In 1717, at the height of The Golden Age of Piracy, wealthy landowner Stede Bonnet has abandoned his wife and children to become a pirate captain on the ship Revenge. Stede is determined to reform the culture of piracy and help his crew grow as people, a mission which the crew in question treats with scorn. To head off a brewing mutiny and prove his mettle, Stede decides to raid a large ship nearby. When faced with the prospect of actually going into battle, however, Stede's courage fails. He asks for battle advice from Oluwande, one of the only crew members who actually likes him, and Jim, a mysterious, mute crew member who is talented with a knife. Jim teaches Stede how to stun an opponent with a blow to the back of the head.
The Revenge finally catches up to the other vessel, an English Naval warship whose captain, Nigel Badminton, was one of Stede's childhood bullies. Nigel requests an audience with Stede, forcing Stede's crew to pretend to be fellow aristocrats as they host Nigel and his officers for a meal. While Stede shows Nigel his quarters and endures his mockery, the crew gets fed up with the officers' racist, patronizing behavior and attacks them. Hearing the commotion, Nigel unsheathes his sword and tries to rush out to join the fight. Stede attempts to stun him using the move Jim taught him, but inadvertently causes Nigel to fall on his own sword, killing him. Stede calls for help from Oluwande and Lucius, his personal scribe; Oluwande advises him to tell the crew he killed Nigel on purpose. Stede does so, which finally earns him some respect from the crew. Stede and his men keep two of the officers as hostages, while the third is gagged and forced to row back to the warship along with dummies dressed like the officers, buying the Revenge time to escape.
That night, the crew discusses their begrudging new respect for Stede; while they still think he's a terrible captain, they're willing to keep following him for a little longer. As the rest of the crew gets ready for bed, Oluwande brings dinner to Jim, who is revealed to be neither mute nor a man. Stede mournfully thinks back on a happy memory of his wife and children, but tells himself that the crew is his new family and reads them a bedtime story as they fall asleep.
This episode provides examples of:
- Accidental Murder: Bonnet accidentally ends up murdering Badminton in an attempt to simply stun him from the back.
- Asshole Victim: 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 with a sword through the skull, one gets tea poured onto his nether regions, another gets a knife through the hand, and another is forced to row back to the English ship with his hands tied to the oars.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Frenchie, reluctantly impressed by his captain's twin feats of causing Nigel's death and managing to hold off an English naval ship, says this about Stede at the end of the episode.
- Creator Cameo: Series creator and showrunner David Jenkins appears as one of the members of the English Navy in the first episode.
- Eye Scream: Nigel accidentally jams his own sword through his eye and out the back of his skull.
- Groin Attack: One of the English officers gets boiling tea poured into his lap.
- Impaled Palm: Happens to one of the English officers, courtesy of Jim.
- The Mutiny: Most of Bonnet's crew despises him as a captain, seeing him as a weak pansy, and briefly plot to get rid of him, until Bonnet finds out.
- Oh, Crap!: Stede and his crew are pleased to have found a "right big ship" to be their next target. Turns out it's a frigate in His Majesty's Royal Navy.
