The show’s best couple is actually a throuple.
The Big Picture
- Max and Anne start
Black Sails
with other partners but end up in a complicated, treacherous, and powerfully intense relationship. - Anne’s decision alters the story, leading to mutual respect between Max and her that turns into love.
- In the end, Max, Anne, and Jack form a captivating throuple with a shared account that ends tragically.
When it comes to ships, Starz’s Black Sails is full of possibilities. And no, we’re not talking about the kinds of ships with the titular black sails that roam the Atlantic Ocean. While the show is indeed full of those, our concern here is with the romantic relationships between its characters. Whether you’re one of those fans who prefer to adhere to canon or the kind of person who likes to make up your own dynamics, the series offers a myriad of pairings, from Charles Vane (Zach McGowan) and Eleanor Guthrie (Hannah New) to Captain Flint (Toby Stephens) and Lord Thomas Hamilton (Rupert Penry-Jones). Some of these couples are pretty obvious from the moment you first lay eyes on the show, while others you have to work through at least a handful of episodes to finally see. But the very best romantic relationship — or perhaps the very best relationship, period — is one that catches viewers completely by surprise.
History aficionados most likely got their hopes up for Anne Bonny (Clara Paget) and Jack Rackham (Toby Schmitz) to enter a three-way relationship the moment the characters first appeared on-screen. After all, it is widely known that Bonny and Rackham sailed the Atlantic accompanied by another woman called Mary Read (Cara Roberts), who frequently introduced herself as Mark Read. However, this development only takes place in the very final episode of Black Sails. That doesn’t mean, though, that Jack and Anne remain a solitary couple throughout the entirety of the series. As soon as Season 2 kicks in, a third party enters their relationship, creating what is by far the best dynamic in the entire show.
Humiliated beyond any possible reason in the first season of Black Sails, Max (Jessica Parker Kennedy) becomes a powerful player in Season 2. And the change in her role comes with the beginning of a peculiar, intense, and often kind of treacherous relationship with Jack and Anne. It is one of the series’ most interesting developments, as it offers us insight into a group of characters that are not necessarily the ones most frequently under the limelight. It also gives Max, Jack, and Anne the chance to become the best possible versions of themselves, allowing them to grow not just as characters, but as people who inhabit a specific universe.
Black Sails
Follows Captain Flint and his pirates twenty years prior to Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel “Treasure Island.”
- Release Date
- January 25, 2014
- Cast
- Toby Stephens , Luke Arnold , Hannah New , Jessica Parker Kennedy , Toby Schmitz , Tom Hopper , Clara Paget , Ray Stevenson
- Main Genre
- Adventure
- Seasons
- 4
- Studio
- Starz
Max and Anne Are Involved With Other People When ‘Black Sails’ Begins
It all starts with Max and Anne, though, at the start, it’s not easy to see the two of them getting together. After all, Black Sails Season 1 kicks off with both characters involved with other people: Anne with Jack, and Max with Eleanor. The de facto ruler of Nassau pays for the privilege of being the only one in Max’s bed, in a relationship that, like many in the show, mixes business with pleasure. A sex worker at Noonan’s (Tony Caprari) brothel, Max dreams of leaving Nassau behind and building a life for herself. This dream leads her to join forces with John Silver (Luke Arnold) to try and sell the Urca de Lima’s schedule to Jack Rackham. She begs Eleanor to go away with her once she has the money, but Eleanor has her own agenda. In the end, she betrays Max, a move that sees her now former lover delivered to Captain Vane’s men to be raped in what we can safely say is the show’s biggest mistake.
Now, Anne also has a role to play in Max’s suffering. A member of Vane’s crew herself, she’s largely responsible for delivering Max to her shipmates. However, she soon confesses that she believed that they would only kill Max. Utterly destroyed by the horrors that she is forced to not only witness, but stand by, she begins to guard the cabin in which Max is being held, and, through somewhat awkward displays of kindness, a relationship blossoms between the two women.
Why ‘Black Sails’ Is Still Worth a Watch
These pirates’ lives made for some great television.
Eventually, Anne makes a decision that alters the whole course of the story: she hatches a plan with Eleanor to kill Vane’s depleted crew, freeing Max from her nightmare. This, of course, costs her dearly. At first, Vane virtually banishes both her and Jack from ever sailing again, but even when he decides to forgive them — at Max’s behest, no less — crews in Nassau are still wary of traveling with Anne, as they consider her dangerous to their own safety. After all, there’s no knowing when she will kill her shipmates again, or so they seem to think. This turn of events is a great show of moral fiber for Anne, as it makes clear that the character values her principles more than the partners she may have at the time.
There’s also something personal about how Anne relates to Max’s pain. Bonny has a tragic backstory of her own. When she was just a kid, she was married off to a man that not only abused her but allowed his friends to rape her. She was saved from this horror by Jack and thus feels that she owes him her life. Thick as thieves, Anne and Jack have a partnership that cannot be broken, even though they do run into some bumps in the road. One of these bumps is Anne’s decision to save Max, as Jack is not a part of the plan, but ends up suffering the consequences either way.
Max and Anne First Pair Up in Season 2 of ‘Black Sails’
Amid all this chaos, Jack and Anne also become the new owners of Nassau’s brothel, where Max is employed. Sharp as a knife, Max immediately sees this as an opportunity to improve her station and is quickly promoted to madam. Through leads that she acquires from her subordinates, she becomes a valuable asset to Jack and Anne, who, in Season 2, are in the process of starting their own pirate crew. However, Max’s new trade becomes a problem when she sells a sensitive lead to Captain Ned Low (Tadgh Murphy), once again standing between Eleanor and her plans. Anne is enraged, fearing what Eleanor might do to their business, but it doesn’t last long. Having already clocked that Anne is quite interested in her sexually, Max seduces her out of her anger.
At first, Max and Anne’s relationship is not one of trust nor love. As Jack realizes, Max is merely trying to wriggle her way into their two-part dynamic, looking for new chances to make money and improve her own life. Anne herself is well aware of this and asks Jack to stand by her side as she experiences something new, something that she has been desiring for quite some time. Jack is understanding and only asks Anne to come back to their bed when she’s finished with Max. Meanwhile, Max is defiant and makes it clear to Jack that she will still get what she wants — i.e., control over Anne — no matter how hard he tries to stop her.
But things change when Jack throws Anne under the bus in favor of Max and his own business endeavor. You see, the members of his new crew are not thrilled about sharing their earnings with Max in exchange for her tips, nor are they thrilled about sailing with a known crew-killer. When they ask Jack to choose between one or the other, he picks Max, and Anne is utterly devastated. In a fit of rage, she ends up killing one of the brothel’s workers and a member of Flint’s crew. Faced with two corpses and a room covered in blood, that’s when Max shows Anne that she actually means business when it comes to her: right away, she makes it clear that she will protect Anne, and concocts a plan with Silver to keep the murder a secret.
From then on, Max and Anne’s relationship becomes one of mutual respect, which soon evolves into love. Alas, this is not the kind of love that is meant to last. As England comes knocking at Nassau’s door, Max is asked to prove her allegiance and ends up choosing to align herself with pirate hunter Woodes Rogers (Luke Roberts). By Season 4, Anne is already contemplating killing her, so distraught that she is at having been betrayed in such an ugly manner. But them’s the breaks when it comes to Black Sails: no relationship in the series is born purely out of love. They all have some financial and/or political agenda behind them, and everyone gets duped sooner or later.
‘Black Sails’ Best Couple Is Actually a Throuple
Max, thus, is no more selfish than Eleanor or even Captain Flint. However, her relationship with Anne is such a captivating one that we can’t help but feel hurt when she turns her back on her. What’s more, she also betrays Jack, delivering him to Rogers to be killed. While, initially, this may not sound like a big deal, as we’ve been talking only about Max’s loving relationship with Anne, it all changes significantly when we consider that this couple is, in reality, a throuple.
You see, right after asking Jack to have her back as she’s experimenting with Max, Anne decides to bring him into the equation. At first, she’s the one getting all the attention, as both her lovers do their best to please her, but they simply can’t keep ignoring each other forever. Granted, Jack is a little weirded out when Max starts touching him, but he grows to enjoy it. Now partners in bed, in business, and in crime, with a shared account in which they keep the Urca gold, Max, Jack, and Anne are effectively married. It’s just a pity that their marriage has to end in such an ugly divorce.
Still, for as long as they last, Max, Anne, and Jack are truly something to behold. Full of ups and downs, their story is charming, funny, and tragic, all at the same time. It is also a story that encompasses everything that makes the relationships of Black Sails tick, from actual fondness to hidden agendas to, of course, money. What’s more, Kennedy, Paget, and Schmitz are all extremely charismatic performers, and it’s hard to divert our attention from them whenever they are on-screen. Forget the Walrus and the Revenge: these three are the actual best ship in Nassau.
Black Sails is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.
This article was originally published on collider.com