The first episode of Black Sails needs to introduce a lot of characters and we are unsure as to who to root for. Black Sails has action in the 18th century high seas and a setting in New Providence, a port in the Bahamas. It was actually run by pirates, where they dropped off their stolen loot and traded their cargo for gunpowder and rum. Once that was done it was off to the whorehouse.
Captain Flint (Toby Stephens) leads the Walrus, whose captaincy is in danger as pickings have been slim but he is looking for the big one. A Spanish galleon with 5 million dollars of treasure, it is just that a page of the map is missing.
The episode opens with action as the Walrus attacks another ship, the sailors try to bravely withstand the pirates but some of them are happy to become pirates, the conditions can be better than with their existing captain. We see John Silver (Luke Arnold) hiding from the action below decks, he notices that the ship's cook is hiding a parchment and kills him for it. The parchment is a map, John Silver pretends to be the cook as he joins the pirate of the Walrus. Silver is a man of mysterious motivations in the first episode.
Being a Starz series and with an eye on the Game of Thrones audience, there is sex, nudity, some lesbian action and profanities. It is grimy but also rather clunky in the way it introduces the characters in the first episode. I doubt we are going to see much naval action, for a start it is expensive to stage but I figure there will be a lot of soap opera style storylines.