Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for the pilot episode of Our Flag Means Death.
The HBO Max pirate comedy Our Flag Means Death is full of comedic anachronisms, but the biggest plot hole in the show’s timeline may lie in a joke involving Stede Bonnet reading the story of Pinocchio to his crew. Set in 1717, Our Flag Means Death details the unlikely life of Stede Bonnet, who abandoned a life of luxury to become a pirate. While the series embellishes some details of Bonnet’s brief career for comedic effect, it is surprisingly accurate to the unbelievable but true story of the self-proclaimed Gentleman Pirate.
The pilot episode of Our Flag Means Death sets the tone for the series, mixing comedic anachronisms with the surprising details of Bonnet’s early days as a pirate captain. For instance, the real Stede Bonnet was unique among pirate captains in paying his crew a weekly salary instead of equal shares of any plunder retrieved. The show’s version of Stede Bonnet also pays his crew a living wage, but does so as part of a benefits package including access to a company tennis court, music room and library.
This last detail is also loosely based on reality, as Bonnet reportedly spent most of his time at sea in his cabin reading and leaving the management of his ship to his more experienced officers. This is another point that Our Flag Means Death exaggerates for laughs, by having Stede Bonnet, having been politely informed that all but one of his crew are illiterate and can’t make use of the ship’s library, begin reading his men the story of a wooden boy who wants to become real every night before bed. While the wooden boy is not identified by name, it is clear that Bonnet is reading from The Adventures of Pinocchio. This is, however, impossible given the real-world history of the famous children’s’ story.
The story of Pinocchio was first published, chapter by chapter, in the Italian children’s magazine Giornale per i bambini in 1881. Author Carlo Collodi later collected the complete story of Pinocchio in a book form as The Adventures of Pinocchio in 1883. It went on to become one of the most popular books of all time, having been translated into 260 different languages.
All of this occurred long after the real Stede Bonnet was executed in December 1818, making it impossible for him to have read The Adventures of Pinocchio. Thankfully, while the anachronistic version of Stede Bonnet presented in Our Flag Means Death is a bad pirate captain, he proves himself to be quite the storyteller. The only things that prevent a mutiny in the pilot episode are that the dispirited crew can’t wait to find out how the story of Pinocchio ends, and that the one other crewman who can read can’t do the voices right.
