calls Blackbeard “Ed,” which I thought was a great touch – refuses, arguing that the chronometer would spell the end of piracy itself. And that’s about when everything goes to shit.
Valentine is in the courtyard, entertaining his men with stories of his youth with Blackbeard – “Little Eddie Finch, or Tinch, or Teach – he never could decide on a name.” Valentine warned to cut it out by Blackbeard’s No. 2, Charlie, but he continues on anyway, leading to a confrontation between him and Blackbeard, and this is where “The Covenant” gets nicely piratey. The confrontation is tense, well-acted, and well-written (by 2 Guns scribe Blake Masters), and Malkovich continues to put his stamp on one of history’s most well-known pirates.
Later that night, after an attempt is made on Blackbeard’s life, Valentine is arrested by Charlie (and so is Thomas, because someone is going to try to kill him every week, and I’m already getting tired of it). I’m becoming a big fan of Charlie. It’s easy to make a character like Blackbeard – the man, the legend – whose presence dominates a room. It’s harder to make a No. 2, because they always end up in one of two categories: Waylon Smithers or Dan Dority (from Deadwood). Luckily, Charlie is in the latter category.
Of course, Thomas and Valentine are innocent (the chief suspect, to Blackbeard, is Valentine’s first mate Finnegan), but Blackbeard does little to stop Valentine’s hanging. “I can’t stop them,” he tells Valentine. “It’s not in my gift.” Malkovich excels at this notoriously tricky style of dialogue; his Blackbeard is a more Byronic pirate than we’re used to seeing, and his delivery is mellifluous yet barbed, like quiet thunder.
Thomas gets off the hook, because Kate lies to Blackbeard and says that Thomas was in her bed. “I’m glad you didn’t hang,” she tells him later. “Not half as glad as I,” he replies, and then they’re making out like two kids in ye olde dryve-inne. Honestly, we all knew this was going to happen – all the promos have shown it – but it was way too soon for me. It almost knocked half a star off the rating. Kate, earlier in “The Covenant,” had a nice monologue detailing the lengths she’d gone to for her husband James, and it ended with her demanding that Thomas not doubt her love for the man. And then she’s kissing him passionately half an hour later. It seemed out of character, and way too early.
Unfortunately, any show with a handsome man in the lead – so, 99% of TV – will feature a romantic subplot, usually with the first beautiful woman he meets. Crossbones isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel, and embracing this hoary convention is a good way to convey that to the audience. But it’s a minor quibble about an otherwise solid hour of television.
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