‘Our Flag Means Death’ — How To Twist A True Story

It’s always interesting to see stories inspired by true events. Obviously, stories can’t be an exact retelling of what actually happened. More often than not, these tales take bits and pieces — the details of real events — and use them as inspiration or a jumping-off point. Sometimes, stories try to be as accurate as possible in order to be faithful to the people involved. But others based on historical happenstances have no qualms about switching things around. In fact, some even revel in their ability to come at an event from a unique perspective or create an original version. The pirate comedy show Our Flag Means Death does this phenomenally.

The story follows the adventures of Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby), whom history has come to know as the Gentleman Pirate. He was a man who abandoned his fairly well off life to become a privateer — and he wasn’t very good at it, either. He was eventually injured while his crew and ship were taken over by Edward Teach, better known as the infamous and brutal pirate Blackbeard (Taika Waititi). The two of them eventually formed a unique partnership and friendship, which the show chronicles in over-the-top comedic fashion.

Although the show is more or less faithful to the historical plot points that brought these two characters together, it has no loyalty to realism. The pirates and characters on this show take on an absolutely absurdist nature. It even makes the bold choice of having Blackbeard and Stede form a romantic relationship. So, historically speaking, the show does a great job hitting the proper beats, but it takes huge liberties when filling in the details. It’s very clever that a show can be so close to history and yet so far from reality at the same time; an interesting contrast to other stories that want to be as faithful to events as possible.

Our Flag Means Death streams on Max.