Neurodivergent (Headcanon) Alley: Frenchie (Our Flag Means Death)

Oh, Frenchie! The first handful of times I watched Our Flag Means Death, I went back and forth between him and Oluwande for my favorite crew member. On this latest rewatch, though? It’s Frenchie, all day every day! Shortly after season 2, I wrote about my AuDHD headcanons for both Stede and Ed. They’re the only two I wrote about at the time, but really, most of the crew of the Revenge definitely “pings” as some flavor of neurodivergent. While I don’t know when I might get around to some of the others, I obviously had to talk about my guy Frenchie!

For autistic headcanons, the first thing that comes to mind for Frenchie is “spiky skillsets.” Frenchie is the king of spiky skillsets! He’ll either wow you with his competence or completely flail—there’s nothing in between. Look no further than his ability to lie. If Frenchie is calm and confident, lying is probably his best talent. When he and Olu join Stede and Ed on the fancy party boat in season 1, Frenchie jumps seamlessly into inventing fake backstories for the two of them. He shows himself to be a skilled con man, simultaneously creating both the pyramid scheme and the Nigerian Egyptian prince scam. He milks these racist rich folks for all they’re worth, never once breaking character. By contrast, if he’s nervous or overwhelmed, Frenchie fumbles his way through ridiculous lies that are easy to see through. When the ship is taken by the British navy, he tries to pass off Stede’s journal as his own “fan fiction,” and at one point, he forgets his own hand dominance while being questioned by Ed. In lying, and in most things, Frenchie just does not have a medium setting.

Next, I need to look at how Frenchie inhabits his body. He’s very lanky, and his limbs just sort of do whatever they want, going absolutely everywhere when he’s excited or while he’s thinking. He frequently fidgets, especially with his hair, and he tends to perch on things rather than sit, often with his knees tucked up against his chest. He’s also fairly clumsy, which kind of gives off dyspraxia vibes. Seconds after he convinces Lucius to entrust him with hiding Stede’s journal from the British, insisting he was “born for this sort of espionage,” Frenchie trips over his own feet and falls flat on his face, getting caught immediately. And in one of my favorite sight gags of the whole series, he accidentally nails his sleeve to the deck and flails helplessly as he tries to tug himself free.

Another broad category for Frenchie is his atypical reactions to the situation at hand. Whatever it may be, he often responds in ways that jar with everyone else. While the rest of the crew is discussing a potential mutiny in the pilot, he’s laser-focused on the flag he’s designing and interrupts the surreptitious plotting with, “Hey, can you pass the black thread, pretty please?” When Jim’s nana throws a knife at them, Frenchie calmly remarks, “Now that was incredibly badass, especially for a nun,” and has to be prodded into (very disinterestedly) making the sign of the cross to placate her. When Fang is crying after they raid a wedding, Frenchie’s tone is soothing, but his words are not. “Oh, cheer up,” he says “You gonna—you gonna finish that cake? No?” Still crying, Fang shakes his head, and Frenchie takes Fang’s cake for himself.

We’ll end on a roundup of random traits and moments that add to my ND Frenchie headcanon. Frenchie is smart and observant but also has a number of wild beliefs, such as cats being witches (“And they’ve got knives in their feet,”) and the importance of leaving leftover bread out for the fairies (“They did help the bread rise. They do deserve their fair cut.”) He’s also entirely undeterred when other people think these beliefs are silly or weird. He’s definitely on the germophobic side—when the Swede has scurvy, Frenchie urges, “Don’t breathe over me, man!” and tries to blow the Swede’s breath away from him. (I love him so much!) When he and Wee John get their own room, Frenchie is super excited to “design [their] sanctum” but disturbed when he realizes that this means they might have to have people over. 

Also, side note: while I don’t normally headcanon characters as asexual without some kind of textual coding, Frenchie’s vibes are just impeccably aroace to me. I can’t explain why that is exactly, but if you know, you know. It’s true, of course, that asexual characters aren’t necessarily autistic and vice versa. But when you add it to all the other stuff, it certainly doesn’t hurt. I’d have loved to see this show’s take on canon aroace stuff, and Frenchie would’ve been the perfect character to do it with.

In short, I love the way Frenchie’s mind works. He feels super neurodivergent to me—probably autistic (though I wouldn’t say no to AuDHD,) possibly dyspraxic—but even though a lot of his traits are familiar to me, I think the way they all come together results in a really unique character.

Favorite Characters: Frenchie (Our Flag Means Death)

*A few Frenchie-related spoilers.*

When I first started writing about Our Flag Means Death last year, I liked basically the whole crew—everyone had fun moments, and everyone made me laugh at different times. But I feel like I would’ve had a hard time doing a full write-up on most of them. In the run-up to season 2, though, I rewatched the first season twice in a month, and then I watched season 2 twice as it came out. This means all of them are now much more distinct to me, and I have Things to Say. Yes, there will be Our Flag Means Death posts every week for the foreseeable future: either until I run out or my brain decides to clamp onto something else.

And as I dip my toes more into crew-specific posts, who better to start with than Frenchie? He’s the ship’s bard. He sews like the wind, designing multiple flags for the Revenge (not to mention doing the alterations for Ed’s flag—at gunpoint!—at the end of season 1.) He’s not the strongest writer, and so when Lucius is briefly incapacitated by Jim and Frenchie steps in as Stede’s scribe, he fills Stede’s journal with doodles. What’s not to love?

Most of the crew have a decent amount of screentime but not much in the way of full storylines, so their characters are conveyed more through moments than through plots. The picture the show paints of Frenchie is both ridiculous and admirable. We know that he harbors plenty of superstitions, believing that cats are witches (“They’ve got knives in the feet,”) women on ships attract demons (from the “crystals in their bodies,”) and that fairies make bread dough rise. He’s not the best with spatial awareness, in one scene nailing his sleeve to the deck and in another pumping himself up for a daring bit of heroics and then immediately tripping over his own feet. And he gets so engrossed in his lute that he keeps playing even as a British naval ship overtakes the Revenge, only stopping when a soldier literally tackles him.

Those are the fun little bits, but when it comes to more solid characterization, Frenchie is primarily an ideas man. He can be silly, so it doesn’t always pan out for him, but his creativity extends beyond his sewing and his music. In season 1, his biggest spotlight comes when he and Oluwande accompany Stede and Ed to a fancy party on an aristocrat’s boat. As their vulgar hosts are about to sneer at the two Black men, Frenchie smoothly introduces Oluwande as an Egyptian prince and himself as Olu’s viceroy. This gets them in the door, but Frenchie takes it a step further by getting even with their snobby, racist hosts—on the fly, he invents the Nigerian (in this case, Egyptian) prince scam, conning a bunch of aristocrats out of their money.

When he and Wee John lay claim to Oluwande and Jim’s old room, Frenchie takes their new role as “room people” seriously, wanting to draw blueprints to “design [their] sanctum.” When he fumbles in trying to hide Stede’s journal from the British navy, he does his best to think on his feet, claiming that the journal is just fan fiction he wrote about the captain. He’s also the initial brainchild behind the Calypso’s birthday celebration, making up, not just the holiday, but a calendar and religion to go with it!

It's really interesting to see how Frenchie navigates the start of season 2, sailing with Ed’s crew during the Kraken era. He claims not to be bothered by all the violence perpetrated during their raids, thanks to the “box” in his head where he shuts away anything terrible, but it’s not long before the strain starts to show. He soon finds himself in a precarious position as Ed’s new first mate, having to deal with a volatile captain who expects him to dispatch with his predecessor. Frenchie tries to protect himself and the others, including Izzy, but even as Ed frightens him, you can see that a part of him genuinely feels for Ed too.

In an exciting development, he looks to be stepping into a leadership role at the end of the season 2 finale, captaining the Revenge when Stede and Ed are away. I can’t quite imagine what Frenchie as a captain is going to look like, but I can’t wait to see it! Reason #456 why we need a season 3 renewal announcement. Get on it, Max! The actors’ strike is over, nothing’s stopping you!