#butchpedia idk if ur even gonna see this bc op has u blocked now but if u do:

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

no sorry i’m still on this point. personally i don't see any evidence anywhere in the show that supports the claim that ed said "i need you here" specifically bc he knew izzy was in love with him. as of right now we don't know if ed knows abt izzy's feelings for him (i'll admit that it would be funny if ed did know, bc izzy doesn't, but that's beside the point). however, i DO see evidence that izzy set up that whole interaction by throwing all his shit really loudly into the boat to try and get ed’s attention because he wanted to apologize to ed and hopefully be allowed to stay.

like, let's look at the events leading up to izzy's apology and ed's "i need you here" line:

the day before, izzy called ed an “insane, unpleasant shell of a man who's merely posing as blackbeard” and then gave ed “my fucking resignation, you absolute twat.”

then, ed reveals the fog plan and izzy’s first thought is “fuck me.” fuck me. not, “what the fuck ed, why didn’t you tell me about that?” izzy's response is that he messed up by not knowing what ed was alluding to with the sausage clouds.

then etc etc buttons points out “hey the fog doesn’t help if we’re in their path” and ed is like “yeah but it’s september 2nd so it’s fine” and izzy’s like “uh wrong date, boss” and then ed is like “guess i’ll die!” and we get one lingering shot of izzy’s very unhappy expression. idk what his face means here but he looks very tired

THEN. lighthouse fuckery. we don’t see izzy participate in that at all so it's hard to say for sure, but personally, i think izzy thinks that ed came up with that plan on his own. even if ed did verbally give stede his due credit within izzy’s earshot, i 100% think izzy would just dismiss that as ed being weirdly fascinated with stede. izzy continually underestimates stede, he doens't realize that stede's just as good at coming up with insane out-of-the-box-plans as ed

long story short tho: the lighthouse fuckery works. izzy lives to see another day. and the last thing he said to ed in private was that when that happened, he was going to retire

but izzy just watched blackbeard, most brilliant sailor he's ever met, come up with two genius plans to save their asses. one of them almost would've worked, one of them did work, and now izzy once again is alive because of ed's insane plans

so when dawn breaks at the end of e4, i think there are two things going through izzy's brain: the first is "ah fuck, i called ed a twat posing as blackbeard last night and then he saved the day. i sure have egg on my face now." the second is "i also told him i was resigning. now i have to fucking resign."

the "i need you here" conversation starts when ed hears izzy preparing a dinghy. and ed hears this because izzy is preparing the dinghy by very loudly throwing things into it. ed is somewhere above him while izzy just goes about loudly chucking stuff into the little boat within ed's earshot.

and it's kind of weird how much stuff he throws into the dinghy, bc presumably ed's ship is nearby, and also presumably the only reason izzy's on the Revenge at all is so they can force the crew to repair the ship and then execute them and steal the ship. idk why izzy would've packed for a long sleepover. but look at all the shit he throws into the dinghy in this episode:

so when izzy is "leaving" in episode 4, he loads the dinghy up with the following: five (5) sacks (two large, one medium, one small), one (1) mysterious brown cylinder, and one (1) barrel. (also he throws some rope in there too)

compare this to when izzy actually leaves in e6:

when izzy actually leaves, all he takes with him is one (1) barrel, one (1) knapsack, one (1) coil of rope, and one (1) ambiguous bolt of white fabric that might be a sail. and this is after izzy's spent a fortnight on the Revenge. i feel like he should have more stuff with him, not less?

so i actually think izzy's only "packing his stuff" in e4 to get ed's attention. i think he's throwing random shit that isn't even his into the boat in hopes that ed will come down to the deck and izzy can apologize. i think izzy was already fully prepared to stay with ed the second ed said he could. he wasn't going to outright seek ed out and say "ed can i take back my resignation and keep being your first mate," but as soon as ed shows up izzy starts of the conversation by immediately apologizing for insulting ed. then he stops preparing the dinghy and waits for ed to continue the conversation. he's in no rush to get out of there. he's waiting to be told to stay. and when ed offers to make him captain if he stays—unrequited love or not, why the fuck would izzy say no?

it's possible none of this matters. maybe the directors just grabbed random props for both of these scenes, and in e4 they wanted izzy to keep throwing shit into the dinghy as he started talking to give the conversation some action, so that's why he takes so much more stuff in e4 than in e6. and maybe izzy is making a perfectly normal amount of noise while he's packing the dinghy. idk. i didn't write the show.

my point is not that this IS what happens. my point is that imo, my interpretation of that conversation is just as plausible (more plausible actually but whatever) as @butchpedia's assertion that ed was intentionally leveraging their relationship and izzy's feelings to get izzy to stay. but i'm not trying to argue that my subjective reading of this scene is proof of izzy's gross manipulation tactics (i got other scenes for that one, lmao). my point is that using this scene as proof that ed leverages his power over izzy is dumb. thank you.

(also. all that aside. even before we get the "i need you here" line and ed's little pat on the shoulder that makes izzy nut his pants (god bless con's acting choices). look at this man's fucking face when ed is like "the crew is gonna need a new captain, someone who really knows the ropes":

that does not look like a man who wants to leave. that does not look like the face of a man who needs a lot of convincing to stick around. ed's little "i need you here" seals the deal for izzy, sure, but i really struggle to see that line as "ed leveraging his relationship with izzy and izzy's clear love for him to get izzy to stay" when ed hardly even needs any more leverage to get izzy to stay??)

Not to keep harping on this but I accidentally saw a post that pissed me off a little bit so I’m gonna talk about it. Originally I was gonna put this at the end of the post but I’ve decided to move it to the top because I know some people are determined to take me out of context so I’ll sacrifice the formatting of this post and some of the impact of this sentence in a vain hope that my point will not be misconstrued. I fully anticipate people skipping over this first paragraph anyway but at least I did my due diligence. You can like Izzy, I like Lestat (AMC IWTV), I like the Joker, It’s fine to have an evil blorbo. It’s the apologia that gets me tho. You’re fake villain fuckers and you can’t admit that your blorbo is fucked up in some deeply uncomfortable ways.

That said on to my angry meta: Either Izzy is homophobic, or he’s an abuser. He could be both, but he can’t be neither otherwise the literal climax of the first season doesn’t make any fucking sense. Like he calls in a swat on Stede and the crew because Stede has, quote, “done something to his boss’s brain” and he wants Stede dead because of it. homosexuality as a corrupting influence is textbook homophobia. He thinks Stede has made Ed soft and he thinks he’s using his limp wristed wiles to do it.

If you don’t want to read it as homophobia (which would be a weird reading because it fails to explain that line and misses the whole message about toxic masculinity, but I’ve heard it’s the reading that some people go with so, let’s look at it) and you think that he’s doing all of this because he’s in love with Ed and he’s jealous, I hate to tell you but that brings us back around to the abuser reading.

Like, the reading that this subset of the fandom seems to want me to believe is Izzy is in tragic gay love with Ed. But that doesn’t make a single damn thing that he did ok. In fact it kind of makes it worse. Like trying to kill the loved ones of your beloved is text book abuser behavior. You’re telling me that Izzy feels so entitled to Ed that he cannot take “Fuck off you’re banished from the ship” For an answer, and he has to kill the guy that he blames for turning Ed against him? And I’m supposed to sympathize with that? Get real. That’s text book abuser behavior. If that’s the reading, then Izzy can’t handle Ed having someone in his life that isn’t Izzy, he can’t handle Ed making decisions that Izzy doesn’t approve of, and he can’t handle Ed breaking off their relationship (which was Izzy’s fault by the way he agreed to duel Stede sorry you can’t handle the consequences honey). Those first two things you have to be able to handle if you want to have friends or even professional relationships, and the third thing is something that you’re allowed to be upset about but that you’re gonna have to move on from. Instead Izzy comes up with a hair brained scheme that risks the crews lives, Calico Jack’s life, and, most importantly, risks Ed’s life in order to… what? Undermine Ed’s own autonomous choice to pursue a relationship with Stede? Get rid of a guy that he thinks is driving him and Ed apart so that Ed will maybe take him back? That’s abuser shit my guy.

If there’s another explanation for Izzy calling the fucking cops I’d love to hear it but as far as I can tell the options are “He hates Stede because Stede is frilly and camp and thinks Stede is making Ed weak” aka Textbook hate crime and “He’s in deeply dysfunctional love and is therefore trying to force Ed to be in a relationship with him despite the fact that Ed has made it clear he doesn’t want that” aka Textbook abuser.

To be clear I wouldn’t have Izzy any other way. The roll he plays in the narrative is important to the story. I don’t like him, per se, but I like stories about overcoming toxic masculinity, and those stories have to have a villain, and I was deeply emotionally ruined by the consequences of his actions, (i.e. the domino effect that caused Stede to abandon Ed on the dock) so I want him around for as long as they decide to keep him around. Just, like, fucking pretending he’s never done anything wrong ever? Come on now.