Favorite Characters: Jim Jimenez (Our Flag Means Death)

*Jim-related spoilers.*

I’ve written about Jim’s relationship with Oluwande, but I wanted to circle back and give them their own individual write-up as well. Although, like Olu, they’re less prominent in season 2 than they are in season 1, they’re an important character whose presence adds a lot to the show.

A major theme of Our Flag Means Death is figuring out who you are outside of expectations: regardless of what society, family, or friends think a person is supposed to be, it takes courage for someone to find the grace to carve out space for themselves as something different. Jim embodies that idea in more ways than one. As a child, their entire family was murdered by the Siete Gallos, and they were taken in by a nun who raised them to be a killer. To Nana, nothing was more important than Jim taking “God’s divine revenge” and avenging their family.

And for a long time, that’s what Jim lives for. They kill the first of the Siete Gallos, Spanish Jackie’s favorite husband, and then are forced to go on the run from Jackie, which is how they end up on the Revenge in the first place. Their knives are always at the ready, and they put themselves at serious risk to return to Jackie’s to recover their father’s dagger. They’re both ruthless and reckless, showing little interest in their own well-being.

But the more time they spend on the Revenge, the further away that quest seems. At sea, Jim grows closer to Oluwande, and by the time they find themselves back on St. Augustine, they’re forced to face Nana and admit they’ve only killed one of the Siete Gallos. Jim lets her shame them for this, and they try to push themselves back into a vengeance-driven life they’ve already started to cast off, giving up Oluwande in the process. It’s only after another confrontation with Jackie that they realize they can’t keep living for Nana’s revenge. They want more than that now, and it involves returning to the crew and Olu.

Jim further challenges expectations with their gender. Although they’re raised as a girl, they disguise themselves as a man when they go on the run from Jackie, and by the time their true identity is revealed, they’ve started to understand that they’re not really either. The crew doesn’t get it at first—“What kind of name is Jim for a lady?”, “Are you a mermaid?”—but Jim is prepared to be who they are without elaboration. “I’m gonna keep this very simple,” they say. “You all know me as Jim, ¿sí? So just…keep calling me Jim.”

Between affirming their gender and, even more significantly for him, putting their revenge quest to rest, Jim is able to feel surer and safer in who they are. Throughout much of the first season, they’re spiky and standoffish, a cynic in comparison with most of the Muppets in the crew. They’re not really won over by Stede’s softness, and they respond to most things with a sharp remark. But in season 2, Jim lets their guard down more. Even after being forcibly separated from Oluwande and made to crew for Ed during his Kraken era, they find ways to hold to hope and care, quite the contrast from their hard-edged season 1 self. They look out for and encourage others, helping those around them find strength and a bit of lightness during a frightening time, and once they’re back on the Revenge, they’re gradually able to unwind and just be. The Jim of season 1 would’ve never been instrumental in planning Calypso’s birthday, and they certainly wouldn’t have tried their own retelling of the wooden boy story to comfort an upset crew member.

It's certainly a big departure, and Jim’s reduced screentime in season 2 can make that feel a bit less purposeful than it could be. If (when???) we get a third season, I hope we get more time with them and can more clearly see the throughline of these changes in them.

Other Doctor Lives: Sex Education: Season 4, Episode 7 (2023)

*Episode premise spoilers.*

For me, the penultimate episode of the series is pretty satisfying. Little strings of plots that have been unwinding all season come to a head in important ways, and the last scenes bring the story home well. I’m looking forward to seeing where we go in the finale.

A mock exam at Cavendish is derailed when the lift breaks down—again. Rather than suck it up once more, Isaac takes matters into his own hands, making a major statement about accessibility at the school. (And little does anyone know, Otis and O were both in the lift when it stalled!) Jean invites Maeve over for dinner, but things get off on the wrong foot when 1) Otis doesn’t turn up (again, no one knows he’s stuck in a lift,) and 2) Maeve arrives right when Jean is in the middle of a blow-up with her sister. Cal struggles with their gender dysphoria, Adam spirals after a serious screw-up at his internship, and Viv has a troubling encounter with Beau.

I’m glad the many access issues at Cavendish, both large and small, finally come back to bite them. It gets a bit heavy-handed at times—there are suddenly far more disabled student extras on campus than we’ve ever seen before—but on the whole, it’s well done. Isaac is finally able to force everyone to hear what he has to say, telling them that instead of worrying about his exams like everyone else, “I’m here wasting my time explaining why accessibility is a big deal, when it should be a given.” And when an administrator tries to downplay the recurring issues with the lift, Aisha speaks up to say that insufficient access for disabled students “[isn’t] a misunderstanding, it’s an afterthought.” Snaps for all these kids!

“X and Y get stuck in an elevator” together is one of the oldest tropes in the book, one the show employed at the start of the season with Aimee and Isaac. Otis and O’s scenes together are interesting—the two have been competing all season, Otis is on the verge of a panic attack, and both have understandable reasons to regard the other as their enemy. But inevitably in these types of scenarios, defenses drop as the hours stretch on, and both characters wind up being honest about things that neither probably ever imagined sharing with the other.

The Jean-Maeve stuff is interesting as well. The episode opens on a flashback to Jean and Joanna’s teen years, which addresses some heavy, formative stuff for them and deeply fuels their argument in the middle of the episode. So when Maeve arrives, Jean is completely off-balance, and Maeve isn’t doing much better herself—she’s just had to pick up her mom’s ashes. But as they muddle through together, without Otis as a buffer, they too find their way toward connection.

For a scattershot of the other plots, I’m glad that Cal has Roman as a sounding board for their struggles, but I’m definitely concerned for them. They’ve been documenting their experiences on testosterone, and in today’s recording, they express how overwhelming their gender dysphoria is and say, “I wish I could just go back to being a kid. I think that was the last time I felt like me.” Viv’s plot, to me, feels like it might have escalated a little too fast, but I suppose that’s a byproduct of having so many different ongoing mini-plots throughout the season; there’s only one episode left in the show, so it’s not like there’s much more time to work with. And while I continue to think the show should’ve done a better job to address Adam’s past history as Eric’s bully, I do like how they’ve explored his feelings about his dad this season and the effect his upbringing had on him. There’s a strong scene between him and Mr. Groff, where Adam has a speech that begins, “I messed up at work today, and the first thing that I thought is, ‘I’m gonna disappoint my dad.’”

Oh, and the episode uses Jeff Buckley’s “Last Goodbye” to excellent effect!

Not much Ncuti Gatwa today. No real movement is made on Eric and Otis’s argument in the last episode—there’s one shot of Otis avoiding Eric and another of the boys looking at each other across campus—and only one major scene that addresses his ongoing inner conflict about his relationship with his church. Other than that, we’re pretty light on Eric. Still a couple great moments, though. I love when Eric is getting ready in the morning and tells the picture of Jesus on his bedroom wall, “Stop staring at me. Silly, silly Jesus.” And he’s already stressed about the prospect of taking his mock exam, but he absolutely jumps out of his skin when the fire alarm goes off.

Other Doctor Lives: Sex Education: Season 4, Episode 6 (2023)

*Episode premise spoilers.*

Great episode! The show is firing on all cylinders with this one—excellent drama, compelling character interactions, and good moments of humor to bring a bit of levity to a hard story.

Maeve’s mom’s funeral is today. As Aimee rallies their friends to show up and Otis tries to be there for her, Maeve does her best to hold it together and deal with her complicated feelings. Eric tries to address some friction with Otis while also seeing Adam for the first time since their breakup at the end of season 3. Jackson struggles to stay present at the funeral with an important doctor’s appointment hanging over his head. And Cal has been getting closer to Aisha, but an unwelcome surprise during a make-out session throws them for a loop.

Everything about Maeve’s mom’s funeral is done so well. The busy celebrant who says everything in the right tone of voice but continually demonstrates her lack of attention and care. Maeve worrying over whether her brother will even show up, then what he’ll do if he’s there. Being grateful to have friends in attendance, yet nervous about them witnessing the dysfunctional family dynamics. Wrestling with the fact that her mom was an addict who caused Maeve a lot of pain, but still wanting to give her a proper sendoff. There’s also a beautifully moving moment with a character who’s often been shown as comic relief throughout the series—it's a wonderful, emotional scene, and I love it!

Jackson deals with anxiety anyway, and it’s really difficult for him to be going through this health scare while also continuing to go about his normal day. In this episode, he’s awaiting test results, and he keeps having disturbing fantasies that freak him out. And while Viv wants to be a supportive friend, it’s getting harder for her to balance her friendship with Jackson and her new boyfriend’s insecurities. I think the show has been doing a really good job with her boyfriend Beau, laying groundwork in fairly subtle ways—the red flags are there, but it’s also easy to see why Viv might not be picking up on them, or why she’d talk herself out of her own instincts.

Cal and Aisha circled around each other in the first half of the season and are now seeing each other. I think their storyline together has been a little underwritten, but it’s clear how much Cal likes Aisha. In this episode, while the two of them are getting intimate, Cal is hit with a strong dose of gender dysphoria that gets in the way of being able to enjoy the moment. It’s an emotional scene that’s well-acted, and I’m looking forward to seeing where things go for them.

I was never the biggest Eric/Adam fan, but I like their interactions at the funeral. Both of them have been exploring themselves a lot since last season, and it’s interesting to see them talking to each other here. While there are definite hints at a potential reunion by the time we get to the finale, I like how they relate to each other here as exes who still care about each other. When Adam asks about being out without “being ashamed,” Eric has some lovely words of encouragement for him. He says, “You have to believe you deserve good things. And Adam, you have to love yourself.”

For me, though, the more interesting part of Eric’s story is his conflict with Otis. It seems these two have a significant fight roughly once a season, and it’s often about Otis’s bad case of Main Character Syndrome. While he’s attentive and caring with his therapy clients, Otis doesn’t have the best track record of being there for Eric in the way that he needs.

This time, the fight comes about when Otis expresses hurt over Eric ditching him for the popular kids. And that right there is telling, that he views it as him not being cool enough for Eric’s new friends, rather than Eric very understandably enjoying the new, exciting experience of having a diverse group of queer friends. But for Eric, it’s especially frustrating, given how often Otis has neglected their friendship in favor of his own stuff (in particular, how often he’s ditched Eric for Maeve.)

Ncuti Gatwa plays the hell out of these scenes. Eric is being firm about his feelings here and not backing down, but at the same time, he’s so careful. As they get deeper into their argument, you can feel how delicately he’s choosing every word, how hard he’s trying to just get Otis to understand what he’s saying. This exchange sums it all up:

Eric: “I’m just trying to say that we’re very different, and we don’t really talk about it.”

Otis: “Okay, but why are you blaming me for that?”

Eric: “I’m not blaming you, I’m just trying to say how I feel.”

There are bigger things going on in the episode with the funeral, so it makes sense that these issues need to take a backseat without being resolved, but Eric knows there’s always something bigger going on, something else that’s going to take precedence over him. It’s interesting because it’s almost a meta storyline—the struggle of being the gay Black best friend to the straight white protagonist and fighting against the subordinate role you’re constantly placed in. Like I said, this isn’t Eric and Otis’s first rodeo on this subject, but with only two episodes left to go, I’m anxious to see where they end up on this.