History Series / OurFlagMeansDeath

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: The show plays ''extremely'' fast and loose with 18th century nautical history, but hey, [[RuleOfFunny it is a comedy]]. The depictions of the English Navy in particular draw on the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 80-100 years after Blackbeard's heyday.

** Nigel Badminton and the sailors he takes to board the ''Revenge'' are haughty, rude, racist, and make fun of Stede the whole time. Nigel is accidentally killed [[EyeScream with a sword through the skull]], one gets [[GroinAttack tea poured onto his nether regions]], one gets a [[ImpaledPalm knife through the hand]], and another is forced to row back to the English ship with his hands tied to the oars.
** The entire boat of aristocrats in Episode 5. They're petty, rude to the waiters, racist, and make fun of Blackbeard for not knowing their intricate dining rituals. Frenchie and Oluwande spend the episode scamming most of them with a GetRichQuickScheme, and Stede [[BreakThemByTalking utterly humiliates]] [[BreakTheHaughty all the rest]].

* BewareTheNiceOnes: Roach, reluctantly impressed by his captain's twin feats of killing Badminton and holding off an English naval ship, says this about Stede at the end of the first episode. One of the hostages describes Bonnet as having the eyes of a madman.

* CreatorCameo: Series creator and showrunner David Jenkins appears as one of the members of the English Navy in the first episode.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The British navy is shown with period-appropriate bigotry. By contrast, the pirates have a mixed race (and eventually mixed sexuality) crew.

** [[spoiler:When Stede is facing down the English firing squad in Episode 9, most of his crew off to the side cover their eyes and ears.]]

* LuredIntoATrap: [[spoiler:Calico Jack manages to manipulate Stede into steering the ''Revenge'' into Blind Man's Cove, a death trap with no escape, for the English Navy.]]

* ObfuscatingStupidity: Calico Jack's frat-bro antics with Blackbeard seems like general drunken assholery, [[spoiler: until it's revealed that his behavior was calculated -- he was sent by Izzy Hands to deliberately lure the ''Revenge'' into a death trap and get Ed off the ship before the English attack.]]

* SecondActBreakup: [[spoiler: During Episode 8, Blackbeard leaves with Calico Jack when he believes that Stede won't like him for who he really is. They both mope around for a bit, Lucius dumps Blackbeard's stuff in a box and drops it off with him, and eventually, Blackbeard comes back just in time to save the ''Revenge'' from being blasted apart by the English Navy.]]

* TalkToTheFist: [[spoiler:As Stede is facing down the firing squad, Ed punches Izzy square in the face for selling them out to the English.]]

** In Episode 9, "Act of Grace": [[spoiler:The ''Revenge'' gets captured, and Ed and Stede sign away their lives of piracy to serve the English king as privateers. While at the privateer academy, Ed and Stede finally kiss, and they make plans to elope, but Stede is confronted by Chauncey Badminton and instead goes home to his wife and children, leaving Ed to escape alone.]]

* YouAreWorthHell: [[spoiler:In order to save Stede's life, Ed gives up the name, reputation, and life he forged as Blackbeard to become a privateer and serve the English king. When Stede asks him how he's adjusted so well to this new life, he confesses that as long as he's with Stede, he'll be happy.]]

* DiedInYourArmsTonight{ [[spoiler: Izzy dies in Ed's arms after being shot in the final episode.]]

* FourOneNineScam: In Episode 5, Oluwande and Frenchie con many aristocrats with this kind of scheme, with Oluwande posing as an Egyptian prince who promises fabulous returns to investors in his project to recover riches locked away in a pyramid. Bonus points for managing this scam decades before the internet. Oluwande and Frenchie, in turn, invest their earnings with the aristocrats' former servants, who discuss how to improve the scam - including claiming to be a Nigerian, not an Egyptian, prince.

* NobilityMarriesMoney: The reason for Stede's ArrangedMarriage. He is told by his father that "''Peasants'' marry for love. Mary has acreage."
* NoPartyLikeADonnerParty: Narrowly avoided in the finale. After [[spoiler:Blackbeard maroons half the crew on an island that can barely fit seven people and lacks food sources, the Swede starts to look like the easiest target as food to the marooned. They try to chase him down, and only stop when they notice the arrival of Stede]].
* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: During pre-production, Taika Waititi wasn't confident he'd be able to sustain a passable Bristol accent to match the historical Blackbeard's origins [[note]]For curious history buffs, Frenchie's mild Southwest English accent, identifiable by the "i" in "pirate" being rounded and pushed back closer to the "oy" in "boy", gives some idea of what Blackbeard probably would have sounded like[[/note]]. The showrunners decided instead to invoke RuleOfFunny, having almost all of the actors speak with their natural accents regardless of whether it would make sense for their characters. Standout examples include the natives on the island in Episode 2 speaking with American accents, Englishmen Stede and Ed sounding like New Zealanders and various members of the English landed gentry speaking with American or Australian accents. The show is set ''sixty years before'' any English-speaking colonizers arrived in Australia or New Zealand.

* ObfuscatingStupidity: Calico Jack's frat-bro antics with Blackbeard seems like general drunken assholery, [[spoiler: until it's revealed that his behaviour was calculated -- he was sent by Izzy Hands to deliberately lure the ''Revenge'' into a death trap and get Ed off the ship before the English attack.]]

* SecondActBreakup: [[spoiler: During Episode 8, Blackbeard leaves with Calico Jack when he believes that Stede won't like him for who he really is. They both mope around for a bit, Lucius dumps Blackbeard's stuff in a box and drops it off with him, and eventually Blackbeard comes back just in time to save the ''Revenge'' from being blasted apart by the English Navy.]]
* SchoolyardBullyAllGrownUp: Downplayed with Nigel Badminton, who used to bully Bonnet when they were kids. When the two meet again in the pilot, while Badminton is generally more mature and affable than he was as a child, he shows no regret for his childhood bullying and still acts disdainful towards Bonnet.

* SoupIsMedicine: When a wounded [[spoiler:Ed washes up on his former captain Hornigold's island]], he is fed soup to help him recuperate. Subverted in that [[spoiler:neither the island nor Hornigold are real; they're constructs of Ed's mind brought on by severe head trauma]].

* StealthPun: Perrhaps unintentional, but the actor who plays Frenchy has the last name Fry. Making him a "Frenchy Fry".

* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: Seeing how damaged Ed has become, [[spoiler:Izzy grudgingly admits that their relationship is and has been toxic for ''decades'', but he continues to stand by his side because he "has love" for Edward. Ed responds by threatening to kill himself in front of the crew, then shoots Izzy and leaves him to bleed out on the deck.]]

** The same episode has Ed quoting [[Music/Whitesnake Whitesnake]]'s "Here I Go Again".

** Blackbeard's outfit, including a one-armed leather jacket with a pauldron on the right shoulder and a knee brace, is almost identical to the one worn by the titular character in ''Film/MadMax''.

* DragQueen: To celebrate the (entirely fictional) "pirate holiday" of Calypso's birthday, the crew throws a party that includes decorations, refreshments, and Wee John in the starring role of the sea goddess Calypso. Non-binary pirate Jim joins in the fun with a drawn-on mustache. [[spoiler:Unexpectedly, Izzy gets in on the act as well and entertains the crew with a moving performance of "La Vie en Rose."]]

* DragQueen: To celebrate the (entirely fictional) "pirate holiday" of Calypso's birthday, the crew throws a party that includes decorations, refreshments, and Wee John in the starring role of the sea goddess Calypso. [[spoiler:Unexpectedly, Izzy gets in on the act as well and entertains the crew with a moving performance of "La Vie en Rose."]]

** In Episode 9, Blackbeard has to sign a legal document, and while Stede puts down an elegant signature, Blackbeard can only write an X. This is a case of ArtisticLicenseHistory, as the real Blackbeard almost certainly could read and write.

* NobilityMarriesMoney: The reason for Stede's ArrangedMarriage. He is told by his father that "''Peasants'' marry for love. Mary has acerage."

On January 9, 2023, it was announced by David Jenkins on Instagram that the show had been canceled after two seasons, despite its success and critical acclaim.

* BeefBandage: After a half-conscious Ed headbutts Stede in the face, we later see Stede holding a raw steak to his cheek. This doubles as a ProchronicProduct, as the reason the cliché of holding a cut of meat to a bruise is that it's ''frozen'', and refrigerators did not exist in the 18th century, much less on a pirate ship.

* BeefBandage: After a half-conscious Ed headbutts Stede in the face, we later see Stede holding a raw steak to his cheek. This doubles as a ProchronicInvention, as the reason the cliché of holding a cut of meat to a bruise is that it's ''frozen'', and refrigerators did not exist in the 18th century, much less on a pirate ship.