While Black Sails season 5 won’t be setting sail anytime soon, here’s what it could have been about. Black Sails is an epic historical adventure series made by Starz and follows the bloody misadventures of a crew of pirates. The show also acts as a prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, providing an origin story for Long John Silver. The first season of Black Sails focused on a treasure hunt, with later seasons following the battle for control of New Providence between the pirates and the British Empire.
While Black Sails could be dark and violent, it was also a series with a great cast of characters such as Captain Flint (Toby Stephens) and Charles Vane (Zach McGowan), and a real sense of adventure. Starz announced the show would come to an end with season 4, and while there are currently no plans for further seasons, the final episode set up a couple of potential spinoffs ideas.
Related: Black Sails Ending: What Was Flint’s Fate?
Let's explore what Black Sails season 5 could have been about, and if the show could return in some form.
Black Sails Season 5 Could Have Adapted Treasure Island
From the beginning, it was planned by Black Sails co-creators Robert Levine and Jonathan E. Steinberg that the show would end close to the beginning of Treasure Island. The idea was viewers could go right from the end of the show and immediately dive into the book, but with a new context. Some fans wondered if a potential Black Sails season 5 would follow Luke Arnold’s Long John Silver into an adaptation of Treasure Island, but with the distinctly adult tone of the show.
While the showrunners admitted to Deadline they considered an adaptation as a potential concept for Black Sails season 5, they also felt the show and the book were two distinct entities that should be kept separate. There have been many adaptations of Treasure Island in the past, but while it could potentially happen in the future, a fifth season probably wouldn’t adapt Stevenson’s classic tale.
Black Sails Season 5 Could Have Been A Spinoff
Black Sails season 4 gave all the main characters a satisfying ending but finished with a sense some of them would continue on to more adventures. The show introduced real-life pirate Mary Read at the end of the final episode, who jumps on a ship with Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny. On one hand, this sets up they'll live on beyond the end of the series, but it also feels like its teasing a potential spinoff following Rackham, Bonny, and Read.
This is another direction the showrunners considered for Black Sails season 5, but for now, there are currently no plans to continue the show. The series provides something of a happy ending for Captain Flint so the character is unlikely to return for any continuation, and while fans would like to see the Black Sail’s take on Treasure Island, it doesn’t appear the showrunners are keen on that angle.