You know us, folks! Here at Q+, we like to fight the good fights, and the one currently taking place in the choppy waters of the internet is one we’re really interested in joining: the campaign for the renewal of Our Flag Means Death for a second season. For weeks, the steadily growing fan base of HBO Max’s new smash hit has been pressuring the streaming giant for a renewal announcement, but as of the publication of this article, HBO Max hadn’t responded.

We know that some of you may think that it’s still too early to make a renewal announcement, after all, the show has only been available in full for less than a month (the last two episodes were released on the streaming platform on March 24). But we queer folks have trust issues, okay? We’ve seen incredible TV shows with great representation walk the plank too many times in the past for us not to be at least a bit concerned about this delayed renewal.

So like our beloved Gentleman pirate Stede Bonnet would say, “Let’s talk this through as a crew.” 

Objectively, it makes no sense for HBO Max to cancel such a popular and successful show, but as we said: we have trust issues. It’s happened before. So instead of waiting in the back seat for HBO Max to say something and renew this show already, we decided to take action and give whoever needs to hear this (ahem, the powers that be at HBO Max), a few reasons why we think Our Flag Means Death deserves to be renewed for a second season.

Plus, let’s be honest, it’s the perfect excuse for us to share our favorite things about this show with y’all again. So let’s go!

The Story

If there’s one thing Our Flag Means Death proves from the start is that it’s possible to make a good comedy and still tell a very complex and deeply emotional tale. We take a deep dive into the story and how it evolves through the episodes in our review of the first season (you can read it here); but in short, this show (from creator David Jenkins), tells the story of Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby), a wealthy landowner who, after a mid-life crisis, decides to leave his perfectly crafted family life behind and become a pirate. Is he equipped to do so? Not in the slightest, but that’s exactly what makes this show absolutely hilarious.

Similar to the real-life historical figure Stede is based on, our Stede ends up meeting and working alongside the infamous pirate Blackbeard (Taika Waititi), but what follows in the story isn’t what you would expect from these two characters meeting. Nope, in what we still think is one of the sweetest and most heartwarming turns of events we’ve ever seen on mainstream television, Stede and Blackbeard (or Ed, as Stede sweetly calls him) end up falling for each other! 

So we stand by what we said in our original review, Stede and Ed’s relationship is one of the best strangers-to-friends-to-lovers romances we’ve come across so far. But their story has barely started, it needs more time to develop so that it can fully bloom – and that can only be achieved with a second season. Also, the show has an amazing set of characters with their respective backstories that could very well be explored in future seasons. The potential is there, they just need to give this story and all its characters more time.

Representation

It’s really hard to find TV shows where queer representation feels authentic and not offensive. More often than not, TV shows end up falling into the trap of using stereotypical portrayals of queer people and their life experiences for storytelling. From the moment we started watching Our Flag Means Death, we couldn’t help but notice that, if the show was indeed queer (for a hot second we really thought we were being queer-baited… again), we had a rare piece of television in front of our eyes. 

Why, you ask? Because some of the best qualities of Our Flag Means Death are that 1) the characters aren’t forced into storylines about the fact that they are queer. They’re just individuals who are failing miserably at the art of being pirates and also happen to be queer. And 2) that even though the show is a comedy, there isn’t a single instance where a queer character ends up being the butt of the joke just for being their true authentic selves. Their queerness is never the punchline. *insert shocked expression here* We know, unbelievable! Who knew you could make a queer comedy without offending queer folks in the process! Groundbreaking!

Since its first season, Our Flag Means Death has given us lots of queer representation with pirates characters ranging from openly gay to non-binary. Can y’all imagine what they could give us in a potential second season? As queer folks who have struggled to see themselves represented on mainstream television, we have to say this: it would be a shame to see such positive, fresh, and diverse representation disappear into the bottom of the ocean.

The [redacted] cliffhanger in the final episode

Yes, folks. We have to confess that we don’t particularly enjoy cliffhangers when we know that TV shows haven’t been renewed for a new season. So imagine our faces when the last episode ended and they not only didn’t give us the “and they sailed happily ever after into the rainbow” finale that we were expecting, but they also left the future of so many of our beloved characters up in the air.

The betrayal! How dare they!? Bloody pirates! 

No, but seriously, rom-coms don’t end with the main couple at odds! So for that reason alone, we say that this show just can’t end like this, it needs a second season so our gay pirates can finally be together. But also, we need to know what happened to Lucius (Nathan Foad) and the rest of the Revenge crew that Blackbeard left to perish on that desert island. We understand that Blackbeard’s final actions were fueled by his heartbreak, our poor boy was really going through it, but what he did tore us apart and our gay little hearts NEED CLOSURE!

So now you know, these are just a few of the reasons why we think Our Flag Means Death deserves a second season (and a third and fourth, but we digress). Listen to the fans, HBO Max, and give the gays what they want!

One look at the numbers and it’s pretty obvious that this show has a huge fan base behind it. With hashtags trending on a daily basis and all social media platforms being flooded with gorgeous pieces of fan-made content, one would say that it would be a mistake of epic proportions to prevent this show from sailing forward into a new season. Don’t y’all agree?

So…

RENEW OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH

---

Our Flag Means Death is available to stream fully on HBO Max. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for all queer stuff!