Warning: This ranking includes spoilers for Chapter 1, “The Admiral Benbow,” of MGM+’s 2026 adaptation of Treasure Island.
The Admiral Benbow Inn is more than the starting point of Treasure Island. It is the pressure cooker where an ordinary family’s money troubles collide with pirate violence, a dangerous stranger, and the promise of a fortune. MGM+’s six-part reimagining makes that opening feel less like a quaint literary prologue and more like a domestic thriller that happens to be set on the edge of the sea.
With Hayley Atwell as Bess Hawkins, Tom Sweet as Jim, and Tomer Capone as Billy Bones, the premiere changes the familiar balance of Robert Louis Stevenson’s story. Bess is a decision-maker, Jim’s extraordinary memory becomes a practical asset, and the inn’s everyday business helps draw danger to its door. Here are the five Admiral Benbow moments that work best—and what each one tells us about this version of Treasure Island.
1. Bess turns the inn into a game of survival
Why it ranks first: This is the clearest statement of what the adaptation wants to change. Bess is not simply waiting for events to happen to her family. She is trying to keep the business alive, reading customers quickly and using Jim’s remarkable recall to win wagers. The scheme gives the Hawkins household agency, but it also makes their talents visible to the wrong people.
The setup is dramatically useful because it gives Jim’s photographic memory a life before the treasure map needs it. The skill is not introduced only as a convenient plot device: it already helps the family earn money. The cost is that the inn becomes a place where people can feel cheated, grow resentful, and pay attention to the boy.
That mix of ingenuity and risk makes the inn feel lived-in. Bess is resourceful, but her choices are not consequence-free. The scene also establishes a key theme of the premiere: survival in this world often means making a clever decision that creates a bigger problem later.
2. Billy Bones arrives—and the inn’s atmosphere changes
Billy Bones’ arrival is the premiere’s most effective shift from routine to unease. He brings a sea chest, a past he does not want examined, and a story about treasure that sounds too extraordinary to trust. Bess sees a potential opportunity in him; Jim sees a glimpse of a wider, more dangerous world.
The strongest part of this beat is the uncertainty. Bones is not just a mysterious sailor dropped into the story to deliver information. He is a man with something to gain, and the Hawkins family has its own financial motives. Their conversation becomes a negotiation between people who suspect one another but cannot afford to walk away.
The series also makes the inn’s location feel important: it is a place where travellers pass through, secrets can be hidden, and a person on the run might plausibly hope to disappear. Once Bones settles in, the Benbow stops being merely a business and becomes a point on the map that other dangerous people may find.
3. Bess and Bones flirt while sizing each other up
This scene is memorable because attraction and calculation sit side by side. The premiere gives Bess and Bones a charged dynamic: they dance, exchange looks, and appear to recognize that the other person may be useful. Neither seems entirely innocent, and neither has enough information to know how dangerous the arrangement will become.
It is also a tonal gamble. The flirtation gives the story a more adult, complicated energy than a simple “stranger arrives at an inn” introduction. But it asks the audience to accept that Bess can be drawn to Bones while also assessing the financial possibilities he represents. That tension makes her more active as a character, even if some viewers may find the romantic shading melodramatic.
More importantly, the scene connects the treasure plot to ordinary human wants: money, escape, companionship, and the hope of a better life. The map matters because people attach their desires to it—not just because it points to buried gold.
4. Jim’s memory changes the stakes of the map
The treasure map is a familiar object in Stevenson’s story, but this adaptation gives it a new problem: Jim can memorize it. That choice turns his mind into something people may try to control. The inn’s earlier wager scenes suddenly become more than character color; they establish the ability that makes Jim valuable to anyone chasing the treasure.
The sequence works best when the memory is treated as both a gift and a burden. Jim’s talent gives the family leverage, but it also removes the safety of simply hiding a piece of paper. If the map can be remembered, destroying the original cannot erase the information. The person who holds the memory becomes the target.
That is a smart adaptation mechanism, even if it moves away from the original novel’s more straightforward discovery of the chart. It gives the series a clear reason for the pirates to keep Jim alive and close, and it ties the episode’s domestic opening directly to the danger that follows.
5. The threat of Long John Silver hangs over the inn
The most frightening idea in the inn storyline is that its danger does not end when a conversation is over or a door closes. Silver’s pursuit gives the episode a sense of pressure: the Hawkins family has entered a conflict that is larger than their business, their home, or their ability to bargain. In the premiere, Silver is presented as physically imposing and unnervingly practical rather than a theatrical storybook pirate.
That approach changes how we read the earlier scenes. The wagers, the flirtation, and the map talk are not separate bits of setup. They are the chain of decisions that makes the Hawkins family visible to someone who wants the treasure badly enough to follow them. The inn becomes the first place where the family’s private life and the pirate world collide.
Silver’s presence is also the bridge between the grounded opening and the larger adventure. The premiere eventually moves Jim and Bess aboard the Hispaniola, where the danger becomes harder to escape. But the Benbow scenes give that ending its force: the voyage is not a spontaneous adventure so much as the consequence of a series of compromises.
What the Admiral Benbow scenes say about this adaptation
The ranking is not a claim that every beat is perfectly paced. The premiere sometimes pushes several new ideas into the same stretch of story: Bess’s expanded role, Jim’s photographic memory, the attraction between Bess and Bones, and Silver’s pursuit. That density can make the opening feel busier than the classic novel’s simpler chain of arrivals and discoveries.
Still, the best scenes share one strength: each makes the inn a working part of the plot. It is a business under pressure, a family home, a meeting place for people with secrets, and the first arena in which Jim’s unusual ability has a real price. By the time the Hawkinses leave, the Admiral Benbow has done more than introduce the characters—it has made their next move feel unavoidable.
For viewers comparing the series with Stevenson’s 1883 novel, the biggest difference is the emphasis on Bess and the family’s strategy. The original establishes the inn as the place where Billy Bones arrives and the treasure hunt begins; this adaptation makes the household itself a more active engine of the plot. Whether that expansion pays off over six episodes remains to be seen, but it gives the premiere a distinct point of view.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Admiral Benbow Inn in Treasure Island?
It is the inn run by Jim Hawkins’ family where Billy Bones arrives, bringing the secret that launches the treasure hunt. In the 2026 adaptation, Bess Hawkins has a much larger role in the events there.
Which Admiral Benbow scene is the best in MGM+’s Treasure Island?
Our top pick is Bess using Jim’s memory to earn money through wagers. It establishes the family’s resourcefulness and foreshadows why Jim becomes so important to the treasure-map plot.
Does the 2026 series change the original book’s opening?
Yes. It expands Bess Hawkins’ role and introduces Jim’s photographic memory as a major plot device, changing how the family gets drawn into the treasure hunt.
Who plays Billy Bones in Treasure Island (2026)?
Tomer Capone plays Billy Bones in the new six-part adaptation.
Where can I read more about the premiere?
See our Episode 1 ending twist breakdown and our guide to Jim Hawkins’ photographic memory.
Sources and further reading
- Paramount+ UK & Ireland: Treasure Island — cast, first-look images, and series details
- Ready Steady Cut: Episode 1 recap and character analysis
- Memorable TV: Chapter 1, “The Admiral Benbow”
- SparkNotes: Billy Bones in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel
By Shivam Das
Editorial note: This is a scene ranking and interpretation of the premiere, not an official ranking from MGM+ or the production team. Images are credited to Paramount+ UK & Ireland and remain subject to their original rights.
