Favorite Characters: Nathaniel Buttons (Our Flag Means Death)

*Buttons-related spoilers.*

Yep, still tapping that Favorite Characters well for Our Flag Means Death. When it comes to the crew, there honestly isn’t a bad one in the bunch, and even characters who didn’t grab me at first eventually won me over. It’s basically faves all the way down! And the fave I’m talking about today is Buttons.

There’s lots of silly humor on Our Flag Means Death, but Buttons is probably the show’s best source of pure whacked-out humor. Stede’s first mate practically runs on bizarre one-liners and wild non-sequiturs, and he pads that out with doing inexplicable things. When the Revenge runs aground, his first line of action to prepare for the eventuality of eating some of the crew, and he “yearns to make sweet love to the sea.” He enjoys “basking in moonglow” (nude) with his seagull friend Karl, who he has detailed conversations with. Oh, and when the crew is temporarily stuck at the Republic of Pirates at the start of season 2, they seemingly need to keep Buttons on a leash(?)

Some of the irreconcilable aspects of Buttons get a little more context aboard the Red Flag in season 2, when Auntie refers to him as a Sea Witch and offers him a book of spells. This tracks with someone whose first response to Calico Jack drunkenly killing Karl is to hex him, and he not only knows the Gravy Basket by name, he’s been there multiple times. And it might explain why, when he meets new people, he often feels the urge to clarify that they’re human. He says, “You’re not ghosts, are you?” to Izzy, Fang, and Ivan, and when Calico Jack first shows up, he asks, “Are you real, or a filthy phantom?” Our Flag Means Death isn’t a supernatural show by any stretch, but in most of the places that it flirts with the supernatural, Buttons is involved.

Buttons doesn’t seem that close to many of the crew. In group scenes, he often just stands very still and straight in the background, not interacting much. However, it’s not really in the sense that he’s intentionally spurning them, a la season 1 Izzy. Rather, he just kind of keeps more to himself and prefers Karl’s company over any human. He’s still a member of the crew, though, and after Karl is killed, Stede kindly arranges a memorial for the seagull.

I still associate Ewen Bremner with his role as Spud back in Trainspotting, but he’s terrific as Buttons! Here are a few of my favorite lines from him:

·        In the aforementioned run-aground incident, when Stede assures Buttons that there’s no need to start eating each other, I just love the way Buttons replies, “Aye, no, no, of course not. Not until…absolutely necessary.”

·        When Blackbeard demonstrates “the art of fuckery” to the crew, Button panics and bites Lucius’s finger, thinking he’s a demon – Afterwards, he says, “Sorry, laddie. Ye triggered my fight-or-bite response.”

·        And just before we get the wildest bit of the series, wherein Buttons seemingly transmogrifies himself into a seagull, he tells Ed this lovely line – “To love the sea as she must be loved, requires change.”