Black Sails 1.2 - Trouble Comes to Max and Eleanor's Treasure Island

Last week, I mentioned that I am so in love with the adorable couple that is savvy businesswoman Eleanor and adorable prostitute Max that surely something terrible was going to happen. Well dammit, I didn’t mean in the next episode, Black Sails!! I was expecting at least four before you drowned my hopes and dreams in piratey ocean water! That being loudly wept, everything seemed to start off pretty optimistically with episode II beginning with the very naked Eleanor explaining her business-y island woes to the very naked Max. Apparently, when Eleanor’s father was in charge of the island it was a sh*t show, and it’s been way cleaned up by then. She’s concerned the British Navy has returned to cut the island off from all it’s thriving pirate trade, crushing her business and destroying the lively nature of the island. Max suggests Eleanor buy the inn and they run it together. Then Max suggests they have sex. Problem temporarily solved!

Eleanor’s not the only with business plans, however. Max is still planning to sell the missing schedule pertaining to finding hidden treasure that Jon Snow rip-off John Silver stole from Captain Flint. Apparently finding the treasure is a really integral part of this plot. Can one blame me for getting distracted? Max has made a deal with the more-evil-looking Captain Vane to sell it the page for 5,000 pesos in pearls, and then she and John Silver Snow plan to book it. We think. She gets the pearls examined and they seem legit, so the plan is on track. 

Or is it? Vane bursts in -- he thinks Max is lying since there’s a rumor Flint has the page, and nearly kills her. NOT YET, VANE. At least four episodes (Or 4 seasons, if we’re super lucky)! We also learn during one of Max’s prostituting sessions that she can’t do anything too intimate because, to quote her customer, “That bitch keeps you all to herself.” If this is indeed referring to Eleanor, I find this more romantic than Valentine’s Day.

Captain Flint wants the schedule back, and tells Eleanor he’ll use the treasure to help settle down and help cultivate Nassau into a real, semi-legitimate “Nation of Thieves.” They’ll maintain it and defend it against those pesky British Soldiers. Eleanor thinks this is a great idea, even though she’s warned trusting pirates isn’t usually the go-to method for success. Just then, Flint learns that the page was stolen by a thief using a prostitute to help make the deal. Eleanor’s immediately like, ‘Damn, I’ll bet I know which prostitute.’

Immediately, Eleanor goes to Max and begs her to give the page to Flint cause she’s really into this “Pirate Retirement Island” idea.

Max really can’t do that, knowing that Vane will definitely kill her if she doesn’t deliver the page. She tells Eleanor there’s a boat waiting outside that they can both escape on and use the money Max will make off Vane to live a happy life together.

Eleanor refuses, saying the island is all she has. “This place is just sand! It cannot love you back!” Max tells her, going on to explain she knows Eleanor’s lost so many of the people she’s loved, but Max promises she will never leave her and that she loves her. Flint and his Pirate Pals burst in threaten Max should she not divulge the location of the page. Max turns to Eleanor, who has no intention of changing sides.

Eleanor, dammit, do not ruin my Saturdays by turning Max down. Max demands to hear Eleanor say that she’ll stand by as her pirate friends beat the answer to the page’s whereabouts out of Max, but Eleanor stays quiet. Max tells them where the trade will be happening, then as soon as she’s alone, bursts into tears on the ground because her girlfriend has abandoned her and all my hopes that the SS Maxeanor would sail on for more than a single hour are dashed. Max spent far too much time distressed on the ground this week. No more of that. That night, Max escapes the brothel, but not without getting followed by the probably evil Anne Bonny. Don’t tell me the episode’s over! Two damn weeks in and this couple is breaking my heart. Thanks Black Sails, now I’m totally hooked.