Jane The Virgin Teaches Rogelio A Tough Lesson About Keeping Eyes On A Baby

Rogelio De La Vega, as we all know, is used to leading an extraordinary life, one beautiful day (to be Rogelio) following right on schedule behind the one before. But in recent months, he's had to find out what it's like to lead an ordinary life made up of somewhat less attractive days. He's struggled with the relative financial hardship that was the consequence of his pursuit of artistic fulfillment. He's learned that his parents' marriage is not exactly what he thought it was for the past forty years. And in this latest episode, he's faced the possibility that imperfect grandparenting might jeopardize his illustrious future as a superlative parent to his own infants someday.

Jane has an obligation with her program, and has exhausted all her usual babysitting options. Unfortunately, the subject comes up when Rogelio is present, and he excitedly volunteers for the job. Jane has some cause to be wary about this: he has no experience with very small children, and he's incredibly self-involved.

And while Jane has, in the past, taken precautions to avoid leaving "Matelio" alone with his abuelo -- only offering the chance to babysit at times she knew Rogelio couldn't do it -- her luck has officially run out, and with no acceptable reason not to give Rogelio this responsibility, an arrangement is made...though one imagines she did so already planning to sneak into his condo behind his back and move the large bowl of small marbles somewhere other than the coffee table at pretty much exactly Mateo's height. Xo joins her to help, which is how she happens to find the ring Liliana had given Rogelio, in the last episode, to use to propose to Xo, and after a minimum of sitcommy high jinks -- of course the ring gets stuck on Xo's finger; of course Jane has to hide it in her fist and then gets busted by Rogelio.

In a refreshingly honest moment for a television comedy, Jane immediately comes clean and confesses both that they accidentally found the ring and that she knows where it came from, whereupon Rogelio says he had intended to give it to Jane...

xo pic

...but once Rogelio's alone with someone who can actually keep a secret, Rogelio can't resist telling the truth: he does intend to propose to Xo at her fortieth birthday party, but not with Liliana's ring.

Jane could have foreseen the possibility that Mateo would want to eat a fistful of Rogelio's decorative marbles; she could not have foreseen that Rogelio would have a very small diamond that he couldn't help showing his grandson, not considering for a single second that Mateo might not understand that a shiny, sparkly object presented to him on a grownup's flat palm wasn't meant for the same purpose as his high chair try full of Cheerios. Jane reacts about as well to this development as most mothers do when summoned to the ER about the ingestion of a foreign object, but it's hard for her to stay mad when she learns what the stone is for. (And, just as the admission about the ring ran counter to sitcom conventions, the show's producers are careful to show Jane apologizing for her sharp words to Rogelio not just once but twice as the episode goes on; this kind of portrayal of recognizable human emotion is part of what makes the show so special and unique.) Jane takes on poop inspection duty...

...and before long, Mateo has supplied the diamond Rogelio needs. After Jane's sanitized it extensively and returned it to its owner, Rogelio confesses to her why -- other than the obvious -- this misadventure with Mateo was so troubling: "What if I'm not good with kids? I mean, I want them with your mother....What if I'm terrible at it? I mean, you turned out perfect without me."

And apparently the thought of his future children with Xiomara isn't an idle one. As he kneels to propose, Rogelio tells her, "I want to spend my life with you, and raise kids with you."

But when Rogelio winds things up by asking, "Will you marry me?," Xo can only say, "I want to!...But there is one thing that I didn't know, but that I'm realizing: I don't want to have any more kids...because I want the next twenty years to be about me. Is that a dealbreaker?"

Rogelio doesn't know. It's a tough moment to watch for Xogelio fans: she obviously means it when she says she wants to marry Rogelio, but these are not two young people, and this is not a small consideration. It's lucky that Rogelio's passion for future parenthood is so great he brought it up in his proposal, or else the matter might never have even come up before the couple got engaged. And it's fortunate Xo knows her own mind so well that she won't accept Rogelio without being clear about her intention to commit to herself. But it's heartbreaking to think this could keep this couple apart -- even if staying apart is the right thing for both of them, under these circumstances -- particularly when they had the chance to have this experience once already. Xo's answer to his proposal is just one of a few tough lessons Rogelio has learned in this episode.