So, question: what’s the Platonic Ideal of passing the Bechdel Test? Because as I was pondering Jane this past week—you know, like any human with a heart who watches this perfect show does on the reg—I realized that almost universally, every male character in Jane‘s world spends the majority of their time concerning themselves with or speaking to one another about women. Exceptions: any conversation about Mate(li)o, and the large percentage of Rogelio’s time obsessing (charmingly) about himself. But otherwise, nearly every arc of consequence has to do with a woman’s goals and actions, and the men—who are still fully realized humans about whom we care a great deal!—are there NOT to swoop in and fix things, but to support the ladies (often by just standing there, looking hot).
Hey, future culture and society: more of this, please!
AWARDS
THIS WEEK’S MVP(arent)
Without hesitation, Rogelio. Aside from the diamond incident (and really, who amongst us hasn’t lost a precious stone to the ravenous maw of child or pet?) he proved both to Jane and himself that he is more than capable of caring for a small human, resulting in Jane having one more name on her emergency babysitters list, and in him knowing that he really will make the cut as a father for his future dream babies with Xiomara.
BEST TELENOVELA TWIST
The telenovela twist of Rosa’s real identity was plenty juicy, but I think the best twist to the story overall this week was the very real, un-telenovela twist of Xiomara coming to the difficult realization that she doesn’t want to defer her dream of singing for another twenty years by starting a family with Rogelio. Jane and Beyoncé may be able to balance ambition and motherhood, but Xiomara finally knows herself well enough to know that that isn’t her, and that if she wants to make her dream career work, she has to commit to putting herself first. Now that’s a way to put a kink in a romantic arc!
BEST PRODUCT PLACEMENT
The Chevy Malibu, Jane’s new car whose hi-tech systems she cannot effectively use when flustered from kissing her professor’s sweater.
WHY does she have a brand new car, when Rogelio gifted her a perfectly cute and useful new Mini Cooper last season? Who knows! But you can bet your assets Jane got the best trade-in value possible for the Mini whenever she made the switch.
PREVIOUSLY ON JANE THE VIRGIN
Jane and her accidental artificial-insemination baby daddy, Rafael, fell in love, but then broke up because life is complicated and they are not in the same place right now—Jane being, specifically, in a creative writing grad program with a very hot advisor. Rafael’s ex-(scheming)(trophy)wife Petra intentionally artificially inseminated herself with him, not to scam money this time around, but to scam his love. It backfired a bit and she ended up pregnant with twins and married to an absentee Czech cyber-criminal, but also because life is complicated, she and Rafael are finally growing close again, for real. It helps that both of their mothers are criminals, Raf’s specifically being the über-drug lord, Mütter—this after learning last year that his STEPmother (and his sister’s true love), Rose, was the über-drug lord Sin Rostro (docu-series coming soon to the USA Network).
THIS WEEK
Three Ladies and a Little Bathroom
This week’s flashback—and really, this week’s present—is low-key actually about Xiomara, even though Jane hasn’t gone anywhere. In it, we see our three Villanueva women crowding their single tiny bathroom on a school morning, Xiomara brushing her teeth behind Jane brushing her hair next to Alba hidden in the shower. Xo inconveniences both mother and daughter when she turns on the faucet to rinse and flash-freezes Alba, then spits directly into Jane’s hair—the latter causing Jane to explode about how Xo shouldn’t even BE home anyway, because she should be at a real job instead of turning down dance instructor gigs in favor of chasing after her singing dream.
OUCH. Jane! Learn to be a bit more respectful of your parent’s feelings (No, for real—learn. Or else you’ll be sorry in T-ten years)! Jane apologizes, but it’s no use. Xiomara has already mentally pushed her singing dream to the back burner, in order to be a better mother to Jane.
Follow Your Dream(s)
Back in the present, we are reminded that Xo pushed her dreams to the back burner, but not off the stove entirely—you will recall that she still sings at a local club whenever she can get the chance, although what with Solano/Mateo drama in the past year, she’s had to cancel more than she’s gotten to follow through. So when her gig manager calls to offer her a last minute slot on a night Jane is teaching and Raf has meetings, Jane encourages her to take it and not feel guilty. Which is really nice and supportive of her, considering how much grief Xo was just giving Jane over her surprise sexy dreams about Professor Jonathan Chavez, and the lovely new shade of lipstick Jane is wearing today for her meeting with him…
Fortunately, Rogelio sweeps in then with a rack of Carnaval gowns and a crew of stylists whose names he has completely wrong, here to whip up A Look for Xiomara’s “40 and Fabulous” party posters (lol, Ro). Unfortunately, Jane’s only off the hook for the Professor Chavez thing, as once Rogelio overhears that she doesn’t have anyone to babysit Mateo in a few days he corners her, gigantic, open scissors waving melodramatically in the air, and “convinces” her to let him have a shot.
If Jane had hoped her day would improve after she lost babysitting chicken with her dad, she was bound to be disappointed: her crushing hormones can barely keep it together at her meeting with Professor Chavez, her reading between every line he critiques in her chapter, and hallucinating him with his shirt off as he tells her to “drill down” on the male love interest in her final pass before her public reading.
His advice is good, and makes her reading a success…but it is maybe a little TOO good, as she accidentally slips “Jonathan” in in place of her lead character’s name right as the sexy climax hits. EEK. Her family notices, WE notice, but JONATHAN doesn’t seem to. Instead, he increases his familiarity with Jane when they are debriefing afterwards, asking if just maybe she’d be willing to…bring him and his mom to meet Rogelio on the set of his new show. Unsurprisingly, his mom is a huge fan. So! It’s a date?
Marbella?? I Barely Know ‘er!
Over at the Marbella, Raf and Petra are phone conferencing on how Wesley Masters, Jane’s ex-writing program BFF who sold her and the whole Solano family out for the dubious distinction of a gossipy local scoop, has somehow become even worse, now filming his own low-budget True Miami Story to stream on his own low-budget TMZ page detailing the newest developments in the Solano/Marbella boondoggle. Namely, that Raf’s mother is as much a secret crime lord as Raf’s stepmother.
How did Wesley get this information? *shrug emoji* Doesn’t matter, the Marbella is losing guests and much-needed income to it regardless, including, most pressingly, a giant event wedding for a local artist. Making the questionable move of reminding us all of his disGUSTing playboy past, Rafael assures Petra that he will take care of everything with the runaway wedding party, calling on his old charming (sleazeball) ways to convince the bride—whom he knows vaguely from those very same playboy days—to move things back to the hotel.
“You think you can charm a woman the week of her wedding??” Petra asks, dubious. “Well, it worked for you, didn’t it?” Raf’s sleazeball voice oozes back, as we are served with a flashback to that night Rafael decided to stick it to Lachlan by stealing Petra away from him the very day they got engaged. “You’ll go out with me Saturday,” Playboy!Rafael declares, like some regular old Michael Cordero. “Mother, I think I’ve snagged an even bigger fish,” ScamQueen!Petra whispers into her phone after she finally agrees and Playboy!Raf struts away.
So, Petra agrees to Raf’s present-day plan, mostly, insisting only that she accompany him as Plan B. Only, twist! It turns out it wasn’t Wesley’s revelation of Raf’s connection with Rose and Elena that made the bride take her business elsewhere—it was the revelation that Petra was once again involved with the Marbella. Petra, who was also a different kind of (real) monster back in the day. Petra, whose treatment of lowly baristas was so condescending and vicious that it actually inspired the bride’s first great sculpture, “Trophy Wife.”
Petra is horrified, not just for the reminder of who she used to be when she was still always terrible, but also at the knowledge that her behavior is going to cost the hotel dearly. Rafael tries to comfort her, reminding her that her monstrous behavior with the likes of lowly baristas occasionally got positive results, like that time she suspected their wedding caterers were overcharging them for fish and so investigated, was proven true, and ended up getting a significant discount on the order. That memory gives her an idea, though, and she ends up offering the angry bride a free wedding, making sure to be completely upfront about how the wedding moving venues would devastate the Marbella’s reputation and earnings, and how the wedding’s guests will likely have such a positive experience in their free suites that they will become repeat, paying guests. Oh, also she agrees to have the bride’s “Trophy Wife” sculpture installed in the Marbella’s lobby.
Raf is so impressed by Petra’s handling of the whole situation, he ends up kissing her later that day when they finally sit down and take a breath. And Petra, in her third fit of shocking character development, pushes him away. “Are you over Jane?” she asks sadly, knowing the answer. And he’s not. So they can’t. Not yet.
Honesty AND humility AND self- control with victory so close at hand? Petra really has changed!
One Telenovela Diva and a Little Baby
After Jane and Xiomara spend a whole afternoon babyproofing Rogelio’s condo (“Why does he have a bowl filled JUST with marbles??”), and after Xiomara extracts the promise from Rogelio that he won’t text or tweet or take a lavender bubble bath even once while Matelio is in his care, Jane finally lets go of enough anxiety to go through with letting El Presidente babysit Mr. Sweetface.
Unfortunately, Rogelio forgot to cancel and/or warn Xo about a bunch of self-promotional tweets scheduled to post at regular intervals all day (everything in showbiz is fake), a fact which results in Xo leaving a frantic series of texts and tweet links for Jane (which her new Chevy Malibu reads out in a hysterically flat robot-lady voice), and Jane frantically pulling over to the shoulder to call her dad immediately to check in. She is initially chagrined to hear Ro’s explanation, but the chagrin is short-lived, as the slight distraction of the phone call keeps Rogelio from paying attention to the tiny diamond for Xiomara’s surprise engagement ring that he was holding in his palm to show Matelio just as Jane called, and Matelio…eats it.
The pediatrician reassures Rogelio and Jane both that Matelio will be just fine, and that they should just stay on the lookout for a sparkling poop in the next couple of days, but Jane is too livid to forgive Rogelio right away. “I KNEW this was a bad idea!” she shouts at him. “I should have trusted my gut!”
JANE. If only you had learned a lesson sometime in your youth not to say hurtful things to your parent in a fit of anger!
Bring Your Daughter and her Professor and his Mother to Work Day
Rogelio is devastated by Jane’s explosion, but he nevertheless agrees when Jane asks if she can bring Professor Chavez and his mother to a taping. Did I say “nevertheless”? I meant obviously. Inevitably. Joyfully. And he doesn’t even think twice about the fact that the scene they are taping is a semi-nude daytime sex scene. He just slips on a lavender silk robe and slips into fan service mode. It IS a wonderful day to be Rogelio!
Jane and Professor Chavez start bonding for real as they watch his mom fall to pieces as Rogelio takes her on a studio tour. “Call me Jonathan,” he says, ticking off the first sign Xo told Jane to watch out for. “Let me walk you to your car,” he adds, touching the small of her back as she turns to leave, ticking off the second sign. “Let me lean in and kiss you,” his body language says as they reach her car and he goes in to open the door for her, she THINKS ticking off the third box. And so she goes in for the kiss…and hits his shoulder. Because he was definitely NOT going in for the kiss.
“And then what happened?!?!?” Xo and all of us demand later that evening. “Well, he helped me do the highest-point U-turn in history as my New Chevy Malibu tried to do the same thing, and it was SO AWKWARD,” Jane’s flashback shows us. “We’ve all misread signs,” Xo shrugs, completely unhelpful. THANKS MOM.
Follow Your Dream(s): Redux
If Xo has been particularly unhelpful with Jane’s lust life, she’s had an excuse: between her anxiety over reaching her 40th birthday with nothing to show for her life but a moderately successful career of teaching ten-year olds to Whip and Nae-Nae, and her anxiety over her gig manager cutting her from the schedule permanently due to her inconsistent follow-through, and her anxiety over stumbling on Liliana’s wedding ring when babyproofing Ro’s condo, only to have Ro give it to Jane as a family heirloom…she’s justifiably distracted.
The first two anxieties are the strongest, though, and so when the club manager calls to offer Xo a last-minute spot on the same night of the small birthday BLOWOUT Rogelio had planned for her, she doesn’t hesitate in taking it—special surprise from Rogelio waiting for her or not. He is initially upset at her selfishness, but obviously comes around to recognizing the need to fight for one’s career, and he comes to support her just like Jane and Alba do. Afterwards, he meets her in her dressing room to apologize for speaking harshly, and to break out the tiny diamond that Matelio finally passed to propose to her, in one of the most moving speeches any of the characters have had this year. “I feel like ever since I was sixteen, my whole life has just been me finding my way back to you,” he says, voice wavering, promising a whole happy future for him and Xo and their future babies.
“I…want to,” Xo croaks back. But. But she can’t let the next twenty years be all about anyone but her. She gave up her dream before; she can’t do it now. Not even for Rogelio. Is that a dealbreaker? STAY TUNED UNTIL NEXT TIME.
As for Jane, she’s facing a dealbreaker of her own: her acting on her crush crossing the line between student and advisor, ESPECIALLY for a student writing sexy romance novels her advisor needs to critique. In one of her baddest boss moves to date, Jane goes to Jonathan’s—erm, Professor Chavez’s—office the next day to take full responsibility for her actions, and to assure him that she can and will move on as if things were back to normal. He’s unconvinced, but Jane is resolute.
Unfortunately, her resolve and her creative brain aren’t exactly in sync, and Jane loses a whole afternoon of productive writing to disclaimers on propriety and consent for every lingering touch in her new chapter. And so the next day she returns to Professor Chavez’s office and let’s him know that she’ll be finding a new advisor—she just can’t risk her writing by doing otherwise. “Are you sure?” he asks. Yes, she is. “In that case…do you want to go to dinner?”
GET IT, GIRL.
Luisa Alver: Reading From the Wrong Script Since Day One
Speaking earlier of completely unhelpful moms, the new CSI tech at the Miami PD has discovered that Elena’s stepdaughter Clara, digitally aged up, is none other than Rose.
Yep! Luisa not only fell in love with her stepmother, but her stepmother is also her half-stepSISTER. Step-half-sister? Either way, ROYALLY screwed up. A fact which Luisa fixates on in the police station for a solid ten minutes before referring offhandedly to the chauffeur in the photo’s background, whom she knows well. LUISA. How have you survived the world all these years, you beautiful, dumb, genius unicorn!
Thankfully, Luisa knows how to get in touch with the chauffeur, and so she agrees to work with the police to set up a possible sting, hiring him for a ride to nowhere in an effort to get a message to Rose. “Just tell her that no matter how hard I try, I can’t get over her,” Luisa says, her new lady-love Detective Susanna listening in sadly over the wire, “and that if there is still any hope, that she should send me donuts. She’ll know what kind.”
Later that evening, there’s a knock at Luisa’s door. It’s not donuts, though—it’s Susanna. And she is there to break things off with Luisa, echoing Petra as she notes that Luisa still isn’t over her other love, and so if it is ever going to be their time, it isn’t now.
Meanwhile, in Switzerland, Elena has finally tracked Rose down. And she is brunette (poorly) and yes, definitely Elena’s (step)daughter. And they are teaming up to find that chip…
NEXT TIME
Jane and Jonathan get it ON. Or do they? We will have to wait a whole TWO WEEKS to find out! See you all on January 22…
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.
