It’s fitting that Crossbones titled its third episode “The Man Who Killed Blackbeard,” because the show finally decides to reveal its true villain, and it looks like it’s going to be a good one. This episode is strictly “case of the week” format, but does a good job expanding its world despite its lackluster main character.
We open on the Isle of Sandbags (there are so many sandbags), where the main players are all abed, surrounded by lit candles. Who lights these? Do people on Santa Campana get up, light candles in the broad daylight, and get back into bed? I don’t know, and honestly I’m not sure I want to. Anyway, Blackbeard is still troubled by visions, this time accompanied by a child’s wail, and Thomas and Kate are continuing their increasingly conspicuous affair. Kate leaves to go trade with a priest named Father Daniel on Adderley Cay, while Thomas is called upon to deliver a baby – which he does without a problem despite the fact that it was his first time.
Kate gets double-crossed by Father Daniel, and taken prisoner by the British, while William Jagger (Thomas’s boss, remember) is on his way to interrogate her. When Blackbeard gets word of this – via a Game of Thrones-style messenger pigeon – his response is to evacuate the island, and lead a contingent of men to rescue Kate (Thomas comes with, naturally).
Here’s my first problem with this episode, which overall wasn’t actually bad. Blackbeard makes an allusion to Jagger’s style of interrogating women, and during the evacuation procedures Charlie is cut off while warning a woman about rape, right before the word is said. Why? Why not say “rape”? This is a show about PIRATES, I don’t think anyone would be shocked. Is creator Neil Cross sacrificing that little bit of accuracy just to err on the side of caution? I hope not. It’s a weird thing to point out (“Crossbones needs to talk about rape more” – GAMbIT), but the fact that it stuck out at all is an issue in and of itself.
Anyway, Jagger reveals himself to be the true villain of Crossbones, and while the character of obsessive, hard-lined English ship captain might have been appropriated from a very well-known pirate franchise, it doesn’t matter because Julian Sands is killing the role, and director Stephen Shill (a veteran of Deadwood) seems to have a knack for making him menacing in a very straightforward fashion. To wit: after beating Kate, Jagger has her buried alive, which makes for a nicely tense scene. Sure, Crossbones isn’t going to kill off the love interest three episodes in, but the sight of an open grave and an empty coffin is pretty striking.
Kate is rescued, obviously, by Blackbeard and Thomas. Blackbeard wears an AWESOME half-face mask that shows how he got his nickname. Thomas came up with most of the strategy for rescuing Kate, and is pretty handy with a sword, which brings me to my second problem, that of Crossbones‘ main character.
As I said in my review of the pilot, Thomas is more or less flawless at this point. He’s a skilled surgeon and swordfighter, has a photographic memory, a strategic acumen that surpasses that of a pirate, and can successfully perform medical operations the first time he attempts them. That’s a boring main character. You know who else is near-perfect, and boring because of it? Superman. Another reference is made to Thomas’s “vanity,” but there’s still no evidence of it. I hope this gets fixed, because if Crossbones wants to be more than a novelty, it needs to give us a reason to watch other than “John Malkovich as a pirate.”
That’s a pretty major gripe, so why does “The Man Who Killed Blackbeard” get four stars? Because of the way it expands the world of the show. The villain is properly introduced – we’ve met Jagger before, but he really took shape this episode – and side characters we’ve never seen together before get some nice scenes (I’m thinking of Fletch and James Balfour, or Charlie and Selima). Also, it gave us the haunting image of an eyeless corpse being made to steer a skiff full of explosives, and that’s good enough for me.
A Few Thoughts
– I couldn’t find a way to work this into the review organically, but I am loving Johnny Hoflin’s work as Charlie Rider. His scenes with Selima were very well-done, and the dude cauterizes stab wounds with an AXE. Why isn’t this show about him?
– I smell a romance brewing between Fletch and Nellie, the prostitute who gave birth at the beginning of the episode
– Selima being agoraphobic is a nice touch, as is her calling Charlie “Charles”
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