review of Black Sails2.5 

Black Sails 2.5 was chock full of surprises and revelations, tonight - the first and foremost being -

The affair that Flint was having in London before he became Flint was not with Thomas\'s wife Miranda but with Thomas.  This explains a lot of things, including the somewhat strange relationship he had with Miranda last year, and the way Flint was drummed out of town by the British Admiralty earlier in the show tonight.  They wouldn\'t have been anywhere near as angry or disgusted with him, if he had been in bed with a married woman.   Score one for Black Sails in the unexpected, very well played twist department.

And in a lesser but still significant surprise,  Rackham decides to take Max not Anne with him on his ship, when given the choice (according to what he tells Anne) of being able to bring just one of the women on board the ship.  I discount his convoluted explanation to Anne, and assume his decision reflects how much more he enjoys Max and her charms in bed.

And, if that\'s not enough, we find that Billy is not only alive but freed, after all.   He was one of the top three or four excellent characters last season - bringing him back into the action promises to be good.

The episode ends on a cliff hanger, as have most of the episodes this season.  Vane has realized that there\'s no way he can beat Flint\'s superior forces, so he goes for the strategy of cutting off the head of the attacking force.  This one-on-one contest couldn\'t have happened at a worse time for Flint, as he\'s just come back in touch with his love for Thomas, thanks to Miranda.   There\'s no way the series will allow Vane to kill Flint at this point - not to mention what that would do to our novelistic knowledge of the pirate - so it will be interesting to see who and what gets Flint out of this.

But he will now be a different, far more complex character in this series, not just interested in gold, but in finding some equilibrium for himself in this unforgiving world.

See also Black Sails 2.1: Good Combo, Back Story, New Blood ... Black Sails 2.2: A Fine Lesson in Captaining ... Black Sails 2.3: "I Angered Charles Vane" ... Black Sails 2.4: "Fire!"

And see also Black Sails: Literate and Raunchy Piracy ... Black Sails 1.3: John Milton and Marcus Aurelius ... Black Sails 1.4: The Masts of Wall Street ...Black Sails 1.6: Rising Up ... Black Sails 1.7: Fictions and History ... Black Sails 1.8: Money

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Paul Levinson, PhD, is Professor of Communication & Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City.  His 8 nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997), Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003),  Cellphone (2004), and New New Media (2009, 2nd edition 2012), have been the subject of major articles in the New York Times, Wired, the Christian Science Monitor, and have been translated into 12 languages. His science fiction novels include The Silk Code (1999, ebook 2012), Borrowed Tides (2001), TheConsciousness Plague (2002, 2013), The Pixel Eye (2003), The Plot To SaveSocrates (2006, ebook 2012), and Unburning Alexandria (2013).  His short stories have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, and Sturgeon Awards.  Paul Levinson appears on "The O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News), "The CBS Evening News,"  “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” (PBS),  “Nightline” (ABC), NPR, and numerous national and international TV and radio programs. His 1972 album, Twice Upon a Rhyme, was re-issued in 2009 (CD) and 2010 (remastered vinyl). He reviews the best of television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog, and was listed in The Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Top 10 Academic Twitterers” in 2009.

Chronicle of Higher Education puts Paul Levinson in Top 10 (#7) of Academic "High Flyers" on Twitter ... Online University Data puts PL in "Top 50 Online University Professors on Twitter Worth Following"...

Dear Paul, I just dreamed of airships flying between raindrops. I just returned from 2042 CE, where I sold my hardcover copy of The Plot to Save Socrates for seventy million Neo-Euros, because it had your response to this e-mail from way back in 2007 scotch-taped onto the inside of the cover. A Paul Levinson collector paid top Neo-Euro, because of the authentic archaic e-mail printout from you. It turns out that not many of your e-mails from before your tenure as CEO of HBO/Cinemax and terms as United Nations Secretary General will survive that far into the future. So, please respond to this e-mail, to help found my great-grandchildren\'s fortune. My Will will stipulate that they must share with your great grandchidren. Thanks! Tom

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Paul Levinson appears on "The O\'Reilly Factor" (Fox News), "The CBS Evening News," "Nightline" (ABC), the "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" (PBS), "The Dylan Ratigan Show" (MSNBC) and frequently on NPR and all-news radio...