For Jaina Lee Ortiz, the second season of the successful TV series R.J. Decker begins with Emilia "Emi" Ochoa caught between grief and relief, love and suspicion, and a relationship with her father that ended before either of them could truly repair it.
It is complicated territory for the Puerto Rican American actress, and some of it hits surprisingly close to home.
Ortiz, who grew up in the Bronx as the daughter of a retired NYPD detective, told this reporter that her own experience understanding a father whose professional identity could be very different from the man at home helped inform the emotional landscape surrounding Emi. "In a sense," Ortiz said when asked whether she drew on that experience. "She's so different than any character that I've played. But to still have that connection with your dad..."
That connection has become even more important in Season 2 of ABC's R.J. Decker, which premiered Sept. 15 and airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET, with episodes streaming on Hulu. The series, created by Elementary veteran Rob Doherty and inspired by Carl Hiaasen's novel Double Whammy, stars Scott Speedman as disgraced newspaper photographer and ex-con R.J. Decker, who reinvents himself as a private investigator in a South Florida populated by criminals, eccentrics, and the sort of bizarre characters that could have walked out of a "Florida Man" headline.
For Emi, however, Season 2 is deeply personal.
The first season ended with the death of her father, Victor Ochoa, played by David Zayas, the powerful and corrupt politician whom R.J. had helped bring down. The new season picks up two months after Victor's murder, with his death continuing to reverberate through both Emi's life and her complicated relationship with R.J.
Ortiz sees Emi's grief as particularly difficult because Victor was never simply her father.
"I don't think Emi has ever felt that her dad was her dad," Ortiz told this reporter. "Her dad was her boss, her dad was her disciplinary. Her dad was so many other things except for her dad."
His death, she said, leaves her with seemingly contradictory emotions.
"There was a sense of relief, but also this sadness of like, I can never have closure. I can never make amends. I could never just connect with him on a father-daughter level where it's just us and not, you know, not the job," Ortiz said.
That unfinished relationship also hangs over whatever happens between Emi and R.J.
Their history was complicated from the beginning. Season 1 revealed that Emi had helped send R.J. to prison by lying on the stand, a decision connected to her father and his considerable political and business power. Emi worked within Victor's political and real estate empire, making the line between daughter, employee and loyal lieutenant difficult to separate.
"I think that her relationship with her dad stems in how she interacts with RJ," Ortiz said, noting that the two initially came together because of Victor.
And anyone expecting Victor's death to clear the path for a simple Emi-R.J. romance should probably reconsider.
"We get to see still a little bit of tension between Emmie and RJ," Ortiz teased. "But also there's a little other someone that comes in and tests, you know, makes it a little more challenging for Emmie and RJ."
There is another personal connection behind the father-daughter story. Ortiz said Zayas knew her long before R.J. Decker. The two actors share mutual friends, and Zayas knew Ortiz's mother and members of her extended family.
"He knew me since I was a kid," Ortiz said. Working together, she added, "felt like family."
From Salsa Dancer to Shondaland Star
Ortiz's road to R.J. Decker began far from Hollywood.
Born Jessica Ortiz and raised in the Bronx, she started salsa and mambo training as a child and was teaching dance by her teens, eventually performing and instructing internationally. After turning toward acting, she trained in the Meisner technique and endured years of rejection before landing the role that changed her career.
Her breakthrough came as Detective Annalise Villa opposite Morris Chestnut in Fox's Rosewood. Her father's law-enforcement background proved useful even then: Ortiz has previously said she called him for advice while preparing to play Villa.
She later appeared in Shooter before Shonda Rhimes tapped her to lead Station 19, where Ortiz spent seven seasons playing firefighter Andy Herrera. Her credits also include The Long Game, alongside Dennis Quaid and Jay Hernandez. ABC describes Ortiz as a Puerto Rican American who has remained active in supporting the Latino community.
Now R.J. Decker has brought her back to South Florida, a setting Ortiz believes is more than scenery for the series.
Hiaasen's Florida has always existed somewhere at the intersection of crime, corruption, wealth and absurdity. Ortiz said filming in the state makes that world suddenly feel much less fictional.
"When we go to Florida, I feel like it's Vegas. Everything that happens in Florida stays in Florida," she joked.
But she said being there also allows the cast to feel "the true essence of RJ Decker," from the heat and humidity to the state's diversity and famously unpredictable characters.
"It's about the weird, wacky, colorful," Ortiz said. "All the Florida Man stories really feel like you're in the element when we're there."
That weirdness surrounds a much darker question for Emi this season: What happens when the person who shaped your life disappears before you can decide how you really feel about him?
Ortiz isn't ruling out the possibility that grief could take her character somewhere unexpected.
When this reporter suggested that heartbreak might even push Emi toward becoming a villain, Ortiz laughed but didn't exactly dismiss the theory.
"I think there is a little chance that she might become the villain," she teased. "But you'll have to watch to find out."
If that happens, there may need to be another conversation when Season 3 comes around.
