Let’s just get to it! I’ve got turkey to eat!
THIS WEEK’S MVP(arent)
This might ruffle some feathers, but I’m going to say Rafael, both for pushing Jane when she needed it to work with him to find an occasional babysitter, AND for hiring Eric Wu to give that interview to the cops that lost Michael his job/set Michael on the war path. I don’t *approve* of the underhandedness of the move in terms of being a good person (I felt a bit ill when the footage played), but in terms of being a good parent who puts his child first…I’m having difficulty finding fault. If you have a live bomb, isn’t it better to find a way to set it off when and where it will do the least amount of damage?
BEST TELENOVELA TWIST
There were a lot of “twists” this week, but I didn’t feel like any of them were earned? I don’t know. Maybe Luisa’s mom’s coffin being empty/the implication that she must be Mutter, but mostly for how Luisa played that whole scene. She is a gem and should be in every episode.
BEST PRODUCT PLACEMENT
Target’s heavy-handed ad/content integration is like the very best kind of trolling. Obviously we know that Jane is second to none in working their ad partner extraordinaire into scenes in a way that is completely organic to both story and characters—that’s the whole reason for this award category in the first place; I’ll take completely overboard placement that fits the story over distracting “by the way let’s stop to talk about the radio system in this car” false asides any day—but every episode feels like the writers are testing just how far they can push the Target placement before the storytelling falls apart/we viewers revolt.
“Okay, so Jane and Raf already had their first date end in Target, and Jane and Lena cleaned out the Target baby aisle, and Jane wore a killer Target necklace to her HS reunion…how can we go BIGGER?” “IDK…j/k, I totally K…Black Friday.” “YES.”
It’s the ultimate showcase of American commercialism, nudge nudge wink wink, but g-d if it isn’t also the exact place that the Villanueva women as we have come to know them would traditionally spend their Black Friday day—rules and all. And it is where a rich hotelier baby daddy who is earnestly trying very hard to become Jane’s ultimate dream partner would be totally out of his element! And where her ex-fiancé, dummy everyman dummy detective Michael, would dumbly go for a normal Target run! And it is DEFINITELY where Jane would buy her brand new Christmas party duds to impress that writing professor! And the garishly red, bullseye-saturated background? You can’t even be mad at it, because that is literally what the inside of every Target always looks like. Like, if anything, there were fewer visible bullseyes than in a real Target. Honestly, the only aspect of the whole Black Friday outing was the fact that Michael uses the canvas Target shopping bags.
Anyway, I’m handing out this week’s award to Rogelio’s de la Condo:
Surprise! But also, no surprise at all. What better way to show his commitment to returning to a careful, budgeted lifestyle as he pursues his personal dreams than a sustainably packaged Target run?
Way to go, Jane writers: you successfully trolled us with not one, but TWO completely organic brand placements that helped to demonstrate real character development.
PREVIOUSLY ON JANE THE VIRGIN
Just SO MUCH time flew by! Jane’s heart mended after letting her bad-tempered, worst detective flame Michael go, and she agreed to finally go on a single real date with Rafael. She also mustered up the room to forgive a painfully pregnant Petra, inviting her to Villanueva Thanksgiving and possible kindling a baby (baby!) friendship; made her first real friend (Wesley) AND enemy (Professor Chavez) at grad school; and, with Raf’s help, made the hard parenting decision to stop pumping milk for an already-weaned Mateo earlier than she had planned to. Xiomara decided to really lean in to pursuing her singing career this year, and Rogelio sunk all his post-Santos hopes into his Mad Men remake passion project, only to have the plug pulled by Matthew Weiner’s (“who?) lawyers. Michael followed his Worst Day Ever up with *hiring turncoat Nadine* to help him track Sin Rostro down in Mexico, vigilante-style, and Petra, meanwhile, found her most recent glimmer of possible happiness snuffed out by the discovery that her newly-hook-handed mother had “accidentally” killed Milos’ hired thug, Ivan. I mean, it’s happened to all of us!
THIS WEEK
Hahaha! After my dissertation on brand placement, do we even have time for a real recap? Eh, let’s hit the highlights:
Jane
Still spilling her guts to pretentious af Wesley at the MFA Christmas party! Also drinking an extra glass of wine to calm her nerves before introducing herself to the department’s star writing prof (not Chavez) in the hopes of securing her as her own writing advisor. Has Jane told you about how much Professor Not-Star Chavez hates her/her writing? Because he does! In extensive detail! And Jane will forward Wesley and us all the email to prove it!
So it turns out that two glasses of wine post-partum is equal to 6 regular person glasses, and Jane makes a complete fool of herself, shoving a tray full of deviled eggs onto Star Professor Bolton’s chest and then squeezing her boob? Oof.
Xo keeps Jane from sending a drunken email apology, and when Jane goes to Bolton’s office the next day to drop off her handwritten apology, she stumbles into a real connection over pumping breast milk in unfriendly environments. Bolton agrees to read Jane’s work, but, as with Wesley and her other classmates, it is Jane’s telenovela life story that really draws Bolton in. “I know JUST the right publisher to contact about making that your first book!” she exclaims, looking at Jane like she’s a plate of auctionable hot goss bacon. As for Jane’s current work? “Make it pop! Make it sparkle! Make me gasp!” she says, massively unhelpfully.
And whose notes turn out to be actually helpful?? Duh, Professor Chavez’s. Unfortunately, he won’t agree to be Jane’s writing advisor, since in her drunken rage at the Christmas Party she replied to his story crit email instead of forwarding it to Wesley. Lesson learned! Always screenshot what you want to rage at and attach it to a new message, NEVER forward.
Anyway, Jane recognizes and apologizes for her severe error, and promises to just take Chavez’s class again in order to get the most out of his teaching as possible. I don’t think she was using that as a scare tactic, but it worked! Chavez agrees to take her on as a once a week advisee, rather than be faced with her thrice a week in class for a whole other semester. Either way, success!
Poll!
Petra
In my favorite Petra scene yet, Petra nervously calls Jane to see if, maybe, I dunno, if she WANTS, but probably she doesn’t want to, but if she DID, maybe, want to have lunch with Petra? Sometime? To eat…food? Together? And…talk?
“I think Petra just asked me out on a date,” Jane muses to her parents, as Petra smiles at the universe and tells nobody, “she said yes!” It’s adorable. Too bad Magda’s most recent assault victim is slowly decomposing in Petra’s gigantic jetted tub (there’s only so much hotel ice a pregnant woman can haul in from the hall, okay?). Magda refuses to go to the cops, concluding probably correctly that they will little believe her story that it was an accident (tbh, Petra should be less credible, too), and further insists that her pregnant daughter help her Weekend-at-Bernie’s him out of the hotel and into the swamp at the very same time that Petra had scheduled lunch with Jane. Not only does Petra have to cancel, but she has to distract Jane as the latter arrives at the Marbella at the exact moment that Magda is wheeling Ivan out. “Never mind I hate you turns out!” Petra exclaims, lying terribly. “Never speak to me again!”
Petra is a much better liar with much better self-preservation than this, so I am going to chalk her poor judgment up to the fact that she really does have zero canonical experience with real friends, and so has equally few skills to maintain them in the face of forced dishonesty. IDK. Poor Petra!
Rogelio (and Xiomara)
Oh, Rogelio! It will surprise no one to learn that Hombres Locos’ secret private investor, who sunk every speck of cash he had into the doomed show, was Rogelio himself. Thank Dios for Rogelio’s financial advisor, who wouldn’t let him touch his retirement fund!
Beyond the typical Rogelio-the-diva over the top comedy about it all, Rogelio’s misfortunes lead to some interesting character development for both him and Xiomara. First, in dealing with his sudden change in economic status, we get to see flighty, superficial, melodramatic Xiomara sit down and sort through a pile of receipts and bank statements as she expertly calculates the exact budget Rogelio needs to stick to to stay afloat. She was a single teen mom working to keep her illegal alien mother from being deported; she knows her shit and has EARNED her right to be flighty and melodramatic. For Ro’s part, once he has diva-ed his way through silly justifications for his shopping and living habits, he comes clean to Jane in a very real way about his unwillingness to return to the smallness and uncertainty of his life pre-success. He has lived in that studio condo, eating noodles, not knowing what his next job will be; to fall back into that position during this lull in his career would take a genuine psychological toll.
Ultimately, it turns out that an evolving and challenging career really is more important to Rogelio these days than living a lavish lifestyle—after spending one day on the set of the new Western that his studio slotted him into that is just a rehash of a Western he’d already done, Rogelio backs out (literally rides off into the studio’s sunset) and downsizes to that studio condo Xo found for him.
“Who better to bet on than myself?” he asks, lovingly adding the last bauble to his new white Target Christmas tree.
His question is not any empty one, either: not only has Ro changed his lifestyle to bet on himself, he has changed his ego priorities to bet on Xo, whose Hombres Locos theme song was adored by the network, then picked up for his ex-wife and nemesis, Esteban’s new show, then almost jettisoned when Esteban found out about it. Ro’s solution? Trading his pride by playing a scene as Bogelio the idiotic court jester in exchange for Esteban keeping Xo’s song in the show.
Who better to bet on than himself? Xo. Way to grow, Ro!
Michael
Surprise! Nadine got shot in the chest leaping in front of a bullet meant for Michael on their ill-advised sting on Sin Rostro in Mexico. Double surprise! Michael wasn’t actually even fired—they just FAKED it so he could embed himself with Nadine and get access to Sin Rostro he couldn’t have gotten as a legit cop. Not a surprise! Worst Detective Michael completely effed that plan up. Like, it’s almost like he didn’t even TRY to succeed? He literally made zero inroads into Sin Rostro’s network, fighting with and then losing Nadine like that right up front. Unless Nadine dying was a ruse, or happened after three months of them getting actual investigating done??
POLL:
Oh, right: and ACTUAL Detective Susanna Barnett deduces that Luisa’s missing mom must be the infamous Mutter. Literally thanks to zero investigating on Michael’s part.
Jane+Raf
They’re going to go on a date! A real live date! Only, no one is available to watch Mateo for both Jane and Raf until, like, President’s Day, so after some very light badgering, Rafael and Xiomara convince Jane that it will be worth it to everyone for them to line up a trustworthy non-family babysitter. Then, after some very intense interviewing, the three of them (I love how involved Xo is with it all) land on retired bilingual grandmother, Chepa. THEN, after some VERY intense pre-departure instruction giving, Chepa walks out. “I know your type! Mommy always knows best, and neither you nor the baby nor I will be happy about it!” Fair is fair, Jane!
Anxious to keep the best babysitter they’ve found/blue balls ready to burst, Rafael negotiates a peace between Jane and Chepa, getting both to agree to a single hour of babysitting/date-going as a trial run. Chepa stays behind at the Marbella, and Jane goes off with Raf to…do a drive-by of the family home he is thinking of buying—”for myself! I’m not indicating any kind of expectation about you!”—that is in between her house and the Marbella. Raf SLOW DOWN. But also, it turns out this is the very house Jane had her first babysitting job at, which she declared to her mom was her dream home. So, guess you’re good, dude. Now, KISS THE GI—
Nope. Lip-blocked again. This time by a text from Lena about a certain viral article about the “Solano Family Curse” written by one Wesley Snake-in-the-Grass. Yep! Jane’s apparent frenemy has spent all his time this episode stalking the Solano with the absolute worst sense of self-preservation (Luisa) and squeezing her for even more juicy family deets. Like, oh, that her dad covered up the fact that her mom committed suicide by claiming it was sudden cancer and having a closed casket funeral. “Closed casket?” Wesley muses to her/the rubbernecking readership, “or maybe…she’s still alive???”
And so Raf and Jane have to cut their first date short to go start putting out fires (Luisa, meanwhile, goes to the mortuary to have her mother’s *gasp!empty!* casket ex-terred). One good piece of news: Chepa and Mateo had a great time together! One more bad piece of news, though, Jane set up Raf’s nanny cam anyway, and when she goes to check the footage…whoops, there’s Raf, arguing with Nadine’s friend Eric Wu about they deal they made for Eric to tell the police the secret about Nadine Raf overheard Michael confessing to Jane over the baby monitor.
So yeah, it WAS Raf behind it all. And now Jane knows. Pretty shitty thing to do to a person you love, Raf! But also…knowing Michael could possibly go off at any moment like that, it would have been shitty to Jane and Mateo NOT to do anything about it. Sometimes life is very hard to do right! Anyway, good luck, kids.
NEXT TIME
…is not until December 14. Enjoy the hiatus!
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.
