Ugh I Can’t Wait. Usually With Second Seasons Or Sequels Or Whatnot I Get So Scared They’ll Ruin

Ugh I can’t wait. Usually with second seasons or sequels or whatnot I get so scared they’ll ruin it, but I just find it hard to believe they will. Everyone who works on this show is so talented, and honestly I’m confident that whatever direction they choose to take in season 2, it’ll be the right one

My wishes for a possible season two are so utterly varied!!

I want them to reunite with gusto within the first three episodes, yet I also want a tantalizingly slow escalation of near-misses and stolen glances! I want Stede tracking Edward down with unbounded love, singing sonnets the whole way; but I also want Stede tracking Edward down with anguish, spurred by love but with a burning desire for answers- perhaps even retribution. I want that journey to ground Stede- bringing him down to earth and forcing him to start from scratch. But then again, I also want that journey to spur his unabashed flights of fancy- exacerbating all that makes Stede Bonnet so utterly bonkers.

I want Edward to sail as far away from Stede Bonnet as he can geographically muster, forever pushing forward until the physical distance matches the metaphorical one that Stede initiated. But I also want Edward tracking Stede down, thinking that he's with the navy, thinking that he returned to his family, thinking 101 different thoughts that have him ceaselessly searching for the man that fucked him over. I need him to hear of Bonnet's death on the mainland- I want him to believe it, to genuinely think that the man's dead; but equally I need him to clue in on the fuckery, to uncover the story of Badminton #2 and piece together the bizarre puzzle from that fateful night. I need him to hear of Captain Thomas and his bizarre domination of the Carribean; I want Ed to brush it to the side, a mockery of Bonnet's name. Yet I want him to realize, to recognize who exactly this Captain Thomas and his peculiar pirating style is.

When they do reunite, I want Stede to alternatively mirror season one, with him coming in to save an Edward who's gotten into a frightful altercation with the British; subsequently spending days sitting at his bedside as wounds tentatively begin to heal. Yet I also crave for their reconvening to be utterly novel- something that forces the two to work together before they even get the chance to speak. When they lock eyes for the first time in months, I want Ed's world to crumble at the sight of Stede Bonnet, his knees thunking the floor and eyes welling with unkept emotion. Yet there's an undeniable appeal that comes from an on-deck duel, emotions funnelled into a physical altercation. I want Stede to respond with emotional maturity, facilitated by lessons from his arduous journey at sea! Yet I yearn for the clueless, tone-skewed Stede Bonnet who goes about reconciliation in an entirely convoluted manner. I want Izzy to support the reunification, having realized that the Kraken was not the monster that he had called for, realizing that people are multi-faceted and healing is paramount. But I also yearn for him to be a little shit- desperate and repressed- protective of the image of Blackbeard and disallowing Stede's return to their lives.

I want the healing to take mere days, routine returning with the softness of the rolling waves outside. Yet perhaps even more so than that, I need this to be a months-long process of Stede proving that he's here- he's not going, he doesn't want to, he accepts Edward as a whole, never for individual parts. I want Stede to wipe the paint from Ed's face, gentle and soothing with every stroke. But I can't dissuade the idea of Edward doing it himself, sitting in front of a basin, scrubbing at the sensitive skin until he recognizes the face before him; until he believes that healing is attainable.