Black Sails (2014–2017): Season 3, Episode 6 - XXIV. - full transcript

About six months ago...

I was approached by the
intelligence department

of the Casa de Contratación.

They offered me a
significant amount of money.

I said yes.

The department's spies
had learned of an attempt

to walk away with their money
without them knowing of it.

If you do not return the
entirety of the hidden cache,

know that Nassau will
likely burn for it.

With everything I've
lost in recent days,

I can't afford to lose the name, too.



We walk into the tavern,
we sign our names,

and then not only are we square
with the law our money is, too.

The wound should be far further
along towards quietening itself.

If the decay progresses,

I'll have to remove more of your leg.

What does a colonial power do
when they see a sitting governor

deposed by an alliance of pirates
and slaves bring down Nassau?

Maybe bring it all down.

What happens now?

Now we go find Charles Vane.

Where is he?

When you said that
you'd be staying behind

to solidify our new compact,

I assumed that meant something.



For you to be seen as uninterested in
what is happening for my father now,

that is not going to
help convince anyone here

that you are serious about
desiring their friendship.

It'll pass.

It's just a fever from the wound.

I'm fine.

Swing it down on deck!

Fucking idiot!

Hey! What's going on here?

His lashing came undone.

I fucking showed it
to him 10 minutes ago.

Someone could have been killed.

Then you showed him incorrectly.

It's a fucking lashing.
I know how to tie it.

If he tied it wrong, then
you instructed him wrong.

You listen to me.

We persuaded them that they need us.

We most certainly need them.
Do you understand what I'm saying?

Don't imagine that will
be the last of those.

Neither do I.

So how exactly do you see this working?

They have their orders.

As long as we hold our end
of the bargain, they'll hold.

Yeah, that wasn't what I meant.

I understood a war meant
to antagonize England

to frighten them,

to prevent them from
moving against Nassau.

But that isn't what we're
talking about anymore, is it?

Now you're talking about
a war meant to be won.

You convinced them.

Convinced Scott, his wife, their people,

our people, even Silver.

But not you.

Everyone's wrong but you.

Maybe.

Captain! Masts!

Captain.

Ocracoke Island. Teach is there.

A few hours' time, assuming he's there,

I'm going to begin a discussion in which
I'm going to ask him for something

that he can't possibly give.

And the success or failure of this war

will depend upon the outcome.

In a few hours' time,

there's a good chance you're
going to look awfully smart.

You look good.

- As handsome as ever.
- You always were a gifted liar.

When you were still pirating,

I was the woman who
was Blackbeard's woman.

Put my services in great demand

all men wanting what
notorious men already had.

And then you leave

and my business fades.

It's always the little people who get hurt
the worst when the market turns.

So when are you going to tell me?

- Tell you what?
- What he's doing here.

Charles?

I remember when he had
forced you from Nassau.

I remember how angry you were,
how disappointed.

And I remember you telling me
that you'd never make

the same mistake again,

that you had learned the hard way

that only God made sons.

Things are different now.

Different how?

Doesn't need to last long.

A little Spanish shrapnel.

It went in here when I was
not much older than him.

Once in a while it migrates,

ticks closer to reaching its
terminus and striking its chime.

Grim little timepiece

whose ticking has grown
louder to my ears of late.

Charles doesn't know, does he?

Captain!

Jesus.

Welcome to Ocracoke.

At first I was tempted,

but in the end it felt wrong

to betray the governor that way.

And it felt dangerous...

so I declined.

Then how did this happen?

How does an honest chambermaid end up
in the employ of the Spanish empire?

A few days after I
declined their offer...

I came home late from
the governor's service.

It wasn't unusual for me to return home

to find my children
long since fast asleep.

That night, my children were not alone.

The man who had approached me.

Grandal... was there...

waiting.

In his left hand, a knife.
In his right, a purse.

He said my children would receive
something from him that night.

He asked me to choose which.

These are the people
whom I am beholden to.

This is what they are capable of doing.

I cannot imagine what they will do
if the cache is not returned whole.

Ship's manifest, sir.

The entirety of the gold from the fort is now
stowed and ready for transport to Havana.

We should be under way within the hour.

Put it in my office, please.

I just left Miss Hudson.

I had the instinct once or twice,

the way she'd been watching me of late.

I dismissed it,

just assumed it related to some concern

over my relationship with you
and its becoming inappropriate.

What did she say?

Did she report that we're earnestly attempting
to find and return the missing money?

It's not about the money
for them, not anymore.

When the gold from the Urca
was stolen, it was bad enough.

Now they hear the
gold is being converted

into something more
easily hidden from them,

more easily smuggled away.

That isn't theft.

It's an insult.

And insults to empires require answers.

So it's personal, then?

A binary question of my trustworthiness.

Either I return the full
cache and prove it or I fail,

and in trying to excuse the shortfall,
only aggravate their existing suspicion

that I am part of the pirate
problem, not its solution.

And the dread fleet in Havana
sets sail the very next day

to raze all of Nassau to the ground.

Then we'll fight them,
defend the island.

The odds would be dire, but
we are not without resources.

No, not "we."

I mean, someone might fight
them, but it won't be you and I.

If the result of my endeavor here is a
Spanish attack against British forces,

an act that threatens to
drag the empire into a war,

I would be recalled to London
and likely debtors' prison

and your capital sentence
would be reinstated.

Now, I believe Nassau's best chance
at survival is with me guiding it.

But if we cannot find Jack
Rackham and Anne Bonny,

if we can't find the
cache in their possession,

whatever happens to Nassau,
you and I are likely finished.

Pardon me, gentlemen, if
you don't mind me asking,

where is this wagon headed?

To the fort.

To do what, exactly?

To fix it.

I see.

Just you two on the job, is it?

A whole gang of us up there.

Governor wants it shipshape
by the end of the month.

Suppose that fort's not
going to rebuild itself.

No, I suppose it won't.

Hold still.

There.

Well? What do you think?

You mean aside from the tit curtains?

It's called a cravat.

You want to fit in with them, right?
This is what they wear.

They who?

Respectable men.

- Place of birth?
- Bristol.

- Occupation?
- Ship's carpenter.

Ship served?
I used to serve the Buccaneer.

Sign here.

Move on. Next?

What the fuck are you doing here?

It's a cravat.

It's what respectable men wear.

Never mind what it is.

You're supposed to be long gone
by now. Why'd you come back?

Where we're going, it seemed better
to have one of these than not.

I thought as an added prize,

I'd at least be able
to see it for myself,

the new governor up to his ears

in the very same bullshit
in which I've been drowning

for the past few months.
And what do I find?

The streets are swept,

industry is in fashion,

you're dressed like a Turkish whore,

and all because a man arrived,

stood on the beach, and said please.

You're angry.
I'm confounded.

He offers them less in
wages than I offered,

demands more from them in labor,

restricts more from them in license,

and yet despite all of that,

he's won them.

How can that be?

I know it may be hard
to believe given my...

appearance at the moment,

but the experience of it?

It ain't half bad, Jack.

Next.

Next man, please.

- Your legal name?
- John Rackham.

What?

The Lord Governor would
like a word with you.

Watch him, please.

- I'll go fetch Fremah to tend to him.
- I said no.

I know you did.
I don't want help.

It'll pass.

I'll just find a place to
weather it for the night.

I understand that you do not
want anyone to see you this way.

What I don't understand is why you
choose to suffer in the first place.

You must have access to
better medicines than that.

We've got access to
better medicines than that.

This has nothing to do with medicine.

- It has something to do with medicine...
- I cannot look weak.

I cannot feel weak. I cannot be weak.

Not in front of my men. Not in
front of your men. Not at all.

For some time now, I have been holding
my entire world together with both hands,

keeping my men in line,
seeing to their needs,

and the only way that
endures is if I look the part.

And I cannot look the part
while being poked and prodded

or while drooling through an opium haze
saying who the fuck knows what.

So I will endure this

the way I have been enduring it.

No one prepared you for this, did they?

For as long as I can remember,

I have been prepared for the day
I would take my mother's place.

To know that from that day forth,

I would forever be the one who tends

as opposed to the one who is tended to.

You're frustrated. You're angry.

You're tired.

Perhaps no one else knows why.

I believe that not even you know why.

But I know why.

The crown is always a burden...

but it cannot be borne
if you cannot stand.

Nearly dismasted in a storm...

a storm you chased after.

Nearly starved to death in the doldrums.

Nearly executed by them.

Either you are unkillable, friend,

or way overdue.

One way or another, I am here,

and there is much to discuss
about all our futures.

What kind of future do
you propose that to be?

I intend to gather forces
and move to reclaim Nassau.

The conquest is always weakest
when the conqueror allows

himself to believe that it is done.

For Nassau, that point is now.

Now, England may hold the island,
but it still needs supplies brought in.

It is still dependent upon trade.

We will make that impossible for him.

We will harass his ships.
We will plunder his supplies.

We will force him to
bleed capital and support

and the goodwill of
the men surrounding him

until he is weak enough
to challenge directly.

Until we can bring the fleet to bear

and retake the bay.

You know, when I called Nassau home,
most of the men on this beach

weren't even men.

I sailed with Ben Hornigold.

I sailed with Sam Bellamy.
I sailed with Henry Avery.

Feuded with them, stole from them,

questioned their motives,

but we all knew what we were.

Then a man arrives.

Who would explain to us that what we've
been doing was wrong all those years,

what Nassau ought to
be, what he could make it

if we would all just follow his lead.

And here you are again to do the same.

You let it go well before its time.

It was past its time.

That you cannot see this...

only makes it clearer to me that you
never even knew it in the first place.

This fleet is all that remains of it,

and as long as it's mine,
Nassau shall remain in its past.

It isn't yours.

It never was.

Those ships, their commanders and crews,

they were pledged to
my command, not yours.

Oaths were taken,

and I have come to see them honored.

Do you honestly believe that I would just
step aside and let you make that claim?

I honestly don't give a shit
what you would or would not do.

The decision isn't yours.

It's his.

I've come to resume our compact,

the one we swore upon
our lives to uphold.

If you stand up and acknowledge it, this
fleet will follow us. I'm certain of it.

- You weren't there.
- No, I wasn't.

But had I been there,

there would be no
question about any of this.

Had I been there, we would have mounted

the defense that we had agreed to mount.

Had you been there, you
would have seen their faces,

the ones who laid their arms down
and turned their backs on us.

The ones who took our money for months

and were happy to try and deliver my head
to our enemies for a little more of it.

Nassau is dead.

It doesn't deserve anything else from me

or the men on this beach.

We are finally free from it,

and I see no reason to change that.

If you wish to leave
this place, I'll allow it,

although somehow I don't think
you have any intention of leaving.

No, I don't.

And I think you know that
I would never allow you

to call a vote to settle the matter

of who this fleet follows and
risk you depleting my force

by luring away some misguided minority.

No, I don't imagine you would.

So we have one fleet
and two men claiming it.

There is only one way I
know of to resolve that.

Pistols, then swords.

Captain Rackham.

It's a pleasure to finally meet you.

Give us the room, please.

Drink?

Thank you.

I apologize for the
strangeness of this meeting.

I know you and I don't know each other.

I know you... some.

I read your book.

Did you?

Well, most of it.

I confess, I may not quite have

soldiered through to the end.
But, you know, I got the gist of it.

If you don't mind my asking,
what did you take to be its gist?

Wealthy son of a wealthy
man takes to the sea

to prove something to
the parents, presumably.

Seeks adventure, finds the
limits of his own capacity.

Loses everything in the process

and then stumbles upon a hell
of a story in the process.

Please understand, I'm quite
particular about my library,

but people seem to have

liked it fine, and it seems to
have done wonders for you.

Congratulations on all that.

Thank you.

All of that notwithstanding...

you and I share an
experience in this place.

And as such, I'm

hopeful that you'll understand
why it is I brought you here today

and what it is I'm about to ask of you.

What's that?

I know you removed a significant
amount of gold from the fort.

I know it is in your possession,
and I need you to give it up...

or we're all dead.

You can't win.

I hear you spent weeks becalmed,
deprived of food and water.

At your best, it would have been
a dogfight, but diminished.

I'm not that diminished.

He's been off the account for years.

He'll be more vulnerable than
he remembers himself being.

He's not that vulnerable.

And for what?

You subject yourself to certain death for
an island full of weaklings and ingrates?

Those men will go where they are led.

Rogers captured their
minds before you could,

but let's not pretend that
they can't be won again.

And let's not pretend that
either of us believes for a moment

that I'm doing this for their sakes.

I gave you my word.

Shook your hand.

Pledged to defend the island with you.

But my pledge to him began a long
time before I ever knew your name.

- What I owe him...
- I don't care.

I don't care that you shook my hand.

I don't care what you feel you owe him.

This is too important to
be clouded by any of that.

They took my home.

I can't walk away from that.

Can you?

Forget me, forget Teach, forget loyalty,
compacts, honor, debts, all of it.

The only question that matters is this.

Who are you?

Spain knows about the exchanges?

They do, and they are displeased.

How do you know they know?

So what does that look like?

Return it all or it's the
Rosario raid all over again?

Something like that.

I understand why you did it.

I know what it feels
like to lose everything

and feel powerless to do anything about it.

The temptation to keep something
to show for it all, I understand it.

But it does not change
the reality we face.

That you face.

For I assure you, if
Spain invades over this,

yours will be the first face they see.

I heard Henry Avery's
name when I was a boy,

heard the way people spoke
it, grown men in...

awe of it.

I came to this place so
determined to do the same.

That's not going to happen the
way I thought it was, is it?

It never does.

My advice?

You want some say in
how they speak of you?

Write a book.

Right now, what do you want to do?

Do you have a pen?

He's agreed to cooperate.

One man goes into the
interior to deliver this,

instructions written in
his hand to his partner

to return to Nassau
and surrender the cache.

He said she may be wary,

asked there be only one
messenger to deliver the letter.

Give this to Lieutenant Hersey.

Have him prepare to
depart for the interior.

I'll pass him details momentarily.

He should be made aware Anne
will not be taken lightly.

Well, neither will Lieutenant Hersey.

I understand Jack was arrested today.

I would like to know why.

What happens if he loses?

If he loses, he dies.

I meant what happens to us?

I don't know.

Probably given a chance
to join the fleet,

fold in, and go back on the account.

When your men entreated
me to join your crew,

they said your captain
was a man worth following.

A strong man, a wise man, they said.

But right now I can't tell which side of
this contest you'd prefer to see prevail.

Can you help me make sense of that?

A few days ago I could
make sense of all of it.

He was going to die and
we were going to be free,

from the account, from him...

With all the shit he's done,
the things he's gotten away with,

that would have been fair.

That would have been right.

I think part of the reason I've been
able to stand by his side

is that I wanted to make
sure I've got a good view

of the moment the world
finally catches up to him...

and this story starts
to make sense again.

This is a matter of honor

to be settled once and for
good in the here and now.

The parties have agreed to combat
and have accepted common practice.

The parties have further agreed
there will be no quarter asked...

nor given.

Cock your pistols!

From this moment, there's to be no
movement until a count of three.

One...

two...

three!

Take him. And get
the fuck off my beach.

If you won't take the opium,

at least take this to bite down on.

Just do it.

The burden I wasn't prepared for...

it isn't the men.

It's him.

Flint?

What he wants...

what he needs, what he fears...

the depths of it...

they are profound and dark.

I serve the crew best by tempering him,

steering him where he's needed.

I've descended into those
depths and connected with him

so that I might be able to do so.

But I am acutely aware that I'm
not the first to have been there...

to have been a partner
to him in this way.

And that the ones that have
seen those depths before...

they never surfaced again.

Maybe their mistake was
in trying to do it alone.

Maybe to go to such a place,

one needs another

to hold the tether
and to find a way out.

Maybe.

I know this cannot
have been easy for you.

I know this is so far from how
you thought things would end.

But I wanted you to
know that the end of this

may not quite be what you think it is.

How's that?

When Anne receives your letter and returns
here with what remains of the cache,

Nassau will be secured,

and everyone will know that
it is because of Jack Rackham

that it occurred.

I'll have spared Nassau...

and you think the story of it will
be told long after I am gone?

I know it will.

I will make sure of it.

Sounds a lifeless story to me,

and one that requires commitments
before the fact to ensure its retelling.

When the current story
unfolds, I assure you,

it's going to get around all on its own.

What does that mean?

I walked into this place today

stunned at how quickly that man
downstairs had completed his conquest,

how thoroughly he had seemed to win

just about everyone I
know over to his side.

The truth of the matter is
there's been no conquest.

It's only the appearance of one.

For conquest is an
either/or proposition.

Either you have it or you do not.

It would appear that without that
cache, he most certainly does not.

Jack, what did you do?

I sent word to Anne to take the cache...

and disappear.

No...

The governor saw your letter to her.

You don't think I can convey a thought
to Anne comprehensible only to her?

A thought as simple as "run"?

A letter that said everything
the governor wished it to say

in exactly the way he'd want to say it

would not sound like
anything I'd ever say.

A thought here or two between the
lines I assure you, she understood.

So I have begun the duel

between myself and our Lord Governor.

The rules are simple.
I will deny him the cache.

No matter what sort of inducements
he offers or pain he inflicts,

I will deny him the cache, and so
I will deny him the victory.

And in doing so, I will ensure that
whatever Nassau is come Christmas,

English will be not it.

Do not do this.

It's done.

So, one of two outcomes will result.

Rogers will understand his
defeat to be ultimately

inevitable and leave this place,
in which case I'll have it back.

Or...

he'll stubbornly refuse

and eventually Spain will
raze this place to the ground.

The English flag will burn,

and a second pirate Republic will
be born from the ashes of the first.

Only this time, every
man who calls it home

will know it came about because of me.

I worry...

that we have made a terrible mistake.

I see what you see in them...

Silver and Flint.

But their relationship is so volatile

and we have put our
lives in their hands.

Those men...

rose to their stations because...

they are peerless when it comes
to shaping the world to their will,

in creating a narrative and...

wielding it to compel men's
hearts and minds.

But the most compelling story

requires a villain at its center.

And if either Captain
Flint or Mr. Silver

sees the other as a villain or worse...

us as that...

then all is lost.

They are of great value to us,

but they must be managed
by us to avoid that outcome.

How?

I wish...

you and I had not been so
separate all those years.

I wish I could have found a way
to be a better father to you.

But over time, I was determined
to leave you something behind,

to give you the one thing that no one

could ever take away...

and that would make you strong
enough to understand their world,

interact with their world...

wage war...

on their world.

But if their identity lies in their
stories, I wanted you to know them

so that when we are ready
to call them enemies,

you would be ready for it.

The villain makes the story.

So to manage our current partners,

we must ensure that we
all agree at all times who...

our common villain is.

Earlier today,

before we knew Rackham
was still on the island,

you seemed confident that we could
locate him and his friend in time.

You said it was possible because they
didn't know that we were looking for them.

Why do I get the feeling,
now that they do know,

now that they've made it their personal
crusade to see this regime fail,

that your estimate will
be far less optimistic?

The militia will help It
will keep the pressure on,

and perhaps we'll get lucky.

But if we don't,

- then you may have to be prepared...
- Oh, I'm prepared to do anything.

Anne Bonny must be found.

The cache must be found.

Right now, that is all that matters.

And that said,

the goodwill that we have engendered
among the people of Nassau is not...

without limits.

The longer this drags out,
the riskier it becomes,

because if I find that money
only to lose the street...

You will not.

If you have me, then
you have the street.

I am all the reassurance they need.

Yes, Jack and Anne
were my partners...

my friends.

More.

But now they have made
themselves something else to me.

I have sacrificed too much
to build something here.

I will not let them take it away.

All he ever did was
offer me his friendship.

I cast him aside once,
spent years regretting it.

And now here we are again.

Tell me I didn't do it for nothing.

Well, I won't lie to you.

It would have helped having the fleet.

We have assets, we have allies.

The question is what we make of them.

I may be able to help in that regard.

Something to add to our pool of assets.

Before Ocracoke, we came
upon a prize a Spanish prize.

Ferrying a significant
trove of intelligence.

Most of it was destroyed
by the time we found it, but...

among the remains was
one piece of information,

something everyone else
was quick to dismiss

as it held no value to them in that moment.

- Information about what?
- Money.

Separated from the Urca gold within
the fort and rendered into a new form...

a cache of gems

for which Spain is holding
the new governor accountable.

A cache which, if used creatively,

could be the key to defeating
British forces in Nassau.

The only question is,

can we find it before he does?