How Our Flag Means Death Improved in Season 2 and Then Got Cancelled

Spoilers for Our Flag Means Death season one and two ahead!

Our Flag Means Death is an American period comedy series created by David Jenkins. The series was first released in 2022 by Max and the second season in October last year. When I first watched the series on BBC iPlayer, I initially found it quite fun, in a swashbuckling sort of way, but there was something about it that prevented it from elevating to the next level.

This problem, I believe, was the fact that the first season focused almost entirely on Stede Bonnet [Rhys Darby] whose character was really quite one dimensional. His whole shtick as the Gentleman Pirate was very reminiscent of his performance in What We Do in the Shadows (2014), which included a lot of repetitive affirmations and a gentle parenting style towards his pirate crew.

Furthermore, few of the other characters have much development either, except for perhaps Oluwande [Samson Kayo] and Jim [Vico Ortiz]. The season bounced around between Bonnet’s new life and his old one, and as a character, really didn’t appeal to me. He abandoned his wife and children in order to partake in some sort of midlife crisis. Although this is quite true to the real Gentleman Pirate, it doesn’t necessarily facilitate creating a character the viewer actually cares that much about.

In season one, we eventually meet Blackbeard [Taika Waititi] and his crew, who are much more adept at pirating than the crew of the Revenge, and do all sorts of plundering and swinging from ropes without worrying about their mental health. Towards the end of the first season, there’s a germ of an idea that appears quite surprisingly, that Ed and Stede are falling in love.

Now, in a shocking twist of fate, it turns out that a love story between the Gentleman Pirate and Blackbeard is exactly what the show needed. Stede and Ed on their own are not very investable – they’re not characters an audience would really care to root for, but their union is. This is because their relationship represents freedom and happiness and all sorts of lovely stuff. (I would just like to add here that of course both Stede Bonnet and Edward Teach were obviously despicable in real life and did not represent any lovely things at all.)

Stede and Ed are not the only same-sex couple in the series. I really like that throughout the show, everybody falls in love with whoever they like, and the series doesn’t comment on it. It doesn’t say Stede and Ed are in love – and they’re gay! It doesn’t say Pete and Lucius are in love – any they’re gay! People just fall in love and it’s great. Spanish Jackie loves her twenty husbands. I don’t usually care for romance as a genre, I more prefer necromancy, but the main love story in the show was a fundamental part of its identity and charm.

So, with everything on the up and up, why did Max decide not to renew it? Our Flag Means Death acquired a fanbase and critical acclaim, so this doesn’t sound like much of a good business decision. However, even though I am a fan of the show, I’m actually pretty happy for it to end. In this anachronistic, fictional pirating world, everything is resolved. A third season could only really be possible through the invent of a new character, and it’s likely that viewers would want more of the characters they have come to know already. What could possibly happen for Stede and Ed next? They have overcome their issues to live happily together, and that doesn’t make for a very exciting new venture. For now, I’m happy that Our Flag Means Death has transformed into a beautiful seabird.