‘Our Flag Means Death’ Creator Teases Blackbeard & Stede’s Season 2 Balancing Act

Our Flag Means Death is anything but smooth sailing for swashbuckling loves Stede (Rhys Darby) and Blackbeard (Taika Waititi), who are navigating life without each other when Season 2 picks up.

Ultimately, their romance is a balancing act, as series creator David Jenkins teases ahead of the October 5th premiere. While Season 1 saw Stede leave his life of comfort behind to become the Gentleman pirate, it’s Blackbeard’s turn for a midlife crisis.

“You can see Season 1 as Stede’s midlife crisis and Blackbeard kind of gets swept up in [it]. I think we kind of start with Blackbeard’s midlife crisis in Season 2,” Jenkins tells TV Insider.

(Credit: Nicola Dove/Max)

Viewers got a taste of that crisis when Blackbeard began unraveling after he was seemingly abandoned by Stede in Season 1. Referring to himself as the Kraken, he painted his face with black makeup around his eyes, and teasers for the second season hint at a further devolvement into violence and crimes against others on the high seas.

Eventually, the pair will cross paths again, but when it comes to their story, Jenkins says, “It does become about these two guys leveling out a bit and then trying to figure out how to have a more mature relationship and how do you have a relationship after the first kiss and when you say you’re going to run away together and then you don’t do it because you’re chicken.”

The question, Jenkins says, is, “How do they actually go, ‘Okay, alright, we’re going to try it. I’m going to be in a relationship with you,’ and then watch them actually try to navigate each other and figure out how to have something that maybe resembles a relationship between two people in their late to mid-20s who are trying to rent an apartment together.”

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Some maturing will be required, and only time will tell if they’ll bring out the best in each other, but we’re keeping hope alive that they’ll hit calm waters somewhere down the line. “That’s kind of the art of the second season,” Jenkins adds, saying it will be about “seeing how they grow beyond that and who they grow into as people.”

Who will they grow into exactly and what will that relationship look like? Don’t miss it for yourself. Catch Our Flag Means Death when the show returns to Max this October.

Our Flag Means Death, Season 2 Premiere, Thursday, October 5, Max