Crossbones committed the cardinal sin of a pirate show with “The Return” – it bored me. I find myself on the verge of parroting my review of “Antoinette.” It wasn’t bad, it wasn’t good, but it was an hour of television. It picked up near the end, though, as Thomas started showing some actual flaws, instead of being Mr. Perfect the whole time (but make no mistake, he’s still Mr. Perfect 99% of the time).
Thomas needs to get to Jamaica to warn William Jagger about Blackbeard’s hellburners, submersible ships filled with gunpowder that Blackbeard intends to use to decimate Jamaica. Thomas gets permission for the jaunt by telling Blackbeard that his headaches and visions can possibly be alleviated by drilling a small hole in his skull using a device called a trephine.
If my doctor walked in with one of these, I’d tell him to fuck himself
Thomas says that trephines are scarce, but you know how he gets one? He goes up to what looks like a bodega and says “I’d like to acquire a trephine, please,” and then it cuts to him carrying one. Wow Thomas, that was pretty hard.
The thing about Crossbones that I’m getting most tired of – well, I guess that would be Thomas being flawless, but right behind it is everyone’s constant, loud distrust of Thomas. WE GET IT. Everyone was up in his shit tonight, including Kate and Fletch, the latter of whom prompted Thomas to admit that he has no conscience (?) and follow that up with “If you want to add yourself to the long list of names that I’ve slaughtered and forgotten, by all means betray me.” I don’t know what happened in the writer’s room of Crossbones to make them fall in love with Thomas Lowe so much. They are going out of their way to make him the ultimate badass. The one flaw he shows tonight comes during a meeting with William Jagger, where Jagger informs Thomas of his plan to attack Santa Campana. Thomas insists that Kate’s life be spared, but doesn’t demand the same security for her husband James. I wonder if this will lead Thomas to kill James himself, but I know that’s not going to happen. Mr. Perfect, remember? Even if he did, it woudn’t stop Kate from being with him. This same thing happened on Under the Dome, and no one gave a shit there either.
There are some better, more interesting developments. Fletch follows Blackbeard and discovers that the mysterious wild man of Santa Campana works for him, developing something like olde tyme grenades. He also looks like me, but with long hair. It’s weird.
Nenna is trying to buy land in America, and when the broker insinuates that she can’t read, she brandishes her sword and menacingly quotes The Merchant of Venice at him. It’s actually a pretty good scene. Blackbeard tells Selima that he wants her to be his successor. Selima declines, saying that people are afraid of her, which prompted me to write “Is everyone on this show a badass?” in my notes. Why would people be afraid of Selima? I spend a lot of time in my house too, and it doesn’t make people afraid of me. Except for those neighbor kids, but I told em if that damn Frisbee landed on my lawn one more time I was gonna keep it. Anyway, Selima finally leaves the house and buys a mango.
The biggest thing to come out of “The Return” is Thomas finally breaking ties with William Jagger. Crossbones has been setting up Jagger as its villain for the past few episodes, and now that Thomas has no allegiance to the man, it can really embrace him as a bad guy. We need to see some more dimensions to Jagger though, otherwise he’ll be reduced to a moustache-twirling caricature.
Look, this isn’t the worst hour of television I’ve seen all year (that might be “My Brother’s Keeper”). The problem is, Crossbones doesn’t seem to care about fixing its problems. Any show just starting out is going to have issues, but when your main issue is your main character, you need to jump on that shit right away.
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