--- title: How 'Our Flag Means Death' Crafts a Full-Bodied Romance description: In season 2, the period rom-com balances a deep love story with droll humor. canonical: https://time.com/6321042/our-flag-means-death-romance-explainer/ author: Laura Zornosa article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-10-05T20:16:11.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-10-07T01:34:18.000Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: How 'Our Flag Means Death' Crafts a Full-Bodied Romance og:description: In season 2, the period rom-com balances a deep love story with droll humor. og:url: https://time.com/6321042/our-flag-means-death-romance-explainer/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd61d8f588c091ca7/698a4107457a5243b6d68053/OFMD-lead-image.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Our Flag Means Death og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How 'Our Flag Means Death' Crafts a Full-Bodied Romance twitter:description: In season 2, the period rom-com balances a deep love story with droll humor. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd61d8f588c091ca7/698a4107457a5243b6d68053/OFMD-lead-image.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How _Our Flag Means Death_ Season 2 Bends Genre to Craft a Full-Bodied Romance > Sponsored content. 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Updated: Oct 7, 2023 1:34 AM UTCPublished: Oct 5, 2023 8:16 PM UTC In the second season of the period rom-com [_Our Flag Means Death_](https://time.com/6320025/our-flag-means-death-season-2-review/), which comes to Max on Oct. 5, the New Zealand actor and comedian [Rhys Darby](https://rhysdarby.com/about/) becomes not only a pirate but also a merman. Darby plays Stede Bonnet, [the Gentleman Pirate](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-gentleman-pirate-159418520/), a wealthy landowner who tires of his plush life of leisure and decides to become a swashbuckling pirate. Executive producer [Taika Waititi](https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people-2022/6177807/taika-waititi/) stars opposite Darby as the infamous pirate Blackbeard. In real life, these two figures really did sail, plunder, and capture ships together. But the historical parallels end there. _Our Flag Means Death_ is a love story, in which Stede and Blackbeard slowly fall for each other. Season 1 ended with Stede running away from Blackbeard, afraid of his feelings for him. The second season opens on a heartbroken Blackbeard who takes his pain out on his crew, bringing them down with him in a suicidal spiral until they’re forced to try to kill him. Blackbeard survives the assassination attempt but ends up in “the gravy basket,” mentally in purgatory while his body lies lifeless on the ship. Stede finds him there and tries to resuscitate him, and Blackbeard senses his presence. As Blackbeard imagines it, he’s drowning, being dragged down toward death. But then, to the tune of Kate Bush’s “[This Woman’s Work](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXzx--YefD8)”, Stede appears as a gallant merman, glittering gold in shining scales. A supercut of their most cherished moments together flashes by, and Blackbeard sputters back to life.  The moment in the penultimate episode of Season 1 just before Stede (Rhys Darby) and Blackbeard (Taika Waititi) kiss. Aaron Epstein—Max It’s the kind of moment filmmakers fantasize about creating, actually come to fruition, says David Jenkins, _Our Flag Means Death_'s creator, writer, director, EP, and showrunner. “You're like, 'This is beautiful,’” he says. “All the hours and everything, this is worth it. This is why we do this.” The merman scene epitomizes the draw of _Our Flag Means Death_, which has turned into a snowballing sleeper hit with a devoted fan base since debuting last year. In its first season, audience demand for the show [tripled](https://www.businessinsider.com/our-flag-means-death-biggest-new-series-right-now-2022-3?amp) between its premiere and finale. It then became the most in-demand [breakout series](https://www.parrotanalytics.com/insights/our-flag-means-death-flies-high-rivals-euphoria-and-peacemaker-in-tv-demand/) in the U.S. Part romance, part workplace comedy, _Our Flag Means Death_ is framed as a period piece, and dressed as a drama. What makes the show work, Jenkins says, is the fact that—unlike something like [_What We Do in the Shadows_](https://time.com/5558376/fx-what-we-do-in-the-shadows-review/)—the plot doesn’t reset with each episode. There’s more of a narrative thru-line, which makes the consequences for characters feel heavier. The show seesaws between asking viewers to suspend their disbelief (e.g., the merman) while maintaining a very real emotional core (Stede saving Blackbeard from himself). “Teetering between these two tones, and just making sure one doesn't totally dominate and destroy the other tone, that's the fun of the show to me,” Jenkins says. “You never know what you're going to get.” When _Our Flag Means Death_ was building word-of-mouth momentum last year, there came a flurry of think pieces about how it [defied queerbaiting](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/04/our-flag-means-death-queerbait-romance/629523/): Rather than defining Stede and Blackbeard’s relationship as platonic, leaving only queer undertones and implications—a phenomenon that LGBTQ+ audiences are all too used to—the writers’ room made it explicitly romantic, sealing the deal with an onscreen kiss in the penultimate episode of Season 1. “I don't see this as a queer romance,” says Jenkins. “I see this as a romance. It's two people finding each other and falling in love, and it should have the same size as every other mainstream fantasy story about two people falling in love, with all the bells and whistles.” Jenkins [didn’t realize](https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/our-flag-means-death-taika-waititi-finale-love-story-interview-rhys-darby-1234709947/) how deep the collective fear ran that the show wouldn’t make the relationship canon (legitimize it as part of the official, fictional universe) until the week of the finale, when that anxiety spilled onto social media. At that point, he already knew that he wanted the second season to be more overtly romantic. But the realization made him appreciate that this romance—its weight and attention to detail—might land differently with audiences than a male-female love story. “There was a part of me that's like, 'Yeah, I'm making this show and I want these two characters to fall in love,’” Jenkins says. “But I am telling this story from a place of, I'm entitled. I've seen myself in romance and rom-coms. I've watched _When Harry Met Sally_ and seen myself in that story.”  Early in Season 2, Blackbeard plunders an at-sea wedding and steals the cake toppers, which look like him and Stede. Nicola Dove—Max The allure of _Our Flag Means Death_ is manifold. While its central romance has drawn plenty of praise, its pirate crew also gradually knits itself into a ragtag [chosen family](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/12/learning/who-is-in-your-chosen-family.html)—another pillar of the queer community. The scribe Lucius (Nathan Foad) and the irritable Black Pete (Matthew Maher) become lovers. Best friends Oluwande (Samson Kayo) and Jim (Vico Ortiz) kiss but later return to friendship. At the beginning of season two, Israel "Izzy" Hands (Con O'Neill), Blackbeard’s first mate (also a real historical figure), admits his love for Blackbeard and loses a leg in the process. “Any workplace show is a platonic love story,” Jenkins says. “And it's more of a family kind of love, where you want to kill them half the time, and the other half the time, you're like, 'Aww, I guess they're OK.'” If the zany, loveable crew of the pirate ship The Revenge—the grizzled Buttons (Ewen Bremner), who can talk to seagulls; Frenchie (Joel Fry), who immortalizes their adventures in song; Wee John (Kristian Nairn), who loves fire and dressing in drag—is the lifeblood of the show, then the romance between Stede and Blackbeard is its beating heart. Season 1 saw the two work through their relationship with the emotional maturity of teenage boys, Jenkins says. Now, they’ve grown up a bit and are figuring out the next phase: Emotionally speaking, it’s like they’re in their late 20s, about to move in with someone and split the rent. “What they need to learn is: They want a true partner,” Jenkins says. “What is the cost of that? That takes work, to have a true partnership. And then after they have it, how do you maintain that?” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6321042/our-flag-means-death-romance-explainer/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6321042/our-flag-means-death-romance-explainer/"},"headline":"How Our Flag Means Death Season 2 Bends Genre to Craft a Full-Bodied Romance","datePublished":"2023-10-05T20:16:11.000Z","dateModified":"2023-10-07T01:34:18.000Z","description":"In season 2, the period rom-com balances a deep love story with droll humor.","url":"https://time.com/6321042/our-flag-means-death-romance-explainer/","keywords":["Television","culturepod"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd61d8f588c091ca7/698a4107457a5243b6d68053/OFMD-lead-image.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Laura Zornosa","jobTitle":"Laura Zornosa is a reporter at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/laura-zornosa/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd61d8f588c091ca7/698a4107457a5243b6d68053/OFMD-lead-image.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Our Flag Means Death","caption":"Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) pines after Blackbeard, pictured on a wanted poster, at the start of Season 2.","creditText":"Nicola Dove—Max","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/television/","name":"Television"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6321042/our-flag-means-death-romance-explainer/","name":"How Our Flag Means Death Season 2 Bends Genre to Craft a Full-Bodied Romance"}}]}] ```