Who Wins And Who Loses As Jane The Virgin Pays Off Its Mother Of A Cliffhanger?

As I predicted in my post on the Season 1 finale of Jane The Virgin (and...like, as anyone with any sense would have predicted, I mean duh), the Season 2 premiere doesn't leave us in suspense about baby Mateo's fate for too long: Jane obviously takes advantage of the fact that her ex-fiancé is a police officer and enlists him to do whatever it takes to get the baby back -- something Sin Rostro herself makes easy by contacting Michael herself. With the criminal soap-opera drama dispensed with, Jane can start dealing with problems other mothers also face...and while that feels kind of rote, we are dealing with an hours-hold infant; Jane can't exactly stick him in a basket in the sunroom à la Playing House's Charlotte, but I feel like we're all really looking forward to enough time's having passed to allow her to, right?

Anyway: the season premiere is even more of a roller coaster than usual, but where does it leave everyone when the ride is over? Let's rank them from who had the best week to who had the worst.

1. Jane
   Of course Jane, as a mother, is determined to do everything exactly right, starting with counting down scheduled feedings to the minute -- which gives the standard "ticking clock" trope that occurs in all kidnapping stories even more resonance for audience members who are not likely to experience a child's kidnapping their own selves. Michael manages to return Mateo for his feeding only twenty minutes late, as Jane is careful to tell her pediatrician, Dr. Garcia, when she brings Mateo for his checkup; but when the doctor reports that Mateo has lost a little weight since his birth -- a common occurrence -- Jane seizes on Dr. Garcia's characterization of her feelings as "not too worried" as evidence that she's failing Mateo. Cue the arguments about nipple confusion, the visit to a nursing circle of smug moms, the maternal self-recrimination...it's a lot of stuff we've seen before. What we haven't seen before in comedies about babies and new moms? A lawn full of acolytes convinced that said new mom is divinely blessed and has the power to cure infertility in others. Eventually, Jane gets the wackos to leave by lying to that bag Sister Margaret about having had sex, just in time for her "shove her boob into the baby's mouth like a hamburger" nursing technique finally causes her milk to come in. Not the greatest start to Week 1 of motherhood...
   

   ...but this is about as happy an ending as Jane could hope to have.

2. Sin Rostro
   Enlisting Michael to steal a pin containing a chip with all her plastic surgery clients' before and after shots and trading it for Mateo is kind of a foolproof plan: no sensible person was ever going to prioritize evidence over a baby's life. So now Sin Rostro's got Michael on the hook to use, no doubt, as she sees fit; she's also got the data to preserve and continue running her criminal enterprise. Though it's true that I still care about 0.02% about the Sin Rostro business compared to everything else, she pretty much nailed all her goals this week, and you can't argue with results.
3. Rafael
   This fucker is real lucky that Jane's ex is, as our narrator puts it, as big a mensch as he is, and willing to give Rafael advice about breaking in with the Villanueva women that will only improve Rafael's standing with them. He's also lucky that we still live in a patriarchal society and that his having read one book about babies is all it takes to make him seem involved and prepared. I mean, I believe he does want to be both those things, but Jane's been pregnant for nine months; maybe he could have hit up Barnes & Noble before Mateo was actually outside her?
   

   ...Ugh, fine, this skin-to-skin bonding moment doesn't suck for the viewer. (Note: Rafael wouldn't be ranked this high if he knew about the Petra sperm business, but since he doesn't, he's had a pretty great week.)

4. Alba
   Jane's still a virgin and she's got a new reason to make Xiomara feel small. Does she want anything else out of life that we know of?
5. Xiomara & Rogelio
   After the chaos that surrounds Mateo's kidnapping has simmered down, Xiomara can confess the wedding and imminent annulment (we'll see) to Alba and Jane, who are amused but affectionate about it. And while it's Rogelio's overexcited tweets that draw the Jane truthers to the Villanueva lawn, Jane doesn't hold it against him, knowing his intentions were good. Rogelio also gets the benefit of Michael's menschy advice -- in this case, to think Papa thoughts and be a useful support to Jane and Xo.
   

   And Rogelio, God love him, is appropriately grateful. Aw.

6. Luisa
   I'm not really sure why Luisa is still on the show? She adds nothing? (I mean, she "added" sperm to Jane's cervix, but since then?) Whatever: Juicy dumps her out of jealousy over Luisa's box of Rose keepsakes, and then Luisa fucks up a Marbella meeting with some bankers because she's so distraught. And as if that wasn't enough damage for anyone to wreak in a single episode, she also potentially (further) ruins her brother's life by giving his ex hope of getting back together with him when the evidence is plentiful that Petra's judgment is not the best. Go back to your wellness retreat, Luisa, and don't come back.
7. Petra
   The flashbacks to Petra's apparently non-viable pregnancy five years ago are actually sweet, and even though I haven't historically had much use for her character, seeing her and Rafael together in happier times at least gives legitimacy to her ongoing obsession with the idea of getting back together, not to mention sparks the viewer's empathy over the couple's miscarriage. That said, since that time Petra has curdled into a basically bad person, and using this newly discovered sample of Rafael's sperm to try to inseminate herself behind is back is indefensible on every level. Get her, Scott!
8. Nadine
   I have never once written about this character without having to go to IMDb to remind myself what she's called. She's still under Sin Rostro's thumb. Oh no, and then a question mark? Who cares.
9. Michael
   I do care that Michael, thanks in part to Nadine, has put himself in a dangerously dependent position thanks to his latest Sin Rostro escapades -- not so much because I'm Team Michael as far as Jane is concerned, but because I know that if anything were to happen to Michael, it would break Rogelio's heart.