Black Sails fan podcast Fathoms Deep interviewed co-creator and writer Jonathan Steinberg. It’s ~80min long and worth the listen, but I also compiled (rough) timestamps and notes for you guys. (Also, the interviewers have no chill, some people aren't into that.)
Highlights include Anne Bonny’s S2 coming-out as his proudest achievement, the importance of the Maroon Islanders, mother-daughter relationships, and throwing straight people a bone too.
- (3:35) “It’s paced like a novel, in some ways.” → Walking the tightrope between emphasizing the “emotional fireworks” of characters’ identity crises while also meeting network requirements of a “great, big naval action show”.
- (9:00) Trying to avoid the easy way of simply dividing characters into good vs bad guys, instead rely on the “bullshit test”: do the characters’ actions make sense from both sides, to themselves, or is it just contrived narratively?
- (10:00) Extensive description of the writing process, emphasis on how much time Starz gave them to really work the story out, which is rare.
- (13:30) Was very afraid S3 wouldn’t manage to be as emotional as S2, and struggled with the S3 finale - resolved it by paralleling the big battle with the “climax of this relationship” between Silver and Flint. Constructing the time jumps to the campfire scene was quite last minute and “bananas, but emotionally it worked”.
- (16:40) “You’re always telling 2-3 different stories if you’re doing it properly, and the emotional stuff needs to govern.”
- S4 will be “emotionally more complicated.”
- (19:50) Working with an eye towards Treasure Island: juggling the telling of simply a good story and the fact that in this case, “not all endings are acceptable”. As stated before, the book “isn’t canon”, but instead is treated as a fictionalized tale of the “historical” events of Black Sails, and is malleable the way historical facts are not treated as gospel in the show. ”It is a fictional children’s story about a historical record that we are writing” is in his opinion the cleanest way to describe it.
- Says TI, no disrespect, does have some pieces of garbled storytelling they’re trying to make sense of: “It’s a weirdly ornate story, everyone’s motivations are weird. [...] Flint buries this treasure, they all see him do it, but then they leave with him. [...] Somehow he ends up in Savannah, drunk, alone; and dies there with Billy and the rest of the crew. [...] That’s the sort of puzzle-shape we had to make fit at the end.”
- (23:15) Says S5 was left open by Starz, but figuring out the resolution sealed it, “I don’t think I could do it again, I think we sort of found the ending. Let’s declare victory and depart the field.” Conceived of a couple versions of S5 but it all felt like epilogue.
- (27:00) Hated the idea of killing Miranda and fought for months to let her live. He’s satisfied with how it turned out, but still feels strongly about it. Also didn’t want Vane to die.
- (31:15) On Flint being gay: “How do you make the thing that he resents about England so personal that he can’t separate himself from it. [...] The most intimate, woven-into-your-self sort of thing.” The network didn’t want the reveal to happen in S1 as initially planned and Steinberg is aware it might have been out of gay panic on Starz’ part, but he’s glad now: time to meet Flint and be intrigued, then introduce his core motivator.
- (33:40) Anne & Jack: “They’re essentially married. [...] And then this story happened with Bonny. [...] Of the things that I’m proud of with the show, it’s probably at the top, this story of this woman sort of coming out, and understanding that she’s gay, especially given the light she’s led. This was something we really had to fight for. [...] This was something we really didn’t want to be wishy-washy about. [...] And then [Jackanne’s] relationship became something way more interesting. They’re twins, essentially - in the mythological sense, they’re the twins of the story, two halves of the same person. And it’s not defined, [...] this label has little bearing. [...] It really freed Rackham to [...] be crankier, his relationship with her got more fun. [...] When the story is true, it will do things for you down the road. [...] You removed [...] them needing to be monogamous, and now they’re just so much more fun to be around.”
- (41:15) Steep learning curve through S1, doesn’t think he’d have been able to pull of S2’s story where he was at as a storyteller that early.
- (45:00) Max & Anne telling each other their backstories: “There are real, immediate reasons for them telling each other[.] Max describing her childhood, it’s genuine, but it’s also when you say in a break-up, Don’t blame me, I’ve got shit going on here. [...] I’m going to show you a vulnerability that I have not shown anyone else so that you’ll understand that I’m being honest with you. [...] Complementary, Bonny says the same: I understand that you’re protecting me, but I also need you to understand how broken I am, and that I’m willing to show that to you suggests that I’m broken beyond the ability to cope.”
- Every character has chosen a life of piracy because of experiencing injustice in regular society. [OP's note: Between the main cast, we have so far covered gender, sexuality, race, class and disability.]
- (47:20) On Silver’s backstory being deliberately left for S4: “His unknowability, I think, in terms of the story, of what he meant to Flint.”
- (51:30) Knew Flint right from the start, but Silver was still very vague to the point they wanted Luke Arnold on the show but didn’t know what part he should play.
- (54:55) Steinberg hadn’t seen Muppet Treasure Island until watching it with his kids a couple weeks ago.
- (58:25) ALL THE MADI DISCUSSION. I’m posting notes but this is def the most interesting part, if you only listen to some, listen to these 10 minutes.
- Originally Madi and her mother were one character, based on a throwaway line in TI about Silver being married to an African woman. The character oscillated between King Scott’s wife and daughter, but being unable to decide between Moshidi Motshegwa and Zethu Dlomo, they decided to have both also bc this way he could give exposure to two great women. Immediately became more interesting bc it’s a mother-daughter story, writers were excited to write scenes between the two. Madi has a narrative that is often reserved for male characters: being the successor of a leader, going essentially from a child to sitting down first at the table with Flint, Blackbeard et al. She deliberately teaches Silver about leadership bc she sees he’s in over his head, while she has been prepared for it all her life.
- (58:45) “It felt disingenuous to tell a story about this time and place without slavery being a character as an institution.” Didn’t quite know yet how to do it in S2 and left it for once they were better prepared.
- Madi and her mother are based on extensive research on Queen Nanny, a leader of Maroons and historical figure.
- (1:03:00) Parallels between Silver/Flint and Madi/her mother, seeing your successor grow into your role etc. Silver unexpectedly finding someone to be vulnerable around in Madi. (“This very big romance between the two of them.”)
- (1:09:00) Madi embodies what Vane erroneously attributes to Eleanor in S1: “Power that just is.” Generally their stories work in tandem with each other.
- (1:11:20) Eleanor (and Max, to some extent, esp in S3) is the one character who makes sense, whose decisions are always driven by grown-up pragmatism to make things work in a way the least people don’t die: this negates wish fullfilment almost immediately, which is the opposite of Vane. [OP’s Note: well, there we go: Vane the male wish fulfillment! No news there.] Even though her moral reasoning behind it might not always be pure, he defends her for this, bc he feels many viewers didn’t appreciate her ruthlessness.
- (1:14:30) “The tragedy of this is, the world you would want to live in, is being most advanced by the people you most hate in the show.” Aka we’re on the pirates’ side, but ultimately the world where one can have a house and send your kids to school and not worry about getting murdered everyday is not the pirates’ Nassau.
- (1:18:00) On the difference between characters acting out of deep-held convictions and moral differences, rather than creating justifications after the fact.
- (1:19:10) “I love that through three seasons, the only heterosexual romance with a capital R is between [Eleanor & Rogers] who should by all rights be the villains[.]” Says their relationship is earnest and straightforward, which is a first for straight relationships on the show. “We haven’t had a heterosexual love story yet, we should probably do one of those at some point.” Says they are both “unusual in their native habitat”.
crew, are you ready for the gayest show on tv to end?
Source: Fathoms Deep Podcast
