Life Isn't Fair To Jane The Virgin

We've been hearing from the narrator since the first season of Jane The Virgin that "for as long as Michael lived, until he drew his very last breath, he never" stopped loving Jane -- which means that, for the past two seasons, it's been difficult not to speculate about when Michael's long-foreshadowed end would actually arrive. When he was a detective, even routine tasks could be fraught with unseen peril. When he got shot on his wedding night, we thought it would be incredibly cruel for the show to end his and Jane's marriage before it had actually begun, but between the melodrama of the lost potential and the fact that his death would have come at the hands of a supervillain on her second face (that we know of), it certainly seemed like a telenovela way to go. But then Michael recovered, and quit the force, and was on a path to entering a comparatively safe line of work -- becoming a lawyer, so naturally...

But while the show seems to want us to get past this quickly -- one second after Jane is on the floor screaming in grief, three years have passed -- I have a lot of questions.

Is Michael dead?

Let's start with: do hospitals just tell wives over the phone that their husbands have been killed? A nurse wouldn't have called Jane to come there so that she could get the news in person? Didn't that guy talking to Jane sound kind of weird? Or do I just think he sounded weird because I'm predisposed to thinking all of this is weird due to the fact that people on this show often appear to be dead but then actually aren't?

And yes, if Michael is alive, it would be very out of character for him to fake his death and leave Jane...unless none of this was his choice. The person on the phone knew enough about Michael's medical history to tell Jane that the heart problem that has (apparently) killed him is related to his shooting. Maybe that's because Michael was brought to the same hospital where he was treated for it, or because Miami has computerized all its records, or because ROSE, who has TOTALLY JUST RETURNED IN THIS EPISODE with her THIRD FACE -- has arranged for the ambulance to take Michael someplace, is going to give him a new face and also amnesia and turn him into one of her familiars, and is using some kind of device to change her voice on the phone with Jane! The narrator tells us he isn't unreliable and reminds us that Michael loved Jane to his dying breath, but that doesn't necessarily mean said breath is drawn on the floor after the LSATs!

Or he's dead. I HONESTLY DON'T KNOW!

All right, now we can back up.

What would you pay for an uncensored version of Rogelio's nude scene?

Rogelio's autographed a whole stack of them with his, hee hee, "John Hancock" over the X-rated bits -- mostly for a screwball storyline that ends with Jane getting a fancy new job as the assistant to a very impressive editor.

If there's really a Rogelio fan club where these are a special premium for members, I need to know where to join. (Particularly since Rogelio later learns they cut his penis. From the movie. They edited it out. You get it.)

Do we really care about Rafael's whole legal thing?

I feel like I'm always using this space to complain about some boring thing about Rafael's business or money or legal troubles, but maybe the show's writers should take that as a hint to try to make them less boring. ...And, actually, to be fair, they have: involving Petra in his struggles and framing her willingness to do sketchy things in order to preserve, for herself and her daughters, the financial stability she never had herself, is the only element of the story that makes it at all moving for me. Petra's desperation to set her life back on its proper track after being in a waking nightmare of locked-in syndrome is effective even as it's underplayed -- I know she's a scrappy survivor, but might she not be more traumatized? -- and her goofy joy at the end of the episode, at the end of her first successful night looking after the twins on her own, is very touching.

I guess the idea of Rafael finding some nobility and volunteering to serve his sentence for his white collar crime that I barely even remember because of how boring it was is supposed to make him worthy of the widow Jane? I don't know, but I'm glad it looks like there's going to be some kind of time jump so we don't have to see too much of Rafael's version of The Night Of but in a cushy facility full of crooked low-T accountants.

How many viewers were won over to the Jane/Michael marriage just in time for him to get killed (apparently)?

From the "flashbulb moment" setup in the cold open -- the idea that memories of special events are distorted, leaving background details in shade -- to the montage of Jane and Michael at the fair, cutting between the two of them four years ago, the night they decided to be exclusive, and as a married couple trying to distract him from his nerves about the LSATs the next day, it's all very well done. Michael had a lot of ground to make up after he did some pretty crappy things in the early days of Jane's pregnancy, and I wasn't always convinced that he had earned the right to win her back; their reconciliation happened so fast. But the characters' chemistry is all the more undeniable as we saw the difference in that long-ago night, when they were stiffly sharing that photo booth. For this to be their last date makes Michael's (apparent) death that much more of a blow. Exquisitely crafted; still cruel!

Is this because she's a lesbian?

Luisa's back, and she's got a new girlfriend.

Does she look familiar? Because she should.

Anyway: her name is Eileen, but she's not Eileen, she's Rose, and Rose found some woman, copied her face, and now is getting the real Eileen to take all the medical tests Rafael requires to prove that she isn't Rose. And Luisa's in on Rose's whole scheme and now also knows that Rafael probably isn't her biological brother and therefore won't be entitled to any of Emilio's estate. This can't end well. But also who cares. Luisa sucks. She's got to go.

How do we feel about Jane's future hair?

This is Gina Rodriguez last week, so maybe it's actually her hair?

Better. It's still a version of the same hair every woman on TV must have, but at least it's shorter and not so similar to her mother's.

Do these writers really think I'm going to try to guess who's getting married three years from now?

Rafael and Petra! Xo and Bruce! Xo and Ro! Ro and Darci! Alba and a player to be named later! Tess and whatever idiot knocked her up at their prom! It could be anyone. I refuse to get sucked in BUT IT BETTER BE XO AND RO.