In this essay I will … add to excellent discussion about the companion structures and themes of Episodes 07 and 08.
First, this is inspired by @bookshelfdreamsand@mikimeiko and dedicated to @speckled-jim (and a few other folks, you know who you are, who also like to scream about Izzy the Ratbastard).
As background, please consider this post (Mikimeiko) about Edward and Stede’s fear of losing each other and then follow up with this post (bookshelfdreams) about the themes of loss and abandonment in Episode 07 and 08. This is an excellent addition about Calico Jack’s role in the narrative and between the two of them you will be well-prepared to consider the following:
I will submit to all of you that Izzy Hands and his terrible life choices are the glue holding these companion episodes together, because Izzy planned this situationandhe used his deeply personal knowledge and understanding of Edward to instigate the breakup.
The full arc of these episodes is about loss, abandonment … and betrayal.
Izzy Hands is once again making everything awful and Making It Weird Forever (thanks @knowlesian). Ready to suffer? :D
Proceed past the cut.
Full Disclosure: This is the top-level summary or I’d be here all night.
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07 - This is Happening
A brief summary of the situation between Ed and Stede: they are still deciding whether or not to accept each other and what that means during the treasure hunt. We get the lovely improvisational restaurant conversation, Edward does his ‘please touch my beard’ flirting thing, and then – oh no! The map burns and is ruined!
Lucius helpfully clues in Ed to the fact that Stede has set up this very Stede-directed adventure for him. Edward has heart eyes 100% of the time because this is probably the nicest thing anyone has ever tried to do (while being a lovable pure idiot about it). God, Stede is the most cinnamon of rolls. And Edward makes an effort to be sweet in return (Lucius reinforces this; it’s so fucking brilliant that Edward still threatens to stab him in the ‘fuckin face).
Did you notice that it’s an Izzy-style threat? A bit softer and gentler, but still with admirable cursing and pitch-perfect comedic timing.
Which brings us to Izzy.
Izzy is conspicuous by his absence. Where would Edward go if Edward left? Back to Izzy and the ‘next adventure!’ And it wouldn’t much look like this very impractical treasure hunt with a petrified orange as the prize.
If we compare the prizes Izzy recently took: one of Stede’s hostages, a Spanish warship, and The Revenge, itself. All very respectable (except Stede; Izzy put him back!)
Izzy, after trying to ‘put Stede back’ post-duel scene: None of this is going how I planned. I hate my entire life and my best friend just banished me from the ship. What is a first mate going to do without a captain to serve?
“This is Happening” is where we see Edward and Stede begin to recognize their relationship while Izzy experiences the full-on terror of his identity being stripped away. Read: loss and abandonment. Izzy is experiencing both of these in the background, and it’s this terror of losing Edward and of contemplating a future without that relationship that prompts him to FUCKING CALL UP CHAUNCEY FUCKING BADMINTON.
Izzy. What the fuck.
08 - We Gull Way Back
Now for a quick linguistic aside on the episode title that you need to understand before we proceed further. “We Gull Way Back” is directly referencing three things:
1. “We Go Way Back” = Calico Jack is Edward’s old friend, buddy, and ex-lover.
2. “Gull” = the Death of Karl and Buttons’s fabulous ability to hex Calico Jack. It’s a weird reverse ex(orcism). Yes this is a pun. Shoot me.
3. “Gull” = an archaic term for “to trick, to subvert, or to fool.” This last theme is where Izzy Hands comes in and it’s a direct title reference to his role in this episode and in setting up the entire circumstances of this arc without being present on-screen. Because David Jenkins is brilliant.
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You may be wondering: Ferus, if Izzy doesn’t show up in this episode, what are you going to analyze?
Ready to be fucked up? Because this has been fucking me up all day. Brace yourselves. Recall all the previously cited meta about Calico Jack and the role he plays in questioning Stede’s identity and making Edward think Stede couldn’t handle the old days?
Izzy knew:
All of Edward’s history
What Edward’s reaction would be to seeing this old friend and ex-lover
What Calico Jack would think of Stede
What old hobbies Jack and Blackbeard used to share
The story of Blind Man’s Cove, that Jack once saved his life there, and that it had no escape routes
That neither Stede nor the rest of the crew would suspect this trap (because none of them know Edward and their history as Blackbeard as well as he does)
That this trap was calibrated specifically and personally to trick Edward into being the one who took Stede to a place where the English could catch and execute him
It’s fucking me up so bad, fam.
It’s not just a betrayal, it’s probably one of the most intimately personal and subtle betrayals I’ve seen depicted on screen.
What the FUCK, Izzy. No shit Edward was right to punch you right in your fucking face!
And it’s the first time we really see Edward lose his temper with Izzy, by the way. Foreshadowing the descent into The Kraken we get in Episode 10.
Izzy set up the whole fucking thing and he’s paying the price.
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Additional Disclaimer: If you’d like very specific dialogue and scene examples of how all of the above is working, my ask box is always open for screaming about Izzy Hands. My word is not definitive in any way, shape, or form. If you also like to scream about Izzy Hands please know that I am very friendly and open to being challenged, contradicted, dismantled, or otherwise appropriated with or without credit and/or reference. I love OFMD a totally normal amount.
Along the lines of how Our Flag Means Death is constantly shifting between genres (muppet comedy, gritty pirate realism, British Navy Master & Commander realism, etc etc), I want to say for the record that I have zero idea if Calico Jack is still alive, because I don’t know if his death took place in the muppet world of almost zero consequences or in the gritty pirate realism world where a cannonball to the chest actually means something. He could pop up next season in a neck brace bitching about swimming back to shore after the British shot him and I’d be like “Yeah, that tracks,” and he could never show up again because he’s dead dead and I’d be like, “Yeah, that also tracks,” and it’s both brilliant and baffling how the show pulls off this melange of genres in a way that keeps us guessing like this.
No, but, like, think about it. Calico Jack and Izzy Hands, they’ve both had their “spats” with Ed, right? And I feel like Jack and Izzy wrote it off, you know, “anything goes at sea”. It’s not love, it’s what sailors do, it’s just physical.And they know. “The love of a pet makes a man weak”. He had his Fang kill his own dog to sail with him.
I think it helped them, convinced themselves that it wasn’t a possibility, that’s Blackbeard, he doesn’t fall in love.
And then, they see him with this Soft guy, and he laughs, and he plays costume, and he enjoys a fine fabric and a nice marmelade. And, they seethe, because, it’s not that Blackbeard wasn’t capable of love, it’s that he wasn’t capable of love with them.
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