being in your early 20s is crazy bc there’s people who are literally married and people who’ve never even dated and people who are trapped in their childhood bedrooms waiting to get out and people who are trying to live out romanticized dream lives and people who are completely on their own and people with multi tiered support systems and we’re all supposedly peers and none of us think we’re doing it right at all
“I will not have you without the darkness that hides within you. I will not let you have me without the madness that makes me. If our demons cannot dance, neither can we.”
So I just rewatched episode 10 and I’m having thoughts again about Izzy and his relation to the name ‘Edward’ and the name ‘Blackbeard’.
I’ve already written on here multiple times that Izzy views his ability to call Ed by his first name as an intimacy. It is notthat he thinks of Ed as ‘Blackbeard’. He calls Ed ‘Edward’ and even sometimes ‘Ed’ (pretty significant considering Calico Jack’s comment about ‘the old Blackie’ killing someone for breaching that line of familiarity). It is everyone else who isn’t allowed to call Ed ‘Edward’. That’s for Izzy only. His name is Blackbeard, Dog.
In episode 10 we are watching the complete break down of Izzy and Ed’s relationship play out in front of us. They stand next to each other in our last shot of Izzy in season 1, Ed even sways into him slightly, but whatever they had at the start of the show? It’s in fucking tatters now. And when does that breakdown begin?
It begins specifically when Ed tells Izzy that he no longer wants to go by Blackbeard. While Izzy has been reprimanding the whole crew for not addressing Ed with the proper level of respect the whole season, this is the first time Ed contradicts him, says ‘nah, Izzy, I’m gonna go by Ed now’. And suddenly everyonenot just Stede get’s this intimacy from Ed and what’s Izzy supposed to do now? He’s not just the spurned wife now, watching his narrative husband pine for someone else, he’s just…he’s got nothing left of Edward that is onlyhis. And as set up in Episode 5, Izzy can’t conceive of the mindset of ‘we don’t own each other’. For him, (romantic) relationships are inherently about ownership.
And so Izzy self destructs his own intimacy with Edward, in a bid to self destruct it for everyone else too. He sets up a binary for Edward in their conversation after the talent show is announced. I serve Blackbeard, Edward better watch his fucking step he growls out. And that is literally the last time we hear Izzy call him ‘Edward’ or ‘Ed’. From here on out, Izzy refers to him solely as ‘Blackbeard’. Yes Blackbeard he says, when Ed makes him eat his toe, Blackbeard is back he tells the crew as they throw Stede’s things into the water.
And god, I have so many emotions about that. At the beginning of episode 10, Izzy is doing what he always does, he is hiding the ‘softer’ side of Ed, telling everyone he’s fine, everything is fine. He’s presumably been sat with Ed for a while at that point, maybe watched Ed trash the room and set up the pillow fort. Izzy tells us this is his job in episode 4, he protects Ed’s reputation and the implicit thing here is that it’s because he knows what Ed is actually like. But by the end of episode 10, Izzy cuts off that intimacy. He only sees Blackbeard.
He’s got what he wanted too, by then! Everyone who thought of Edward as ‘Ed’ is gone. He’s the last person standing close to Ed; no Stede, no Lucius, no happy little Revenge crew. But also, to get what he wanted he had to literally kill what he wanted? Because there’s no Edward anymore to have all to himself. There is only the persona and Izzy’s insane need to upkeep it, the private sphere they used to operate in out of sight of the world is gone.
And I don’t know there’s something about that that is so absolutely heartbreaking? Izzy does it all to himself, it’s literally entirely his fault, but. Still. He loses Ed in episode 10, after fighting so hard to get him back throughout the entire season, to the point of literally signing himself over to the British. Before Ed does his dramatic ‘act of grace’ plea, Izzyhas already done so, he’s already signed over 10 years of his life in order to let Edward walk free. But in fighting for him, he killed him, he lost him and I just. dhsiuahjkfhjakh brain rot emotions about it.
i feel like people have forgotten how to be a generous audience when they read/watch something. like sometimes you have to buy into some bullshit plot points or a deus ex machina or a few loopholes as the price of admission for an otherwise fun time. sometimes these things are just gears that get us to where the story really wants to be, and too many people get caught up in those gears. sometimes you gotta meet a story halfway.
You gotta be willing to engage with a story in order for the story to have a chance…I call it “getting over the CinemaSins mindset”
anyway rowena (now living in the bunker) obviously is witness to dean and cas’ whole *waves hands* and i think she would tryto like. give cas the whole “hey. are you like, good?” talk, but she’s exactly the wrong person to try that, because it would go like this:
rowena: sweetheart, what you have to understand is that men are disposable, and should be treated as such
