In the fifth episode of the second season of Jane the Virgin<\/i>, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know what to say. This was like fifty punches to the face. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Jane the Virgin<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of abusive relationships, deportation, grief, police brutality<\/b><\/p>\n
Petra<\/b><\/p>\n
Well, this is a disaster. Yet amidst this disaster… there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hope, isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t there? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll use Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s words: 2%. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a tiny part of me that sees a way out for Petra, that sees hope for a life without all this toxicity. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s small because… wow, the situation she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in is so, so awful. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so bad! Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all know I hate Milos, and I see not one thing redeeming about this relationship. To be fair, neither does the show. Even the one \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sweet\u00e2\u20ac\u009d gesture we see from him in this episode\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe gifting of the expensive violin\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis later shown to be another manipulative, stalker-y act. So, thankfully, the show isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t trying to paint him as a romantic person or a possibly viable partner. No, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s awful. In every way! He married Petra not just because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a gross, controlling person, but he used the wedding to smuggle WEAPONS into Miami.<\/p>\n
So I read Petra\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actions as those of survival. She knows Milos is awful, and she knows that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got all these creepy ulterior motives. So how can she find control in all of this? How can she feel that she has agency amidst all of this? And now she knows that she can also go to Jane for help. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s huge<\/i>. Petra\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s appreciation of Jane was genuine, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, and I wonder if we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see her reach out to Jane at some point in the future. Again: I just want to see what Petra is like outside of all this toxicity.<\/p>\n
(Oh god, using the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153toxic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in this review is TOO MUCH. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get the song out of my head!)<\/p>\n
Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Choice<\/b><\/p>\n
So. I wrote a thing in my last review! You know, that whole thing about someone getting hurt in this triangle? YEAH, I DID NOT ANTICIPATE IT WOULD BE LITERALLY EVERYONE<\/i>, INCLUDING MATEO!!! I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll talk about the fight in a bit, but let me start here: I was SUPER into the whole \u00e2\u20ac\u0153writing on the wall\u00e2\u20ac\u009d motif\/device in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Chapter Twenty-Seven.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Seriously, I love the way that these elements of the fantastical are utilized to tell stories, and here, the writers manage to anchor us in a story from Xo and Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s past: June 12. On that day, Jane, just a toddler, drew all over the wall while Alba was privately grieving the loss of her husband, setting in motion the event that would get Xo to take the rap for Zed. And so, we get this story of grief, love, and choice, and it spills out to all the various characters. That aphorism\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe writing\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s on the wall\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbecomes a literal technique as each of the people involved in Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s choice realize what the truth is. Jane knows who she wants to choose. Rafael realizes when Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about to break things off with her. Jane figures out that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no \u00e2\u20ac\u0153right\u00e2\u20ac\u009d time to break-up with a person. There was no scenario in which he escaped unscathed. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a heavy thing to come to accept, but she had to.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Michael\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Job<\/b><\/p>\n While all this is happening, another relevant plot thread builds up. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s frustrating watching this because I think Michael was bound for this for a long time. I suspected that some of his bad choices would come back to haunt him, and here we are. I just didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect Bennett to get Michael so QUICKLY. At the same time, Michael kinda set himself up for this! Seriously, breaking into your boss\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office to watch footage of the person who acted as a witness against you? Yo, THAT WAS A REALLY BAD DECISION. Michael realizes too late that his judgment has been clouded: by his love for Jane, by his utter dislike for Rafael, by his compulsion to put a relationship first when he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not even in it. It was all done in the hope<\/i> that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d end up with Jane. And as someone who has also made the mistake of doing something for the same reason, I GET IT. I TRULY DO. Doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make them good<\/i> decisions, though. This is relevant because of what it influences:<\/p>\n The fight.<\/p>\n The Fight<\/b><\/p>\n I simply did not expect things to escalate this far. I thought that, at worst, Michael and Rafael would have a few words with one another, and I thought that scene was leading right into a trope: two men fighting over a woman, and she would end the fight by choose the one she wanted. Except that the writers seemed to be very aware of this, guided us into a corner, and then revealed that corner was actually a cliff, and now we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been shoved off of it.<\/p>\n Because Jane chooses no one.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Because this hurt everyone<\/i>.<\/p>\n It hurt Rafael for obvious reasons. It Michael because he couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t move on. It hurt Jane because both men still behaved as if Jane was a prize to be won. And then little Mateo is physically<\/i> harmed by glass breaking when Rafael is thrown onto a table. All for what<\/i>? Because Michael suspected that Rafael snitched on him? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so unethical on about a million levels, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably the one thing about cops that does<\/i> feel realistic in this episode. (Cops don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really get fired like that, first of all. Police unions make sure of that. Abolish the police!) Michael assaulted someone who he believed had told on him. Like… that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s police brutality to a T. Textbook! Doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter if he was off-duty or thought he wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t acting in an official capacity. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like this was a random fight; it was in direct connection to his job.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n How the hell can Michael ever come back from this? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s heartbreaking, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, especially since he was so damn close to a reunion, and his absurd decision-making left him worse off than ever before.<\/p>\n Feud with Britney<\/b><\/p>\n This is a heavy, intense episode, so I was thankful that there were two (mostly) humorous plots to add levity. I still feel like Britney Spears being on this show was a fever dream. Did that really happen? Did she constantly make reference to her own songs? Did her assistants wear matching uniforms and walk in sync with one another? Did Rogelio say that he was supposed to kiss Enrigue Iglesias but instead, Madonna and Britney kissed? DID THIS SHOW REALLY ESTABLISH THAT BRITNEY\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S RED JUMPSUIT IN \u00e2\u20ac\u0153OOPS… I DID IT AGAIN\u00e2\u20ac\u009d WAS ACTUALLY ROGELIO\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S AND HE GAVE IT TO HER AND HELPED MAKE POP MUSIC HISTORY?\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This WHOLE plot was absurd, and I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t change it at all. Look, if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re gonna get one of the most famous people in the world to guest on your show, you might as well go broke. I just… the plot is so perfect for Rogelio, too! He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such a name-dropper, so of course he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have a feud with another celebrity. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need this story to be deep or have multiple meanings. I love that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ridiculous from beginning to end.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n BRITNEY SPEARS. What the FUCK.<\/p>\n Zed<\/b><\/p>\n And while this story was<\/i> super funny, it did have a lovely emotional weight to it. Like I wrote earlier, this plot was rooted in the events of June 12, and once more, we get to see how important the women of the Villanueva family are to one another. On the realistic end, we see how the justice system can work against people in an insidious way. Despite what actually happened, Xiomara\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s felony conviction still haunts her. here, it had the potential to derail Alba\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attempt to become a citizen. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a whole other angle to this, which is that a white man let a Latinx woman take the rap for him, and he got to basically have the rest of his life without having to worry about this. Even when Jane tries to tell Zed that the statute of limitations have expired, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d still rather protect himself.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mixed in with this is one of the FUNNIEST things the show has ever given us: Xiomara and Alba high on edibles after accidentally eating one of Zed\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s weed chocolate bars. Look, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do any of this shit, but I have seen SO MANY people make the terrible mistake of eating too many edibles because they generally take longer to hit. (This also reminds me of one of my favorite tweets: https:\/\/twitter.com\/billdixonish\/status\/660670339282694145?s=21<\/a> ) Granted, Alba and Xiomara didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be done. STILL!!! Watching Ivonne Coll take her character to this new place was an incredible delight, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad I got to laugh during this, because WOW, it was so intense otherwise.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Chapter Twenty-Seven\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> In the fifth episode of the second season of Jane the Virgin, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know what to say. This was like fifty punches to the face. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Jane the Virgin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[705],"tags":[706],"class_list":["post-7602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jane-the-virgin","tag-mark-watches-jane-the-virgin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\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":"