Our Flag Means Death Season 2 Trailer Pillages Hearts & Booty On The High Seas

The Season 2 trailer for "Our Flag Means Death" has finally arrived, and fans can get ready for more of Stede Bonnet's bumbling attempts at pirating.

Season 1 of the Max original brought Rhys Darby ("Flight of the Conchords") back to the small screen as Stede, a veritable dandy who decides he wants to become a fearsome pirate. This goes exactly about as well as you might expect. Things turn around, though, when his ship is overtaken by Blackbeard (Taika Waititi), and then they really turn around once again when Stede and Blackbeard strike up a fully unexpected romance.

Fans have been anxiously waiting for this story to continue since Season 1 concluded in March of 2022, and now, they'll finally get to revisit the characters they love. Plus, there's some new faces in the cast this time around; Minnie Driver will play the real-life pirate Anne Bonny, and Ruibo Qian joins in on the fun too as a new, mysterious merchant named... Susan. So what surprises does the Season 2 trailer hold? Well, it looks like things between Ed and Stede are definitely on the rocks... which is going to be a total delight to watch once the season premieres on October 5, 2023.

Stede and Ed are definitely starting Season 2 on the opposite ends of what was essentially a breakup at the close of Season 1. While a lovesick Stede is pining for Ed and just wants to be near him, Ed is, to put it lightly, on a rampage. He's wielding tons of guns, crashing weddings (murdering everyone in sight in the process), and just generally causing problems for everybody; when Stede tries to tell someone Ed is "actually a good guy," he's told that the love of his life is a "madman." We don't know yet what happens when the two reunite, but it'll definitely be explosive, to say the least.

The trailer also features snippets of a ton of high-seas action sequences with everything from swords to cannons to guns, Driver's Anne Bonny apparently straddling a rather unwilling Stede, and sweet Stede "doing" his first-ever punch. The first season managed to balance a tricky tone as it veered from romance to action, and according to a behind-the-scenes report of the second season of "Our Flag Means Death," the show's brilliant tonal tightrope walk will continue.

In a first look at Season 2 featured in Vanity Fair, cast and crew members dropped a few hints about what fans can expect... and that includes a darker tone. Con O'Neill, who plays Izzy — Blackbeard's first mate — said "Our Flag Means Death" straddles that line beautifully in its sophomore season. "What I love about this show is it does allow itself to swing between the two," he said. "We're almost operatic in our darkness at times, and then we swing back to the sweetness of the simplicity of the love of our two guys. It's been challenging just to get the tone right. We've gone further this season than we did last season with those tones. So sometimes it's quite interesting to remind yourself that you have to take your foot out of the tragedy—literally, your foot—and put it back into the comedy."

That said, it seems like fans will be pleased with Season 2. Fernando Frias directed a handful of Season 2's episodes, and when Vanity Fair asked if fans would be happy with the new season, he was fairly unequivocal. "If my life depended on saying whether it's yes or no, I would say yes," he revealed.

There's a lot to follow up on after "Our Flag Means Death" Season 1. Stede, realizing he left his wife Mary Bonnet (Claudia O'Doherty) at home alone, returns to her out of guilt, only to discover that she has completely moved on with her life and definitively doesn't need him anymore. (No, really; she tries to kill him in his sleep while he's home.) This leads Stede to realize that he's really in love with Blackbeard, whom he calls "Ed," and he tries to return to the ship to find him. Ed, on the other hand, worries that he's getting too soft and returns to his former terrifying glory as Blackbeard, showing no mercy and trashing all of Stede's fine belongings.

Stede and Blackbeard will inevitably reunite, and Stede will get back with his crew as well — but how that all happens remains to be seen. Season 2 of "Our Flag Means Death" returns on October 5.