‘Our Flag Means Death’ Season 2’s Best Couple Isn’t Stede and Ed – Armessa Movie News

Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Season 2 of Our Flag Means Death.

Our Flag Means Death is a love story — not just about Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) and Edward Teach (Taika Waititi) falling in love, but the whole crew of The Revenge loving each other. Izzy Hands (Con O’Neill) has love for Ed, Jim (Vico Oritz) and Oluwande (Samson Kayo) have love for each other — these are all essential pieces of the Our Flag Means Death puzzle. Stede and Ed are far from the only romantic pairing we bear witness to and while their tumultuous love story is truly one for the ages, they aren’t actually the best couple on the show. That honor goes to Black Pete (Matthew Maher) and Lucius (Nathan Foad) — who, despite everything, have been living their rom-com dreams since almost day one.

Black Pete and Lucius Have a Simmering Romance in ‘Our Flag Means Death’

While things are certainly heating up for everyone in Season 2, Season 1 was in many ways a slow burn. For Stede and Ed, that meant only figuring out their feelings in the eleventh hour, but for Black Pete and Lucius that slow simmer took a different shape. Their relationship started off pretty casual it seems, hooking up in the kitchen while Wee John (Kristian Nairn) slept nearby. They both had a good time, but there’s no clear indication of what comes next. As the season progresses, we can clearly see they’ve gotten closer. They call each other “babe,” sleep next to each other, and by the time Lucius slices off his own finger in a fit of pain-induced madness it’s clear they have a more official relationship.

While Ed and Stede are busy doing their star-crossed lover routine, Black Pete and Lucius are in the background building an incredibly stable relationship. Despite never taking center stage for long, the progression of their relationship feels natural. When Lucius loses his finger, Pete whittles him a new one. Later on, Lucius votes to mutiny against Izzy even with Pete as his first mate because he “loves that man” but knows he’s easily led by people in power. In Season 2, Lucius proposes to Pete with a giant portrait he’d drawn of Pete on the ship’s wall. It’s not rebelling against empires or abandoning hideous amounts of wealth for each other, but more mundane, cute gestures that feel just as heartfelt.

Black Pete and Lucius Prove Communication Is Key on ‘Our Flag Means Death’ Season 2

Communication is really where Lucius and Black Pete outshine every other couple on the show. In Season 2, Jim and Oluwande seem to have missed the chance to be together, and Ed and Stede are dramatically getting together and breaking up, but Lucius and Pete have been incredibly stable since day one — and this is largely due to how well they communicate with each other. When Izzy tries to turn the crew against each other in Season 1 by sowing discord, he tries to use telling Pete about Lucius drawing other men (naked) as leverage against the couple. It backfires immediately when Lucius tells Pete first, saying, “We don’t own each other.” The sentence is emblematic of why they have the healthiest romantic relationship in the show by far. They love each other, but they don’t possess each other.

This communication plays a key role in Season 2 as well. After everything Lucius has been through, he’s changed, but Stede encourages Lucius to just lay everything out for Pete as best he can, ironically giving advice he often can’t follow himself. And Lucius does. He tells Pete what he went through and Pete is able to open up to him as well about the fear he felt thinking Lucius was dead for months. It’s not dramatic but it’s so they just get through the hard stuff, so they can get back to loving each other. Pete and Lucius prove that love stories don’t always have to be arduous to be engaging.

Black Pete and Lucius Are One of ‘Our Flag Means Death’s Healthiest Relationships

Just because these two are acing the relationship game doesn’t mean they’re without worries. Ed and Stede’s dramatic parting at the end of Season 1 was grand on its own, so it’s easy to forget how many others were experiencing their own kind of hurt at the same time. Lucius has been betrayed by Ed, pushed into the sea, and forced to fend for himself for months. He comes back a changed man, less naive and a bit crueler. For Pete’s part, he spends months believing Lucius is dead. At the very least, Stede and Ed spend their time apart knowing the other is relatively safe but Pete and Lucius don’t have that luxury. While most things with their relationship have progressed quite smoothly, their separation and the difficulty they have readjusting when they first reunite are a testament to how much work they put in to reestablish ease with each other. They may have a more mundane love story in comparison to the Gentleman Pirate and Blackbeard, but from that simplicity comes one of the most healthy romances on screen.

Our Flag Means Death is a rom-com about more than just romantic love — it’s also about familial love, love for one’s friends, and even a love for adventure. This show loves love, and Pete and Lucius’ relationship is a shining example of that. They make each other better people not because they reform each other, but because they bring out the best in each other. Pete helps Lucius break his Ed-induced art block, while Lucius sees Pete more clearly than anyone else, both his potential and his weaknesses. They balance each other out not through extremes but through the mundane. If Ed and Stede are the kind of couple you write epics about, Lucius and Pete are the couple you wish you were friends with — not some brilliant distant star, but a close and comforting warmth.

Our Flag Means Death Season 2’s finale premieres Thursday on Max.