Stede Bonnet, the hero of Our Flag Means Death, is a foppish, bookwormy 18th-century aristocrat with a striking and bizarre vanity project: He has commissioned a ship christened the Revenge, recruited a crew of hard men, and made himself a pirate captain. Stede is played by Rhys Darby, probably best known as the hapless manager on Flight Of The Conchords—and because Flags is executive produced by former Conchords staffer Taika Waititi (who also directs the pilot), it would make sense to draw comparisons with that gently absurd cult comedy. But there’s some American sitcom DNA here too; Flags was created by David Jenkins (People Of Earth), and Stede’s captaining has the hapless-boss energy of workplace sitcoms like The Office (the cuddlier NBC version) and Parks And Recreation. When Stede pontificates in bits of narration during the pilot, you half-expect a cut to a talking-head shot; instead, he’s dictating to his secretly skeptical assistant Lucius (Nathan Foad).
Despite some modern sensibilities, the show has surprisingly solid historical roots. Stede Bonnet was a real-life aristocrat turned pirate, and the first five episodes of Our Flag Means Death (from a 10-episode first season) capture the broad details of his story—though if the show continues on the real Bonnet’s path, it will be a relatively short and grim run. Flag staves off this perpetually looming darkness with a mixed bag of silliness. Some of it is inspired: Stede forces his crew to design handmade pirate flags, and presides over a Life Aquatic-esque tour of his custom-made facilities, which include a substantial and hard-to-tidy library. Much of the show’s comedy, however, is more mildly amusing than hilarious—and sometimes downright tedious.
The comic anachronisms in particular quickly become routine; when a character hesitantly offers that a particular practice “seems…” it’s hard not to auto-complete with “problematic,” in unison with the show’s predictably contemporary vernacular. Having pirates discuss their violent exploits with flashes of present-day conscientiousness is meant as tongue-in-cheek humor, yet it’s hard to shake the feeling that Our Flag Means Death itself is fussing a bit over its characters’ morality. The slapstick stabbings, dismemberments, and occasional deaths window-dress a seeming desire to import a fashionable gentleness into a violent and unpredictable world.
In other words, the show sometimes confuses niceness with dimensionality. Stede’s first major act of violence is accidental, perpetrated upon a deeply unlikable character, and it haunts him. Nothing says comedy like nervously piling up the mitigations and excuses to talk about trauma!
Jenkins does seem admirably interested in the genuine consequences of an 18th-century man flouting his upper-class responsibilities, and sometimes the show does strike the right balance between nasty rot and genial wackiness. The frequent micro-flashbacks to Stede’s arranged marriage (to a wife played by the wonderful Claudia O’Doherty) convey sadness and desperation concisely—and manage to make them funny to boot. On a more sustained level, Flags finds some footing its third episode, when Stede, attempting to navigate through his desire for adventure and distaste for actual violence, decides to officially brand himself the “Gentleman Pirate” (another detail taken from the real Bonnet) while on a stopover in the Republic Of Pirates (ditto; Nassau was informally known as a “pirates’ republic” for its status as a pirate-friendly refuge). Stede’s plan has more momentum than his earlier flailings, and the Republic Of Pirates gives plenty of material to a strong pirate ensemble that includes Joel Fry (one of multiple Game Of Thrones alumni on hand), Vico Ortiz, Matthew Maher, and Ewen Bremner, plus guest stars like Fred Armisen and Leslie Jones.
Shortly after this peak, Taika Waititi shows up in person to throw things off again. Waititi’s casting as the notorious pirate Blackbeard is revealed with presentational panache, as if he’s a globally famous superstar—and he’s afforded a superstar’s amount of room to do showier and more preening shtick than the rest of the cast. He doesn’t steal scenes so much as have them surrendered to him without much of a fight, pulling focus from characters who have been slowly developing over the course of previous episodes. Without the back half of the season available for greater context, it feels like Our Flags Mean Death is being retooled prematurely to highlight Blackbeard’s destabilizing antics. Rather than a de facto workplace sitcom with outlandish pirate behavior, it veers into uneasy buddy comedy. It’s probably more original than The Office At Sea, but it’s tough for a large, promising cast to do much with Waititi barging into the foreground to serve quasi-deadpan ham.
The thing is, Blackbeard really did play a big part in Stede’s life—so it’s a testament to the wobbliness of the show that it feels like such an inorganic development onscreen. Halfway through its first season, Our Flag Means Death is basically a more violent version of Aardman’s delightful stop-motion cartoon The Pirates! Band Of Misfits, only the gags aren’t as consistent and the action choreography isn’t as inventive. Darby and many other talented performers have been set adrift in a sea of good intentions.