Rogelio's Past Mistakes Threaten His Extraordinary Future

There are probably some who would say that the most momentous event of this week's Jane The Virgin comes when Rafael finally succumbs to his poor little rich boy self-pitying bullshit and breaks up with Jane -- and Jane would probably be one of them.

But then, there are probably also some who would say they were on Jane's side in her dispute with Mrs. Falco, but I'm sorry: when you're a server in a restaurant and you're out on the floor, in uniform, not on your break, the only reason I better ever see a phone in your hand is if you're calling 911 about a guest who's choking on the beautifully prepared meal you just brought him in an appropriately timely manner: I am not a crackpot! But I digress: nothing in this episode gave me more agita than the tension between Xiomara and Rogelio, and with so few episodes left in the season, I'm scared about the direction they're headed.

As teased at the end of the last episode, this week sees the arrival of Rogelio's mother, Liliana, who is disapproving of her son's lady in all the archetypal sitcom mother-in-law ways but also specifically because her shock, back in 1991, of walking in on Xo and Rogelio Doing Sex and subsequently knocking over a lamp, killing her cat. Her thrill at meeting Jane, the granddaughter she never knew she had, is tempered by her intractable disapproval of Xo, but while Xo is sure it's due to the embarrassing/feline-fatal incident, when she swallows her pride to apologize to Liliana for it, she learns that's not the issue at all: it's that Liliana is under the impression that Xo never told Rogelio she was pregnant with Jane, so Liliana thinks Xo selfishly deprived Rogelio of the opportunity to raise his daughter. And Rogelio is such a mama's boy that he's decided the right time to tell Liliana the truth is on her deathbed. (Or so he tells Xo -- quickly adding that that's a joke, though one senses that if Xo had been okay with it, he might have just waited after all.)

Though maybe she doesn't deal with it so well, Xo's latest hurdle just underscores, for me, what a hero she has been for her daughter since before she was even born. The two most important people in her life -- her mother and her baby's father -- both tried to convince her to terminate her pregnancy, but even the prospect of bringing a child into the world with no support at all couldn't dent her determination to keep Jane and be a great mom to her (even when it seemed like she was doing the exact opposite). That she has been able to forgive both Alba and Rogelio rather than curdling with bitterness is proof that, at her core, she's a better person than either of them -- yes, better even than Alba with her hypocritical piety and judgment and NO I am still not on board with that character and maybe never will be.

But whatever Xo and Rogelio went through when they were dumb kids trying to deal with an unplanned pregnancy is very different from Rogelio still letting himself be influenced by his mother now that he's an adult with two divorces behind him. It's one thing for Liliana to start declaring what Rogelio wants from a relationship -- more biological children, for one, but "not for a while," which may leave Xo out of the running); it's another for Xo to feel like Rogelio's going along with Liliana and letting her plot out what the rest of his life is going to be like. And even though Xo slips at her chance reunion with Marco and very briefly kisses him -- which the show positions as evidence of her tendency to self-sabotage -- all the evidence of her crappy Easter Sunday points to Rogelio once again failing to back her in another tough situation. She really has no reason to think she's coming home to anything but Rogelio choosing to follow his mother's wishes at Xo's expense. Instead, Rogelio surprises her with major growth. He's sent Liliana home, and for a very good reason: "No one disrespects the woman I love." (The same old ridiculous Rogelio is still in there, thank God. When Xo asks about his mother's declaration that Xo is too old for him if he wants to have kids in a few years, Rogelio waves off her concern: "Who cares if your eggs are too old. We'll buy fresh ones! Combine my DNA with anyone and the child will be extraordinary!")

Xo's inability to trust Rogelio to ignore his mother in favour of Xo herself unfortunately led her to the bad decision of kissing her ex for three seconds (I timed it), and while Xo's female friends, if she had any -- which is weird; we should have met at least one by now, right? Surely she has a platonic social life with people she isn't biologically related to and didn't, until recently, live with? -- would say it's definitely not a big enough deal even to bother telling Rogelio about if it meant nothing and the reason she did it is not an issue anymore, it seems likely that this is the face of a guilty woman...

...who's not going to be able to keep the secret of the world's tiniest infidelity even to spare Rogelio's feelings, and that these two are probably headed for another breakup. But since I can't stand the thought of the catastrophe that is almost certainly careening toward us, I leave you instead with the night's best quote.

Oh, Rogelio. Nothing is worse than a perm.