Jane The Virgin Meets Destiny in Chapter Sixty-Four

-This week in titles: Jane The Ordained.

-Wow. By Jane The Virgin standards, this was a pretty calm finale. I mean, yes there was a surprise pregnancy reveal, a wedding that threatened to turn into disaster every step of the way, multiple storms literal and figurative, another significant bus ride, a dangerous new alliance, secrets revealed, building romance, a big break-up, the life of one regular character threatened, the livelihood of another taken away and the arrival of a new (to us) love interest, but none of that really matches the emotional devastation of Mateo being kidnapped right after birth in season 1 or Rose shooting Michael in season 2. I'll certainly be curious about what happens next in season 4, but I definitely won't be an anxious as I was in the days leading up to the season 2 and 3 (especially 3) premieres. Which is a good thing. "Jane" already delivered the big gut-punch of the season back when Michael was killed at the mid-point. Had yet another season ended with some cataclysmic thing happening to Jane, it would've been too much to take. Instead we got an ending that was surprisingly hopeful (for the Villanueva's and Rogelio at least) and sets the stage for all kinds of possibilities going into season 4. It was a fitting end to a strong season of this wonderful show. So let's break down some of these developments a bit.

-Is there such a thing as destiny? Are people meant to come into each other's lives? Is love something that's meant to be? At the beginning of the series, Jane Villanueva would've answered "yes" to every one of these questions. She was a true romantic with a future that was all planned out and right in front of her. Even when she was accidentally inseminated and reconnected with a man she had a meaningful connection with one night years ago, it all seemed like destiny falling into place, and when she went to the altar with Michael after a long time apart, it felt inevitable, like it was supposed to happen. Over the course of the season though, as Jane lost Michael and grew older, her romanticism faded and she started to question the idea that things were "meant to be". Life isn't that easy. So when Jane tries to plan the wedding ceremony of her parents and tries to put into words why they're meant to be, nothing she comes up with feels right. She loves her parents and believes they have a true love so why can't she put it into words? Aren't they of all people meant to be? This question is where Chapter Sixty-Four does something surprising. It has Jane decide that no, Xiomara and Rogelio aren't meant to be. Instead, as the episode piles up obstacles and problems that threaten to derail the wedding entirely, it shows how Xo and Ro choose to be together, in the face of countless obstacles and three seasons worth of turbulence, they chose each other. It's not true love because it's meant to be, it's true love because they chose not to give up. It's a powerful idea for the show to explore and it does so masterfully, turning all the contrivances building throughout the episode that conspire to ruin the wedding from a tired old TV staple (You can probably count the number of TV weddings that go off without a hitch on one hand) into something more masterful, a sign of two people in love refusing to let anything stand in their way even when nature itself seemed aligned against them.

-I'll admit that I was a bit worried that something might ultimately end the engagement between Xo and Ro. So many times on "Jane", couples seem to be on the right track only to suddenly get pulled apart in less than an episode (For example, Rafael and Petra, who got together last episode and fell apart almost right away. We'll get to that). Xo and Ro have also had so many up and downs that it's hard to keep track of how many times they broke up and got back together. And yeah, they were solid now that Rogelio had reneged on his plans to have a kid of his own, but when Darci shows up heavily pregnant from the unprotected hate sex she and Rogelio had when they were together, it seemed quite possible that Rogelio and Xo would put their relationship on hold while they figured this out. Because it felt like the wedding might not happen though, that made it all the sweeter when Xo realizes that she's not going to walk away from Rogelio and does want to marry him after all.

-I was a bit disappointed that the idea of Rogelio wanting another kid had essentially been waved away because it made much of his season 3 arc and everything he went through with Darci into a way to stall for time until he changed his mind and got back with Xo as everyone knew he should. I should have had more faith in the "Jane" writers though. Darci being pregnant is a great way to show that Rogelio's quest to have a child does matter and will be affecting his life for a long time to come. It also means we get more Justina Machado, which is always a good thing.

-All the disasters and crises cause Xo and Ro to have a more intimate ceremony, which was at least partly because on a practical level the show probably couldn't pull off the kind of star-filled extravaganza a Rogelio wedding would demand. It works very well on a story level though, reinforcing that even with a ceremony with just their family, Rafael, Petra, and some random guests taking shelter from the storm, even with a muddied-dress and minimal lighting, as long as these two are together, they're still having their fairy tale wedding.

-The narrator mentioning that Xiomara looked beautiful to the people who loved her most was a wonderful callback to when Michael was trying stand-up and his set was well-received by the people who loved him most. Also with the way the narrator added an "including me" and the immediate shot of Mateo afterwards, I'm now pretty convinced that the narrator is a future Mateo who's written books about his mother's life.

-In an episode full of heart-warming tear-jerking moments, Alba yelling her heartfelt speech about how much she loves Xo and how proud of her she is so Xo wouldn't cry and ruin her make-up almost takes the cake. To be fair though, a letter from Michael written before he married Jane, explaining why he and her are meant to be is pretty damn hard to top.

-Though Jane The Virgin is a big fan of flashbacks, since Michael died, the show has refrained from using Brett Dier up until now. This is probably a wise choice. People needed time to adjust to the new status quo and having him pop up constantly in flashbacks would have been like rubbing salt in the wound, especially because you're immediately reminded of how charming and likeable Brett Dier is in the role. Tonight uses him well though as Jane's reverend informs her about a letter Michael wrote her before they got married that explained how he felt about her. This allows us to see flashbacks of Michael and Jane at their peak, about to be married and move into a home of their own, trading goofy banter and just being in love. Of course Jane would become fixated on trying to find this letter. Who wouldn't want to read new words from a loved one who was gone? It also ties into her story well and the episode's exploration of the idea of destiny. Jane wants to find this letter because it's a lost love letter from her dead husband, but also because if she could reconnect with her great love for a moment, then she might be able to use this letter as inspiration for the wedding ceremony. If she were to find this letter right before the ceremony, wouldn't that be meant to be? Ultimately she doesn't find the letter before the ceremony but the time she spends looking for it causes a series of events that lead her to the inspiration she needs on the bus.

-Fateful bus rides are one of those recurring motifs that "Jane" likes to work in at least once every season. Jane was on the bus the day she fainted and learned she was pregnant. She was on the bus when her water broke. She took the bus to her wedding. She takes the bus to her parent's wedding and this is where she sees an ad for upcoming book releases that includes a certain little book called Falling Snow by Jane Villaneuva. All of Jane's hard work and effort have paid off and the show uses this to have her come to her realization about what to say at Xo and Ro's wedding. Raf thinks seeing her name up there must feel meant to be but it doesn't feel meant to be for her because it wasn't easy. "Meant to be" implies something had to be easy but it took a lot of pain and strife and effort and hard choices to get this book published. The satisfaction Jane gets from seeing her name was the result of a choice she made to not give up and that leads her to realize exactly what she needs to say at the ceremony. It's a clever way to tie Jane's arc this year to the arc of her parents and the comparison feels totally natural. It's also a good way to have Jane realize that she no longer believes in destiny, right up until the ending when fate steps in (We'll get to that in a minute).

-With all the pressure Jane's under this episode and the spectre of Michael hanging over things, Jane's new-found feelings for Rafael are underplayed as she tries to ignore them. Unfortunately Petra picks up on them and becomes convinced that Rafael would still pick Jane over her if it came to it, which combined with a newly free Chuck trying to win her back winds up ending Petra and Rafael before they could really begin. It's a frustrating moment because even though Petra is right to be concerned that Jane has feelings for Rafael and her reaction is in-character, it also feels forced, like something thrown into the episode to manufacture maximum drama. Add in that intimate hug between Raf and Jane as they laugh off Petra's insistence that the two have feels for each other and the fact that Rafael's feelings for Jane are being kept ambiguous and it feels like the show is positioning things for a love triangle where everyone is on equal footing, which is less interesting than if Jane has to hide her feelings while Raf dates Petra. Of course, the episode kind of realizes this and has Petra off to get Raf back before she's waylaid, while Jane's ultimate decision to tell Rafael about her feelings also gets waylaid. Hopefully the show reverses this Raf/Petra break-up early on into season 4 because this feels like an unnecessary regression.

-OK, let's talk about that ending. So during the wedding reception, Petra and Rafael's assistant gives her the letter Michael had written, which she received from the previous owner of the house where Michael had stashed the letter who the current owners had contacted after Jane went there looking. It's a beautiful letter, designed to assure the Team Michael diehards that Jane and Michael truly were meant to be, give Jane permission to move on with Michael's "never doubt that I want you to be happy", and also make a strong case in favour of destiny. Sure Jane and Michael chose to be together, but they had only met at all because Michael stopped for a burger on his way back from a shift he wasn't supposed to be working and chose to answer a noise complaint. He made a bunch of random choices based on events that he had no way of controlling and he met the love of his life because of it. That's destiny. Meanwhile the series of choices that led to Jane getting the letter at all (Jane's choice to look for the letter, and check the old house, leading to the current owner's choice to contact the previous owner who had chosen to take that letter)  has brought her back to Adam, her first great love.

-As far as season-ending twists go, this is a strong one and a welcome wrench into the road to Jane and Rafael getting back together. Adam was hinted at several episodes back and the references to Jane falling in love and breaking up with him in the flashbacks meant his appearance wasn't really a surprise. Having him be in possession of the letter though was a definite surprise and a great way to tie up the episode's look into destiny. Jane and Adam sure seemed destined to cross paths again, but are they meant to be? We'll have to wait until next season to find out, but I'm excited to learn more about this previously unknown chapter in Jane's life.

-Jane's first love being named Adam (the first man) is a great biblical allusion. Bravo whoever came up with that name for the character.

-In crime plot news, Scott's killer is finally revealed and it turns out to be Eileen. Not Rose pretending to be Eileen, but the actual Eileen who Rose had paid to leave the country under threat of death. A drunken Scott saw her and fearing that he would say something to give her away, Eileen kills him and flees. It'd be an underwhelming conclusion to a mystery that ran out of steam a few episodes back if not for the fantastic use of The Midnight Runner's Come On Eileen, which scores the whole flashback sequence. It's now obvious that naming Rose's new identity Eileen was solely so they could use that song for this specific scene and that's wonderful.

-With Rose finally behind the bars, the show finds a surprising new antagonist when Luisa finds out that Rafael lied about his cancer coming back. As I mentioned last week, Luisa's arc this season has been about her trying not to choose between her girlfriend and her family. Last week she picked her family, and now risks losing the love of her life because of it. Luisa and Rafael have always had a strained relationship due to Luisa's addiction issues and general "trainwreck" status but Rafael has always felt a loyalty to her until he found out the truth about "Eileen". Justin Baldoni and Yara Martinez have always had terrific sibling chemistry that made it easy to care about their relationship so watching that relationship be completely destroyed over the course of a single scene as Rafael pours out all his pent-up frustration and resentment is hard to watch. It feels earned though, the natural culmination of everything that's happened between these two this season and it leads to exciting story possibilities going forward. It also leads to a fantastic use of the heartglow as the warm love that Luisa feels for her brother turns into black hatred. Luisa has been a character that the show has often struggled to use in a meaningful way, but her personal connections to the characters (Rafael in particular) and the sympathy that Martinez's performance generates should make her into a compelling antagonist for the next little while.

-I predicted that Luisa would use the clause in Emilio's will against Rafael to make him lose everything. I had forgotten however that Luisa didn't know that part of the "Rafael is adopted" saga. Enter Anezka. When Rafael's discarded (for good reasons) sister meets Petra's discarded (for good reasons) sister, I gasped in delight even before the #TwistedSisters hashtag popped up. It's just such a natural character pairing. Both of these characters love their siblings, but have inflicted a lot of hurt onto them while being hurt by them. Of course they would team up. Suddenly Scott fixing the will addendum all those episodes back becomes more than a misdirect about why he was killed and Luisa's vast knowledge about how alcohol works comes in handy to help make Anezka realize that Petra had drugged her the night "Scott" broke up with her. So Anezka steals Rafael's phone and lures a "wanting to get back together" Petra to a secluded spot where she's waiting with a gun. Luisa kicks Rafael out of the Marbella and officially takes control. It leaves both Rafael and Petra in a very uncertain place to end the season. Rafael has been defined by his wealth and privilege for so long, it'll be interesting to see how he reacts to losing it and how he'll fight back against Luisa. Meanwhile it seems unlikely that Petra will die or be replaced again, there's still a lot of damage that Anezka could do. I suspect she'll have Petra sign away her shares of the Marbella to her or Luisa. Whatever happens I'm excited to see where this all goes.

-Well that's it for Jane The Virgin season 3. This continues to be one of my favourite shows on TV and I'm going to miss it a lot while it's gone. October can't come soon enough.

Jane The Virgin Goes Full Fairy Tale in Chapter Sixty-Three

-So I've been dropping the ball on doing these "Jane" recaps the past couple weeks, but I'm hoping to pick that ball back up and finish the season strong.

-This Week in Titles: Jane the Maid of Honor

-One of the core themes of these Post-Michael episodes of "Jane" have been how Jane's views about love and romance has changed after all she's been through and that's a big part of Chapter Sixty-Three. Jane used to be an idealistic girl who was a strong believer in the idea of the fairy tale romance and it's "happily ever after". It's a big part of why she ultimately chose to wait until marriage before having sex. Now that she's had her fairy tale romance abruptly end though, she's lost that belief in "happily ever after" and doesn't take to fairy tales the way she used to (Her changing the ending of Cinderella to be more realistic about the struggles any lasting relationship faces, in addition to giving Cinderella a fulfilling job outside the monarchy is a total Jane move). The Jane of season 1 would've never been able to throw herself into a casual relationship like season 3 Jane. Jane's a bit more cynical now and her romanticism has faded. It hasn't vanished though and Chapter Sixty-Three has Jane trying to make a fairy tale romance come true for her parents, while starting to open again to it happening for herself.

-The theme for tonight's episode is (obviously) Fairy Tales, which allows for a lot of fun visual moments throughout, from the storybook recreation of Rafael and Petra's first season "romance" to Jane's constantly growing nose whenever she's lying through her teeth. It also allows for a lot of good narrative moments as fairy tales are universal enough that it's easy to filter everything through a fairy tale context.

-"Jane" has done an excellent job establishing what a strong bond Jane has with her parents, especially her mother, so when she throws herself into planning their "fairy tale" wedding after the original planners quit because they feel Xo is too old for "fairy tale", it's a totally in-character move for her. She loves her parents and would do anything to make them happy, even if it means running herself ragged trying to plan an extravagant wedding in a very short time-frame. Of course Jane's single-mindedness has it's consequences and her decision to put off ending her relationship with Fabian so she can get access to his horse trainer and stable of white horses winds up backfiring spectacularly.

-I missed writing about the episodes that compose the bulk of Jane's fling with Fabian but I've been very impressed with Francisco San Martin's performance. He takes what could have been a one-note meathead and imbues him with just enough substance that he's believable as a human being even if he's a fairly shallow one. So when Rogelio accidentally lets it slip that Jane was planning to break up with him, his retaliation is understandable, even if it's also immature and petty. We know that he was more invested in this relationship than Jane was so his genuine hurt keeps him sympathetic right up until he calls Jane a slut. Even then, he starts to regain sympathy when Jane assures him that he didn't mean nothing to her. He loses it again when he tries to punch Rogelio in the face, but it's a testament to San Martin that you still can't totally hate the guy. If this is the last we see of Fabian (And I hope it isn't), it's a fitting send-off for him.

-Xo being mad at Rogelio for missing all their appointments didn't really work for me as a source of drama. Yes, it's completely fair for her to be disappointed that she didn't get to do all this stuff with him and him escalating the stand-off with Fabian was unnecessary, but it feels like she's letting Jane off the hook too easy for her role in starting the whole mess by lying to Fabian. It did lead to the episode's best scene though, so I guess it's not all bad.

-Gina Rodriguez and Andrea Navedo have probably the best mother-daughter chemistry on television. The dynamic between Jane and Xo always feels believable and lived in. So it's nice that the episode found time for an extended sequence of them just getting drunk and talking through all their frustrations (Rodriguez and Navedo also do terrific "drunk" acting). It's a nice sweet scene as they talk about just wanting to see each other get their "fairy tale" romance. It also allows for the episode to address the "Michael" of it all a bit more naturally than if it had come up earlier in the episode. You can really feel the love pour through and it makes the sudden appearance of Rogelio (after a priority check text from Jane) with his carriage ride all the better. the scene also does a really good job establishing Jane's headspace as being back in romantic mode (albeit a very wasted romantic mode), which is important for the episode's next best scene (Of which I'll discuss more shortly).

-Jane's going to be officiating her parent's wedding, which is fitting (She is the perfect middle ground between a priest and Ricky Martin after all) and should also be very sweet.

-Rogelio brushes off the possible impact of walking off set to be with Xo because she's more important. It's a sweet moment, but now I'm anxious that Rogelio is going to get fired over this. Though if he did get fired, maybe that would lead to them finally doing "The Passions of Steve" in season 4. It always felt weird that that never amounted to anything beyond an excuse to keep Rogelio in his reality show for a bit longer.

-Of course the other significant thing Jane is dealing with this week is Petra and Rafael considering getting back together. The show has done a really good job getting us to root for Rafael and Petra (something that would've been unthinkable back in season 1) by making Rafael's renewed affection for his ex-wife feel like a natural and organic development for him. At the same time, it doesn't forget the significant baggage between these two characters. It took a long time for Petra to get over Rafael and she did some terrible things during that time. She's right to be wary and Jane's right to initially tell her not to get back with Rafael. By having their history up close and personal throughout the episode, it also makes the climatic scene where a very drunk Jane simultaneously advises Raf and Petra right into each other's arms all the more powerful. These two have been through a lot of bad, but it doesn't mean it's not worth trying again. That they're willing to do so is worth rooting for.

-Jane's initial objections to the idea of Rafael and Petra have a more selfish, yet understandable motive behind them too, one even Jane doesn't understand until later on. Jane's afraid that if Rafael and Petra are together, her and Mateo will be forgotten, like paupers in a fairy tale desperate for attention from the royal family. It's an irrational fear and Jane knows this, but it doesn't keep her from feeling hesitant. Of course once Rafael assures drunk Jane that he loves her and would never forget her or Mateo, that opens up a whole new set of worms.

-The other thing that makes Jane reuniting Rafael and Petra an emotionally effective moment is that it happens right as Jane is finding her romantic feelings for Rafael emerging. Now, I've expressed hesitation before about the show going back to the Jane/Rafael romance well, but I always knew we'd get back there eventually and this is a really smart way to handle it. For one, Rafael being with Petra again means we're still a ways away from Jane and Rafael actually being a couple again should they go that way (Unless Raf and Petra immediately break up in the finale, which is a plausible possibility.). For another, Jane is in a very vulnerable place when these feelings re-emerge, and all of her feelings are heightened. Her feelings for Rafael might not actually be romantic feelings, but after all the love talk with Xo, she's just reading them that way. At the very least, she doesn't seem to trust these feelings, which is why her pushing Rafael and Petra together has a tinge of desperation to it. Of course, it's also clear that this topic will be explored more in the finale, so I'm willing to wait to see where it goes before passing judgement. I trust Jennie Snyder Urman and her writers though, so I'm sure wherever Jane's new feelings for Rafael go, they'll be handled carefully and respectfully for all of us Team Michael people still with the show.

-Mentioning Raf's past with cancer in the recap is a necessary evil. It's brought up so infrequently that it does warrant a reminder, but the moment it's mentioned, you're tipping off the audience that it's going to be a significant plot point. "Jane" handled it well though, letting the fake-out with Raf telling Luisa his cancer had come back play out just long enough before revealing it as a ploy to lure Luisa back to town.

-Luisa's entire arc this season has been about her trying not to choose between her family and her great love, who has hurt her family over and over again. Having Rose masquerade as Eileen and trying to forget all that murder stuff ever happened was a very destructive move, but it fits in with what we know about Elisa. Of course it all comes crashing down tonight as Rafael uses his history with cancer to lure Luisa and Eileen back into the open, a move that's one of the more underhanded things Raf has done, but justifiable considering all Rose has done. So Luisa picks her family over her love once and now she stands to lose that love and her family, considering that Rafael's lie is sure to snap the last strand of connection between the two. It's a story that would be more effective if Luisa had been more integral to the season rather than a distraction we drop in on every several episodes or so but it still works here.

-Just when I thought "Jane" had run out of stories for Rose, she's finally captured and unmasked by the police. Hopefully she stays in police custody for a while. Rose on the run has been done to death at this point. Rose being put on trial for everything she's done over the course of the show so far? That could be an interesting crime arc for the show, especially since Jane has never really had the opportunity to confront Rose for kidnapping her son or for being directly responsible for Michael's death. Whatever happens, I hope Rose isn't broken out at the end of the season. At this point they're just prolonging her arc for no reason.

-Having that paper with the drawing of the woman Chuck met with turn out to be Eileen was a bit disappointing, if only because it made that entire cliffhanger cheap. That being said, I don't think she killed Scott. It seems too obvious to have her be the killer again and this whole plot has been leaning really hard on misdirects. So who killed Scott then? I'm going to think outside the box and guess Jorge, because we don't know for sure that Chuck was the "J.P." that the cops were so interested in, and we don't know Jorge's last name. It'd also be an easy way to add some much needed emotional stakes back into this story that has lost a lot of steam the longer it's been dragged out.

-What are the odds that an angry Luisa is going to reveal the truth about Rafael being adopted and not a legal heir to Emilio's fortune to the public in retaliation for his lying to her? Pretty good, I'd say, especially because the secret of his adoption is still a significant Chekov's Gun just waiting to go off.

-Rogelio explaining the wedding is happening next week for TV schedule reasons followed by a big bumper for next week's finale might be the best 4th-wall breaking joke "Jane" has done all season, though the Honey Bunches of Oats product placement comes close.

-Jane reflexively punching Fabian when he takes a swing at Rogelio and breaking his nose was a great pay-off to all that boxing that she's been doing.

-Next week: It's the season finale and Xo and Rogelio are finally getting married! Hopefully! This show loves throwing last-minute curveballs at these two and the promo seems to tease a huge curveball (I won't spoil what it actually is here. Just avoid promos for the finale if you can.).

Jane The Virgin Gets Her Lust On in Chapter Sixty

-This Week in Titles: Jane The Horndog.

-When we last left "Jane" about a month ago, Alba was falling in love with her new boyfriend Jorge and Jane was falling in lust with Rogelio's new co-star Fabian. Both these threads carry on into Chapter Sixty, another great episode of Jane that works in all the usual twists and turns and strong emotional beats, while exploring how Jane and Alba's relationship with the idea of sex has or hasn't changed over time.

-For roughly 47 episodes, Jane's view of sex was based around the idea that it was special and she decided to wait for marriage for reasons connected to both her faith and her romanticism. This show wasn't titled Jane the Virgin for nothing. Then she got married and finally began having sex with the love of her life. Then he died. Now Jane is ready to start getting back out there but what does that mean for her sex life? Chapter Sixty is smart in showing us how Jane's view of sex has changed and evolved from the first time she felt lust (As a child watching a particularly steamy telenovella) to now post-Michael. Where sex used to be this big, looming, forbidden thing, now Jane has no problem openly talking about her sexual needs and where she used to want to wait for that special someone, now that special someone has come and gone and she doesn't see the point in waiting anymore, no matter what her grandmother thinks about her choices. It's a smart move that shows off how much Jane has grown and changed from the unsure girl we met in the pilot. Jane knows what she wants and she's not going to let anyone stop her from trying to get it, whether it's the not-so-subtle guilt trip of Alba or Rogelio's anger that she's after the co-star he thinks is trying to "All About Eve" him.

-Alba can't worry too much about Jane's love life though because now she has her own to worry about. Just as we can understand why Jane decides she's not going to wait to be married again to have sex, we understand why Alba isn't going to make that same choice. Alba had sex before marriage and it destroyed her relationship with her family. She's never going to make that decision again, even if it costs her all of her relationships because she knows the right man will wait for her. She's so used to this being a deal-breaker though that when Jorge seems to have a negative response to her telling him and doesn't contact her afterwards, she's ready to write him off as someone not worthy of her love. It turns out Alba needs to have more faith in people though because what she thought was a break-up wasn't a break-up at all. Jorge has no probably with Alba's celibacy and the two end the episode in a better place than ever. It's a good storyline and what I really like about it is that the show doesn't try to compare Alba and Jane's choices about sex or suggest that one choice is better than the other. They're both independent women who allowed to make their own choices without being punished for it and the show recognizes it.

-Fabian makes for an interesting choice for Jane's first post-Michael love interest. It's clear that he and Jane would never work as more than a casual thing. He's just not complex or intelligent enough to challenge Jane on a meaningful level and her attraction to him is purely physical, as she openly admits. At the same time, Francisco San Martin brings such a dopey earnestness and sweet enthusiasm to the character that it's hard not to fall for him just a little bit. The key thing here is that he seems to be genuinely falling for Jane, which should lead for some interesting complications down the line.

-Of course Jane has more on the brain than sex this week as her book about her romance with Michael begins to move to the publishing stage. Jane is excited to be selling her book but runs into trouble when she learns the publishers want to use her backstory to help sell the book. This would mean a generous initial printing and a slot at a book fair moderated by Maria Semple but Jane shoots that idea down because she wants the book to stand on it's own, even if it means an order of only 1500 books. Of course there's more to Jane's reluctance then that and while a conversation with her former adviser and current friend Professor Donaldson is enough to make her realize standing for your art this early into a career isn't the best plan, it doesn't fix the underlying reason she was so reluctant to use her backstory as a marketing tool: Michael.

-One of the things I've really appreciated about how "Jane" has handled the death of Michael is that while they chose to skip ahead in time and only touch on the immediate aftermath of the event, they're not forgetting or ignoring him either. His memory is a constant presence on the show, popping up when you least expect it to. Jane is worried that by agreeing to talk about what happened, she'll be reducing Michael to an anecdote and what they had will become less meaningful over time. It's a valid fear, but luckily Alba is there to reassure her that this won't happen and Michael will always be meaningful to her. Jane and Alba have always had a special relationship and that relationship becomes even more meaningful post-Michael because Alba is the only person who understands what it means to lose the love of your life so young and can offer Jane a kind of support and insight that no one else can. Alba's story about seeing her Mateo's favourite Ice Cream at a grocery store last year and being overcome with emotion is a powerful story that lets Jane and the audience know that no matter how far in the past Michael becomes, he's never going to go away.

-Jane's conversation with Alba wasn't the only emotional Michael-related scene in this episode though as Rogelio's complicated feelings about Fabian trying to befriend him and Jane dating Fabian turn out to be rooted in his own grief about Michael. For the first few Post-Michael episodes of "Jane", we mainly focused on Jane's reaction to losing the love of her life and how she reached a place where she could begin to heal. This was a smart move as this is first and foremost Jane's story and her feelings take initial priority. Now that we've taken the time to see how Jane is dealing with all this though, "Jane" has space to explore how Michael's death impacted Rogelio who lost his best friend. Jaime Camill has always been good at playing the comic relief, but his conversation with Xo is a terrific chance to show how good he is at the big emotional moments too and is one of Camill's best scenes in the history of the show. Rogelio knows Jane has to move on from Michael eventually but he's not ready for that to happen yet and he's definitely not ready to go get mani-pedis with someone else. Tellingly though, he only tells Xo this information, not wanting to burden Jane with his feelings and showing just how far he's come from the self-centered Rogelio that we began the show is. Andrea Navedo is great in this scene too, as she manages to display her own grief about Michael, without making it the central focus of the scene.

-We finally get an explanation for Rafael's shady behavior with his handyman Caesar. Turns out Caesar isn't an ex-con, he's a private investigator who Raf has hired to keep an eye out for Rose. It's a solid twist that makes perfect sense. Of course Raf is still after Rose and still doesn't trust Eileen or Luisa. We know how fiercely protective Rafael can be and after everything Rose has done to him and the people he loves, it would be dishonest to the character for him not to be actively searching for her.

-Luisa can be a hard character for the show to get a handle on, thanks to her status as a perpetual trainwreck, which causes her character to be overly broad and hard to take at times, Season 3 has been taking steps to ground her more by actually delving into why she cares about Rose while showing how conflicted she is about Rose's history and how her choices have alienated her from her family (Raf won't let her see any of his children). This has made Luisa more complex and interesting than she's been in past years and her dilemma about having to choose between leaving with a (rightfully) paranoid Rose or staying and finally starting to take steps towards a real reconciliation with Rafael is honestly compelling. If she does choose to stay though, it'll be interesting to see how long it'll be until she finds out Rafael being open to a conversation about her seeing the kids was just a ploy to get keep her busy while Caesar bugged her room.

-It's been a while since Chapter Fifty-Four (The last episode Luisa and Rose were in) but I don't think it had been established that Rose's "Eileen" face was a removable mask and not a total facial reconstruction of Rose (Though I guess that makes sense, considering she went the mask route when she was Susanna last year). So it was a pleasant surprise to learn that Bridget Regan is still going to be around. She's always been great in the part so it's nice that she'll still be around, even if she'll be sharing the role with Elisabeth Röhm for the time being.

-Petra mostly spends the episode preparing for the arrival of her sister and continuing to strengthen her relationship with Chuck. So she's mostly off to the sidelines but the cliffhanger of Anezka being arrested upon arrival into the country instead of just questioned like Petra was promised ensures that the focus will be on her soon enough. The crime stuff is still "Jane's" weakest element but the Scott stuff is much more intriguing than last year's Mudder and Derek shenanigans and I'll admit I am very curious to learn just how exactly Petra and Anezka are involved with the death of Scott.

-There's a lot of great narrator jokes tonight, but I think my favourite is when he keeps interjecting when Rogelio and Fabian's telenovella characters talk about their "lady scientist" love to point out that they should really just be saying scientist.

-When Jane's teasing Alba about the possibility of Alba sleeping with Jorge, the same music cue from the opening scene of the series plays during Jane's recitation of the advice Alba gave her as a kid. It's a nice touch.

-Luisa attempting to use being the reason for Mateo being born as justification for being able to see him was a solid use if Luisa's trainwreck status. It's also always good to be reminded that she was the catalyst for literally everything that's happened on the show.

-No spoilers about the promos for next week, but they seem to be showing an interesting twist on Jane's romantic dynamic with Fabian.

Jane The Virgin Gets Her Flirt On in Chapter 59

-This Week in Titles: Jane The Flirt, which appears over Jane pulling a Marilyn Monroe with her skirt blowing up. At least in her mind.

-Romance has been a key part of Jane The Virgin since it's very beginning. Though never quite as important a theme to the show as family, Jane's various romantic entanglements and relationships, whether with Michael, Rafael, or occasionally someone else (Jonathan Chavez, anyone?) have often been at the forefront of the narrative. Then Michael died, a move that necessitated a backgrounding of the romantic elements, at least where Jane was concerned. There was still romance in the show, most notably Petra's fling with Chuck and Xo's engagement to Bruce but it was all secondary to exploring where the characters were three years later and how Jane was starting to get to a place where she could heal from what she went through with Michael. This was a smart choice on the writer's part because rushing the romance in almost immediately after Michael died would feel sloppy and disrespectful to the fans who were invested in that relationship and this approach. Now that there's a bit of distance from Michael's death though, the romance comes rushing back in this week (after testing the waters for it last week) and Chapter Fifty-Nine has practically everyone trying to get some action.

-There are going to be a fair number of people out there who feel that it's still too soon for Jane to move on from Michael, at least for the audience who only lost him a couple months ago as opposed to three years. That's understandable but I suspect that even if the show waited until the end of next season for Jane to start dating again people would think it was too soon. Losing Michael was painful and his love story with Jane was one for the ages but romance is in "Jane's" blood and the show couldn't keep it away forever. Luckily Chapter Fifty-Nine makes it clear that the show isn't that eager for Jane to be rushing into a serious or even casual relationship anytime soon as multiple possible love interests for Jane are set-up then shut down.

-"Jane" loves it's visual devices and motifs and it comes up with the best one it's had in a while tonight as various characters (Mainly Jane but Rafael and Alba get in on it too) use a Terminator-esque love radar to try and determine if the person they're interacting with is flirting with them. It's a fun device that beautifully captures how hard it can be to figure out if a person is flirting with you or not as the signs and clues differ from situation to situation and person to person. Of course there's no such thing as perfect love radar and it's especially tough to get a handle on the signs when you've been out of the game for a long time and Jane and Rafael both misread situations at various points causing embarrassing situations.

-When Mateo's aide Alex was introduced last episode, it seemed pretty likely that he could end up as Jane's new love interest, and the promos for the episode heavily revolved around the scene where he lets Jane know in no uncertain terms that he is not interested in her, giving the impression that the entire episode would be about this. Happily, the writers go a different way with this. Alex is Mateo's aide and it would be entirely inappropriate for him to pursue a relationship with Jane or for her to even consider him as a romantic prospect, as multiple characters including Jane point out. Once Alex firmly shuts down the idea that he's interested in Jane, it's the end of that particular story. Instead the show uses this moment as a springboard to dive into just how rusty Jane has gotten at reading signs of romantic interest, showing how much work Jane has ahead of her if she really wants to get back into the dating game.

-After an interlude night out at the Fairwick which we'll get to in a sec, the show brings back Dennis, Michael's old partner who's investigating Scott's murder and who is also recently single. Pairing the two together would make a lot of sense in some ways. The two know each other, both have struggled with Michael's death and we saw their connection be rekindled a few episodes back. If they were to get together for a few episodes, no one would be that surprised so it's not shocking when they go out on a mini-golf date. But the show also recognizes that in the long run it doesn't make sense for Jane to date Dennis. His long history with Michael means she'd be thrown with constant reminders of him, which wouldn't bode well for the health of the relationship. Additionally Dennis is clearly not as over his ex-fiancee as he wants to think he is. So instead of forcing them to be together for a few episodes for the sake of drama, "Jane" has the two recognize at the end of the date that it won't work and Dennis decides to give his ex-fiancee another chance. After all the important thing about this story wasn't that Jane find her next great love, it's that she decided to put herself back out there again, even though it's not going to be an easy road for her.

-Now, let's be real. The easiest option for a new great romantic love for Jane would be her old great romantic love, Rafael. In fact it's almost a certainty that Jane and Rafael will get back together at some point, and a worse show would have pushed them back together already. "Jane" isn't a worse show though and instead, they continue to explore Jane and Rafael being best friends. Justin Baldoni is very charming as Raf attempts to help Jane get back up there, especially as it quickly becomes apparent that Rafael might not entirely know what he's doing either, suggesting Jane look for someone in "kids hotel" The Marbella and not realizing his presence will have people assuming they're a couple. It's once Petra gets involved and the action moves to the Fairwick that things really heat up and the interplay between Jane, Rafael, and Petra is very fun to watch. After all these three have been to, it's nice to see them in a place where they can be friends to each other and support each other, even if it's not the most conventional way of support.

-After Rafael and Petra hooked up at the end of last week's episode, it seemed like a sign that we would be returning to the Rafael/Petra romance, something that the show hinted at throughout the second season but never pulled the trigger on. This time however, they're flipping the script by having Rafael be in love with Petra while Petra dates Chuck. It's a neat twist that the episode cleverly builds to throughout the episode, having Rafael assume Petra is interested in him like in the past until she shuts that idea down hard. Petra still likes Chuck and the flirting we see her doing with Raf is just an attempt to make Chuck jealous. It's a nice way to play on expectations and it's nice that Chuck isn't going to be as disposable a love interest as Abby was for the sake of getting Raf and Petra back together.

-Chuck was introduced as a broad, gross slimeball, and while he's still a broad character, "Jane" and Johnny Messner have done an admirable job, making him more nuanced and complex. Chuck is as confused about why Petra cares about him as Petra is and that confusion translates into a much-needed vulnerability for the character.

-Alba's romance with Jorge continues to be a delightful turn for the character. Ivonne Coll has never really had the chance to play a full-blown love story for Alba (There was that priest in season 1 and her old flame Pablo in season 2 but the priest was just a flirtation and Pablo's story was mainly about what bad news the guy was) and it's fun to see her play lovestruck, as she finds a way to work Jorge into every conversation she has without fail. Her walk of shame at the end is a great pay-off to the "walk of lame" Jane, Rafael, and Petra had earlier and it'll be interesting to see how "Jane" continues to explore this as it lays the groundwork for Jorge maybe being not so perfect for Alba. After all Jorge seems sweet, but he also seems like more talk than action and his big romantic idea only came about because he overheard a lovestruck Alba waxing romantic about minigolf. He and Alba are cute together but it feels like Alba can do better than him.

-Rogelio and Xo are back together at last! Once Xo broke up with Bruce, it was only a matter of time before her and Rogelio reunited but it was still a fun surprise when they almost immediately started making out in the settlement chambers after Rogelio found out the engagement was off. Bruce was a nice guy and the show made me more invested in him than I ever expected but Xo and Ro are meant to be.

-The downside of this storyline is it exposes how much of a plot stall Rogelio's desire to have kids really was. Yes, it's nice that Mateo is filling that part of Rogelio's life and the pair's interactions are filling the bromance void that's been empty since Michael died nicely but it still feels cheap that we spent almost a season watching Rogelio insist he needed kids only for him to abruptly change his mind. Sure time changes things but it just keeps me from enjoying the reunion of Xo and Ro as much as I want to (Though Rogelio matter of factly informing Jane that he and Xo had just had sex in his car was hysterical).

-Rogelio also gets back in the telenovella game this week with Los Viajes De Guillermo, a very loose adaption of Gulliver's Travels that's also based off of Honey, I Shrunk The Kids. It's an idea that looks like a lot of fun and the introduction of a sexier male co-star should lead to some great stories as a jealous Rogelio confronts his aging but hopefully The Passion of Santos remake isn't entirely being forgotten about. Dropping the idea in favour of more telenovella shenanigans for the rest of the show would feel like a step backwards. Rogelio mentioning it gives me hope that it'll come to fruition again sooner rather than later though.

-The heart glow is one of "Jane's" favourite visual devices, deployed many times over the years before being used to break everyone's hearts as we watched Michael's heart glow fade out. It was so effective that I was a little surprised that they brought the device back so soon to indicate Rafael's growing feelings for Petra. Things clicked into place however with the last-second reveal of Rogelio's new co-star, the young, very handsome Fabian who inspires a glow from a um, different part of Jane's body. The message is clear. It might be a while before Jane's heart is ready to glow again but her crotch isn't going to wait.

-The Scott murder investigation is mostly in the background this episode but we do learn that Petra has apparently kept in contact with Anezka these past couple years and has her hiding away somewhere. That sounds suspicious.

-So as the narrator begins to run down the great romantic loves of Jane's life, there's a first one before Michael that he purposely refrains from going into detail on. So yeah, whoever that is will definitely be showing up again by finale time.

-The narrator struggling to remember Dana's name, drawing our attention to the character as he struggles: cute joke or foreshadowing that she's important to the murder plot?

-"Jane" will be off for almost a month now after recently being off for three weeks. Come on CW, you're killing me here. The last five episodes of the season should air uninterrupted though, which will be nice.

Jane The Virgin Struggles To Find Her Voice in Chapter 57

-This Week in Titles: Jane The Helicopter Mom

-Apologies for missing last week's recap. Unexpected business came up and I wasn't able to get around to it.

-Each chapter of "Jane" tends to be focused around a main unifying theme or idea or motif, like stress or faith or the selectiveness of memory or suspense that weaves it's way through the episode, informing most of the stories that week. There might be other themes or motifs that pop up throughout the episode but by the end you can typically tie those in to a larger picture that the episode is weaving Chapter Fifty-Seven throws a lot of ideas out there, but it's unable to unify them the way it usually does. It's main thing is about Jane finding her voice (Both figuratively and literally) as she writes and revisits her novel and it does that in interesting ways. But it also throws in a running theme about various biases Jane has, as well as stuff about communication and conflict mediation and a recurring thing about how Abbey (Raf's oft-forgotten girlfriend) tends to sneak up on people and while some of it tries to connect back to the finding your voice thing, ultimately it's unclear what the main takeaway from Chapter Fifty-Seven is supposed to be, making for a more muddled "Jane" than usual, though one that still had excellent moments.

-The episode begins with a flashback explaining how Jane came to write Falling Snow, her novel about her relationship with Michael. Feeling unable to connect with or work on her Venezuela novel after the death of Michael, Rafael encourages a hoarse-voiced Jane to write about something, anything, to get her voice back again. She winds up researching the history of Florida and gets sucked in but it's not until she looks at a photo of Michael and envisions him telling her "you got this" that she's able to start writing again. This results in Falling Snow, a love story set against the back-drop of the rise of the hotel industry in early 20th-century Florida. Jane takes her pain and makes something very personal with it reclaiming her voice in the process. But when she's asked to re-examine it and add to it, the personal nature of the work causes her to lose her voice again as she struggles to find a way to insert more obstacles into the story and confront the parts of her history with Michael that she'd rather ignore.

-Jane's basically asked to include more obstacles in her idealized love story, particularly involving the robber baron character "Rake" (The Rafael analogue in her story). This leads to a series of scenes where essentially the whole cast gets to dress up in early 20th century garb (Probably the main reason they decided to set Jane's novel in 1902) as Jane tries to figure out a way to bring more conflict into the story. But making the "Rake" character more sinister just doesn't ring true (Possible foreshadowing that whatever shadiness Raf is up to with his prison friend isn't so bad after all?) and all her efforts fall flat. As it turns out though, what her story really needs is to sell the idea that "Josephine" and "Rake" were in love before "Josephine" went back to Martin, which is when Jane is confronted with a whole new dilemma.

-Since Jane chose Michael back in early season 2, the Jane/Rafael romance has been cast to the side for the sake of simplifying things. However it's hard to forget that the bulk of season 1 centered around the love story of Jane and Rafael and that history isn't just going to disappear. Jane feels that to tap into what she once felt for Rafael would be a betrayal of Michael, but Alba rightfully points out that the fact that she fell in love with someone else but ultimately chose Michael only made the love between her and Michael more impactful (Which is true. I was much more invested in Michael after her relationship with Raf had ended). It feels like a justification for the writers to begin exploring the Jane-Rafael bond again and it mostly works. I am a bit concerned that they are setting up for a new Jane/Rafael romance by the end of the season though, which would be unfortunate. I'm not opposed to Jane and Rafael finding their way back to each other eventually, but anything between them that happened this season would feel much too soon.

-The episode sets up that Jane has a gender bias because she tends to gravitate to female authority figures over male ones, which they back up by pointing out the large number of female mentors Jane has turned to over the course of the episode (Even though the episode starts with her taking Rafael's advice about writing again, proving that she doesn't only listen to women). This is a development that makes sense, considering Jane's upbringing in a household of strong women and then it's not really explored in any meaningful way apart from some choice narrator quips. Jane has Jeremy, a male editor for her book who seems like an obnoxious bro, but has genuine good advice and a desire to meaningfully engage with the material under his exterior. She also has Carly, a female aide for Mateo who seems perfect until it becomes apparent that she's a huge gossip who has no qualms with revealing sensitive information about kids and parents in addition to the disinterest and negligence Mateo reveals. Both these turn-arounds are easy to predict and while Jane recognizes by the end that she does engage in bias, at no point does the show attempt to dig into where this bias comes from or what it means on a deeper level, which seems like a big misstep. If you're going to introduce the idea of Jane being biased, at least be willing to explore it beyond the most surface level.

-Calling it now: Jane's first post-Michael love interest will be either Jeremy or this Alex, who's never seen but is set up tonight as the perfect aide for Mateo. Also at some point down the line, Jane's definitely going to have to change the ending of her book so that "Martin" dies.

-Somewhere between Jane writing her novel and Jane dealing with her biases is the plot of Jane accidentally yelling at the director of the preschool over a conversation with apparent mean girl mom Stacy that she misunderstood to be about Mateo's behavioral problems. It brings together both the idea of Jane losing her voice (Jane just can't find the right thing to say or action to show to this director to smooth this whole incident over, with everyone of Petra's ideas that she tries making it worse) and the idea of Jane having bias (Jane feels Stacy is just a mean girl, when Stacy turns out to have real problems of her own). In the end Jane is able to resolve both of these conflicts by being true to herself and coming through when it counts the most (Washing dishes at a school fundraiser when they're almost out and no one else is able to do it, firing Carly and reaching out to Stacy with empathy) making some new friends in the process. The Jane preschool stories are interesting because it's the rare environment where Jane can't seem to easily impress the people around her. Having her clash with both Stacy and the director though on top of the whole aide thing may have been too much for one episode though and added to the muddled feel.

-I've been pretty lukewarm on Bruce since he first showed up, but he won me over tonight with that sweetness the show keeps insisting he has. As he steps in to mediate the conflict between Xo and Ro, asks Jane and Alba for permission to propose and agrees to become Rogelio's new lawyer even though Rogelio has inadvertently interrupted his proposal, he does it with a patience and understanding that makes you see how he could be good for Xo. Based on the look on Rogelio's face when he proposes, it doesn't seem likely that Bruce and Xo will go off into the sunset together but I am more invested in Bruce than I am in other temporary love interests like Chuck or Abbey.

-Rogelio bursting in on Bruce's proposal and mistaking his careful planning for signs that Bruce is meant to be his lawyer alone makes this a good episode of "Jane", even if it's muddled. That scene was incredible.

-It was a little frustrating to see Rogelio and Xo have the exact same fight about Xo's portrayal in The Del La Vega Factor Factor that they've been having and resolving for three episodes now. Yes, Xo's anger is justified and this isn't something you get over right away, but it seemed unnecessary to venture into that territory yet again. Hopefully we're done with that for the time being and can move onto different things like how Rogelio feels about Xo and Bruce's engagement and his lawsuit.

-Danny Woodburn makes an appearance as a lawyer to the stars nicknamed "The Jaguar". He helps Rogelio by starting a smear campaign against the Del La Vega Factor, only to make things worse when his campaign is uncovered and Rogelio is in further breach of contract. It's an alright story but it feels like the majority of action in it occurs offscreen with us only getting updates from Rogelio or "The Lawyer" on how it's going so that we have more time for rehashing the Xo and Ro conflict.

-Rafael considers moving in with Abbey tonight and is ready to go through with it until reading the new version of Jane's novel reminds him of the passion he wants in a relationship that he doesn't feel with Abbey (Though we're led to believe he made his choice because of Petra's advice, as is Abbey). This shines a light on why Abbey is portrayed as being "just there" and is constantly forgotten by the narrator. It's an intentional show choice designed to show us how complacent and disconnected the relationship is in contrast to Rafael's relationship with Jane. She's intentionally unexciting and boring to get across what we haven't seen of the last year or so of her relationship with Rafael. It's an interesting choice but the result is there's zero emotional heft to Raf's relationship at all so why should we care about whether or not he moves in with her. We know she's not going to last so it makes the whole storyline feel slight (Though the end reveal helps a bit).

-Chuck isn't much better of a character than Abbey so far but at the least there's been a clear effort to dig into his and Petra's relationship and explain why she finds herself falling for him in spite of her better instincts. He's a gross caricature but he actually does care about Petra and wants a meaningful relationship that can actually be public. So when Petra comes clean with him about moving the bones (Something that's been gnawing at her all episode) and he rightfully breaks up with her over it, there's an actual emotional impact to the moment, unlike the Raf/Abbey break-up.

-Just when I assumed that Abbey was exactly as nice and forgettable as she seemed and the show was done with her for good, along came the reveal that she had assumed Rafael broke up with her over what Petra said, stole the book she saw Petra hid (Scott's burn book, which contains all of the secrets he has on people) and sent it to Dennis with the most incredible pop-up card I've ever seen. There's still a good chance we won't see more Abbey after this episode, and that "Jane" mostly wasted Minka Kelley's talents but this was a strong twist that manages to kick the murder story back into high gear. Also did the show came up with the idea for the greeting card first before settling on Abbey being a greeting card designer? I would not be surprised if they did.

-Ultimately even if this episode was kind of a misstep, there was still enough strong moments in there that I'm not worried that this is the beginning of some kind of decline for "Jane". Everyone's allowed to have an off week, especially with such a strong record of quality.

-Jane is taking a mini-break until March 20th. Agh, I don't know how I'll survive.

Jane The Virgin Lets The Light Back In For Chapter 55

-This week in titles: Jane The Widow. Definitely the saddest title so far but it had to be done and the narrator is quick to assure us not to worry. Jane's got this.

-"It will always feel different. You will always feel different. But your life will be beautiful again... just in different ways". "Now come. We need to let some light in. Just a little bit". As "Jane" officially moves into the post-Michael stage of the show, it's only right that we begin with Alba giving Jane (and by extension us) assurance as she's done so many times in the past. Alba is the only person in Jane's life who has gone through this kind of loss so she's the only one who can say with authority that Jane can come back from this even if she'll always miss Michael and the only one who can say with authority that Jane has to come back from this for the sake of her child. It's a strong opening that establishes new emotional grounding for the show going forward even as we jump ahead three years. Michael is gone and it will always hurt but that doesn't mean the light can never come back.

-Some people are going to take issue with the fact that after the opening flashback, Michael's death is backgrounded and we're back to light-hearted antics in our new now and I understand that. It's been three years for the characters to adjust but only a week for us so it feels weird going right from the most heartbreaking scene the show ever did to troublesome Mateo and Rogelio's fake wedding like nothing. However like I said last week, I feel the time jump was both a smart decision and the only decision the show could've made and I'm standing by that statement this week. "Jane" has never been afraid to tackle dark, serious subject matter, but it's always managed to filter that darkness through a light, optimistic goodness that would feel out of place if they spent even one episode fully exploring the immediate aftermath of Michael's death before jumping ahead, let alone how it would feel if they hadn't jumped ahead at all. It would make for bleak, sad television even if they tried to go for the "celebration of Michael's life" route, any jokes or attempts at lightness would feel forced and any efforts for an uplifting conclusion would feel disingenuous. By jumping ahead and giving us mere glimpses of Jane when her grief was at it's most powerful we still get to see the impact of Michael's absence on Jane's life and how she manages to overcome it, but we also get to see how she's changed and grown a few years removed from the event and all the different ways in which her life has become beautiful again, just like Alba promised. It's a more nuanced, complex approach that allows "Jane" to explore this huge loss while remaining the show it was and while it's going to rub some people the wrong way, it works for me. I'm a bit of an emotionally detached robot though, so maybe that's why I'm fine with it.

-Jane hasn't actually changed that much as a person in the past three years, at least not in the ways that matter most. She still loves her family above all else, tries to do the right thing for her son, is very opinionated and is a big fan of vigorous research. She seems older and less idealistic than she used to be but she's still our Jane and Gina Rodriguez is as terrific as ever giving you a strong sense of who Jane is as a character now.

-The big character shifts come from Rafael and Petra. Rafael has grown a great beard (Jane hates it but she's wrong.) and has come out of his time in prison as more peaceful and easy-going about things, "Zen Rafael" as Jane and Petra call him. After two and a half seasons of watching Rafael in a constant state of stress and pain and making poor choices because of that stress, it's refreshing to see Justin Baldoni switch things up and play a mellow version of the character, albeit a version who still knows how to tap into the passion and ferocity of his old self when needed, and Baldoni is clearly having a lot of fun with the change. Petra meanwhile has become the alpha mom/business woman we always knew she could be, reinventing the Marbella as a family-friendly pirate themed hotel, raising two perfect, well-behaved daughters (Anna and Ellie because she finally got tired of the Frozen connection), running the PTA at the preschool Mateo and the twins go to, and looking fierce and stylish while doing it. The insecurity and doubts that have plagued the character for so much of the season are mostly gone and while she still makes questionable relationship choices (She's hate-sleeping with Chuck, the sleazy owner of the adults only Fairwick hotel next door.), she's in a much better place than she's been for much of the series and it's nice to see.

-Of course the biggest shift is from Mateo, who has become a bit of a little terror these last three years which makes up the biggest story of the episode as Jane and Rafael try to handle him. Jane has been trying an incentive-based system of marking days as "sun" or "storm" (A week with five sunny days gets Mateo a treat) but it's clear it isn't working. When Mateo's teacher suggests getting him an aide though, Jane and Rafael are resistant and try other methods to get Mateo under control which only cause new problems. Mateo's not a bad kid by any means, as the episode assures us by showing how sweet he can be under all the bluster. He just has impulse control issues that get him into trouble. Jane's concerned though that she's failed him and hasn't been a good enough mother in the wake of all that's happened, which is what's keeping her from really being able to do something about Mateo's problems. In the end though they spring for the aide and it should be interesting to see how Mateo develops through the rest of the season.

-Season 2 kept feinting towards a Jane/Petra friendship only to have it ultimately be derailed and initially it seemed like that was still the case three years on. Jane is frustrated by Petra's efforts to get involved with disciplining Mateo and the way she seems to hold all the help she gives over them. It's an interesting story that goes deep into the twisted family dynamic between Jane, Rafael, and Petra but Jane and Petra at odds is a story that has been done over and over again so it's a relief when Petra assures Jane she has not dropped the ball with parenting because of Michael's death and we see the unspoken truth about their dynamic. It turns out when Rafael went to prison a couple years ago, Jane and Petra made a pact to support each other and to have weekly brunches no matter what was going on between them or in their lives. They may not always see eye to eye but they have become real friends who care about each other and help each other, even if that only comes out once a week. It's an excellent twist and seeing Jane at brunch with her new family as the narrator repeats what Alba said about Jane's life being beautiful again is the most heartwarming moment of the episode.

-The Jane and Rafael dynamic has also changed and grown in the last three years. They still have different ideas about how to raise Mateo but they're more collaborative and supportive now, with Rafael less eager to be combative than he was in the first part of the season. When Jane has a Michael-related breakdown near the end of the episode, it's Rafael who knows exactly what to say to get her to snap out of it and spring into action. They've become best friends as Jane puts it, and it's good to see them so cordial with each other. Their friendship raises a big question though, which is how long until the show starts building to a romance between them again now that Michael's out of the picture? As someone who started as Team Rafael, I hope the answer is never. Seeing them as platonic co-parents is much more interesting than seeing them in a relationship. In addition, no matter how well it was done, it'd feel like a slap in the face to everyone who loved Michael from the get go. It's not that Jane shouldn't love or date again and maybe Rafael would be a more appealing prospect a year from now, but the writers should be careful not to rush anything. They're pretty smart though so I'm not too concerned.

-Jane still has her dream publishing job, but it's turned out to be kind of a nightmare. It does get her a chance to be in a showcase for authors to watch though, which is where the episode springs a big twist. Jane's written a book in the three years, but it's not the one we watched her work on about Alba and her family, it's a book about her relationship with Michael, only with a dramatically different ending. After an episode spent on lighter thoughts and complications, it's a swift gut punch that's more effective than it would've been if the episode was mostly about grieving. Jane didn't get the happy ending with Michael she deserved so she made one and the scene where she finds the strength to read it in public after an assist from Rafael is just as effective as last week's scene where she found out about Michael's death. It's also a good reminder from the show that no, we won't be moving past Michael anytime soon, especially since Jane has been offered a book deal for it. Jane's on the cusp of achieving one of her biggest dreams and it's wonderful but also bittersweet.

-Jane and Professor Donaldson are actual friends now that Jane's done the grad program and Donaldson is no longer hiding how much she supports Jane and it's wonderful.

-So the wedding is Rogelio and Darci's but it's not a real wedding, it's all show for the supposed series finale of The Del La Vega Factor Factor. Rogelio and Darci can't stand each other and can't get through a conversation without shouting when the cameras aren't rolling. It turns out the pressures of doing the reality show, the way the show has portrayed Xo as a jealous ex thanks to an out-of-context clip and fertility problems have soured Del La Vega Factor. As a fan of that couple it's a bit disappointing, but it should lead to interesting stories and Justina Machado and Jamie Camill are still great together, even when they're fighting and we're bound to get a lot more of them fighting when Rogelio agrees to a 3rd season of the show to finally get his Passions of Santos remake, The Passions of Steve (One of the best joke names the show's ever done) off the ground.

-Xo and Bruce are living together and it's going well but Xo and Rogelio are fighting because of the aforementioned false portrayal of her on the reality show that has caused her to become a hated figure among fans of the show and Xo's assumption that as a producer on the show, Rogelio was complicit in making her that way. Xo and Rogelio at odds is nothing new so happily, it doesn't last long when Xo learns that Rogelio turned down the 3rd season of Factor Factor at the expense of his dream so she wouldn't have to put up with more public scrutiny. This sacrifice is enough to get her to make a sacrifice of her own and give Rogelio her blessing to do another season of the show, while reestablishing their bond. The Xo and Rogelio bond has been getting downplayed so far this season while Rogelio pursued his dream of having a kid, but could those two be finding their way back to each other? Since we also learn that the real reason Rogelio and Darci haven't had any kids was that Rogelio just could bring himself to commit that fully to Darci, it seems possible. Look out Bruce.

-Oh poor Scott. When Rafael brings him up, you know there's more to the story than Petra's "he moved away after he and Anezka split" explanation, especially when they remind us of him blackmailing Petra, and as the last scene keeps cutting back to the Marbella treasure hunt you know something will go wrong but it's still a shock when his skeleton turns up on the beach (Or at least a skeleton wearing a vest that says Scott on it. We have no clue if that's really him yet.). The twisty crime mystery stuff has been on the backburner this season after growing stale in season 2 but the apparent death of Scott brings it roaring back to life with a fun, new mystery that ties in a lot of our characters much more organically than Sin Rostro and Mutter did. Who killed Scott? Was it Petra? Anezka? Magda? Rose? Rafael? Swashbuckler Sean? Were they also behind the attempted sabotage of the Marbella's expansion? It gives the show a lot to play with in the coming weeks and I can't remember the last time I was excited about the more overtly telenovella stuff in the show.

-Hey, Minka Kelley is here! She's plays Rafael's long-term girlfriend who owns a greeting card company and who has never fought with Rafael. She gets almost nothing to do in this episode (Which the narrator points out when she pops up near the episode's end) but hopefully that changes soon.

-Jane and Mateo are back living in the Villaneuva home with Alba, which is totally understandable but I hope Jane gets out of there again before the season ends, if only so we can finally explore the idea of Alba having to live on her own that the last episode feinted towards.

-If there was any doubt that Jennie Urman and the "Jane" writers know what they're doing, hopefully this stellar episode erased them. It's a new chapter for "Jane" and it's different, but still beautiful.

Jane The Virgin Looks To The Future in Chapter 54

-Generally I don't put spoiler warnings in my reviews because I figure it's a given that there will be spoilers but if you have not seen last night's "Jane", I would stop reading now unless you have no intention of ever watching it because seriously... SPOILERS!

-Um, wow. I don't even know where to start. This week in titles, I guess: Jane The Mom Covered In Vomit... Who Has A Cool New Job Opportunity!

-Ten episodes into the first season of Jane The Virgin, Michael, who was currently broken up from Jane, tells Xo that he'll never stop believing that he and Jane belong together, prompting this ominous line from the narrator that served as the episode's cliffhanger: "And for as long as Michael lived, until he drew his very last breath, he never did." Those words have hung over Michael's time on the show ever since, warning us not to get too detached because at some point he would draw his final breath. It was only a question of when. The problem was it was hard not to get attached to Michael. Brett Dier gave such a winning, likeable performance and he and Jane were so good together that Michael's initial character flaws eventually faded away and only the most hardcore of hardcore Rafael fans weren't eventually won over by sweet, loveable, beam of pure goodness Michael (I held out until the middle of the second season). So when the second season ended on him being shot in the chest on his and Jane's wedding night it was a gut punch of an ending that made the wait for season 3 almost unbearable, and when he pulled through in the season 3 premiere, it was such a relief that it was easy to put the fact that he was still going to die out of mind, even with the ominous hints that things weren't going to work out like Jane and Michael were planning. So when Michael suddenly drops dead out of the blue upon completing the LSATs, the victim of an Aortic Dissection that resulted from stress put on his heart following his shooting a few months back, it's absolutely devastating and totally unexpected, even with all the warnings and foreshadowing.

-Kudos to The CW advertising department for not hinting what an eventful episode this was going to be. Often when it comes to big moments on shows like this, especially the death of a major character, advertising is all over it with promises of an "unforgettable episode" to make sure ratings are as big as possible at the expense of the element of surprise (When Grey's Anatomy did a similar big death a couple years back, the promos basically spelled the whole thing out for us.). Going into Chapter Fifty-Four though, it seemed like the biggest thing that would happen would be lots of discussion about Rogelio's penis. That made the big moment much more shocking when it came.

-The thing that's really surprising about Michael's death is how ordinary and random it is. Because he was often tied to the more fantastical crime elements of the show, it seemed a given that he would die in heroic fashion, trying to bring Sin Rostro to justice or something like that. Yet, while you can trace his death back to the dramatic shooting at the end of the 2nd season, the suddenness and mundane nature of his death is a stark shot of reality into the fantastical world of Jane The Virgin. People don't just drop dead of a simple heart condition in telenovellas and yet here we are.

-I seldom ever cry and I made it through the collapse and the fading of Michael's heartlight all right, but I came incredibly close to full-on tears in the scene where Jane gets the news about Michael. Gina Rodriguez is terrific week in and week out and she is absolutely heartbreaking here. It starts with the look on her face right before her phone tumbles out of her hand and goes to the way she drops to the ground uncontrollably sobbing with a guttural scream that's going to haunt me for a while. You fully believe that this woman has just lost the love of her life and it's that moment that the reality that Michael has actually, truly died sets in.

-It's obvious in retrospect that the episode was building up to Michael's death. The episode opens on a Michael flashback instead of a Jane one, there's a lot of emphasis on memory and how we remember how we feel about the big moments, we spend a long time following Jane and Michael recreating their first date, showing how far they've come as a couple and serving as kind of a final tribute to their relationship, and there's a lot of focus on planning for the future, courtesy of a pregnancy false alarm that gets Jane and Michael thinking about moving up the timetable on their family. There's even a discussion about reliable and unreliable narrators, which reminds us of all the things the narrator promised would happen and whether we could trust him (Turns out we can.). It's subtle enough and typical enough for the show that if you didn't know what was coming, you wouldn't notice how you were being set up for it. The biggest indicator that something is about to go down is the memory spotlight (One of the better visual motifs the show has come up with) on Michael as he goes out the door after Jane tells him how proud she is, which becomes very significant once you realize this is the last time Jane will ever see Michael.

-I hope Jennie Urman and team realize that they can never use the heartlight motif again after making the audience watch Michael's (which is connected to Jane's in keeping with the "final breath" thing) go out. There's no way they'll ever be able to top that moment in terms of sheer emotional power.

-Of course Michael's death is only the first big twist "Jane" springs on us. As the narrator announces that we are at the end of Book 2 (Book 1 was the first season), Book 3 kicks off three years later with Jane and 4 and a half year old Mateo getting ready for a wedding. The time jump is smart for a few reasons, the biggest being that "Jane" is a comedy that has always been committed to honestly exploring the emotions of the characters. So if we were to explore Jane's grief in real time, it would either totally consume the tone of the show, which would drag down the quality or it'd be pushed aside in a way that'd be unfair to Jane's relationship with Michael. So by jumping ahead, the show allows itself the chance to have Jane farther along in the healing process, while still being free to jump back in time and show how she got to this point.

-The other good thing about the time jump is it allows the characters the time to have actually gone through with some significant changes. Rafael spends the episode trying to decide if he should just plead guilty and go to jail for those white collar crimes it turns out the show hadn't forgot about. If the show was continuing in real time, clearly he wouldn't wind up in jail because the show couldn't keep him offscreen for very long but with the jump, now he can go to jail for a time and we can catch up with him having gone through that. Likewise, it was hard to get invested in Xo and Rogelio's relationships with Bruce and Darci because it seemed clear that they'd eventually break up but the jump opens the possibility of those relationships continuing and thriving for three years. Xo goes into the jump ready to move in with Bruce having smoothed things over with Tess (Thanks to how she handled things with Bruce after Tess showed up at Jane's drunk) and Rogelio goes into it having shown Darci he cares about her enough to star in her reality show with her, even if that wasn't how he planned his acting career to go (After some more penis-related silliness and a hilarious rant that goes viral). Could one of them be the ones getting married? It's possible (I hope it's Rogelio and Darci, because I've become a huge De La Vega Factor shipper. All of the storylines in this episode set up promising possibilities for the future and now we get to see what became of those possibilities. It's very exciting.

-Before Jane gets that devastating phone call, she gets much, much, much better news when she secures a job as a publisher's assistant. After all she went through to get this job (Which she was able to secure even after accidentally sending naked pictures of Rogelio instead of the treatment she was supposed to submit thanks to help from Michael), it doesn't seem likely that she would quit it, even after the death of Michael. That means we'll get to see Jane further along in her quest to be a writer (hopefully), which I'm assuming will eventually lead her to write the books of the show we're watching (Hence why the show is putting things in books and all the literary references).

-Scott and Anezka are out and in the open now that they have Emilio's will to hold over Petra's head. The consequences of restoring that will have yet to happen but since we now know for sure that the narrator is reliable, the other shoe is bound to drop sooner or later.

-Also Rose is back, with a new identity (Eileen) and actress (Welcome Elisabeth Röhm). Turns out Luisa couldn't quit Rose after all and after taking the face of a woman she paid 10 million dollars to take a bunch of medical tests to satisfy Rafael and then leave the country, Rose is ready to give up crime for the love of her life. Based on how she threatened the woman though, that might not be so easy for Rose. This isn't going to end well.

-I'm going to miss Brett Dier. I wasn't a fan of Michael at all in the beginning, but Brett's earnest, goofy, loving performance wore me down and won me over. As Michael became more and more of a saint, I became concerned that he might grow boring as a character, but Dier always made him interesting a human, even as he grew more and more perfect. "Jane" just won't be the same without him.

-Following the episode, show creator Jennie Urman published this open letter to fans, where she gives tribute to Brett Dier and explains why Michael had to die and why we've jumped ahead three years. It's well worth a read if you still need help processing things.

-Seriously, for all the pain at the end, this was an incredible episode of television and I can't wait to see where the show goes from here.

Jane The Virgin Deals With Stress In Chapter 53

-This week in titles: Jane The Super Stressed Wife-Mother-Writer

-When you're in a time of transition and change, whether finishing your thesis novel, getting ready to switch careers to a difficult or challenging path, bringing something to a satisfying end, or just dealing with all the nonsense that plagues the world daily, stress is natural. It's honestly a miracle that the characters on "Jane" aren't in a 24/7 state of perpetual stress with all the craziness they seem to deal with on a daily basis. That doesn't mean they're completely stress-free though and Chapter Fifty-Three is a strong look at stress, how to deal with it, and most importantly how to share it.

-The episode starts by immediately establishing what's stressing out Jane and Michael: Michael is planning to take the LSATs in a few weeks and isn't great at testing, while Jane has a deadline coming up on a draft of her novel. The two establish a Church (Jane, of course)/State (Michael) workload separation to avoid stressing the other one out, complete with one of Jane's patented study calendars but while it works for a couple weeks, it's apparent that it's not a sustainable situation, especially when Bruce (Ugh, Bruce) tells Jane about all the pressure and strain that becoming a lawyer put on his marriage.

-When you're married, you're supposed to be able to tell your spouse anything, but when Jane attempts to talk to Michael about her concerns and worries, he's unable to hear it because of all the pressure he's under and reacts poorly. Although he apologizes later and assures Jane that she can come from him, that one bad reaction is enough for Jane to decide to find other outlets to try and relieve her mounting stress. After all, actions speak louder than words and there's no guarantee that Michael won't lash out again. So even as her own problems keep building up and up, she doesn't confide in Michael.

-The episode sets up another possible conflict between Jane and Alba as Jane worries about how her grandmother will react to the finished version of the book Jane based on her life. After a few scenes of Jane and Xo trying to sneak around her though as they try to figure out what to do, Alba takes matters into her own hands and reading it herself. The surprising thing though is how much she loves the book. Ivonne Coll is always an all-star on the show and the scene where she tearfully tells Jane that everything she went through with her family was worth it if the end result of all that pain was this book is one of her best. The other nifty thing about the potential conflict being a non-starter is it helps to shine a light on Jane's own fears about finishing the book and shows how she's looking for any excuse to change it or edit it or do anything but hand it in. This thesis is Jane's first real step in becoming a writer and if she fails at this, she has no idea what's going to happen especially with Michael's severance a few months away from running out and Rafael's financial situation potentially about to change. So she keeps trying to put it off as long as possible so she doesn't have to face a reality that might not be good for her.

-The clever trick "Jane" does with it's church/state separation is that we spend all of our time with Jane, only really gleaning insight into Michael's situation from her perspective since we're not following him to his practice LSATs or watching him try to study without her there. So when the two wind up stranded in traffic on the way to a law school interview Michael's supposed to have and forced to go camping, it's a genuine surprise when Michael reveals that he's been failing his practice LSATs and doesn't think he'll get into law school. It turns out that Jane wasn't the only one not confiding her concerns in her spouse for fear of how they'd react. It suddenly casts all of Michael's actions this episode in a new light and allows for the pair to finally openly communicate. As they lie under the stars going over what the actual worst-case scenario for the pair failing at the LSATs/novel would be (They'd move back into the Villaneuva household and slowly push Xo and Alba out so they could have it all to themselves), it's a sweet scene between the pair that feels genuinely earned. Even the narrator can't bring himself to try and spoil it.

-The lack of communication between Jane and Michael also manifests in Mateo who isn't speaking as many words as other kids his age. This adds to Jane's stress in the episode but once she and Michael are finally honest with each other, Mateo says his first non-Mama or Dada word and you know things are going to be OK. For now at least.

-When Petra was initially put into that coma, I had my doubts about the storyline but the aftermath as we watch her try to get her life back together after going through something incredibly traumatic and scarring has been excellent. Last week, the show very convincingly suggested that Petra was back to her old villainous habits but the truth turns out to be much more complex and rewarding. All those cameras she planted at Rafael's last episode weren't because she was looking for something to blackmail him with, they were because she can't trust anything anyone tells her anymore so she's been using the cameras to get the truth. She spends the episode trying to get ahold of the addendum to Emilio's will not so that she can use it before Rafael probates it but that so she can destroy it. Not being around her daughters for months has undone all the progress she was finally making with them so she wants to ensure that they'll at least be financially secure. It's a strong development that plays off her character arc so far as well as her long history with Rafael. The two have been at odds for week, but now that Rafael sees the full extent of how damaged Petra's been by what happened to her, he's able to connect with her again and convince her to get the help she needs.

-With Petra as complex and human as ever, no criminal investigations to follow, Magda out of sight and out of mind, and Rose still off the grid, the show needs a chaotic telenovella element to come from somewhere and it comes from the delightful pairing of Anezka and Scott, secretly together and newly married. Scott steals and fixes the shredded will so they can use it as blackmail leverage to start a new life together, free of fear that Petra will get back at Anezka for not leaving the country. Their motivations are understandable and even fairly easy to sympathize with, but the narrator ominously implies that their scheming is going to have serious consequences. Whatever happens though, it should be a lot of fun to watch. At the start of this season, I never would've predicted I'd be invested in the shenanigans of Scott, but Wes Armstrong is a joy to watch and he has great chemistry with Yael Grobglas, no matter which sister she's playing.

-It is interesting that Rafael was planning to probate the will instead of hide it like it initially seemed he might do. It just goes to show how much he's grown and learnt from his past mistakes in hiding things.

-Catalina makes her final appearance for now and the show finally defines her character as a Petra-esque opportunist, hanging around Rafael to try and find a way to profit off of him. Despite all that shadiness though, she's not a bad person, just an untrustworthy one. She only goes along with Petra's plan because she's angry with Jane and she and Rafael manage to actually bond and make a connection, causing her to come clean about the whole thing. With all the sudden depth she's given (Though she didn't vote in Brexit because she didn't think it would pass, which is... ugh.) it's surprising when Rafael ultimately chooses to end the relationship because she's untrustworthy. Good personal growth Raf! I have a feeling she'll be back though as there's no way Jane finishing her book is the end of our time exploring Alba's estranged family.

-Rogelio has some stress of his own to deal with this week as he tries to find a way forward with Darci in light of the emotional boner (#emoner) he's gotten from her and also has to deal with the end of Tiago. Rogelio's telenovellas always work best when they're acting as a parallel to whatever he or the other characters are dealing with this week and Rogelio's inability to agree to an ending for the last episode of Tiago works well as a metaphor for his trouble with Darci and their possible family. The "back to the beginning" ending won't work because Rogelio doesn't want to go back to the same baby business agreement Darci is insisting on. The 2001-homage ending won't work because Rogelio doesn't want to be alone and adrift out in space. Just like Jane and Michael, it's only when he and Darci communicate openly and honestly that he's able to solve his problem and land on the perfect ending.

-I cannot say enough about how great Justina Machado is. We see some real vulnerability from Darci this week as she sees how close Rogelio is with Xo and tries to use it as an excuse to push him away back into their original agreement, even though she's excited to go out with him. Darci likes to present herself as being above baggage and insecurities, but it's clear she has just as much as Rogelio, she just prefers to keep it all bottled up under the surface. It almost costs her everything, but at the end she and Rogelio decide to push forward as an actual couple. If this means we get even more Darci, I'm totally on board with this.

-Ending Tiago at the beginning of time with Tiago and his lover the first people on earth is just such a ridiculous over-the-top way to end a show and it's perfect. I can't imagine Tiago ending any other way.

-Catalina takes Petra's watch as part of her deal to get Rafael away from the hotel for a night and the narrator can't let go of what a weird request that is. Oh Narrator, never change.

Jane The Virgin Tries To Stop Meddling in Chapter 52

-This weeks title: Jane The Person Who Really Hates Bruce (Those last three words practically hit the screen). Jane The Meddler also would've fit because this episode was all about meddling.

-It's surprising it's taken this long to get to an episode about Jane's constant inserting of herself into the problems of everyone around her. This has been one of her most persistent character traits throughout the shows run and Chapter Fifty-Two finally takes her to task for it, showing how harmful it can be, but also showing that if her heart in in the right place then her meddling can be helpful and even necessary, as long as it's with the right person.

-One thing that's clear is that it's high time for Jane to stop meddling with her mother's life and let Xo deal with her own decisions. This is the main thrust of the episode as Jane tries to deal with the fact that Xo is back to dating Bruce, the man who broke her heart over and over again. Jane wants to be OK with it, but despite the constant reminders of Michael's "Let It Bee" sock puppet, she can't keep herself from interfering. Jane spent most of her life having to take care of her mother and be the adult. Now Jane has her own family and Xo is finally becoming capable of taking care of herself and is more than able to decide for herself if she can handle being back with Bruce but Jane still can't break the habit of taking care of Xo. The relationship with Bruce might end poorly, but it's not up to Jane to keep it from going forward. Even when Jane uses her meddling powers for good at the end and is able to convince Bruce's daughter Tess to give the relationship a chance, Xo rightfully points out that Jane shouldn't have been the one who did that (No matter what other sock puppet Bette Meddler said). Jane stood up for her mother, but didn't give Xo the chance to do that for herself and the show doesn't let her off the hook for that.

-Tess makes for a nice counterpoint to Jane, as the show continues to remind us that Xo's situation with Bruce was complicated and destructive for everyone involved, not just her. Jane may have had to watch Beaches with Xo, every time Bruce broke her heart, but Xo was the other woman in Bruce's marriage and the catalyst for Bruce ultimately deciding to end the marriage. Of course Tess is going to hate Xo even more than Jane hates Bruce. She's a 16-Year-Old kid who had her family torn apart because of this woman. This makes Tess much more interesting than if her meanness and negativity towards Xo was unjustified and it'll be interesting to see how Xo interacts with Tess.

-Where Jane's meddling is much more welcome is with Michael, who quits his job after deciding he just can't spend the rest of his career on desk duty. Michael was born to be a cop and now that he can't, he's feeling adrift. This leads him to consider trying to become a stand-up comic. Of course, while Brett Dier is a pretty solid impressionist, it's clear that Michael isn't really cut out to be a stand-up. Jane lets him go through with it though, because she's trying not to meddle, even though telling your husband not to get up on a stage full of people with a set full of goofy impressions of fictional characters pretending to be other fictional characters is probably a good choice.

-Michael's stand-up set was the big comedic setpiece of the episode and it was handled nicely. Michael doesn't bomb but he doesn't blow anyone away either. He does his jokes and they're pretty amusing (I particularly enjoyed Spongebob as the Somali pirate in Captain Phillips and Dame Judy Dench as Scarface), and his family loves them so it doesn't matter what the others in the crowd think. He's a bit embarrassed afterwards but not terribly so and it ultimately leads to his decision to become a lawyer, which could be much more interesting.

-Jane also isn't the only one who meddles as Xo finds herself struggling to support Rogelio's decision to have a child with Darci Factor. It's a good parallel to Jane's storyline that the show doesn't really hit on the head. Xo doesn't agree with Rogelio's decision and thinks it's weird, but is able to come to support it in the end once she and Darci talk and she understands that this arrangement might actually go well for everyone.

-Justina Machado continues to be terrific as Darci and I hope this arrangement with Rogelio does work out and she sticks around for a good long while. She and Jaime Camill have excellent chemistry and their characters complement each other perfectly. She's just as over-the-top and self-obsessed as Rogelio, but she's also a straight shooter with no time for nonsense. She's a perfect fit for the world of "Jane" and her storyline with Rogelio is just the right boost of levity for the show.

-Of course, it turns out Rogelio is going to have a harder time than Darci keeping emotions out of it. The show's been setting up his big full-frontal scene for a while now and the pay-off of him realizing he's attracted to Darci coming at the most inconvenient time (When she's watching him shoot his big scene and he gets a hard-on during filming) is comedy gold. And they say you can't tell a good boner joke anymore.

-I had been a bit disappointed at how easily Rafael wrestled control of the Marbella back from Petra so I was glad to see that it was only the beginning. Rafael's mostly a good guy but he can make a lot of questionable decisions and trying to exploit Petra's recent trauma to make her feel like she's paranoid about his colluding with Scott was a real low blow from him (Which the show pointed out). It feels like Petra's motivation for being mad at Rafael is constantly shifting based on what the plot needs it to be, but it makes sense why this particular betrayal would sting the most. After all she's been through, Petra is having a hard time trusting anyone or anything right now and Rafael made her question her own judgement and lose faith in herself instead of being honest.

-What Rafael did is cruel, but it also makes sense given all he's going through right now. Confronting the fact that his parents aren't his real parents and his whole identity is a lie is heavy stuff. Making matters worse is the fact that suddenly, all those times his father was dismissive and unsupportive of him take on a brutal new light. No wonder he's making people question themselves, he's going through the exact same thing. It doesn't excuse his actions, but it keeps him from coming off as totally unlikeable here.

-The narrator's concerns that Rafael might not be rich anymore are played off as a joke when they first surface but turn out to be foreshadowing an amendment to Emilio's will that states only his biological children are entitled to his estate. It's a brutal little twist that sets up quite the dilemma for Rafael, especially since Petra planted cameras everywhere and is also in possession of this information. Could Rafael lose everything? Probably for a few episodes at least. I'm sure the prospect of a penniless Rafael is just too rife with storytelling possibilities for the writers to pass up. It'll be interesting to see where things go from here.

-I'm starting to get a bit tired with how the writers are dragging out the "Is Catalina Shady" storyline. The french guy turns out to be her husband Arnaud who she's divorcing because she rushed into the marriage, and who she tells Rafael about at a trying-not-to-meddle Jane's advice. Except Jane sees her kissing Arnaud later except it was maybe just a friendly kiss? Ultimately Rafael keeps dating her and Jane vows to stay out of it (Good decision Jane) but it still seems like there's something sketchy going on with her and I wish the writers would just tell us already.

-So with the narrator's ominous proclamation about Michael not fulfilling his new dream of opening a law firm, the writers are now actively trolling us. The show really wants us to believe that Michael is going to die at some point, but it feels unlikely it would happen so soon after they almost killed him off at the start of the season. Maybe law school doesn't work out or he goes back on the force? Probably the latter because I also don't think he'll be gone from the police force forever.

-If you want to see more of Justina Machado (and you should), definitely check out the Netflix remake of One Day At A Time that came out a couple weeks back. She's terrific in it. Rita Moreno (who plays Rogelio's mom on "Jane") is also on the show as Machado's character's mom, meaning her two children (from two different shows) are now planning to have a baby. Which is kind of weird, but whatevs.

-"I'm with her." "I was too... along with the rest of the popular vote". Best out of nowhere joke of the episode by far, although I also really loved the shout-out to The Americans.