So, we are four episodes into the fifth and final season of Jane the Virgin, and I have to say, Michael is making me so mad. Of course, he did turn out to have amnesia, which was what we predicted, and that wasn’t his fault. But, he is being an ass now that his memory is intact.
Allow me to explain: Jane is in a stable, loving relationship with the father of her son. He has recently taken a job to support them so that they can live together and she can write her novel. They are co-parenting their child effectively and maintaining a close familial connection with both Jane’s family and their extended family of Petra and the twins. Frankly, things are good. Jane has a good life, one that makes her happy. There is a future that she is excited about. She took three years to mourn her husband, and now she has her life back.
Then, Michael returns. First of all, he was kind of a dick when he was Jason, and now he’s back to himself, and still being awful. He’s being so selfish, trying to get Jane to be with him again when she has her life together and is happy. If he loves Jane, he shouldn’t be trying to disrupt her life. He knows Jane really well, and what does she want? Stability. Jane loves lists, and order, and Michael deciding to try to win her back brings her world crashing down in a big way. When he was going to leave without seeing her, he was doing the right thing, the selfless thing. He was going to allow Jane to make peace with their past and move on with the rest of her life. Then, he saw her and they had to talk it out. That’s fine- but he still should have left. It would be one thing if Jane and Raphael were just dating, or had feelings for each other- but they just moved in together! Raphael was about to propose to Jane, and she was going to say yes. They are committed to each other, and in a healthy way. Their relationship is good, and trying to break that up because he still loves her is peak selfish of Michael to do.
Jane is obviously not blameless in all of this- her conflict is understandable but still hard on everyone involved. What she needs is a therapist, and some patience. It is understandable that Rafael needs to take a step back, but heartbreaking. He has to protect himself, for his own emotional health. Asking Jane to move out is a huge step back, and how are they going to proceed? They haven’t technically broken up, but is that coming? If so, it probably won’t stick, but it was truly terrible thing to watch, and it helped Jane realize her new greatest nightmare, hurting her son and losing the man she loves. Hopefully, this is a wake-up call for Jane to get her shit together and tell Rafael that he’s the one she wants to be with. It is possible that the middle of the season could see Jane single, because there’s no way she’s going to get back together with Michael. There has just been too much change for their lives to ever fit together again. Is he going to be a detective again? What’s going to happen to Bo?
The thing is, it doesn’t matter if you are team Rafael or team Michael, as long as you’re team Jane. Jane will decide what she wants to do, and hopefully with minimal hurt on all sides. Breaking up with Rafael would cause the most structural damage to her relationships and life. This conflict has been set up to mirror the previous times Jane has had the choice between Rafael and Michael. The first time, when she broke her engagement to Michael because she’d fallen in love with Rafael. The second time she’s at a crossroads, she chooses Mateo over them both, in order to focus on herself and her new baby. The third time, she chooses Michael, and then soon after has to break up with him for Mateo’s safety. When Michael comes back into her life, they get back together, and get married. At that point, Rafael was still in love with Jane, but he knew that she was happy and wanted to marry Michael, so he respected her decision. He was tempted to tell her he loved her on her wedding day, fifty feet from the alter, and he kept his mouth shut. Why? Because he cared about her.
Initially, when the whole story started, Michael and Jane had been together two years, and Jane and Rafael had kissed briefly in the past. Then, the whole artificial insemination thing happened, and everything went bananas. Michael was about to ask Jane to marry him, and she was about to say yes. Then, blast from the past, Rafael shows up.
Now, Jane and Raf are happy, and Michael, blast from the past, returns from the “dead.” They are about to get engaged, but are shocked by Michael resurfacing. In this case, it’s a resurrection, not a pregnancy, that disrupts Jane’s life. I feel certain that Jane and Rafael will end up together, but I understand his distaste for the love triangle. It’s been played out before, and she’s never chosen him. I hope that Raf has grown enough as a character that he can give Jane the time she needs to make her peace with Michael, so that they can start their lives together. Their story has been a convoluted one, but they deserve a happy ending.
The Chamber of Spoilers 