The second season of Our Flag Means Death ended a month ago, and if you’re caught up, you know that the found family of pirates had quite a journey over the course of its eight episodes.
One of those pirates is Jim, played by Vico Ortiz. Ortiz’s character is no longer simply the revenge-focused assassin we met in the first season—they’ve had the opportunity to explore different sides of themselves. “Jim has this opportunity to explore who they are finally, outside of their own individual revenge identity,” Ortiz told me in a recent interview. “They get to engage more emotionally with the crew and be like, ‘Who am I aside from knives? Who am I outside of killing?’”
While there are likely only a few people out there who’ve also asked themselves who they are aside from knives and killing, Jim’s efforts to figure out who they want to be is something that likely resonates with many.
I had the chance to ask Ortiz more questions about Jim in season two, including the new dynamic between them, Olu (Samson Kayo), Archie (Madeleine Sami), and Zheng Yi Sao (Ruibo Qian) and how that haunted jacket in a certain episode might actually be haunted. Read on for our full discussion, which includes mild spoilers for the second season of the show.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Jim goes through quite an evolution over the course of the season, from being under Blackbeard post his breakup with Stede and beyond. What was it like for you to portray Jim’s evolution over the course of the season?
It was really beautiful to witness Jim, halfway through the second season, to start feeling more comfortable opening up and being silly and being playful. Because in the first season, you have Jim’s identity tied to their own individual revenge and they’re almost apart from everybody else—they’re in their own revenge identity. And then, as they start shedding off some of their skin and being embraced by who they are and feel seen by who they are outside of that revenge identity, they’re like, “Oh, I guess this isn’t too bad.”
But then the second season starts, and it’s all the way back to the old version of them where they have to tap into that survival mode that, “I must kill in order to make it another day.” But then they’re fighting against that because they’ve now experienced something different. They’ve experienced softness from Olu. They’ve seen compassion from Stede. And now they have this awareness that life doesn’t need to be about just survival. It can also be about celebration, right? It can be about thriving with found family.
But then in those first few episodes of season two, they have to go back to an older version of themselves, but they’re fighting against that—they’re breaking a pattern of violence within themselves. And so even though it might not come naturally to them to be tender and compassionate, you start seeing them being a little sweet and silly with Fang, and sharing things that maybe they wouldn’t have shared so quickly with Archie, or not killing Archie even after Archie punched them in the face.
It’s really beautiful for me to see that. In the first season you see Jim slowly being like, “Okay, I guess I’ll open up,” and then being catapulted back into an older version of them fighting to get back to that newfound love. And so once the first few episodes of the season pass and we’ve addressed the communal drama of the crew, now Jim has this opportunity to explore who they are finally, outside of their own individual revenge identity.
They get to engage more emotionally with the crew and be like, “Who am I aside from knives? Who am I outside of killing?” It happens to me, personally, when I walk into a new situation or a new environment that I l observe people and what they do and how they interact, and then mirror that or try some of that to see if it aligns with me. And I think that Jim is going through that, where they see some of the softness that Olu has been exhibiting and they want to try being a little softer. And then they see Archie being really playful. It’s like, “Oh, I want to be playful too.” They finally are more coming into themselves—taking space and being loud and being silly and being messy, and I love that I get to be a bit more part of the crew.
I love that. And one thing that’s also really refreshing is, with Jim. Archie, Olu and Zheng this season, it definitely could have been set up as a conflict—we’ve seen that before on TV shows, movies, and books and everywhere—and I love how it doesn’t go there. What was it like to play that part of Jim’s journey?
I love it because I feel that Jim and Olu somehow have this secure attachment—there’s this deep emotional connection between Jim and Olu, and no matter what happens they have each other. And it just so happens that they have this deep connection and understanding of each other, and at the same time, it’s also like, there’s other people we’re interested in, and it’s like, “Okay, then you do that and I’ll do this and we still have this beautiful connection that we share.”
And it can be a little bit messy and it can be a little bit like I don’t know what we’re doing but it feels good, and you’re still here and I still want to be here. I still want to see you grow old and I still want to do adventures with you. And I love that—if we were given another season I think I can confidently say that the cast —Mads [Sami], Samson [Kayo] Ruibo [Qian] and I—we would all love to explore that a bit more. What would a non-traditional dynamic between all these people look like? Because at the end of the day, we all want to champion each other. I think that that’s what it comes down to: we all care for each other. We champion our connections, we want to see each other thrive. And what a wonderful place to explore that than in a pirate show.
They think that Our Flag has this really beautiful way of exploring big topics that are in your face without having to pull out a PowerPoint presentation. And similarly, with Jim in the first season, it’s like, “Oh Jim’s… Jim.” And it didn’t have to be Jim being like, “Well I feel this about gender and I’m neither this nor that.” It was just like, “I’m just Jim now. Okay? Done.” So I feel that it would that same energy—we can explore an untraditional dynamic between all these people.
I hope to see that too. I wanted to talk to you about a specific storyline, with the haunted jacket. It was such a fun way to have the crew bond and Jim takes a lead role and was delightfully intense about it. How did you approach conveying that? I’m sure Jim’s Catholic background played a large role, but I’d to hear how you prepared.
I also have a Catholic background, so it was really funny to walk into that room with the priest and seeing all the paraphernalia of saints and virgins. There was a scene—I don’t know if it ended up making it in the final cut, but I remember every time I walked in the room, I’d feel this sudden urge to just make the cross because, I don’t know, I need to do it or otherwise something’s gonna happen. [Laughs.]
And a lot of spooky shit happened with the jacket by the way. A fire alarm went off, and there was no fire but we had to stop production for a while. So the jacket… question mark… potentially cursed. But you do see elements of Jim from the first season being really protective all of a sudden, but now being protective about their people. I, as a Latin person, brought a lot of my Latin background into that, like Caribbean, and being really intense about superstitions.
So Jim’s being like, “Okay. I believe in this but like, I don’t know… it doesn’t feel good.” And they have such a deep background around the devil, and they’re like, “We need to make sure that we’re good.”
However, there’s some elements of Espiritismo in there at the end of Jim’s prayer mantra circle salt thing. I was really intentional about using Ashe, which is not necessarily Catholic imagery per se, but it’s adjacent to it, so I was very intentional about Jim being spiritual in some way or another, like there’s some bad juju happening here and we need to protect ourselves from this bad energy. I wrote a whole prayer in Spanish, ending with the Ashe, Ashe, Ashe, and it felt intense.
There was a lot of whimsical stuff in that in that episode. I had a moment with Black Pete when we’re discussing why all of a sudden Lucius is doodling Blackbeard over and over, like they might be sharing some of the possession of the curse. And I was like, “Yeah, I’ve seen that. I’ve seen that in the convent.” It was a very fun one, a very playful one. And it was so fun to finally have Mads and Samson with me and scenes, because all three of us just are very playful with each other.
Do you know what happened to the haunted jacket?
I have no idea. If I see it I’m going to be like, “I don’t know y’all. There’s spooky stuff happening.”
The first two seasons of Our Flag Means Death are now streaming on Max.
