AWARDS
THIS WEEK’S MVP(arent)
Somehow all four of these adult humans, at one time:
What utter weirdos.
BEST TELENOVELA TWISTS
Nobody died!!!
BEST PRODUCT PLACEMENTS
Obviously WONDER WOMANNNNNNNNNNNN and the crumbling of the male superhero patriarchy, as Matelio pulls her name from the ether when to compare his newfound superpowers to.
NICE PARENTING, JANE AND RAF! You’re transmitting all the correct pop culture preferences.
PREVIOUSLY ON JANE THE VIRGIN
Jane’s true love/husband, Michael, died; three years (and one time jump) later, she was ready to start dating again. And then fate ran her straight into Adam, her FIRST love and ALMOST husband, and they fell straight into pretty serious dating! Jane’s son’s dad, Raf, meanwhile, got over his unrequited love for her, then became her BFF, then fell back into his old, bad rich boy habits after his (ex-doctor) sister Luisa blackmailed him out of his share of their hotel & fortune, and his ex/other baby momma/renewed love, Petra, broke things off with him again. Now he is living with Jane and Alba and Mateo, and is “dating” cougar hotel scion Katherine in a bid to get her to front a secret deal to buy the Marbella back from Luisa, without Luisa knowing he is behind it. Oh, and Petra? She was almost killed by her twin Czech sister, who is back and working with Luisa and their con-artist, murderer mother, to prevent Petra and Rafael from succeeding at any of their schemes! Outside of the Marbella, meanwhile, Rogelio and Xo finally got married, even though Xo doesn’t want more kids and Ro really had, but then surprise! Ro’s ex-lover and current lady nemesis, Darci Factor, turned up pregnant! With his kid! And THEN she fell in love with his telenovela dude nemesis, Esteban! And it is all just so very much, and so, so very great.
THIS WEEK
The broad strokes:
1.) Petra’s criminal mom, Magda—she of the criminally good caftans and matching eyepatches—came back to the Marbella to support Aneka and Luisa in their bid to ruin Petra and Rafael’s lives, and to insinuate herself into the lives of Petra and Raf’s adorable and perfect twin daughters.
Despite the threat with which the show introduced her reappearance in Petra’s life, thus far all Magda has managed to accomplish is give Anna and Elsa a mini-fetish for seaglass-colored piratewear in the form of child-sized eyepatches and fake hooks, and eat all of the pickles in the Marbella’s kitchen. What she has not accomplished is actually threatening Petra into retreat, or even verifying that Anezka had the correct currency exchange rates in her head when she made her accomplice deal with Luisa: they are now only on the line to get a couple tens of thousands of dollars, and Luisa spent too much time with Rose for even Magda to be able to intimidate her into renegotiating.
2.) Fabian was fired, so now the show has hired a brand new co-lead to vie with Rogelio’s miniature avatar for the affections of his telenovela’s still-unseen lady scientist—and it is Esteban!
Rogelio? Not. Happy. But then Darci falls in love with Esteban, and Xo talks Ro off the ledge of blowing it all up, for the future baby’s sake.
3.) Adam! What a great guy. While he and Jane make a plan for Adam to meet Mateo after eight more weeks of dating (they even get down to the nuts and bolts of how Adam will win over Mateo’s affections with a bag of gummy candy that Jane will “forbid” him to have, before giving in), Adam does start sneaking over to Jane’s when Mateo goes to school, and one day Mateo has to double back to get something he forgot, and catches Jane and Adam in the midst of making out. And he punches him!
So now the tatted-up cat is out of the bag, and Jane’s carefully outlined 8-week plan is shot. Time for Adam to meet everyone in Jane’s family/life, *including* a very dismissive Rafael, who has absorbed Alba’s every negative opinion of Adam before even meeting him. So Jane sets up a lunch for the two dudes to meet/Raf to see how mature and responsible Adam, the guy who lives with roommates and let Jane break her leg, actually is.
This is how mature Adam actually is:
LOOK AT HOW PROUD OF HIMSELF HE IS
Yo, Adam! I feel you. All bills and no banana peels, that’s me.
Raf isn’t buying it (especially after he catches Jane and Adam busting the tension of their awkward lunch by making fun of Raf’s seriousness behind his back), but after a few weeks of nothing else warming Raf up to Adam, Jane convinces him to do a dude’s day at a baseball game, just the two of them and Mateo. And Adam is actually really great with him, convincing him he has superpowers and getting him cotton candy, the works. But…Raf sees texts from another woman on Adam’s phone while Adam’s getting said cotton candy, along with a phot preview of some heaving cleavage, and he naturally thinks the worst. But psych! Whether you believe me or not, I totally called it: what Adam was working on was his own version of cover art for Jane’s novel, which awful art she had been fighting with her publisher with throughout the episode. He is so sweet and great! And Jane finally wears Raf down to accept him existing—well, that, and the fact that a day finally arrives when no one else is available to babysit Mateo, and Raf has to agree to give Adam the shot.
It goes great, of course! Adam and Mateo get along really well, and even choreograph a dance to Rocky Horror Picture Show‘s “Time Warp.”
Portrait of Jane, Jane’s Small Son, and Jane’s Large Adult Son
It is all very sweet and fun, but then… Mateo asks Adam to sit with him on the Porch Swing of Important Conversations, and tells Adam point-blank that Jane was sad about Michael dying for so long, that Adam can’t make her sad, or die. And Adam promises him.
…and then goes to bed that night with Jane, finally ready to admit what he had been denying to himself, Jane, and his roommates all episode: he is panicking.
4.) The baby! Rogelio works really hard all episode to not blow up over Esteban and Darci having loud pregnancy sex in the neighboring dressing room, or over Esteban making extensive plot and dialogue notes on what used to be the Rogelio show, but when Esteban talks Darci into a homebirth, that is a step too far, and Rogelio tries to forbid it. Obviously this is the exact wrong move, both because Darci is a fierce momma dragon, and because even as the dad, he doesn’t get a say over Darci’s bodily decisions. XO, even, backs her up on this.
But while she was on Darci’s side re: her pregnancy, her choice, she can tell Rogelio is having trouble with everything, and finally gets him to open up: he’s freaked out that Esteban will end up taking over all the moments with the new baby that Rogelio missed with Jane in the first place, and he doesn’t want to burn any bridges that might push him even further to the sidelines than Darci and Esteban are already doing just by being so into each other.
Xo’s advice? Stick it out, and don’t let them bully him into giving in. They agree to Darci’s one-upping declaration that she will do the home birth and Xo and Ro’s house, and Xo makes sure that Rogelio doesn’t get bullied out of the room, or out of supporting Darci when she is finally in the bath, pushing. At Xo’s nudge (well, in extreme response to Xo’s nudge), when it gets down to the birthing wire, Rogelio whips off his shirt and pants and gets right in the tub with her, and, with Esteban shirtless at Darci’s back, the three of them help bring Jane’s new baby sister into the world.
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.
