Hi, friends!
“Now it’s all good!”
GIFs from emliaclake
It us
Here’s a recap of the best show on TV!
AWARDS
THIS WEEK’S MVP(arent)
Can it be a four-way tie between all the new parents/Michael? Everyone was so mature and invested in the well-being and futures of all the various baby’s and, in turn, with their own interpersonal relationships.
WAY TO GO, EVERYONE. I truly love you all, even you, Ms. “Nah I’m good, I changed a diaper a few days ago,” even you.
BEST TELENOVELA TWIST
Oh, gee, is Derek actually a shady d-bag who’s going to ruin Raf’s life? No one saw that coming!!!
For the real award, though: Anezka/Yael Grobglas is still such a gift. I legit kept KEEP forgetting Anezka and Petra are played by the same actress, and I appreciate the fact that the writers are mixing up the catalysts for high stakes drama by making her naïve and clumsily well-intentioned, rather than just one more Machiavellian conniver to drop into the Marbella from on high.
BEST PRODUCT PLACEMENT
Daaaaaamn, Daniel! (I.e., low-key product placement for white Vans).
I COULD make a joke about the snail’s pace of network television to pick up the Youth’s newest slang and/or memes, but tbh, even though two months is INFINITY in internet time, in TV time that is like, barely the length of a single Vine. And, I would bet money that a full 90% of Jane‘s audience had never heard of Daniel or his white Vans before Monday night, and now are getting to experience the immediate affection for the goofy affection of teen boys that we all fell in love with in February, so as far as I’m concerned? A solid win.
Runner-up: A totally random and totally perfect low-key shoutout to the noir stoner classic, The Big Lebowski. The Dude DOES abide, Mateo!
PREVIOUSLY ON JANE THE VIRGIN
Jane and Michael are right on the cusp of getting married, while Xiomara and Rogelio are still recovering from breaking off their own (short-lived) engagement—Xo by not changing or maturing in any measurable way, and Ro by getting it on with his old telenovela’s head writer. Rafael is really, probably, truly almost cool with Jane and Michael being a thing (and leasing a house together!), but not enough to let the fact that Mateo’s first dada was directed at Michael, not him, and so has requested more Mateo-time each week to help forge a strong father-son bond. Speaking of Raf’s family bonds, he is also currently juggling new ones with his surprise half-criminal half-brother, Derek; his brand new (also surprise) twin baby daughters, Anna and Elsa (let it go); and his baby-mama Petra’s surprise long-lost twin sister, Anezka. It’s a full house at the Marbella! Not least because all the Villanuevas are living there, as their home is still undergoing extensive remodeling post-curse flood.
THIS WEEK
Yaaassss (Financial Planning) Queen
Here’s a shocker: seven-year old Jane saved all the money she ever got “in case of an emergency,” and only caved to spending any of it in order to buy a second piggy bank. This really could have gone the wrenchingly realistic direction of “young girl living in a small, old house with an underemployed single mom and undocumented grandma and very little regular income develops issues about money and chronically overcompensates,” but the show backed away too quickly from the last #realtalk issue between overly-responsible Jane and embarrassingly-immature Xo for them to commit to that read, so instead, it is just Baby!Jane being practical and adorable. Just like current Jane is practical and adorable, buying practical and adorable giraffe rugs for Mateo’s new bedroom!
Helping her fill her virtual cart full of all the new house things is Michael, whose eagerly supportive attitude towards all aspects of this process—including Jane’s inclination to over-value the life-changing potential of a giraffe rug in Mateo’s future life aspirations—is so warm and great that I am ALMOST willing to overlook his use of the phrase “spirit animal.” No, Michael. No.
Anyway, the rug goes in the cart, and the total price goes up up up, and Jane reels back in apprehension. But they have two incomes now, Michael reminds her, and it’s their first home together, and anyway, there’s Mateo’s future zoology career to think of… And so Jane relents, mostly. She at least agrees to leave everything in the cart overnight to think about, which both Michael and I can totally dig.
And then: disaster. In the form of the room service cart, delivered with the day’s newspaper, on which front page Michael’s giant face is printed on BOTH sides of the fold as visual aid to a giant takedown piece on the corruption running all through the Miami PD/Michael’s many crimelord investigations. And like, dude, yeah, that sucks, but also…fair. You have KIND OF BEEN CORRUPTED by the process and by your many and tangled associations with the Solanos, Michael! And you have KIND OF BOTCHED some pretty major aspects of the investigation, mistakes which could have been avoided (on your part) by being a bit more introspective and honest about your own limitations and (on the Miami PD’s part) by having greater institutional oversight over the whole operation. Like…you can’t honestly be surprised that the general citizenry of the city might not be too happy with your work (“work”) on this case. You just can’t.
“I don’t understand! Where is all this coming from???” Jane exclaims. “There’s got to be a mole in the police department,” Michael replies, to his credit (or…against his credit? I honestly dek) taking her question to mean “how did this journalist get a hold of all of these details about our many institutional failures,” and not “why would this journalist even come to all these damning conclusions.” Because, like, duh. As endeared as I am to Michael on Jane’s behalf these days, damning conclusions are the only kind that any sane person getting even half the details of Michael’s Sin Rostro/Mutter investigations could possible come to.
Anyway, righteous as the journalist’s intentions are or not, Jane is completely on Michael’s side. Don’t worry! she tells him. It will all blow over soon! she tells him. Most police departments in this country are SO MUCH WORSE AT THEIR JOBS than yours! she tells him. Today’s news is tomorrow’s trash! she tells him. But today’s news is also today’s trash, the united front sees when they step out of Jane’s room and see Michael’s face waiting on the carpet outside every room in the hotel’s hall. And today will be a lot to get through.
BRO.
In case you forgot (how could you possibly forget), one of those rooms in one of those hotel halls belongs currently to Derek Ruvelle, Rafael’s smirking dbag of a half-brother, whom Rafael had been, until recently, secretly spying on as part of Michael’s new Mutter investigation. “Did you tell them about my boat??” Derek demands, throwing the paper down on Rafael’s desk. “NO,” Raf responds, not technically lying. “Well, you’re the only one who knew it even existed,” Derek spits back, before storming out of the office to attend to his job of, I dunno, brooding atmospherically in the lobby?
SIS.
Up in the twins’ nursery, Petra is finally taking her turn…at complaining about the Miami PD/Michael hit job, and how it has once more dragged the Marbella name through mud. She is most definitely NOT taking her turn at changing diapers. No, she’s already done that once this week, so, you know, she’s good. “But I can hold Anna for you and tell her how cute she is while you change her sister!” she offers, graciously. “…Elsa,” Raf corrects. “Right right right, cool cool,” Petra says. “But names are much less important than money and love, in that order, specifically regarding the girls’ trust funds and their standing relative to Mateo, so.”
As Raf is assuring Petra that Anna and Elsa’s trust funds have been set up exactly the same way as Mateo’s, Anezka comes in, wearing a Marbella waitress uniform. Yes, the emotionally scarred, non-natively English-speaking orphan with such poor people skills that she will just as soon steal your wallet as scratch your face, she’s the returned Solano sibling who is actually being made to work daily shifts on the hotel floor to earn her room and board. “I feel like princess!” she croons, at which Petra scoffs, at which Raf stands up for Anezka, at which Anezka’s heart glows hot in her chest.
“But how’s she’s doing, really?” Raf whispers once Anezka has fled the room in lovestruck embarrassment. “Scott says she’s great!” Petra responds.
Scott, obviously, is lying. Because Anezka, obviously, is not fit to interact with chi-chi hotel patrons one-on-one, with what was apparently zero training whatsoever. Just HOW poorly suited is Anezka to waitressing in a fancy Miami hotel? Let us count the ways: she tries spoon-feeding patrons the remains of the meals they’ve finished (because in her country, even those leftovers are a feast); she removes onions from patrons’ food with her fingers and cradles them in her palms when told the patron asked to “hold the onions”; she plucks ice cubes from glasses, again with her fingers; she sneezes on food right as she is delivering it to a table; when told patrons wanted no ice; she smiles like a devil has possessed her soul.
Meanwhile, Derek is, presumably, doing shots poolside.
Anezka’s poor waitressing affects not just the patrons, but the entire hotel staff. The waitresses split their tips, so all are suffering for Anezka’s net zero contribution, and Scott can’t fire Anezka, so he takes out his frustration on the other girls. Jane argues right back, safe as she too is in her position as boss’s baby mama, but that only adds fuel to Scott’s rage fire—frustration he does finally find an outlet for when Jane later finds herself in the position to be asking him for more shifts, to which he responds by tasking her with overseeing Anezka’s training (slash, being her fairy godmother). It’s a rough (very rough) job, but obviously, Jane prevails, and by the end of the day, Anezka has earned two whole dollars in tips!
Working Girl
WHY does Jane need to ask Scott for more shifts? Well, because Michael went and got himself fired. “Fired?!?” Jane asks, aghast. Okay, not fired—six months of unpaid suspension. But Michael suspects that is just a formality, a precursor for what is to come. And so he is off the very next day hunting down a new job, despite his rep as Miami’s current pariah, and Jane is off looking for income-boosting opportunities of her own. The first: training Anezka. The second?
Yep! Overhearing a couple of rich white ladies discussing the money they’re planning to shell out to strangers to help their rich white sons overcome their inability to get themselves into good schools, Jane dives in, offering her own essay-writing services for a 17% discount. “I mean, writing a college entrance application?” Jane explains to her mom later, “that’s a fun Saturday afternoon!!” Plus, she can do it without having to take nearly as much time away from Mateo as she would working the number of waitressing hours it would take to earn the same amount of money.
Unfortunately, the kid Jane has agreed to help is under the impression that Jane will be writing the supplemental essay for him. And while Jane manages to break through his walls and get him to let her tutor rather than do his writing, it turns out that the mom who hired her was under the impression Jane would be doing the writing, too—and to the mom’s exact specifications. And so Jane is stuck in a dilemma: finish the job at the cost of both her/her grad program’s ethics and her increasingly limited time with Mateo, or find a new way to make up for Michael’s lost salary.
Working Parents
Jane’s time with Mateo is so newly precious to her because of the extra time Raf has requested each week to have him. Jane is on board with that agreement, of course, but that doesn’t stop her from missing him, and so when she crosses paths with Chepa taking Mateo to the zoo one afternoon when Raf was supposed to have him all day but ended up having to work, Jane, naturally, volunteers to take him for the afternoon. She and Raf had agreed to call each other first in cases like these, after all!
Raf, however, is not happy with that turn of events. He knows that he is the one who asked for more time, and had anticipated that Jane would judge him for choosing to work on one of those days instead, and so called Chepa instead of Jane to preclude being made to feel guilty. It is a lot of anticipatory thinking! And Jane is not too happy about it. Which is exactly why they need a professional mediator, Raf says. “Everything is better with rules.” This is a man who knows our Jane!
And so the two of them go to a mediator. After the whirlwind recap of Season One—thankfully accomplished with old-timey, silent movie flashbacks—things go very smoothly, as each thinks the other is totally on the same page as them.
But then the mediator (another woman, if anyone wants to keep track from the count I started of female side characters last week) starts in on her list of very specific hypothetical details, and everything falls apart. The sticking point? Raf wants to take Mateo on vacation to Europe for a month, and Jane can’t go that long without seeing him, and both things are important to both coparents, and—
A phone call with Michael reminds Jane that the important thing to remember is that both she and Raf want what is best for Mateo, so if they keep that truth in sight, they will be fine. And between that and seeing Privileged Evan’s mom get in her son’s way just because she thinks she knows what is best for him, Jane gives in, recognizing that a month-long vacation to Europe with his dad will be an amazing opportunity for Mateo, and further, that she knows it is important to Raf. And they hug it out, and everything is great.
Ro and Xo’s New Deal
Meanwhile, Xiomara has heard tell of a role on Tiago for a 1920s silent film star/lounge singer, who gets a song at the end of the story arc. Jane supports her going out for it, noting that Xo and Ro have been in a good place lately, and that Ro in particular has been in a good mood. And so Xo heads over to the Tiago set—where Ro is, hilariously, telling his (woman) director, in Spanish, that no one wants to READ while watching television, so ixnay on the silent movie interstitial titles—and asks Ro if she could get an audition. Happily, Rogelio is all about nepotism, so not only does he agree to Xo’s request—he just gives her the part!
“Has she ever acted in Spanish?” Dina asks, when Rogelio breaks the news to her, his new head writer, later. No. “Has she ever acted on camera?” No. But Rogelio is such an optimist that he hasn’t even had a single lock installed on his dressing room door since his major kidnapping incident, so nothing so small as those problems will scare him into thinking twice about his decision. Besides, he is PRETTY SURE that Dina’s real problem is ambivalence at the idea of Ro’s ex being on set now that the two of them are a Thing. “We’re not a Thing,” Dina repeats for the thousandth time.
Xo, it turns out, is very very bad on camera, and worse on camera in Spanish. She ruins every take, and eventually has to read her lines off of Rogelio’s chest, ruining her eyeline and the whole day’s shoot.
Ro isn’t concerned—they can just fix it in post! “Do you even know what post is??” Dina asks. Tiago is not a big Hollywood blockbuster. They don’t have that kind of money in their budget. And the budget they do have?? Oof. The results are somehow even worse than the original hack job Xo turned in.
And so Ro has to fire her. “I’d still like to use your voice for the song, though,” he says, cushioning the blow. Xo totally understands. She was terrible. Plus, she was wrong about being able to work that closely with him while watching him crush on another woman. “WHAAATTTT no Dina is a writer, no glamour, not TMZable at ALL,” Rogelio argues. But Xo knows what she sees, and once she leaves, Ro sees what that was. He DOES like her.
Unfortunately, Dina does not like him back. Like, at all. Their THING is just casual, and Rogelio had better not get any ideas otherwise. “Right, of course, yes,” Ro says. “I was just…testing you.” But his eyes are like a kicked puppy’s. Man, poor Ro. Except for the huge win of hiring Michael to be his temporary head of personal security, the dude just cannot catch a BREAK.
Girl Just Cannot Catch a BREAK
Petra knows a thing or two about not catching breaks. After being told point blank by Rafael that the twins’ trusts are identical (ha) to Mateo’s, she happens to have a casual conversation with Jane about the complexities of handling such huge trusts and stumbles onto the realization that while Jane will have control of Mateo’s trust should Raf die, Petra will not have control of the girls’. And here is how impressively Petra has grown as a person this season: it was not until my second watch through that I picked up on the idea that Raf kept Petra from this role for fear that she would use it to murder him and get access to his money, as that is basically what her plan was all of the first season. Good job, Petra!
But also, sad day for Petra. No matter how much she has grown, Rafael still trusts Jane, to whom he has never been married even ONCE thank you, more than he trusts her.
She says as much when she confronts him about the discrepancy. He agrees that she has grown, and that he likes the place they are in, too, but yeah, no: he doesn’t trust her in the same way he trusts Jane. And then a litany of all her offenses against him scroll up the screen, and she has to consider them, all still in relation to Jane. And then when she returns to her suite, still stuck in this mental loop, she finds Anezka ALSO raving about Jane, and it is just too much. “But Jane is great!” Anezka enthuses. “Yes, exactly,” Petra says. And then she sees Anezka listening, and realizes that for the first time in literally her whole life she has a person who she can talk to, who will be completely on her side, with no agenda, and so she keeps going. “And I’m horrible. And sometimes that is just so exhausting.”
And Anezka? She does the best sisterly thing she can think of: she painfully composes an email to the University newspaper under Jane’s name, advertising her “essay writing business.” No, Anezka! Not good!
DEREK. NOT GOOD.
Meanwhile, the truth bomb (or “truth bomb,” since I don’t really agree with her) that Petra dropped on Rafael about her disappointment in the fact that he still lies when his back is up against a wall, rather than coming clean and facing the consequences, digs into Raf’s subconscious, and he calls Derek away from his v.v. important pool brooding duties to, well, come clean and face the consequences.
“I did tell the cops about your boat,” he admits. “But that was when you had just showed up, and I still didn’t know you, or what to think about you.” But, he stresses, he trusts Derek now. Derek thanks him, waxing on about how it is always better to be honest, and then heads to the elevator, where he calls an unknown stranger and says “it” is a go. “Let’s take him down.”
The Perks of Being Affianced
Finally, Jane and Michael finally get to sit down with each other at the end of a couple of interminably long days to decompress. Jane comes to terms, aloud, with the fact that she feels like her priorities have gotten all tangled up, and that as much as she wants to be able to pick up as much work as she can to make up for Michael’s suddenly lost salary, she just can’t give up that much of the Mateo-time allotted her by her and Raf’s brand new custody agreement.
She’s really worried Michael will take this news badly—not as in getting mad at her, but as in feeling even more sad and guilty and pressured about his current work situation than he already does. He reassures her, though: that is the whole perk of “this marriage thing.” They are in it together, good and bad! And besides, he’s got that new job with Rogelio, so that’s not nothing. But regardless, she—and Mateo—are his priorities, and he is in it for the long haul.
Ugh, Michael. Stop making me root for you!
NEXT TIME
It’s Mother’s Day! Honestly I thought they couldn’t observe a more Jane-appropriate holiday than Easter, but this one definitely tops it. Hooray, Miami moms!
About the Contributor:
Alexis Gunderson is a TV critic and audiobibliophile. A Wyoming expat, she now lives in Maryland, where she runs the DC chapter of the FYA Book Club. She can be found talking about Teen TV on Twitter, and her longform criticism can be found on Authory.
