Which Jane The Virgin Characters Are Faring Best After Jumping Ahead Three Years?

WELL, despite my suspicions last week, it would appear as though Michael really did die, and Jane The Virgin really has vaulted three years into the future. As one would expect, much more has changed than just Jane's hairstyle: Jane and Mateo have moved back in with Alba (Mateo apparently taking over Xo's room now that she's moved in with Bruce); Rafael's paid his debt to society; Petra's proving you can have it all, including great legs and a job where dress shorts are an acceptable garment in which you can show them off.

Who's doing the best three years post-Michael? Let's rank all the characters from first to worst.

1. Anna & Ellie
   As a consequence of Petra's renaissance as an amazing, perfect mother, which we will get to, her twins are now perfect blonde angels who easily forgive their boisterous brother when he gets too rough with them.
   

   Even better, Petra finally got sick of the Frozen references, so the one-time Elsa is now Ellie: definitely a win for her.

2. Alba
   She doesn't really get anything much to do in this episode except comfort Jane with the wisdom she gleaned from her own experience of widowhood and tuck her into bed each night, which is very sweet. But even though Mateo has turned into a real pain in the ass, she seems happy that the house hasn't been lonely since Xo moved out (if not...you know, happy about the circumstances that caused Jane to move back in).
3. Mateo
   Did I mention that Mateo's turned into a real pain in the ass? He has! It's not clear yet why he acts out so much other than that he's a boy (not to be sexist, but in terms of how controllable they are, a four-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl are just NOT THE SAME, SORRY), but Jane's latest system of discipline -- warnings that result in thunderclap stickers when he misbehaves -- are not getting the job done. Jane is protective of Mateo when Petra scolds him in front of her and embarrassed when his teacher suggests that he be assigned an aide to shadow him and keep him from disrupting the class with his outbursts. But hey, all of this is just how Mateo affects everyone else. Other than a brief and sweet apology to Jane for being a bad boy (which she says he isn't -- he's a good boy who does things he shouldn't sometimes), Mateo seems to do whatever he feels like -- including karate-chopping a classmate's birthday cake at the party he's only invited to after Petra's intervention -- and just gets extra attention and a fun karate class. This kid's got life figured out.
4. Abbey
   Jane wraps up a phone call with Rafael by telling him to say goodnight to Abbey. WHO?
   

   After that, Abbey's offscreen until an event at the Marbella. "Oh wow," comments the narrator, "I almost forgot about Rafael's girlfriend Abbey. Which...may be significant." Indeed. But hey, at least she's getting a leg over Rafael, whose abs are probably even more impressive post-prison. Get it while you can, honey.

5. Jane
   It may seem like madness that Jane is in the middle of the pack, given that she is now a very young widow. And of course she has moments of grief in this episode. She gets the chance to read from her unpublished novel at a literary event, but it turns out not to be the book she'd been working on, based on the story of Alba's clashes with her sister.
   

   It's a version of her love story with Michael, except the fictionalized version lets them live happily ever after. When it comes time for her to take the podium, though, she chokes at the idea of giving away that piece of Michael, until Rafael finds her backstage and tough-loves her into going on. We also see Jane put herself to bed (after Alba's tucked her in) by playing the last voicemail message Michael ever left her and sniffling herself to sleep. But OTHER THAN THAT, things are actually going pretty well for her. She's forged a good relationship with Petra on weekly mom-and-brother time, starting when Rafael went to prison. She's still got her job at the publishing house and gets an offer on her novel after her reading. And her hair is super-cute.

6. Xo
   With The De La Vega-Factor Factor a big reality hit, Xo has unfortunately gained a degree of infamy she does not care for, having been edited into the role of Rogelio's evil ex.
   

   It's probably astronomically driving up her dry cleaning bill.

   

   And all because of a moment when what had ACTUALLY happened was that she spilled coffee on herself. Anyway, she's relieved that the show is ending and seems happy enough with Bruce until she finds out that Rogelio and Darci didn't actually have fertility problems; he just realized he couldn't have a baby with her after all because he didn't want to be tied to her permanently. Xo:

   

   FIGURE OUT THAT YOU NEED TO GET BACK TOGETHER, IDIOTS.

7. Rogelio
   Ever since Rogelio ruined Darci's baby plan, she's been hell to work with on their "reality" show about their relationship; in fact, it is their (fake) wedding that Jane and Mateo are late for as the episode begins. But Darci and the producer collude to get Rogelio to do another season of the show by dangling the promise that when it's over, he'll get to headline The Passions Of Steve and break into the English-language soap market. Good news for his career; probably bad news for his mental health as he spends another season pretending to be in love with his TV wife.
8. Petra & Rafael
   As the episode starts, things seem to be going great for both the Solanos. Petra is about to preside over the grand re-opening of the Marbella, which she's done entirely on her own in Rafael's absence. She's the queen bee parent at her daughters' school; her daughters are a credit to her parenting; and she even gets her gross neighbour Chuck, the new owner of the adults-only Fairwick Hotel next door, to sign off on an easement for her kids' beach club partly through her sexual wiles, since they've been hate-fucking for six months.

   Meanwhile, Rafael has returned from prison not just with a beard, but with a new attitude: he doesn't seem to mind that both his exes tease him about his new Zen spirit (something he attributes to his one pair of linen pants, heh), but he gets re-engaged in the business long enough to notice that someone with greasy fingers screwed up Petra's planning by changing a 3 on a blueprint to an 8 and causing the necessity for the easement in the first place...

   ...but that turns out to be the first sign that things aren't actually going as well for these two as they seem. Petra figures out that Chuck isn't the one who changed the plans, since it would have been done eight months before and she's only been boning him for six. So who is the saboteur? Or will they even have time to worry about that crisis now that one of the kids at the beach club has ended her treasure hunt by unearthing...

   

   ...SCOTT'S VESTED CORPSE?!