It’s amazing to see the differences between an exposition-heavy episode of Black Sails in its seventh episode and an exposition-heavy episode in its second or third. By now, most of the characters are fleshed out so that even if you might not be invested in them and their conflicts, their intentions are clear.
When Black Sails premiered, I welcomed its slow pace and narrative interest. Going the less obvious route, the series has – so far – avoided laying the action on too thick and, instead, has stuck close to its main characters. However, these characters have mostly been conniving and stressing out, wanting to kill certain people but being unable to for whatever reason
“II.” largely begins to address some of those concerns, and while there is still a lot of work to be done with central figures like John Silver and Charles Vane, the rest of the group is starting to become much more recognizable as characters and not just people who are on the screen.