Treasure Island Episode 1 Recap: Why Is Long John Silver After Jim and Bess?

MGM+’s Treasure Island is a six-part adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, created for television by Robert Murphy, and it arrives promising something closer to the book’s real darkness than most screen versions manage.

Tom Sweet plays Jim Hawkins, with Hayley Atwell as his mother Bess, the pair of them running the Admiral Benbow Inn and barely making it work. The premiere brings Tomer Capone‘s Billy Bones through the door with a stolen box, and David Oyelowo’s Long John Silver close behind him, with a prosthetic leg and in no mood to negotiate.

The show also adds one invention Stevenson never wrote, as Jim Hawkins has an almost perfect memory. By the end of the hour, the treasure map has burned to ash, and that becomes the reason why Silver cannot afford to let Jim and Bess out of his sight. Here is everything that goes down.

What Did Billy Bones Bring Along With Him to the Admiral Benbow Inn?

Tomer Capone as Billy Bones in Treasure Island | Credits: MGM+

The episode opens on a struggle at sea. One man swims away with a chest, as a prosthetic leg bobs in the water behind him. The man with the chest is Billy Bones, played by The Boys star Tomer Capone, and he has a key as well. The key opens a second smaller box within the chest, which holds the map to the titular treasure island. He takes the box and leaves the rest.

Bones then turns up at the Admiral Benbow and promptly collapses, which Bess reads as an opportunity rather than a problem. She and Jim set about trying to open his box, and he wakes up mid-attempt. Bess does not bother pretending, telling him plainly that she knows he came off the shipwreck.

While they start off on a tense note, Bess and Bones warm up to each other rather quickly, especially after he threatens a man who accuses her of cheating him. Bones and Bess dance, and then he finally tells them who he is. He is a pirate, and the box holds a map to Captain Francisco Flint’s treasure, buried on Skeleton Island, and Bones intends to go and get it.

That is an interesting switch in Bones’ character and story from the novel. In the book, Jim only gets near the map after Bones is already dead, and Bones guards his secret to the end. Here he hands the whole story over willingly, which makes him far more pitiable when the night turns.

Who Is the One-Legged Man After Billy Bones in Treasure Island?

David Oyelowo as Long John Silver in Treasure Island | Credits: MGM+

The leg in the water in the opening sequence belonged to Long John Silver. David Oyelowo plays him as a man whose anger has gone very quiet. Bones took his box, and Silver wants it back. He gets his opening from an unlikely direction.

Bess has been making money by betting on Jim’s memory, and the mark who lost once comes back for another round. When Jim beats him again, the man turns on Bess. This is the man whom Bones steps in to protect her from. This man runs into Silver and gives up the information that Silver was looking for.

As Bones narrates the treasure’s story and asks Bess for some money to go after the treasure, Jim comes with a bad news for him. Jim informs Bones and Bess about a bird at his window, which gives Bones an ominous warning about Silver’s arrival.

While Bones and Silver talk, Jim studies the map and commits it to memory. Bones then hands the real thing over to Silver. Things get even messier when Squire Livesey arrives with armed men looking for Bones. In the confrontation, Bess lights the map on fire, and a ricocheting bullet catches Bones.

He tells Jim and Bess the directions to the treasure before he dies. Both Livesey and Silver reach the same conclusion afterwards that the Hawkinses somehow copied that map.

Jim and Bess Hawkins Get a Shocker As Their Treasure Hunt Begins

Hayley Atwell as Bess Hawkins and Tom Sweet as Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island | Credits: MGM+

Bess Hawkins had a completely different plan before Billy Bones entered their lives. She had been planning to marry Squire Livesey so Jim could become a gentleman, a future the boy is visibly unsuited to. However, by the episode’s end, Livesey is writing to an Admiral, asking for men to be sent after them both.

The mother and son decide to go after the treasure and reach the docks, where they find themselves short of the money to reach their destination. However, they unexpectedly get invited to board a ship belonging to Jack Huston’s Aaron Graham.

Their adventure thus begins on Hispaniola, but it isn’t going to be smooth. Onboard, Graham introduces them to Tristan Sturrock’s Captain Smollett, and Smollett introduces them to the ship’s cook. It is Long John Silver.

That reveal is pulled straight from the novel, where Silver signs on as the Hispaniola’s cook. It means that Jim and Bess are now at sea, surrounded by water, with the man hunting them serving their meals.

What did you think of the Treasure Island premiere? Let us know in the comments!

Treasure Island airs weekly on MGM+ in the US, with episodes landing on Paramount+ in the UK and Ireland the following day.