When Jane the Virgin first debuted two years ago, I was sceptical to say the least. A show about a virgin who gets accidentally inseminated and becomes pregnant? How could that possibly be good? So despite fairly positive buzz I opted to ignore it. I was watching enough shows that year and just didn't have time to watch something that sounded that dumb. Then about six weeks later, I found myself with nothing to do one afternoon and tried the first episode on a lark. I was immediately hooked, caught up with the other episodes aired in one sitting and never missed an episode again. That's because despite the goofy title and terrible-sounding initial premise, Jane the Virgin (which is about to start it's 3rd season tonight and which I'll be trying to write about week to week) is one of TV's best shows, expertly blending over-the-top Telenovella-style soap opera plotting and crazy drama with strong characters, and a charmingly self-aware sense of humour into a very addictive mixture that's a must-watch.
As mentioned earlier, the initial premise of Jane The Virgin (Created by Jennie Snyder Urman and loosely adapted from the Venezuelan Telenovella Juana la virgen) is a little ridiculous. Jane Villanueva (played by Gina Rodriguez, who won a Golden Globe for her performance) is a young waitress with aspirations of writerdom who lives with her devoted but irresponsible mother Xiomara, or "Xo", (Andrea Navedo) and her devoted and very religious grandmother Alba (Ivonne Coll), who instilled in her a protectiveness of her virginity at a young age. Jane has a loving police detective boyfriend Michael (Brett Dier) who plans to marry her. One day all her plans are thrown off course when she goes in for a routine pap smear and gets accidentally artificially inseminated, becoming pregnant. Complicating things is the fact that the "father" Rafael Solano (Justin Baldoni) owns The Marbella, the hotel Jane works at and is both a former crush of Jane's and the half-brother of Luisa (Yara Martinez), the doctor who inseminated Jane instead of Petra (Yael Grobglas), Rafael's gold-digging wife with a secretive past. Also Jane's father Rogelio (Jaime Camil), a famous Telenovella star who never knew about Jane has finally learned about her from Xo and wants to be part of her life. Also The Marbella and possibly Rafael's family are connected to an elusive crime lord named Sin Rostro who Michael is investigating. And that's just the first episode. The show only gets bigger and crazier from there with more twists and turns than you could ever count.
If that sounds insanely complicated and impenetrable, it surprisingly isn't, thanks to a couple key factors. The first is the presence of the Latin Love Narrator (Anthony Mendez), a Third-person mostly Omniscient narrator who keeps the story moving, explaining or recapping things we might be confused about, while offering his own commentary on the story as it unfolds. It's maybe the best, most entertaining use of narration ever deployed on television, and never detracts or obtrudes on the action too much. Mendez gives The Narrator a vibrant, welcoming personality that makes it feel like he's right beside you watching the action unfold with you. The other key to keeping this all accessible is that while the situations are ridiculous and wild, the characters emotions are grounded and real and the show never loses track of that for the most part (The one exception being the crime element, which is grounded in character on occasion but can get pretty tedious and disconnected from everything else at times, especially in the second season.). So even when things are at their most heightened (Typically, when Rogelio or Petra is involved), you have a clear understanding of the emotions of the characters and that's usually enough to get you through it.
There's a lot to love about Jane The Virgin and the most important thing is Jane herself. Gina Rodriguez brings to life a fully-formed, multi-faceted human being who is the kind of complex female lead we need more of on television. Rodriguez brings a warmth and a relatability to Jane that invites instant empathy for the character. Jane is our entry-point into this crazy world and Rodriguez's grounded performance helps keep things from spiralling too far out of reality. Being the grounded one doesn't mean she has to be devoid of personality and there's plenty of spark to Jane's. Jane has a passion for everything she loves from her family to her writing to grilled cheese sandwiches and this passion is allowed to manifest itself in many ways, including anger, frustration, and despair that help add to our impression of Jane as a person. After two seasons, you can pretty much guess how Jane is going to react to most situations, but Rodriguez keeps it from getting repetitive by constantly finding new nuances to Jane. And when she really gets a chance to cut loose in the shows many fantasy sequences, she becomes even more of a delight, whether being the "romance novel" version of Jane or showing off her various skills such as dancing or rapping.
Also bolstering the show is how it approaches it's main love triangle between Jane, Michael, and Rafael. Like any good love triangle, both men are different in a lot of ways. Michael's a detective with a goofy side and his interactions with Jane suggest a deep connection and a lived-in history between them. Rafael's a former playboy with a lot of pain in his past who's a bit more guarded, but he's very encouraging of Jane's dreams and brings out a different kind of passion in her while being a great father (in season 2) to boot. And although the show begins with Rafael being shown in a more positive light than Michael, it soon equalizes things so that both men are good and viable choices for Jane, despite their flaws. Viewers will probably switch "teams" as it were a few times throughout the show (I certainly have). The most important thing the show does with the love triangle though is make it so that whether you're on Team Michael or Team Rafael, you're first and foremost on Team Jane so that when she does make her final decision (and she makes it partway through the second season), you're happy for her and willing to give it a shot even if it wasn't the choice you would've made.
Of course the other important thing about how Jane The Virgin handles it's love triangle is that the love triangle isn't at the core of the show. The most important relationships in Jane's life are the ones with her family. Jane, Xo, and Alba have a bond and a love that feels real and which is given weight by many of the flashback scenes that start off every episode. Xo and Alba could've felt like caricatures of the "flighty, irresponsible parent" and the "tough, religiously devout grandparent" respectively (Ivonne Coll even played that caricature on Glee a few years back). Instead they feel like real people as human and flawed as Jane is, with Alba's faith being treated as seriously as Xo's dreams of being a singer. The show is as interested in Xo trying to be a better mother or Alba's fight to get legal status after years of being an undocumented immigrant as it is in Jane navigating pregnancy and parenthood. So when Xo and Alba or Xo and Jane or Jane and Alba fight, it hurts a lot more to watch than when Jane is fighting with Michael or Rafael. The Villanueva women's relationship with Rogelio as he enters or re-enters their lives is also compelling. Jaime Camill is playing the broadest, most comedic character on the show: an actor with a big ego and little self-awareness, but he gives Rogelio enough depth and nuance to avoid feeling out of place on the show. Rogelio's desire to have a family and be part of Jane's life is the most important thing about him and comes through even with his wackier subplots.
Another great thing about Jane the Virgin is how pretty much every character, no matter how one-note eventually gets depth and empathy, from trainwreck Luisa to even Sin Rostro. This is especially true of Petra (Yael Grobglas), who could easily come off as a one-dimensional villain, but doesn't thanks to a surprisingly genuine love of Rafael and a lot of pain in her past, that makes it easy to feel bad for her even when she's at her most villainous in season 1. Petra often gets straddled with the soapier elements on the show (A manipulative, seemingly wheel-chair bound mother who might be the exception to the "everyone gets depth" rule and a psychotic ex-boyfriend or two for starters), but Grobglas keeps things from getting too wild by giving Petra a fierce dignity that makes her real, even as she's caught up in stories about blackmail and evil twins. She also gets to show real pathos in season two as Petra struggles with a complex real-life issue I dare not spoil here.
Jane The Virgin is also a very creative show and that creativity comes through in every ounce of the production. The show splashes it's Miami setting with a burst of colour that makes every episode a visual delight. On-screen text constantly pops up on screen for extra joke or to add emphasis to certain points or hashtags to use so you constantly need to pay attention to the screen. The show is comfortable with having a good portion of it's dialogue in Spanish, which Alba speaks almost exclusively, adding extra realism to the characters. Glimpses of Rogelio's Telenovella projects will tie into the plot and themes of the episode in surprising ways. Episodes will makes use of various narrative gimmicks and conceits, ranging from small things like a growing light over Jane's heart in an early episode as her feelings for Rafael grow or Wrestling title cards popping up in an episode where many of the characters are in conflict to big things like a season 2 episode that spans six months or past versions of Jane and Rafael that advise her when the two are facing serious conflict late in season 1 or the show depicting short stories Jane is writing for a grad school exercise. You never know what to expect when watching Jane and that unpredictability becomes half the fun.
Look, blending grounded human stories about family and growing up with high-concept soap opera craziness shouldn't work but Jane the Virgin does. It also shouldn't be as nearly a consistent show as it is, but I have yet to dislike or be disappointed by the show 44 episodes in. Not every element of it works, but the overall performances and writing are so strong, that the little grievances pale in comparison to the whole. So don't make the mistake of letting the title throw you off the way it threw me off. Give Jane The Virgin a shot. You just might fall in love.
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