Summaries

Synopsis

For hundreds of years, sea monsters have surfaced to wreak havoc against mankind. In response, sailors venture outward on their ships to hunt the beasts across the ocean, the most famous of these being the crew of "The Inevitable"; led by the legendary Captain James Crow (Jared Harris), his first mate Sarah Sharpe (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), Lea the Lookout (Xana Tang), Crew master Beth Marino (Helen Sadler) and Crow's adopted son Jacob Holland (Karl Urban). They are financially backed by the King (Jim Carter) and Queen (Doon Mackichan) of The Crown, who have established a distinguished society dubbed Three Bridges.

Crow was tracking a sea beast named the Red Bluster, when it notices the ship of a fellow hunter Jim Nicklebones (Brian T. Delaney), under attack and changes course to help it. The Inevitable draws the sea beast away from Jim's ship and attacks it with cannons & arrows. The beast is very smart and soon goes under the ship and entangles it within its tentacles. Jacob manages to make it retreat with a arrow aimed at the beast's head and crow kills it with a spear that splits the beast's throat. After being nearly killed during a hunt (The beast takes Crow with it, but Jacob manages to rescue him before he drowns), Crow tells Jacob that he will make him captain once they kill a female beast known as the Red Bluster that took his eye.

The crew returns to Three Bridges to collect payment for their latest catch but are told by the King and Queen that they will soon be replaced by a naval vessel named "The Imperator", headed by Admiral Eric Hornagold (Dan Stevens), who will carry on the hunting of sea beasts in their place. This is their way of admonishing Crow for abandoning the pursuit of the Red Bluster to save Jim's ship. Crow says that the Imperator sits too low, and its fixed cannons are useless. The Queen is about to place Crow under arrest for his impertinence.

Jacob proposes that his crew be given one more chance to kill the Red Bluster to continue hunting beasts in their name should they succeed, which the King and Queen accept but turn it into a "race" between the inevitable and the Imperator. Crow accepts this.

After they depart, the crew discovers that an orphaned girl named Maisie Brumble (Zaris-Angel Hator) has stowed away on the ship to join them, having been inspired to do so by her late parents who died during a hunt. She is then taken in for a while by Sharpe. Later, the Inevitable finds and attacks the Red Bluster. The crew harpoons the beast. The beast pulls the ship into a vortex and the masts start to creak under the strain. Against Crow's orders, Jacob hesitantly allows Maisie to cut a rope connecting the ship to the Bluster, which saves the crew, but lets the Bluster escape and throws Jacob and Maisie into the sea while the red bluster retreats. Angered, Crow holds both of them at gunpoint and demands Jacob bring Maisie to him before the Bluster again emerges from the depths and swallows Maisie and Jacob whole.

The Bluster takes Jacob and Maisie to an isolated island populated by several other beasts. Jacob continues to make attempts to try and kill Red Bluster but is thwarted by Maisie. Maisie discovers that the Bluster is not malicious and makes an acquaintance with the beast, naming her Red. Maisie begins to believe that the monsters are really just misunderstood creatures, which Jacob denies. They are mammals, who protect their young and don't attack unless threatened. She also befriends a smaller creature she names Blue. After Red saves them from a large crab beast, Jacob and Maisie convince her to take them to Rum Pepper Island, so they can secure a ship to return to Three Bridges.

Believing Jacob to be dead, Crow slips into vengeful obsession over his desire to kill Red and directs his ship to Mukesh port. He seeks out an elderly merchant named Gwen Batterbie (Kathy Burke), who gives Crow a poison powerful enough to kill Red and a massive harpoon. Gwen wants everything Crow has in exchange for the weapon and the poison. Sarah is against this plan as using Gwen's wares are against the seaman's code.

While on Red's back, Jacob and Maisie bond with the creature and each other. They remove all the spears and harpoons from Red' back. Jacob slowly grows to support Maisie's belief of the beasts being innocent (He realizes that majority of the things taught in books about monsters are just myths and have no connect to reality) and comes to renounce his ways as a hunter (when Maisie suggests that maybe the beasts never started the war, but Jacob still can't figure out why humans would start it). They reach Rum Pepper Island but discover that the Imperator and Hornagold are stationed there. Red attacks the vessel, which rains hail fire at the beast with cannons, one of them wounding Maisie. Before the beast can kill Hornagold after she destroys the Imperator, Jacob momentarily stops her from doing so. Red spots the Inevitable (Crow had steered the ship to Rum Pepper Island, after witnessing smaller monster trying to swim due north, which he reckons is they escaping from the red bluster moving to rum pepper island) and attacks but is shot with the poison-tipped harpoon and nearly dies, with Crow keeping her alive long enough to bring her to The Crown as a trophy.

Maisie is nursed back to health aboard the Inevitable, but then imprisoned in her room aboard the Inevitable as it arrives at Three Bridges with Red in tow. Blue frees Maisie, and upon noticing that The Crown's Sigil is featured in all the books about sea beasts and their hunters, she realizes that they are propaganda created by The Crown to extend their rule, and the creatures were only acting in self-defense. In front of a large gathering of civilians, Crow prepares to publicly execute Red before being stopped by Jacob. Crow and Jacob fight with Crow knocking Jacob into the water, while Maisie and Sharpe, who begins to believe Maisie's worldview of the beasts as well, free Red from her binds. Maisie and Jacob convince Red to spare Crow, and they subsequently expose The Crown for their deceptions. The kingdom renounces its beliefs about the beasts, including Crow.

With Red and the other sea beasts left alone, Maisie, Blue, and Jacob begin their new lives together as a family.