Remember when Jane got sick and said just the worst things to a bemused, tuxedoed Raf? That’s been me for nearly a week! Unfortunately I don’t have a handsome hotelier to charm with my headache-y foul mood.
Anyway, all that to say: this will be a short recap! I would feel bad, but since the bulk of the episode was an ad for Jane x Petra ‘shipping, there really isn’t that much I’ll need to gloss over…
AWARDS
THIS WEEK’S MVP(arent)
Rogelio, with a major assist from Xo. It’s not only great comedy, Rogelio’s consistently over-exuberant approach to all of Jane’s/Xo’s/Mateo’s milestones—as Xo points out to Jane, it is him catching up on lost and severely lamented time as Jane’s father.
BEST TELENOVELA TWIST
I don’t know about you all, but I saw the Michael+Rafael team-up from a mile off, so let’s go meta again this week, with Rogelio’s “reconstruction” of the Villanueva living room/porch (aka Jane the Virgin‘s actual set) on the Video Village soundstage (aka Jane the Virgin‘s actual shooting location). Unless I’m completely wrong, and that was just a RECREATION of a real soundstage containing a recreation of the Villanueva house set both recreated within the actual JtV soundstage…
BEST PRODUCT PLACEMENT
Oh, obviously Pillowfort, the new (v covetable) gender-neutral children’s decor line from Target. There was banner branding in the corner WHILE the collection was on screen WHILE Jane was telling Michael why it was there. And, like with all these bold, transparent product placements, I AIN’T EVEN MAD.
Runner-up: Podcasts. Jane so would.
Runner-runner-up: Jane x Petra (…Jetra? Pane? PAIN?) ‘shipping. It’s all tumblr giffers are good for these days, is how real their chemistry is.
PREVIOUSLY ON JANE THE VIRGIN
Jane and Michael got re-engaged, which made Rafael sad. Rogelio and Xiomara got un-engaged, which made them both sad. Rogelio was kidnapped by his crazy stalker/personal assistant, which made EVERYONE sad, but then he was rescued and now he is more popular than ever. Petra finally had her TWO BABIES, but now seems too scared of motherhood to spend any time with them. Rafael’s half-brother on his crime-lord-mother’s side showed up at the Marbella, and Raf loudly and passionately threw his cards in with family rather than keep working with Michael on the Mutter investigation. Alba started up a virtual flirtation with her pre-marriage flame, the cursed PABLO ALONSO SEGURO, whom Jane and Xo invited to visit all the way from Venezuela. He did indeed bring a system of bad luck with him, but despite her reservations, Alba did agree to go out dancing with him. And then, the Villanuevas’ house flooded.
THIS WEEK
GET IT, Alba
Have you all seen that recent “Get you a man who can do both” meme? That is 100% Mateo Villanueva, Sr.
Last time we saw Grandpa Mateo, he was in his Sunday suit, standing behind Alba at Xiomara’s baptism. This time? He’s building Alba a porch swing. Talk about a man who can do both! No wonder Alba’s so anxious to jump back into a relationship with PABLO ALONSO SEGURO, questionable mustachio or no—she’s working off of the rosiest of man-related memories.
Yes, despite the mounting proof that The Curse is real (see: the Villanuevas’ current need to camp out in a Marbella suite while their flooded house undergoes significant reconstruction, and the four—four!—hotel doorknobs that have broken off in the man’s hands), Alba has dived head first into dating/dancing up on her old flame. The two are feeling each other. Like, invite Alba back up to PABLO ALONSO SEGURO’S room, feeling each other. Like, on-screen #OHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGOD text, feeling each other. And since Alba feels so strongly about sex being something that belongs to marriage, and nowhere else, that feeling, naturally, leads to the two of them getting engaged.
O____o
It doesn’t last, obviously—though not, thank goodness, because of any tantrums or patronizing ledge-talking from Xo or Jane. Those two, despite their shock and ambivalence at the announcement, are nothing but supportive. Unfortunately (for Alba’s heart), PABLO ALONSO SEGURO is actually a cad. A player, if you will, whom Jane and Xo catch at another older woman’s door, wooing her with the same paper rose he wooed Alba with at their “engagement” dinner. Jane and Xo privately break the news to Alba, then Alba publicly breaks the full force of her vengeance over PABLO ALONSO SEGURO’S head, ending with banishing him from HER country. And then she goes back up to the Villanuevas’ temporary suite and agrees with Jane and Xo: it is time for her ot get out and date serious, un-cursed men, for real.
Making House Calls
The flooding at the Villanueva house does more than just displace the Villanuevas to the Marbella and condemn them to 24-hour room service and spa privileges: it also kick-starts Jane and Michael’s search for a new house. Well, the flooding, and the fact that Michael’s neighbors complained about Mateo’s all-night teething weeping and made Jane take him away.
At first Jane believes that their neighborhood+amenities requirements will fit their budget, but after an afternoon of searching, she comes to realize that “charming” just means “small and old.” So she and Michael let their realtor talk them into looking at a 2-bed/2-bath place in a suburb a 30-minute drive outside their ideal neighborhood…and it is perfect, loud parrot wallpaper and all. “The 39-minute drive didn’t even feel that long!” Michael enthuses. “Podcasts!” Jane agrees. “It’s only 45-minutes away!” Jane says, when bringing the option to Rafael later that afternoon. “An hour of driving both ways, in traffic??” Rafael responds, putting the cap on my favorite kind of subtly escalating joke (see also: McDermott’s allowance negotiation in The Perks Of Being A Wallflower).
Now, I live 30-39-45-60 minutes outside of a major metropolitan area, and I can see both sides of the argument here. It is V NICE to have space and greenery and, tbh, very few neighbors. And it isn’t *that* hard to drive into the city and do things with friends and/or work. And I adore audiobooks. But it isn’t easy, by any stretch, and every trip in does FEEL like a trip. My local friends know about milestones in my life from Snapchat and texting more than from physically being with me for any of them. So I can totally understand Jane’s prediction of Raf’s real reaction of, no way. No way is he going to be okay missing out on all that easy closeness with his firstborn! But also, like, Jane and Michael and Mateo have to live somewhere, and a nice house in a nice neighborhood is better than a grungy house in a place with neighbors who don’t like small children.
Raf’s counteroffer to Jane’s news about the suburban house is that she and Michael find something comparable in the Marbella/Villanueva neighborhood, and he will cover the difference in cost. This DOES seem reasonable, in an alimony (?) kind of way, but without having expert counsel on hand to help them draw up helpful and non-litigious parameters to that kind of arrangement, it makes sense for Jane to shrink at the thought. Money always comes with strings, even if that isn’t the intention up front!
It would seem, then, that Mateo’s parents are at an impasse. That is, until Saint Petra descends from above (the penthouse) to deliver unto Raf a single commandment: GET OVER YOURSELF. Jane, she points out, has done approximately one thousand amazing things for Raf in the past few years, many at great personal cost, so him letting her and Michael buy the house they want is really the absolutely least he, a Man of Significant Means, can do.
When Jane and Michael get to the parrot-paper house to sing the lease, however, Mateo takes his first solo (table-assisted) steps, and it is the realtor filming the milestone on his phone, not Raf. And thus Jane realizes that her gut (and Raf’s) was right all along—she can’t take Mateo so far away from his father, not when he is this young.
Luckily, a new place fitting exactly their parameters, budget and all, opens up in their ideal neighborhood later that week. It’s so perfect, in fact, that both Jane and Michael suspect Raf bought it secretly to do the subsidization plan without them knowing, but when the two show up to a full open house and are told they will have to write a letter to the owner arguing their case, they realize Raf wasn’t behind it at all. And so they stay up all night composing a letter that is the perfect balance between Jane’s poeticizing over the importance of family and Michael’s listing of their ideal tenant qualities. And, great team that the two of them are, they get the owner’s stamp of approval!
The owner? Saint Petra, who isn’t done doing good work on Jane’s behalf. PETRA. <3333
Petra :-(((((
And why was Petra so keen to help Jane this week? Well, because Jane reached out to her, “mom to mom,” after catching Petra wandering the halls of the Marbella, zombie-eyed and completely unresponsive about her TWO BABIES. After confirming with Raf that something is up with Petra and her comfort around her twin girls, Jane transparently manipulates Petra into going to a new mommy class together to try and find some other new mom connections that Petra could find support in.
The class starts out okay, despite the fact that the welcome song IS silly and cutesy and all the things Jane promised Petra it wouldn’t be. The other moms are totally open about joking about their ambivalence towards their babies! They are Petra’s people! Jane calls her a “…friend?”! But then Petra opens up a bit too much, and the group leader gently notes that it seems like she might have some symptoms of early postpartum depression, and Jane confirms that Petra hasn’t been sleeping well, and that is it: Petra’s gone.
Jane (with Anna and Elsa and two baby bags and two purses) eventually catches up to her, and Petra lets Jane express her genuine concern. And then Jane pulls out the number to a postpartum specialist that one of the other mothers gave her, just in case Petra might be willing to follow up. “The place is VERY exclusive and VERY expensive,” Jane adds at the end, jokingly but also not. She knows her audience!
Petra does call, and takes the prospect of postpartum seriously enough that when the nice nurse on the phone suggests that she try to get her family history of postpartum from her mom before coming in for an appointment, if at all possible, Petra does. She goes to the prison Magda is back in, and, heart on her sleeve, asks.
“Vus I DEPRESSED??” Magda spits back at her. “It was 1985 communist Prague, ve vere ALL depressed!” And then she tells Petra that, like Magda, Petra isn’t cut out for motherhood, and that the best thing she could possibly do for her daughters is to leave them.
So, Petra does. For now, at least.
Bros Before Bros
On the Mutter investigation front, Michael isn’t willing to give up on Derek as a possible lead, no matter what Rafael says. To that end, he has brought Derek down to the station for “casual” story clarification, to which Derek’s only response is continued smirking. It is his only mode of being, and for some reason, tumblr giffers cannot get enough. For real, the only gifs available for this episode were like 60% Jetra, 10% Jane+Michael, and 30% Derek smirking, in 8-gif spreads, with no dialogue tags at all.
ANYWAY. Derek is smirking at Michael’s latest attempt to wrestle information out of him when Rafael shows up, livid. “You can’t treat my brother like a suspect!” he shouts at Michael. “Let me talk to you in the hall!!” Michael shouts back. “You don’t talk to him again without a lawyer!!!” Rafael shouts back, from the hallway that is just a single glass door’s separation from Derek’s hearing. “You don’t tell me what to do!!!!” Michael shouts back.
Back in Raf’s suite at the Marbella, Derek thanks Raf for sticking up for him, then tries to say goodbye. He’s planning to take off to crash with some friends in New York. “Why don’t you stay in Miami?” Raf asks. Derek’s dbag response is to scoff and proclaim there is nothing here for him, to which Rafael’s response is to offer him a job at the Marbella. Take that, VESTS (Scott)!
“He trusts you?” Michael asks later, when Rafael calls to check in and make sure the bug in his suite is working like it should. YEP. It’s all been one big double cross! Way to learn not to trust anyone in your family, Raf. You’re coming along.
Daddy’s Girl
Jane needs to learn the opposite lesson about her family when it comes to trust. Well, kind of. She obviously has nothing like what Raf has to worry about with Elena/Derek/RIPRose. Obviously. But she does have Rogelio as a dad, and now that the living room Jane was going to get married in is flooded and Ro has stepped in to pay for the event to be mounted elsewhere, he does want to make her small, private wedding ceremony into a Hollywood blowout featuring AT MINIMUM one hundred of his closest friends (including Charo, and the President of Mexico, and Oprah).
Jane puts up a lot of resistance to this desire of his, to open her night to a bunch of strangers—so much so that she eventually tells him that she and Michael will pay for everything, just so that no “I’m paying for it so” arguments can gain traction. Fortunately, Xo steps in when Jane hits her most obstinate, and asks the million dollar question: just what is so bad about letting her dad have his way here? Weddings, Jane needs to remember, generally AREN’T about the couple getting married. They are about everyone who loves them. And Rogelio loves and is proud of her and Michael so much, and he didn’t get to throw her a First Communion OR a Quinceañara (shout-out to cultural milestones!), so really is it so awful that he wants to show her off to all his friends?
And so Jane compromises with Rogelio—he can pay for what he wants, and can invite all his friends. But they will plan things together.
Unfortunately, Rogelio’s ideas for perfect venues are all too big for Jane’s taste. So he, too, has to seek out Xo’s help—making peace with her about their primary role as family in the meantime. Together, they come up with the perfect solution: the Villanuevas’ living room. As a telenovela set, on the Video Village soundstage, open on one side to let the hundreds of (Rogelio’s) guests spill out beyond what the walls of Jane’s “real” house would have allowed.
Jane’s response? Tears.
Well done, Ro.
NEXT TIME
It’s bachelor/bachelorette party time! Meaning Lena is back, and Rogelio is going O.VER.BOARD.
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.
