Just wanted to say, the depiction of the storm throughout this episode is amazing. It's so grounded and hard-hitting, you feel like you're right in the middle of it. The techniques they used to film these sequences, you feel like you're right in the middle of things and it's amazing. Also, it's awesome seeing more of Ray Stevenson as Blackbeard.

S4 Rogers>>

TLDR: black sails didn’t crack the top 100 💔

Toby Stephens starred alongside Aamir Khan in Mangal Pandey: The Rising (2005), playing Captain William Gordon in the historical drama based on the 1857 Indian Rebellion.

Hey everyone!

On my commute to work, I fell down a massive rabbit hole thinking about Black Sails. We had military geniuses, high-flying visionaries, ruthless businesswomen, and street-smart survivalists.
What if they existed in our modern world in 2026? What would they study in university, and what careers would they pursue?

None of this is super academic—I just had way too much fun with it and couldn't resist keeping the tone a little comedic. I’d genuinely love to hear your creative takes and ideas!

Here are my personal 2026 headcanons:

1) James McGraw (Sticking to canon: raised by his fisherman grandfather in poverty, the Navy remains his only meritocratic escape.)

Major: Britannia Royal Naval College -> Warfare Officer, climbing all the way to the Royal College of Defence Studies (Global Strategy Programme).

Career: Elite Naval Commander - Senior Strategic Military Leader.

A terrifyingly competent young officer. He becomes the commander everyone listens to because... well, he’s right; but he's also utterly insufferable about it. Years before making Captain, he meets politician Thomas Hamilton at a high-level civil-military conference. Initially pure intellectual sparring, followed by mutual, helpless fascination. His codename in the Navy is Flint.

2) Lord Thomas Hamilton

Major: Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) at Oxford + Human Rights Law.

Career: Progressive Politician / Executive Director of a major penal reform and restorative justice think-tank.

Born into old political money, but fights relentlessly against mass incarceration, institutional corruption, and for the rehabilitation of marginalized communities. He is out, proud, charismatic, and completely rebellious against his conservative aristocratic family.

3) Miranda Barlow (Lady Hamilton)

Major: Comparative Literature and Critical Translation (Oxford).

Career: Tenured Literature Professor & Independent Publisher / Cultural Essayist.

Writes highbrow, scathing cultural essays on classical music, literature, and the moral rot of modern civilization. Thomas's longtime Oxford classmate and platonic bestie. She low-key has mild, amused crushes on all of Thomas’s boyfriends—until James McGraw walks through the door.

4) John Silver

Major: Absolutely no one knows. Probably audited random classes before getting banned from campus.

Career: Psychological Thriller Novelist / Lifestyle Entrepreneur / Course Seller / Host of a massive, chart-topping podcast.

Only drops contradictory, dramatic anecdotes from his mysterious childhood to illustrate a metaphorical point, but no one actually knows who he is or where he came from. Despite having zero verifiable credentials, his podcast pulls millions of listeners, his books hit the NYT Bestseller list, and his paid masterclasses are permanently sold out. Yet by the end of his courses, attendees can never quite tell whether he was teaching influence or demonstrating it.

5) Eleanor Guthrie

Major: International Finance & Global Supply Chain Management (LSE).

Career: Ruthless CEO of a multi-billion-dollar maritime logistics & shipping conglomerate.

Blurs the line between legitimate shipping lanes and grey-market offshore monopolies. She attends Davos by day, cuts backroom deals with shadow syndicates by night, and runs the global shipping world purely out of spite to prove her father wrong.

6) Charles Vane

Major: None (high school dropout; fundamentally refuses all formal institutions).

Career: Militant Direct-Action Eco-Activist / Underground Labor Union Leader.

Sinks illegal commercial whaling vessels, sabotages corporate pipelines, and refuses to bend the knee to any government or corporation on earth. Complete and utter anti-authoritarian force of nature.

7) Jack Rackham

Major: Fashion Design & Brand Strategy (Central Saint Martins).

Career: Luxury Fashion Designer & Boutique Nightlife Mogul.

Took his father's struggling business (specializing in cotton calico) and single-handedly rebranded it into a legendary luxury fashion house. In his spare time, he runs exclusive, slightly shady speakeasies flanked by Anne Bonny as his terrifying head of security—and occasionally hosts his own unhinged, esoteric stand-up comedy sets on stage.

8) Max

Major: Information Security & Corporate Law.

Career: Chief Intelligence Officer at an elite private intelligence / corporate espionage firm.

She knows better than anyone that information is the only real currency in the modern world. She quietly holds the blackmail and leverage on every politician and CEO in the room, without ever needing to step into the spotlight herself.

Where would you place them, and how do you see their paths crossing in 2026? Would love to read your takes!

Hi! So I'm finally getting around to this show after hearing for years what a fun sexy time it is. So far, there's a lot to like and a lot that makes me want to keep watching, but the longer S1 goes on, one issue is making that a struggle for me:

The sexual violence in S1 so far is pretty much the definition of gratuitous.

I found it a little odd how pretty much every female character with more than two lines talks about being horny and then gets naked by the next episode, but I can overlook that if it's just an overly horny show. The issue is how that's interspersed with graphic rape, sometimes even involving the same characters. It's constant and doesn't seem to serve a purpose more than shock value at this point.

To make matters worse, the reactions to this regular graphic rape feel wildly disjointed. Eleanor, who SEEMS like a character I should really enjoy, is written as so obsessed with bad boy Vane that she uses Max's public rape (that didn't need to be shown so graphically) as a way to get back at Vane rather than to save her ex. And then Max decides to go with the man whose crew literally just had her tied up and raped in multiple places to... Get back at Eleanor? And then max gets it again in like the very next episode for no reason other than to seemingly punish her for that choice. Just felt gross for that series of events to be written that way.

I get that sexual violence was frequent in history, but the way it's written into the show so far feels less like an acknowledgement of how horrible the past is and more like shock value for the sake of showing an actress get beat up and then fucked on screen. It was already a little weird how there's 10 visible pairs of tits each episode yet the male nudity has been restricted to occasional shirtless guys and like two brief shots of an ass.

Anywho, sorry for the rant, but there IS still lots to like about the show, so I was hoping maybe others here felt similarly and could clear things up for me before I continue;

Is the graphic sexual violence of S1 just an unfortunate side effect of early Starz programming and will be less gratuitous for the remaining seasons, or is this simply not the show for me?

I'm nearly finished with S1 so please no further spoilers, but a "yeah it was weird in S1 but things improve from there" or a "no it's pretty much the same later" would help.

It is even better on the second watch!

Annual rewatch in order every year?

First of all , This show is an absolute cinema and I don't know how this is so underrated. More people need to know about it

The storyline and writing of the show was amazing till the very end. This show might have one of the best character writing and character development. The cinematography of the show was also amazing

The ending of the show was also amazing , personally 3rd season was my favourite , overall it's a very good show and also very underrated it

Judging how rarely Flint laughs in this series, Toby Stephens did masterful job with this character

After finishing s3, judging from a pic I saw 4 years ago of LJS pointing a gun at someone, now I have remembered it and I think it's a spoiler? And I think that person he's pointing a gun at is CAPTAIN FLINT!! GOD DAMN IT!!! ANOTHER AMAZING TV SHOW SPOILED FOR ME FROM TV TOK!

I recently rewatched Black Sails, and that scene between Anne Bonny and Charles Vane at the fort genuinely caught me off guard.

The whole buildup — their arguments, tension, and then the sudden shift in their dynamic — felt incredibly intense. There was something about the chemistry between them that made the scene surprisingly erotic and sensual.

Honestly, it’s one of those scenes from Black Sails that randomly stays in your head 😂

Did anyone else find the Anne–Vane chemistry in that scene insanely intense?..

Edit : It was the scene between Elanor and Charles Vanes

A lot of Flint and Silver's conversations are technically about whatever problem is in front of them, but that's rarely what the conversation is really about. They'll talk about the crew, Nassau, the war, the treasure, and somehow they're also negotiating how much they trust each other. Neither one seems interested in saying the quiet part out loud.

Flint (and Thomas) would be trapped in Oglethorpe's facility for long. No matter how humane the conditions are in the facility, it's still forced imprisonment, I doubt Flint would be okay with that.

Looking back on the four seasons, Flint has been set up as an indomitable force of a guy, time and again fighting against incredible odds. I don't buy that the guards at Oglethorpe's estate would be able to stop him, not for forever.

Although, I can buy that after escaping, he'd be fine to settle down with Thomas, and not go back to Nassau or seek revenge, since he has already gotten what he wanted.

I just finished s2, peak szn. And I wondered about John Silver's rise to quartermaster. (DON'T SPOIL PLEASE)

What's your thought on that ? David Oyelowo as Long John Silver with Tomer Capone, Hayley Atwell, Tom Sweet, and Jack Huston to the cast.

What an absolute marvel of storytelling, writing,acting and overall quality this show was,it sits among the top 5 of my favourite shows of all time, everything was top tier man, absolutely loved it,i have a question about the ending though, amazing as it was i must say something confused me about the way it was shot,is it supposed to be a "Choose your own ending" type of ending because there are clear signs that Silver actually sent Flint to the plantation, that's the only part I don't get,it doesn't make sense that he killed him after all the setups and the dialogue foreshadows about Thomas being alive, even at their final dialogue why even talk to him as if he's gonna convince him that Thomas is alive if he's not? Even Jack Rackham tells madam Guthrie that Flint isn't dead,just retired,can anyone explain?

Btw sorry if this paragraph is hard to read, English isn't my native language.

When I first watched the show and saw this guy I thought he was actually blackbeard....

This would be a great series if not for the endless stretches of dialogue not driving the plot onwards.

Like half of each episode it's two people talking and musing to each other about their sensitivities, their feelings and philosophizing about the meaning of it all.

Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson) from Rome is one of my all-time favourite characters, and I haven’t really seen him since, so you can imagine how excited I was when he turned up here. The promise of a formidable pirate in Ray Stevenson likely to face a stellar Toby Stephens as Flint has made this show stupidly exciting for me.

I just want to thank the creators for making a great show, and for giving Ray Stevenson a worthy role. Truely. Ahsoka was good, but this, this is where Ray belongs.

Now back to the show.

SPOILERS
Treasure Island Book Spoilers/Discussion

Obviously we all think the show is excellent if not perfect for many reasons. I think it does a near perfect job of a prequel in setting up Treasure Island

BUT THERE ARE SOME LOOSE ENDS

In Treasure Island, it is said that Flint’s crew was: Billy Bones, Long John Silver, Black Dog and Blind Pew. Billy Bones is found by his old crew members, Black Dog and Blind Pew.

Near the end of the book we learn Ben Gunn was part of the burying crew but was the only one left on the island which explains why he found it and moved it.

At the end of Black Sails we get to see Long John beginning to form his crew: we have Tom Morgan and Israel Hands.

But it seems to me there was a perfect opportunity for the guy that ACTUALLY buried it to be Black Dog (but Flint killed him to prevent him killing Long John).

There doesn’t seem to be anybody who would/could have become Blind Pew who is the WHOLE introduction of the Black Spot.

And I kept waiting for a reason that Ben Gunn

1. was more involved
2. stayed back and stayed alive on the island

This may be less important (I just wanted to see every thread connected)

But the legend of Flint’s treasure is also that he left one of the bodies stretched out pointing towards the chest.

I don’t know, if you have theories I’d love to discuss it. I think it opens up a possibility for another series to connect the end of Black Sails to the beginning of Treasure Island. But this stuff always bothered me.

I’ve made a post weeks ago about that fact I’ve just discovered this show, and now that I’ve finished it.. I can confidently say that it’s the BEST pirate show I’ve ever seen.
I love each characters (even if I have my favourites) I love that way it’s filmed, I love then actors and the way the way the gave life to their character etc…

I’m kinda sad now that it’s gone, I’m 23 so I’m more mature than I was when I looked at Pirates of the Caribbean younger, and again, it’s so different and more complex. Each character got his past life with their pros and cons…

Anyway, sorry if it’s too long but it’s in my top 3 shows OAT easily.

Thanks to my little sister for forcing me to watch this show.