It goes without saying that Jane Villanueva has had a lot more complicated decisions to make about her love life than most virgins do. Pregnancy via accidental insemination is not ideal for anyone (with the possible exception of someone who's prepared to file a lawsuit and get a fat payday, which our Jane is obviously too scrupulous to do), but for a type-A girl like Jane, who's been progressing through her life by hitting all the right milestones in the right order, having one of her future goals show up on her calendar well ahead of where she'd scheduled it is a challenge -- but one she's risen to, unlike at least one man in her life. But now that it's been months since Jane ankled Mike, events seem to be forcing her to question whether she was too hasty. Is she supposed to be with Mike, the man she was in love with before she got pregnant? Or Rafael, former unattainable crush-turned-biological father? Or -- and here's a radical idea -- is it maybe NEITHER ONE OF THESE DUDES AT ALL?
When Jane first found out she was pregnant, and Mike told her that he didn't want to raise the child that would result if she decided to keep it, the show kind of made it seem like it was a scumbag move, but I...kind of got it? Of course, if you are in love with someone and a situation like this arises, that love should, ideally, be enough to smooth over the snags that will inevitably come about in a multi-home co-parenting arrangement. But I feel like it was fair for Mike to say he didn't want to get married with this kind of complication hanging over their heads -- without ever getting to experience what life would be like for just the two of them together, and no custodial agreements intruding. Mike knew that giving Jane a condition like this could put their relationship at risk, but I admired him for being aware of what he wanted (and didn't want) and forestalling future fights by being honest about it. Keeping the knowledge of Petra and Rafael's crumbling marriage from Jane so that Jane wouldn't reverse herself on placing the baby with them for adoption was, obviously, a bridge too far, and she was right to break off the engagement.
...But, judging by the evidence of the latest episode, it seems like his time away from Jane has caused Mike to reconsider how committed he is to keeping the imminent baby out of his life. Though he can't possibly know that the Flashback Of The Week revolves around Little Jane asking Xo how she will know when she's really in love, the timing is fortuitous for Mike, because it seemed like, pre-pregnancy, Jane had no doubt about whether she and Mike were really in love. With Rafael, it's a different story.
Though the show has never laid it out this way, Jane's very orderly temperament must be torn by the two men (still) competing for her affections. Staying with Mike would mean their perfectly chaste, appropriately long courtship had come to its natural conclusion. But staying with Rafael would mean their eventual baby will be raised by both its biological parents, who are also in a loving relationship with one another. Both defensible options for the obsessive-compulsive singleton looking to make the correct choice for her future!
Rafael's surprise proposal is certainly too fast, even for a telenovela, but the episode lets him come by it honestly, both because -- as we see in the narrator's cute nod to The Affair -- he thinks he's read into Jane's remarks to him what she wants him to do, and because, as a cancer survivor, he has first-hand experience with the idea that life is short and that he shouldn't wait to be with the person he loves. (Perhaps he doesn't seem as though he wants to get married as much as he thinks she does, but then again, as a divorced person, maybe the institution doesn't mean as much to him as he assumes it does to a woman who's still a virgin well into her twenties.)
But while the show is presenting Rafael vs. Mike as a binary choice for Jane right now, does she have to be with either one of them? I realize that sounds crazy in that the show hasn't offered up any other dude options for her yet (though I will admit that's where I thought they were going with Rogelio's assistant Nicholas...for a while), but it has presented a powerful portrait of parenting in Alba and Xiomara. Though the comforts of Rafael's money are compelling, and though Xiomara is clearly Team Mike, the bonds of love between Jane and the other members of her maternal line are more compelling and more solid than anything either bro is offering her. If Jane can't get past Mike's lying and Rafael's gun-jumping, maybe she should take a guy-atus and figure out what kind of parent she wants to be before deciding what man is going to get to share the privilege with her.