Crossbones – Season Finale Review

Crossbones came to an end with a two-hour finale that aimed to cause havoc and destroy relationships. The finale also tried to build upon Blackbeard and Lowe’s story with important events and massive battles. Unfortunately, the finale was stuffed full of unnecessary stories, unfulfilled plots, and confusing endings, resulting in a disappointing end to a mixed season.

The season finale consisted of two halves of extremely different quality. The first half focused on Blackbeard and Rider’s sea bound mission to sink a Spanish treasure fleet for some random reason. Accompanying them on this trip was a very nervous Fletch who was serving as the new surgeon. Why wasn’t Lowe the accompanying surgeon? Apparently, Selima decided that it would be more beneficial for Blackbeard to leave Lowe on Santa Compana and take Rider on the mission. Luckily, Blackbeard listened because Lowe had some extremely random and slightly pointless emergencies to deal with on the island.

Unfortunately for Rider and the pirate crew, Jagger had a ship waiting for Blackbeard so the attack on the Spanish fleet was rendered impossible. Actually, the attack was only made impossible when Blackbeard decided it was more important to attack Jagger’s ship instead of the fleet while almost causing a mutiny. Fortunately, Blackbeard dealt with the mutiny by stabbing a key crewmember and throwing him overboard, but the fleet was long gone by that point. The pirates returned to the island empty-handed, which started the second half of the finale.

This first half of the season finale was by far the worst portion; it introduced a storyline involving a potential pregnancy scare and failed suicide. The rest of this first portion tried to create tension between many main characters that didn’t previously exist. It seemed like Crossbones was just trying to create as much tension as possible to enhance the finale. Thankfully, the second half of the finale was much better.

While the first half of the season finale was focused on Blackbeard’s mission and Lowe’s island emergency, the second half focused on Jagger’s attack on Santa Compana. Granted, the second half also partially focused on Lowe’s continuing emergency, but it was mostly used as a backdrop to the main battle. This attack was by far the better half of the season finale because it was just pure action and violence. Some portions of the battle were even bloodier than expected as key characters roamed the battle stabbing soldiers and slicing necks. The blood wasn’t quite to the level of an HBO or Showtime program, but it was fairly impressive for NBC.

Steady, Gents. This battle is the only good part of the finale.

Strangely though, the season finale of Crossbones seemed more like a series finale. The second half of the season finale found ways to kill off characters in way that made the episode seem final. Many of these deaths were very entertaining as they killed off some irritating characters, but Crossbones will have a difficult time finding a storyline for the second season (if one actually happens). Of course, Crossbones could continue on the path started by a frustrating and very forced cliffhanger, but following this storyline would be fairly pointless.

Crossbones is one of the most confusing shows released in recent memory. The season started off strongly with a fantastic pilot, but the rest of the episodes alternated between terrible and entertaining in a frustrating pattern. For example, the penultimate episode was absolutely worth watching and led perfectly into the season finale, but the actual finale wasn’t even close to that level of quality. If the rumors about Crossbones’ cancellation end up being true, then this finale will be a very sad and frustrating end to John Malkovich’s career as a pirate.