Jane the Virgin, “Chapter Eighteen,” was written by Meredith Averill and directed by Edward Ornelas. This episode was particularly well written as a number of the events parallel each other in interesting ways. Once again, the show manages to combine humor and drama in one of the most engaging ways on television. It’s impossible to watch this show and not fall in love with Gina Rodriguez, and she breaks our hearts in the final moments of the episode.
The episode begins with its usual flashback. Jenna Ortega is once again excellent as the young Jane. It’s Easter and the favorite time of the year for the Villanuevas. Jane loves the chocolate, Xo (Andrea Navedo) the spring fashions – that show off her assets, and Alba (Ivonne Coll) the religious holiday. Jane finds herself being a Doubting Thomas and takes her questions to Alba, who once again imparts wisdom. She tells Jane, “You can poke hole in anything. That’s what faith is… the banishment of doubt. Don’t let your head get in the way of your heart.” While this seems like really good advice, it turns out that while it works for religious faith, it’s not the best advice when it comes to everyday reality and relationships.
Jane and Rafael (Justin Baldoni) are at birthing class when his phone rings and he abandons Jane in the middle of the breathing exercise. She is then forced to do the supporting squat by herself against the wall. She begins to wonder if this is what her life is going to be like, and she’s clearly worried – with good reason as we see the episode unfold. This is the first of the parallel scenes that I mentioned – and we see Jane at the end of the episode having had her worst doubts confirmed, once again leaning alone against the wall as she collapses in grief after Rafael breaks up with her.
Rafael continues to let Jane down throughout the episode, always putting the hotel and its concerns before Jane and the baby. Because she can’t turn to Xo with her problems because she doesn’t want Xo to say I told you so, Jane vents to Andie, which turns out to be a bad idea. Andie dismisses Jane’s concerns as being baby hormones, saying the same thing happened to her sister. Of course, we know that Andie is completely self-interested. She doesn’t want Jane and Rafael to break up because she knows that Michael (Brett Dier) will go back to Jane. I was happy to see that Jane puts two and two together when she sees Michael in his date sweater at the hotel. He tells her he’s been seeing his ex-girlfriend, Andie (Rachel DiPillo), who had been “lightly stalking” him on Facebook. She got back in touch when she saw that he and Jane had broken up. Clearly, she’s had an agenda all along. However, when Michael tells her that Andie makes him feel like he’s finally able to move on, Jane doesn’t tell him what she knows because she doesn’t want to endanger his happiness. I can’t wait for her to confront Andie about it though!
Jane ends up with Alexis Falco (Melinda Page Hamilton) at one of her tables. When she’s rude to Jane, Jane stands up for herself, not knowing that this is the City Commissioner who Rafael is trying to convince to give him back the liquor license for the hotel. This means that Jane has to miss her very special family Easter dinner to help smooth things over for Rafael. Once again, she’s the one who much make the sacrifice. Naturally, our Jane nails the lunch – after a fashion. Clearly, Alexis was looking forward to humiliating Jane, but Jane being the excellent A student that she is did her homework so that she was able to converse on all the topics, including art, dog shows, and dressage – though being a dressage rider myself, I can tell you that the piaffe is not an under-rated movement at all! So, unfortunately, as Jane wins over Alexis’ friends, she alienates Alexis – until Alexis finally sees the real Jane.
Jane overhears Alexis and her husband Graham (John Burke) fighting. He’s going off on a work trip and will miss their daughter’s birthday. Alexis asks if his mistress will be there and he cruelly confirms that she will. Alexis begs Jane not to tell, offering to get the liquor license back for the hotel to ensure her silence. Jane assures her that she wouldn’t say anything regardless, and then attempts to make Alexis feel better by telling her that she grew up without a father and what she remembers about her birthdays is that her mother was always there. Alexis finally apologizes to Jane. The disturbing thing about this scenario, however, is whether Jane is actually getting a glimpse of what her life is going to be like with Rafael.
When they get back to the hotel, Jane realizes that Rafael turned his phone off for the meeting with Alexis and Graham. She calls him on it even though he’s clearly irritated that she’s annoyed. Rafael insists that the meeting was important – of course, the implication is that Jane and the baby aren’t that important. She tells him her doubts – that she doesn’t want to be like Alexis and Graham with the husband gone all the time and work coming first. Rafael assures her that he doesn’t want that either. But Jane is being realistic – to be successful in the way that Rafael wants
comes at a cost. He can’t be in two places at once.
Jane finally comes clean to both Alba and Xo about her doubts. Xo doesn’t tell her ‘I told you so’ but is very supportive. She tells her that this is how Jane self-sabotages – she has doubts. She reminds her about how quickly she ended it with Michael when she had doubts about him. Jane says she ended it with Michael because she was falling for Rafael. Xo tells her to think about the qualities that made her fall in love with Rafael, but Jane isn’t sure that will be enough. Both Xo and Alba tell her to have faith – but in this instance it’s not really good advice.
Meanwhile, Justin Baldoni does a terrific job in this episode showing us the normally upbeat, stoic, and strong Rafael gradually unraveling and doing some self-sabotage of his own. He’s taken Jane’s advice about finding his Mom (Fabiana Udenio) and when the Private Investigator gets her email, he sends her a message. She surprises him by just showing up at the hotel. This is another great theme that runs through the episode – the theme of mothers. Even Alexis and Lilian are better mothers! She confesses to him that she and his father were a mistake from the beginning. They were too different and got married after a whirlwind romance. This has to resonate with all of us as being the story of Rafael and Jane. She tells him she cheated on his father and then he paid her $10 million to go away and stay away, so she did. Rafael is devastated to learn not only that she’d take the money and abandon him, but that she has been only three hours away his entire life and never tried to contact him. If she cheated, I wonder if that means that Luisa is only his half sister? She has a letter that his father sent him when he was 18 that tells how proud he was of Rafael and all the hopes he had for him.
Rafael is clearly devastated by this meeting. He tells his mother that he thought the worst thing that could happen was that she wouldn’t respond but this was worse. When Jane comes to him that night with faith that they can work it out, he’s already trying to spare himself any further pain by pushing her away. He’s had it demonstrated that his father was actually the good parent. He is through making it seem like his father wasn’t a good role model. He tells Jane that maybe they are too different – his mother’s very words. He tells her that maybe they should just focus on being good parents and take a break with their relationship. Jane keeps insisting that he come out and say it, clearly hoping she isn’t hearing what she thinks she’s hearing. Jane finally says, “You want to break up,” and Rafael responds, “Whatever you want to call it.” Jane barely gets out of the room before she begins sobbing, sliding down the wall. Baldoni and Rodriguez both do outstanding work showing how the pressures are affecting them both.
Meanwhile, the course of true love is not running smoothly for anyone. I was thrilled to see the wonderful Rita Moreno guest star as Rogelio’s (Jaime Camil) mother Liliana de la Vega. She is fabulous as Jane’s GLAM-MA! We learn that the bad blood stems from 1991 when she walked in on Rogelio and Xo making love, which lead to her knocking over a lamp and electrocuting her cat, Gordetto. Of course, this isn’t the real reason she hates Xo. It’s hilarious watching her find new ways to torture Xo. And was anyone surprised to find that Rogelio is a total mama’s boy? Jane warns Xo that Xo self-sabotages when she gets insulted.
Even Alba is having relationship issues. Jane and Xo tease her about asking Edward (Cheech Marin) out. Alba tells Jane that she thinks, “Maybe he already has someone special in his life.” Xo tells her she could star in her own telenovela: “Rehabilitated Love”! Jane is suitable shocked to see Edward as the Priest when she goes to services at the Holy Trinity Church with Rafael. Looks like that someone special is God!
Alba agrees to call Edward if Xo apologizes to Lilian so that they can move forward. I loved that Xo was so shocked when Alba agreed! However, when Jane tells Alba about Edward, she’s already called! Alba is suitably aghast that she’s not only asked a Priest out, but that she did it on Easter! The shocking thing is that he said yes! The narrator (Anthony Mendez) updates the title of Alba’s telenovela: “Rehabilitated Love: Thornbirds Edition”! Hilarious – The Thornbirds was a soapy mini-series based on a series of books about a fallen Priest for those not familiar with it.
There are plenty of parallels between Jane’s lunch with Alexis and the Easter meal. I loved the caption of Worst Person in the World going back and forth from Alexis to Liliana to Rogelio. Xo’s apology revealed that Rogelio had lied to his mother. Liliana is really angry at Xo because she thinks that Xo never told Rogelio she was pregnant. Rogelio finally comes clean at dinner – even though he was sure he couldn’t say the word abortion on Easter! He tells his mother he knew and told Xo to have an abortion. I wonder if Jane knows this and what she will think if she doesn’t. Liliana finally apologizes to Xo in a parallel scene to Alexis’ apology to Jane.
However, Liliana has one last shot to take. She tells Xo and Rogelio that they should break off their relationship because they are too alike! Both are proud, headstrong, and impetuous. Her final tactic is to throw Xo’s age in her face. Rogelio wants more children – something she denied him with Jane. Rogelio doesn’t want them right away though and Xo’s biological clock is ticking! That’s it for Xo, and she’s so insulted that she leaves and self-sabotages when Marco (Nicholas Gonzalez) suddenly appears at the bar where she’s gone to have a drink. He tells her that he’d never let anyone speak to her that way, and if it were him, he would have thrown his mother out. They share a kiss, but Xo suddenly comes to her senses and pulls away, telling him she shouldn’t have. No doubt, this little bit of impetuous behavior is going to come back to haunt her.
The capper is that when she comes home, Rogelio has thrown his mother out – or at least taken her to the airport. Rogelio finally says he loves her. He also says that he doesn’t care about children – they’ll just buy eggs if need be! After all, they’ve seen how effective AI is! The Narrator asks us how Xo could tell Rogelio about that small kiss – still betting it will have big consequences. Perhaps Marco isn’t the nice guy he appears to be…
There was the potential for there to be three awkward meals, but Petra’s dinner with Aaron (Alano Miller) ends up not taking place. Rafael has assured Petra that he doesn’t believe Aaron is Roman. Petra takes matters into her own hands and determines to get evidence by sneaking into Aaron’s room to get fingerprint evidence. When Aaron comes back unexpectedly, she hides in the closet. I loved the Narrator in this scene in particular: “*gasp* Wait! I thought he was leaving!” And then he tells us, “he missed her by a hair.” But in fact, he didn’t miss her by a hair, he spotted her by a hair – her hair sticking out of the closet where she was hiding! Michael assures Petra that they will be watching while she has dinner with Aaron and as soon as the fingerprints are analyzed, they’ll snatch him up. Naturally, the confirmation that Aaron IS Roman comes after Roman has spirited Petra away from the hotel!
This was another great episode that really moved the plot along. None of our Villanueva women seem to be having an easy time in their love lives. Can Rafael and Jane come back together? Should they? Should Jane try to mend fences with Michael or let him try to find happiness with Andie? And what is up with Edward?! What did you think of the episode? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
About the Author - Lisa Macklem
I do interviews and write articles for the site in addition to reviewing a number of shows, including Supernatural, Arrow, Agents of Shield, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Forever, Defiance, Bitten, Glee, and a few others! Highlights of this past year include covering San Diego Comic Con as press and a set visit to Bitten. When I'm not writing about television shows, I'm often writing about entertainment and media law in my capacity as a legal scholar. I also work in theatre when the opportunity arises. I'm an avid runner and rider, currently training in dressage.
