Sean O'Flaherty and his fiancee engage Long John in some obligatory chat at the end of the episode.Plot synopsis: Near the end of an unproductive journey, Long John's ship comes across a Spanish ship full of dead men. Hoping to profit, he boards the ship and finds a surviving English prisoner who he assists in rescuing his girl and avenging his father.
Thoughts:
There is a voiceover throughout the episode and a few minutes in which is narrated as if it were being offered by a crew member, but the voice is a pretty measured and literate one so it doesn't work very well in convincing the viewer of its origin. It was a bit of an odd start and a big change in tone from the previous episodes. Usually, the stories carry themselves, but this time it's as if the story was being told and illustrated by clips of what was happening on board Long John's ship. It had a real feel of being read from a novel.
The entire episode made me feel off-kilter because of the narration. It's like I was watching a different television series. In fact, one thing that I'm struck by at this point is that there is a lot of inconsistency in the tone of the show across the various episodes that I have seen and written posts about to this point. I'm not sure what it was shifting so much, but I'm guessing it had more to do with different writers rather than any intention to change the status quo.
By the end, I had a strong sense that the point of this episode was to act as a pilot for the rescued fellow, Sean O'Flaherty. The story belonged to him as much as it belonged to the pirates, possibly more. They were treated like a taxi service to deliver him to his lady. Most of the episode after he arrives on the island occupied by the Spanish is taken up by his sword fighting and miscellaneous swashbuckling activities.
Favorite moments:
The pirates fan their ailing prisoner as he recovers on the deck. This strikes me as comically solicitous behavior coming from pirates.
When fiancee and fiance are reunited, he leaps in the window and kisses his girlfriend square on the chin. I love the chaste way in which actors behaved in the 50s and 60s. Now, you see people practically eating each others faces when they snog.
Conseulla, an evil Spanish woman, is killed when stabbed through the door. Her death is pretty badly acted, and I liked the way they avoided someone obviously murdering a woman by employing the "through the door" killing.
The hero staggers out the door and greets the main character who has taken a back seat to him in this episode.Favorite quotes:
Long John to his crew: "Quiet you swabs, his brain be wanderin'."
Sean O'Flaherty to pirates: "My father has been avenged". (I liked this because it reminded me so much of the classic line from the Princess Bride - "My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.")
Stray notions:
The surviving pirate on the Spanish ship that looks a lot like Viggo Mortenson at first glance, but less like him later when he's writhing in bed trying not to croak. Once he cleans up, he looks a bit like Errol Flynn. I believe this was intentional.
Things were not subtle in old television and movies for the most part. When a woman poisons her drink because she's being forced to marry a man she hates, "POISON" is written on the bottle in big letters. I guess they think a certain look in her eyes and the knowledge that she's pouring something into the glass from a strange bottle wasn't enough to cue the audience about what she was up to.
All of the Spanish tend to be overdressed, and speak in an overtly sinister fashion. The woman, Conseulla, was so shifty-eyed that I thought she might have some sort of ocular impairment.
Mold to Gold Rating:
I liked the fact that this episode shows the pirates prioritizing what pirates do, gold. I didn't like the fact that it quickly evolved into a sword fighting show and focused on a guest character. After it turned into Sean O'Flaherty's sword fight adventure, I lost all interest. I give this points mainly because of the start of the show where Long John and crew find a ship of the dead and have a mystery on their hands for a little while. I take away most of those points because of the boring second half. I can easily see skipping this episode in the future when I watch episodes of the show again. Frankly, I felt like this episode was overtly manipulating the audience to like Sean O'Flaherty rather than to tell a tale.
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