A side-hustle run by two of the pirates in Our Flag Means Loss of life parodies the modern-day cryptocurrency market with a literal pyramid scheme.
Warning: SPOILERS for Our Flag Means Loss of life episode 5, “The Finest Revenge Is Dressing Effectively.”
HBO Max’s pirate comedy Our Flag Means Loss of life took a delicate stab at cryptocurrency, with a con involving a fictional Prince of Egypt. Fortunately, the present doesn’t stoop to the apparent pun of referring to its money-making pyramid scheme as crypt-o-currency. Nonetheless, the parallels between Our Flag Means Loss of life‘s traditional pirates and their modern-day computer-using brethren are fairly clear.
Our Flag Means Loss of life is loosely based mostly on the lifetime of the Gentleman Pirate Stede Bonnet. A lot of the humor of the sequence is predicated round intentional anachronisms, with conventions of Twenty first-century life being parodied by means of an 18th-century worldview. The pilot episode contained many examples of this, with Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) paying his crew a progressive wage and providing them advantages equivalent to a recreation room and lending library. Whereas that is an apparent exaggeration that makes Stede Bonnet’s pirate vessel appear to be a contemporary cruise ship, the real-world Gentleman Pirate did pay his crew a weekly wage as an alternative of getting them work for shares of plunder.
Our Flag Means Loss of life episode 5, “The Finest Revenge Is Dressing Effectively,” has a equally stilted subplot centering round two members of Stede Bonnet’s crew, Frenchie (Joel Fry) and Oluwande (Samson Kayo). As their captain makes an attempt to infiltrate a excessive society social gathering with Blackbeard (What We Do In The Shadows‘ Taika Waititi) by posing as Sir Godfrey Thornrose and his accountant, Jeff, Oluwande and Frenchie tackle the roles of the Crown Prince Azi of Egypt and his loyal viceroy. Whereas initially content material to benefit from the social gathering, being mistaken as servants by the racist nobles after which being complimented for being “clear and well-spoken Africans” pushes the 2 pirates to larceny. They later method every noble in non-public to debate the tragic circumstances of how Prince Azi’s inheritance from his pharaoh ancestors was sealed in a pyramid and the way they may turn out to be fabulously wealthy by investing in “a scheme to retrieve the wealth.”
With a pyramid scheme and an African prince in misery, it’s clear that Our Flag Means Loss of life‘s story is an 18th-century send-up of the numerous real-world on-line scams that should steal cash from the gullible or non-technologically savvy. Whereas that is extra a parody of the African prince electronic mail rip-off, stronger parallels to cryptocurrency and NFTs rapidly turn out to be obvious because the episode unfolds and Oluwande and Frenchie enlist the help of the precise African servants. Quickly they’ve an workplace and are promoting nugatory vouchers they declare are certain to understand in worth to the nobles, in change for all of the precise forex they’ve on them.
By the tip of the Our Flag Means Loss of life episode, the nobles are preventing over the nugatory vouchers as a standing image whereas their social gathering ship goes up in flames. Oluwande and Frenchie make their escape and reinvest their earnings by giving them to the much-abused African servants. They too take their depart of the burning ship, with one butler declaring that they may use their newfound wealth to sharpen the con in Our Flag Means Loss of life by pretending to be “a Nigerian prince in horrible want of help.“
Our Flag Means Loss of life releases new episodes Thursdays on HBO Max.
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