A male feminist time travels into a bar… because it was set so low.*
Huh. Where have I heard something almost exactly like that before? Oh, right:
To his credit, Michael immediately pivoted to the correct position of, “Mostly here to watch and observe,” but still: Oh, men! And oh, show! Trust Jane to make a very clear statement on the damage blind male allying can wreak, while still showing great compassion for and understanding of the perspectives of the men at fault. People are complex creatures!
Okay then! This has been Alexis Recaps JtV in GIFs, and I will see you next week**.
* joke originally via I think @hologramvron on twitter, but her account is protected now and there is a full reddit thread on how misandrist and awful SJWs are in regards to her and that joke (refuse to link), so that is very cool!! Love the world we live in!!!!
** JK, the rest of the ‘cap is below.
AWARDS
THIS WEEK’S MVP(arent)
Xiomara, for knowing her own mind and making a hard choice for herself rather than saddle any potential future (genetically #blessed) with a mother who’d resent the job.
BEST TELENOVELA TWIST
A REVEALED GIGOLO
BEST PRODUCT PLACEMENT
Kate Middleton-approved collapsible prams, obvi.
PREVIOUSLY ON JANE THE VIRGIN
REMEMBER THAT CRUMPLED ROSE ALBA USED TO COMPARE CLOSED KNEES TO A WOMAN’S WORTH? Jane does! But now she’s a virgin momma and she’s got the major hots for Professor Jonathan Chavez so maybe that rose can be a thing of the past. Maybe. In other parts of Miami, Raf and Petra are growing close again, in spite of the fact that he is still pining after Jane and Petra did knock *herself* up with his last pre-cancer sperm sample in a bid to force him to come back to her. At least the joke is on her, ending up pregnant with twins. Speaking of babies, Michael threw a tantrum that resulted in Mateo getting hurt and Jane thinking he lost his career while in point of fact he not only got to keep his career, but got to remain in charge of the Sin Rostro (Raf’s step-mom)/Mutter (Raf’s real mom) crime lord investigation he illegally obstructed in the first place. And speaking of other babies, Rogelio realized he wanted to marry Xiomara so they could start having their own, at which point Xiomara realized she never wanted any more babies of her own, so she could finally put herself and her career first.
THIS WEEK
Through a Rose-Colored Flashback
Our beloved narrator opens the episode on Jane four years ago, when she didn’t have a baby but DID have a Michael in her life. She also had just as active an imagination as she does today, as well as a tendency to romanticize the most quotidian, which taken together always push her towards the rosiest of worldviews.
In spite of the fact that the bouquet Michael brought for Jane is like a dozen virginity flowers, the two dive into a hot and heavy makeout sesh that is only briefly interrupted by his police badge digging into her pelvis. It quickly gets so hot that she has to pull away and finally come clean to Michael about 1) being a virgin and 2) saving herself until marriage, to which Michael’s response is (and I fully admit that this is lovely): “oh…then I guess we’ll have to wait until we are married.”
Motherhood By Any Other Name, Part I
Cut back to the present, where our Jane is perfectly sensible to how weird being a virgin mom is, and what is she really holding onto anyway??, and oh man oh MAN is Professor Hottie a professional hottie!!! So does this mean that Jane is seriously considering having sex? Xo wants to know. Verdict: Jane is VERY open to the possibility, yes!
Moving from a former dealbreaker to a new one, Xo leaves Jane so that she can psych herself up enough to sit down and have a Talk with Rogelio about the fact that she just does not ever want any more babies of her own. The Scientology discs come up briefly as a feint from Xo about how not knowing some things about HIM might be a dealbreaker for HER, but she (unfortunately for us) backs down on that before Ro can whip them out to finally show us all what Luciana has been holding over his head since the start of the season, confessing almost immediately that the topic was just a bluff to cover her guilt. The issue at hand is babies, nothing more. What Rogelio truly thinks about Xo’s decision will have to wait, however, as he is needed on set to shoot Tiago at the helm of the American women’s suffrage movement as the first male feminist in history—a role that Rogelio, like the best male feminist, genuinely thinks is a noble way to highlight and honor women’s struggles.
Oh, Ro…never change.
Speaking of women’s struggles, over at the Marbella Rafael is conscripting Jane to swoop in and help Petra here at the difficult tail end of an already difficult pregnancy. She bought a pram. A PRAM. The woman needs help. And it definitely won’t be welcome from Raf, as he—to her face—called her hormonal. Besides, it’s in Jane’s best interests to make sure Petra is happy, since they are all six of them going to be family for the rest of time (yeah, he knows just how to get to her).
So Jane drops in on Petra, faking looking for Rafael, then quickly “clearing the air” about how she knows Petra only canceled the lunch because her mother, like murdered that guy or w/e, which Jane totally gets, she means, HER mom does crazy stuff all the time, too, ya know? and maybe Petra might be interested in, idk, a do-over? Maybe to talk babies some? Maybe to copy over Jane’s old baby shower registry? Maybe…for Jane to throw her a baby shower proper?
Yes, Jane’s super cazh drop-in ran off the rails pretty quickly, but look, only a monster would hear that Petra is forgoing a baby shower because her mom is in jail and that literally leaves no one else to throw it and NOT offer to step up, and Jane, well, Jane is no monster.
Xo, for her part, is very impressed with Jane’s growth when Jane relates this pathetic story to her later that day, and is certain the shower will be GREAT. Me, too!
The Set-up…
Over at the police station, Michael and Susanna are still the only detectives chipping away at the sprawling international crime syndicate case that is the Sin Rostro/Mutter boondoggle. At least they have the microchip Rose kidnapped Mateo for, that Nadine magically hid inside of Michael’s leg skin, the one with all the names and faces of all the criminals Rose (and maybe Elena?) ever brought through her secret plastic surgery center. And now that information has been decrypted, and has delivered a seemingly random dude to the interrogation room! He SEEMS totes normal/schlubby, but in reality? He is the fixed face of a Russian mafioso, and Michael and Susanna have chosen him as the linchpin for their sting operation to trap Rose and Elena in the act.
Later, Susanna accompanies Luisa to Raf’s suite at the Marbella to apologize (again) for how her romance-driven actions—or in this case, her inaction—completely changed the course of her brother’s life. She delivers a very moving monologue about how he needs to remember that she is an addict, and that addiction can take many forms, and that in this case, Luisa replaced one vice (alcohol) with another (Rose), but Rafael stonewalls her, and as soon as she is done, sends her right back into the hall, where a maid’s cart laden with minibar alcohol trundles slowly by.
This is a very hard scene! And it is done so well. On the one hand, Rafael comes off as cruel and unyielding in the face of a person who is clearly hurting. On the other, Luisa’s inability to control her reactions to life’s surprises has resulted in Raf A) having Mateo, through which process he B) fell in love with Jane (both events stemming from Luisa’s pap smear/insemination mix-up), whom he C) lost after Luisa compelled him to propose too soon, then D) lost again after the kidnapping fiasco and subsequent Rose-hunting nightmare that could have been stopped by Luisa turning Rose in instead of communicating with her secretly, and all of that isn’t even mentioning E) the two babies currently inside Petra, which are there half in part because Luisa, high on her own possible second chances, went out of her way to convince Petra that Raf might still have feelings for her. So him not forgiving Luisa after just a single heartfelt cumulative apology? Kind of understandable!
Anyway, this whole thing will come back around to matter in a completely different way by the end of the episode.
Hot For Teacher
Elsewhere in Miami, Jane and Jonathan are finally on their first real date…and it is going V WELL. Jane even calls him pretentious (re: the substantive issues telenovelas tackles without being in your face about it) and somehow makes it come off as SEXY. The date goes so well, in fact, that they flirt and smooch and sparkle right up until the restaurant closes. Jane passes on going back to his place that first night, but does agree to meet at his place the next night for him to make her dinner. Yep: SEX IS ON THE TABLE.
“Are you really going to go through with it??” Xo and the rest of us want to know when Jane gets home later that night. Well, yeah, maybe! Jonathan IS the perfect guy to “just get it over with” with, after all—he’s coming off a divorce and not in it for anything serious, plus he is going on a two-year sabbatical to Thailand after the summer is over (she would have needed to find a new advisor anyway, I guess, thanks a lot dude for telling her that upfront!), and above all, she is VERY attracted to him. Yes, Jane. Xo knows. We all know.
“We all know what?” Alba asks, echoing a similar question from the top of the episode when Xo and Jane were discussing the very same thing. And just as they did then, Jane and Xo change the subject lightning quick, then race out of the room.
Jane’s second date with Jonathan goes as well as she and Xo both predicted. As in, it gets hot and heavy like Jane predicted, and is snuffed out by Jane bringing up her childhood purity promise to her abuela, as Xo predicted. And even though Jonathan himself interrupted the makeout session first to bring up his major sex milestone issues (first time since divorce), thus prompting Jane to confess anything herself, it is of course Jane’s confession that is held up as the cause of the mood dying. MEN. The two do rekindle the flame a bit the next day, when Jonathan texts to apologize and Jane (channeling Petra) texts back something racy, and before long they are sexting each other so effectively that Jonathan entreats her to drive straight over without even putting on pants, but after getting pulled over for speeding and being so humiliated at being pantsless that she hallucinates Michael telling her not to have sex, well, as you can imagine, the tryst doesn’t even get off the ground.
This was sort of funny, but was mostly just sad and scary! Thank GOD Jonathan is a legit good dude whose primary goal was for the two of them to share something nice or not share it at all, and NOT to wrest from her the sex she promised him—this show can get dark, but it is not dark this way. Again, thank god.
So Jonathan lends her a pair of his sweats and sends her home, still flowered. There, Alba finally corners Jane with the fact that she knows what Jane and Xo have been discussing all this time—the walls are thin and she’s not dumb. She tells Jane that she supports her decision no matter what she chooses, and recognizes that Jane is an adult now who will be able to face the consequences of that choice in a more mature and healthy way than Alba did when *she* had sex before marriage, but that if Jane is crying with a guy, maybe he is not the one for her to have her firs—
WAIT. BACK UP. Yes! We all heard that right! Alba had sex before she married Abuelo Mateo, and she regretted personally and was shamed by her family, and didn’t want Jane to face the same. Plus, she didn’t want to encourage Xo’s poor youthful choices. Anyway, all of that is water under the bridge (at least for the time being, although Alba has been Googling that old flame…), so Jane should just feel free to do what she wants, and know that her abuela will always cherish her.
Oil & Water? More Like Fire & Ice
The best arc of this week’s episode (or ONLY part, if you were to be trying to glean information solely from tumblr gifsets) is the one between Jane and Petra as they try, then spectacularly fail, to kickstart a close friendship based on their mutually necessary interest in babies. Unsurprisingly, the two women have very different priorities for and expectations of parenting, and just as unsurprisingly, they manifest immediately upon Jane opening up her baby shower registry. Nothing that Jane recommends will ever be good enough for Petra, because Jane’s goals were practical, economical, and geared towards a single baby, and Petra’s are unfettered by cost restrictions or dreams of immediate maternal affection, and geared towards two babies.
Also—and more importantly—everything that Jane recommends has the implicit secondary recommendation of Rafael, which carries with it the implicit reminder of his and Jane’s strong emotional connection. Which issue is exacerbated by the reveal that Rafael was in on the plan for Jane to HELP Petra, a one-two punch that lands straight in Petra’s weak spots: her autonomy, and the fact she is still in love with him. And so Petra calls off her friendship with Jane before it even has a chance to start, and stands up her own baby shower. When Jane finds her working in her office and calls her out on her bad behavior, the two finally have it out, Jane aggressively confessing that because of her own history with a small family and often lonely childhood, she decided to help Petra for her own sake, not Petra’s. Knowing that Jane has suffered lightens Petra’s spirits immensely (lol), and after they agree that neither of them wanted Jane to give an insincere baby shower toast about a Petra neither one of them would recognize, they finally go back downstairs, where Jane’s toast is…
Well, it is very honest. And if we can keep calling Petra’s twins two babies until the end of time, I will be so happy.
Motherhood by Any Other Name, Part II
Back at the suffragette sound stage, Xo and Ro have spent the last several days on a merry-go-round of maybes. Maybe they should get engaged. Maybe those Scientology discs aren’t as scandalous as he worried (Magic Ro XXL…has a nice ring to it, eh?). Maybe Rogelio will be okay with never having babies. Maybe Xo will change her mind in a few years and want babies after all. Maybe she should investigate getting her eggs frozen now, when she’s 40, just in case those few years are more than a few. Maybe Xo will keep her own last name…no, wait, not that one, that’s ridiculous (sigh, male feminists…).
Xo hesitantly agreed to think about freezing her eggs, but had like no time to do so after her visit to the OBGYN revealed that 40-year old eggs qualify as “geriatric” and that her current point in the cycle was the exact right time to start pre-harvesting hormone treatments, so hey, here you go, a cooler full of injections!! But while Jane was running Petra down for her own shower, Xiomara volunteered to take baby Mateo off for a diaper change, and in doing so—choosing to be on diaper duty, rather than needing to be—she realized that she’s gone well past the point of wanting to be a baby’s one and only. She likes being a grandma. She likes having the choice to have a baby around, or not. And she will never, ever want to give that up. And so, breaking hers and Ro’s and all our hearts, she gives him back his ring.
…And the Sting
And at last it is finally time for the Sin Rostro/Mutter sting operation, the one the VoG has been promising to us all along. Russian Rando is fitted with his wire, and about to be sent off to the surveilled meeting spot to deliver his info to Rose, but then…Luisa is in a drunken car crash! And commercial break!
When we get back, we find Luisa in her hospital bed, hurt but not dead. Well, we don’t find her—Rose does. “You didn’t change your face!” Luisa exclaims. “Would YOU paint the Sistine Chapel?” Rose smiles back. And Jane’s rosey glasses pop down over both women’s vision, as Rose tries to say goodbye for good, and Luisa suggests that maybe she *would* be willing to run away with her after all…
But then Susanna is at the door in undercover scrubs, gun drawn, and Rose is realizing that Luisa set her up, and the rose-tinted lenses fall away. THIS is the real sting, and Michael and Susanna and the SWAT team they finally filled in on the whole mess have the ICU surrounded. Only, Rose was prepared for something like this, and claims to have her own men perched outside Susanna’s kid brother’s bedroom, ready to shoot if Susanna doesn’t drop the gun and escort her out of the building. And then the VoG tells us to pay extra close attention, as one of the women is about to die, and then the two of them are wrestling over the gun, and then it goes off in Rose’s hands and shoots Susanna in the shoulder, and then Rose is through the stairwell door. And the next thing we know, VoG narrator has lost sight of the very woman he told us to watch! Moments later, Luisa and Michael converge on the spot the tussle went down. Susanna is wounded, and through the stairwell door, Rose’s body lies cold, a blue silk cord wrapped around her throat…
Look: no one would paint over the Sistine Chapel, but a master artist might paint a second copy to have lying around, you know, just in case. Replace artist with criminal plastic surgeon and I think you’ll see where I’m going with this. But yes, Luisa, it is still very sad!
And, At Last, the Kicker
Now that that’s all over, Michael stops by to tell Jane that Rose is dead and even though Elena, her mentor and murderer, is in the wind, Mateo is TOTALLY SAFE 4EVER, so now he has decided and is decreeing that it is safe for them to be together again.
Look, I know this is supposed to be v v romantic (she says Yes, obvi) and all, but I just cannot NOT hear him continuing to tell Jane how things are and when/what she is or is not allowed to feel. I just CANNOT.
NEXT TIME
We all need to come to terms with, sigh, Michael coming back into Jane’s life. Whether that sigh is resigned or romantic, well, I guess that is just between you and your genetically #blessed telenovela god.
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.
