holisticdorkgently:

okay but there’s one thing that keeps bugging me about the Black Sails finale and i’ve seen people mention it but i don’t think anyone’s analyzed it yet, and i think i just figured it out:
the cook.

obviously that was a very clear callback to john at the beginning of the series, i think everyone figured that out. but like? when john called him a coward? that’s the key.

when we saw john in the beginning of the series, he was a drifter, beholden and loyal to no one. he was a coward who cared only for his own survival, and so, like a coward, he killed the real cook and assumed his identity to stow away on the Walrus. eventually there was blatant character development subsequent to this: silver became attached to the crew, he became loyal to them, to flint. he no longer only cared about himself. hell, he gave up his leg for them all…

and then the finale happened. despite everything he’d been through, all the bonds he’d developed–his bond with flint–he still turned around and threw it all away just to take the easy way out. he sent flint to that plantation like a coward because he was afraid. afraid of the rage, afraid of the impending change, afraid to lose madi.

in the end, despite everything, long john fucking silver was still that scared coward we met on that ship and everything that happened wound up being for naught. and by doing so, he screwed himself over worst of all. by doing what he did, he was the catalyst for the things he was attempting to prevent in the first place: he grew to resent flint with each passing day and in losing flint he lost madi. maybe not physically, but the bond they once had is irreperably damaged and their relationship will never be the same.

in the end, silver still lost everything that he was afraid to lose.