Just finished rewatching Black Sails (again) and this time I saw one of the final scenes in a new light.
On previous viewings, it's always felt a little random to me that Mark Reed shows up in the last 10 minutes. As though they wanted to include Reed's story and couldn't fit it elsewhere and so they just slapped it on at the end.
But this time I noticed that when Rackham introduces Reed to Anne, he says "He's come from the continent", with a quirk of his eyebrow.
We know that Reed has heard stories that piracy is still alive in Nassau (he talks about it with Jack in an earlier scene). But, to me, the implication is that Reed has travelled this far because he's heard that there is more freedom in Nassau, freedom from England's restrictive societal rules, from gender norms and expectations. That Nassau is a place that exists on the edge of England's empire, where new rules and roles can be devised.
Flint's war might have died but a sliver of what he was trying to achieve survived.
I don't know... maybe I'm just trying to find some hope at the moment. But this really struck me.
