{"id":7584,"date":"2020-06-12T13:00:02","date_gmt":"2020-06-12T20:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=7584"},"modified":"2020-06-01T15:39:36","modified_gmt":"2020-06-01T22:39:36","slug":"mark-watches-jane-the-virgin-s01e19-chapter-nineteen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2020\/06\/mark-watches-jane-the-virgin-s01e19-chapter-nineteen\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Jane the Virgin’: S01E19 – Chapter Nineteen"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the nineteenth episode of the first season of Jane the Virgin<\/i>, Jane struggles with grief and tries her best to put things back on track. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Jane the Virgin<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For discussion of grief, kidnapping<\/b><\/p>\n

Hi, this episode, like so many others, personally attacked me.<\/p>\n

The 7 Stages<\/b><\/p>\n

I think I would have had a different take on this show if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d watched it a couple years ago. Well, it also wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have been over, so I am glad that I waited so that it would be complete. I say this because I had never really experienced a messy, complicated breakup until last year. It had always been so clean-cut for me. Yet now that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m (somewhat) on the other side of it, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a level of personal experience that made \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Chapter Nineteen\u00e2\u20ac\u009d feel so much real to me.<\/p>\n

I had a therapist tell me something last year. (And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get to the therapy stuff next.) She said that as a society, we often don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t treat the loss of a relationship as a form of grief, even though it very much follows similar patterns. So yeah, again: felt personally attacked as the show brilliantly used the seven stages of grief as a means of telling a story. Jane cycles through them quickly, but then loops back around before getting to acceptance. Which is also very<\/i> common! That same therapist said that people mistakenly believe that we all follow those seven stages in chronological order, and then we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re done.<\/p>\n

Nah. Grief is so much more complicated, messy, and unexpected than that. The stages are a guide, a means of understanding common reactions and emotions in the wake of grief, but like Jane goes through here, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no linear path. Sure, she followed it over the course of the day, but then she looped back to bargaining. Then she was angry. Then she was sad. Then she was back to having hope, then\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, you get the idea. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s through this that she comes up with the idea of couple\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s therapy, a means of stopping this path she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to go down.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Therapy<\/b><\/p>\n

I appreciated that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Chapter Nineteen\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is honest about therapy. There are a lot of people reluctant towards doing it, and they often have their own ideas about what happens in a session. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not going to say that this episode gives us a detailed experience, either, since we only see two sessions. For me, therapy is always<\/i> about the long game. While you might make progress in a single session, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve found that therapy needs multiple sessions spread over a long period of time. (Based on a person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s relative need, of course.) I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been with my current therapist for almost three months now, and I have two sessions a week. We are just now getting to stuff that we barely scratched the surface on in those first sessions.<\/p>\n

That being said, the therapist here is presented as a calm third party; she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not portrayed as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153quack,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and she does something almost all my therapists have done: Asked questions that cut to the core of a problem, but then make me come to my own conclusions. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s even a great sense of humor about the couples\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 therapy session, since any<\/i> summary of Jane and Rafael\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s history would sound absurd out of context. Yet even then, the therapist still takes them seriously!!!<\/p>\n

I also liked that she gave homework, that some of the homework seemed ridiculous, and GUESS WHAT. Even though they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do exactly what she said, it led to genuine revelations. In fact, Rafael, who seemed mostly uninterested in doing therapy, returned to that therapist<\/i>. His work with her led him to an important epiphany, too: He cannot provide for Jane emotionally because he is having the hardest time providing for himself<\/i>. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dealing with his own grief and trauma, and that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even cover the whole problem with how he values his time with his financial success over Jane.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s part of what makes this so hard. Rafael\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ultimate conclusion\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat Jane and Rafael should not be together\u00e2\u20ac\u201dso damn difficult to watch. Jane accepts it because\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 shit, it looks very much like he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right. He can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be what Jane needs anymore, and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very afraid he won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be what she needs in the future. Seriously, that whole bit of his where he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s convinced he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll drag Jane down into the darkness? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s heartbreaking. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gut-wrenching. It would be so much easier if this was cut-and-dry, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not. Interpersonal conflict can be so damn complicated, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, and as much as I wanted this relationship to work, it really might be better that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to try to move on.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to look like. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. How will these two be parents? If Jane has her kid by the end of this season, does that mean we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to see a toddler by the end of the show??? Michael seems to think that he still has a chance with Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhowever small that may be\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut is that a good idea? I feel like Jane is not going to want to jump into seeing ANYONE in the immediate future.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Telling the Truth<\/b><\/p>\n

Lies are part of the drama that fuels telenovelas. This show has PLENTY of them, and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re often used to give us dramatic moments when the truth finally comes out. And wow, A LOT OF TRUTHS COME TO THE SURFACE IN THIS EPISODE. Like\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 where do I start? How about with Xiomara and Rogelio? Because holy shit, this went to such an uncomfortable place. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad the show didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t drag out Xiomara\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lie, but they also did something interesting with the Amanda subplot. It seemed easier on the surface for Xiomara to tell the truth about what she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d done when Amanda misinterprets a situation and kisses Rogelio. Now they both kissed someone, and everything can be cleared up!<\/p>\n

Except that summary strips out the context and the agency. Xiomara chose to kiss Marco, and she did so during an understandably vulnerable moment. But she still did it. Rogelio was<\/i> kissed, and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a difference there in intent and direction. Rogelio\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s outburst comes from that place because he was betrayed, all while he was trying to do what he could to show Xiomara that he was devoted to her. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s simply not the same situation. IT STILL HURTS A WHOLE LOT, OKAY. Ugh, I want them to work out, too! I will say that I do think that they still can, but maybe Xiomara and Rogelio can start couples\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 therapy too.<\/p>\n

Well, that is if Rogelio wants to work on this relationship. \ud83d\ude41 \ud83d\ude41 \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n

Another parallel: Michale and Andie. Something tells me that this is it for Andie. Michael is justified in not talking to her anyway<\/i>, since she weirdly stalked Jane in order to get closer to him. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 bad! Bad decisions all around! So I get him never talking to her, but we all know that he sent that text message because he found out Jane was single again. Dude. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make a move. FOR A WHILE. Give her space!!!<\/p>\n

Roman<\/b><\/p>\n

So, I get why this happens for plot reasons. Petra discovered the truth of Roman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s identity, so he kidnapped her to protect her identity. But this whole subplot felt super underdeveloped. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much time spent on other stories, so I think that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s part of the problem. I also suspect that this is an element of what might be Petra\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s future characterization. After events with Milos (WHERE IS HE), Petra has become increasingly isolated, and I will say that I appreciate that she was given space here to be freaked out by everything. That scene where she calls Rafael and is brushed away was painful to watch. She just experienced trauma\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbeing kidnapped, having sex with her kidnapper in order to get to a cell phone, then accidentally impaling him and killing him\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand she needed someone to talk to. Despite the trauma that Magda brought into her life, Petra ultimately reached out to her mother for help. Where will this lead her, then? How will these events shape her? Because the Petra we see in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Chapter Nineteen\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is certainly not the same one I met in the first episode, you know?<\/p>\n

At the same time\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 man. They really did the Zazo brothers dirty. I still feel uncomfortable with the fact that the three existing Black characters are now either dead or will surely disappear due to betraying white people. Seriously! Aaron Zazo existed on the show to literally<\/i> be a dead body and nothing more. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know a single thing about him. Was Roman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s portrayal of his twin what he was like, or did he just make that up? (Also, as a twin, I find it super weird that they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t once address the emotional ramifications of murdering your own twin.) What about the potential in developing Roman beyond a one-note character? He was trying to go up against Sin Rostro! That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interesting. Well, too bad, now he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dead.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Nadine, who we discover was blackmailed by Sin Rostro. The evidence of that is actually really solid; I always thought Nadine was directing Michael away from proof because she was annoyed that he was obsessed with Jane. NOPE. I could be wrong about the future of her character, but if this is her last appearance, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gonna suck. Because now we have this big part of her character that could make her a more complicated character, but Michael lets her disappear. Ugh! No! She just got more interesting!!! I hope I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m wrong about this.<\/p>\n

Magda and Alba<\/b><\/p>\n

H E L P. OH MY GOD, ALBA RECOGNIZED HER, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M NOT READY FOR THESE LAST THREE EPISODES.<\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Chapter Nineteen\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n

– You can now pre-order my second YA novel, Each of Us a Desert<\/i>, which will be released on September 15, 2020 from Tor Teen!<\/a>
\n– Not only that, but my very first pre-order campaign is now live for North American readers! If you submit proof of pre-order, you can get a limited edition print that comes with the book<\/a>.
\n<\/strong>– If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"