HBO Max FINALLY renews Our Flag Means Death for season 2

After months of fan anxiety over the cliffhanger ending and big emotions of David Jenkins’ pirate series Our Flag Means Death, HBO has finally announced that a second season of the show has been greenlit. The series has enjoyed a huge, vocal, and thriving fandom since it launched in March, and those fans have kept the hashtag #RenewOurFlagMeansDeath trending on Twitter for more than a month now as they call for the story to continue. Given the show’s immense popularity, particularly on social media, those fans have been baffled over HBO’s lack of word about a second season. Apparently the company was waiting for the first day of Pride Month to make the announcement.

Season 1 of Our Flag Means Death very loosely follows the story of real-life “gentleman pirate” Stede Bonnet (played on the show by Rhys Darby), who abandoned his family, bought a sailing vessel, and declared himself a pirate captain. He traveled for a while with the notorious pirate Blackbeard (played by writer-director Taika Waititi), and the show asks the question “What was behind that relationship?” Initially a kind of workplace comedy about pirate life, Our Flag Means Death rapidly becomes a much more emotional story, not just about Stede and Blackbeard’s will-they-won’t-they relationship and their shared attempt to escape their pasts, but about Stede’s crew and the bonds they form with each other — including multiple queer relationships of different kinds, which have earned the show particular accolades for its fearlessness and diversity.

No date has been set for the second season. Jenkins told Polygon in a recent interview that the season hasn’t been written yet. He thinks he can tell the entire story he wants to tell in three seasons, though, so whenever the second season does drop, expect an immediate, vocal cry for another renewal.