In the twelfth episode of the third season of Jane the Virgin<\/i>, Jane deals with big news; Rogelio is exposed; Petra and Rafael cope with a discovery. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Jane the Virgin.<\/i><\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For extended discussion of death, grief, panic attacks<\/b>.<\/p>\n
Generally speaking, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m really, really enjoying this show, but every once in a while, the writers and cast knock something out of the park, and this is a perfect example of that. LET\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S DISCUSS.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Rogelio\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Lie<\/b><\/p>\n Oh, Rogelio. This character has such a rollercoaster of an arc. I do think we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen growth on his part since he was first introduced, but fame constantly tempts Rogelio back to the worst version of himself, the one that seeks out notoriety and popularity. A quick line from a previous episode is given its full consequences here, as Darci, in an attempt to hurt Rogelio, sends video proof of Rogelio\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lie to the Villanueva family. Once again, fame and ratings mattered more to Rogelio than the ramifications of said lie. Which Rogelio could have just admitted to when he initially apologized! I think Xo would have reacted differently if he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d just been upfront! But covering for the fact that he<\/i> agreed to cast Xo as the evil ex\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 oh, no, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s real bad. REALLY BAD.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There are two things I liked about the execution of this. First, I was appreciative of the fact that the writers never made<\/i> Xiomara apologize. Not only did she refuse to listen to Rogelio, but by the end of the episode, she was still allowed to be furious with him. She might understand him better, and there might be a future in their friendship, but as it stands? Xiomara is allowed to be angry, and the script doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t guilt her for not listening to or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153accepting\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rogelio\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s apology.<\/p>\n On top of that, the show also makes it clear that Rogelio\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s apologies are trite and that even if you do<\/i> apologize to a person, it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t instantly negate harm!!! All of these people\u00e2\u20ac\u201dXo especially<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwere still hurt by what Rogelio did. So what is Rogelio going to do to make amends for that? How will he help repair what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gone wrong?\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There are external issues, of course, but Rogelio also has to change himself! Like Alba said, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s become a different person after giving his life over to reality television. That fascinated me, too. We know from the scenes where Rogelio and Darci film together that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve created an intricate fiction for their show, but how much of it does Rogelio believe? Or want<\/i> to believe? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a bizarre thing to watch because so much of Rogelio\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s day-to-day life isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t real<\/i>, and Alba was right to say that he got lost in it.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So he leaves. Which is probably the best decision to make on a personal level! Both he and Darci are deeply, deeply unhappy with what has transpired between them, so why stay? Why keep this up? Unfortunately, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the industry side of things, as the end of this episode reveals the new<\/i> consequence that Rogelio has to deal with: being sued for $10 million for breach of contract. Oh, lord. So\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I am gonna guess he goes back to the show to avoid the lawsuit? Maybe???<\/p>\n The Body<\/b><\/p>\n WELL THIS WAS AWKWARD and also a lot??? I should have known there was more to it! Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, I still don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know whether to accept the police findings stated here by Dennis, because\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 what the fuck<\/i> is actually going? Aside from some quieter moments, this part of the script leaned much more heavily on the telenovela influence. Where it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t, we got to see some really meaty moments with certain characters. Take Rafael and Petra, for instance! Petra might be annoyed with Zen Rafael (WHO I LOVE A LOT), but she is also getting along with him better than she ever has. Their partnership hits a few snags, like over Elvis, the man Rafael met while serving his prison sentence. But as a whole? Honestly, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nice to see them at this place in their lives.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n That being said, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to judge what actually happened here because of the two big twists at the end. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not totally sold on Chuck, though I like the idea<\/i> that Petra could find someone to be with. Is it him? I mean\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 shit, does he have secrets he is keeping from Petra, too? Because she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got a big one: Scott actually died on The Marbella\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s property, but Petra discreetly moved the corpse across the property line. (Again, still not sure Scott\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death was an accident. That would be so straightforward for a telenovela-esque plotline.) I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know that this means that what she feels for Chuck is a lie, though. There seems to be genuine mutual attraction and interest there, enough that Chuck thought it appropriate to ask Petra out on a date. But look, secrets don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stay buried (sometimes literally<\/i> so) on Jane the Virgin<\/i>. So how is Chuck going to find out the truth? And how will he react? Because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s inevitable! LIES DO NOT STAY HIDDEN ON THIS SHOW, Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL.<\/p>\n Which means\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 what the FUCK is Zen Rafael doing? WHAT IS UP WITH ELVIS? Oh god, is Zen Rafael even a real persona? That might seem like a leap, but coe on. Again: This is Jane the Virgin<\/i>. I have to question everything!!! I am only protecting myself!!!<\/p>\n HALT \/ Use Your Words<\/b><\/p>\n You know, I felt it in my chest<\/i> when young Mateo used Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own advice against her. This, combined with the HALT technique, is what really<\/i> made me fall in love with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Chapter Fifty-Six.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d There is such a wonderful attention to detail here when it comes to mental health and interpersonal conflicts. Now, granted, this plotline involving Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s panic attacks and Dennis is deeply intertwined with the grief plot, too, but I wanted to separate the two so I could spend more time on each. As I remarked on camera, my own therapist taught me HALT, though it also applies to anxiety and depression! (Since I have all three and one of them tends to trigger the others.) At this point, like Jane, I am right around the same number of sessions with my current therapist. (She took years, I took six months. LMAO I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122VE NEEDED A LOT OF THERAPY, OKAY.) I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never gotten this far with a single therapist, so it makes sense that until this year, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d ever heard of HALT. And now, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so obvious? Sometimes, my mood swings are because I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t eaten in a while; or I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m furious at something and I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t given myself space to accept that; or, in the age of COVID and due to the loss of one of my very best friends, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m deeply lonely; OR SOMETIMES I AM JUST FUCKING TIRED AND I SHOULD JUST TAKE A NAP.<\/p>\n My therapist paired this with a different variation of the whole \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Use Your Words\u00e2\u20ac\u009d mantra, though that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s essentially what I had to do as homework. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mind sharing this because 1) I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not the slightest bit embarrassed about talking about my therapy journey, and perhaps it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll help reduce the stigma attached to it, and 2) maybe these techniques might help someone who can’t<\/i> do therapy or doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have access to it. So, essentially, since late March, my therapist has had me keep a mood chart. Once every two hours, I have to stop and take stock of how I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m feeling. There are a set list of about eight emotions I can plug in, but whatever I choose, I then have to use my words<\/i> and actually say what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m feeling. It was astounding to me that first month how I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d slip into a depression or an anxiety spiral, and then, as I filled out the chart, I realized that I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually<\/i> right about how I was feeling. I literally cannot count how many times I filled out a slot during the day and compared it against HALT and realized what I was feeling wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sadness; I was just fucking exhausted<\/i>. It might have felt like<\/i> sadness, but it was rooted in something else.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This tool has been life-changing for me, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. It didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cure\u00e2\u20ac\u009d me or anything like that, as that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not what it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s for. I still have a ton of anxiety; I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m depressed frequently; and as I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll talk about in the end, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m deep in grief. But as we see in Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s therapy sessions, this is a tool<\/i>. It is a means of dealing with something in a way that gets to the root of an emotion to find out why<\/i> it has manifested in the mind and the body. And for someone like me, for who anxiety is a familiar partner, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much better for me to know<\/i> why I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m feeling like shit than to freak out over what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happening to me.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Here, Jane goes to therapy (for 89 sessions!!!! I AM SO HAPPY THAT WE HAVE A CHARACTER WHO DID ONGOING THERAPY), and then, with the tools her therapist gave her, she must navigate the minefield of triggers and panic that surround Dennis, Michael\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s old partner. Unfortunately, though she had done her best to impart on Mateo that he should use his words to name<\/i> his complicated feelings, she wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t doing that to Dennis. She was lashing out physically<\/i>. And over what?<\/p>\n Well, she felt betrayed. She believed that Dennis was using her, even if, from his perspective, he was trying to do what he thought was right to honor Michael. I can see both sides of this and why each person felt like they did, though the show also appeared to make it clear that Dennis knew he shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have been snooping around Michael\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s belongings like he was. The script also made room for Jane admitting that she was in a deeply painful place! The way she reacted that day when she caught Dennis taking photos of Michael\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s notes isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily how she would have reacted now. Throughout all of this, Dennis grants Jane empathy<\/i>. He does whatever he can to understand her and give her an outlet to\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, to use her words! Which she finally does!!!\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Anyone else get totally crushed by Mateo telling Jane to use her words, by the way? Yeah, cool, me too.<\/p>\n Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Book Deal<\/b><\/p>\n AHHHHHH THIS IS ALL SO EXCITING! The one caveat I want to add here is that somehow, the issue of literary agents never comes up? They actually don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t appear anywhere<\/i> in this episode, which is strange. Not just in Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s direct plot, but also with Gary Huang? Generally, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re the liaison between an author and an editor. Not all the time, but it felt odd to me how they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not addressed at all.<\/p>\n That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more important for Jane, though. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, otherwise? This episode is pretty damn accurate. When a house says they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to make an offer, you generally don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what that package is going to be upfront; it usually takes a few days for the acquisitions team to approve the actual amount of the advance. I get why they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t show this either, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also no talk of royalty rates, which is fine, because I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know that this episode NEEDED that. Still, here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s evidence Jane needed an agent: She didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand how advance payments work! Most houses do a three (or, nowadays) a four part payment. (Though I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m lucky in that my middle grade deal with Harper Collins is a two-part payment.) They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re usually split evenly, and you get one on signing, one on delivery & acceptance of your manuscript (though \u00e2\u20ac\u0153acceptance\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can mean that it has gone through all the editing stages before copyedits), and one on publication day. Unfortunately, this is not widely discussed, and I have seen lots of authors not get this part? Either because they have bad agents or no agent. Which isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t to say this is obvious, BECAUSE IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S FUCKING NOT. NONE OF PUBLISHING IS OBVIOUS, IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S ALL AN ENDLESS LABYRINTH.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So, that made Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actions so much more believable. Because look, while I wish agenting had been discussed, I immensely appreciated Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s panic. Yeah, you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get all this money at once! My advance for Anger<\/i> wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even as big as Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, and it took 17 months to get all three payments. And from contract signing until I get my last payment next month for Each of Us A Desert<\/i>, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s two and a half YEARS. Unless you get a mega-huge advance, quitting your day job is not really an option. Thus: Chloe. Ah, the terrible predicament of Chloe, a person who is openly abusive towards her employees, yet is still part of Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dream of being in publishing. I mean, of course<\/i> Jane would quit that job with a huge advance! Yet once she realizes her mistake, Jane has to beg a monster of a human for her job back. I wish I could say that Chloe is an exaggeration and that there aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t any editors like her in publishing, but\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 hi. Hello. The majority may not be like here, but far too many are! I have stories I may one day tell! I feel lucky as hell that my two novel editors are such wonderful folks to work with, because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard horror stories of editors behaving just like Chloe does here.<\/p>\n That also means that while I get Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reluctance to return to work at the Marbella, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad she left Chloe. Chloe doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deserve Jane. Point blank. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s AWFUL, and no amount of working for an abusive boss like that will ever be worth it. Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mental health ALONE improves once she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s out of that nightmare!!!! So I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s free, and she can pursue this book publishing thing on her own.<\/p>\n Time Heals\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Sort Of<\/b><\/p>\n Right? By the end of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Chapter Fifty-Six,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I felt I understood what this episode was trying to say: Grief isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t cured. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not an illness that can be treated, never to return again. Jane is now three years from the death of Michael, and things still hurt. She still has flashbacks, she still deals with panic attacks, and she still misses him.<\/p>\n I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what three years will look like for me. Hell, after Baize passed, I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even imagine a month in the future. But I also know that where I am right now, just shy of nine months since his passing, is a place that seemed impossible. I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t imagine making it a day without a crushing, disorienting panic attack. (Bravo to this episode for doing such an incredible job of representing the physicality of a panic attack onscreen, by the way. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of the best depictions of it I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever seen, especially those point-of-view shots where it looks like we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s body.) I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t imagine not crying myself to sleep. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not okay, but I am proud to say that I am<\/i> better. Intensive therapy and\u00e2\u20ac\u201dyes, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cheesy\u00e2\u20ac\u201dtime helped. Time and distance and making new friends and new decisions and new memories.<\/p>\n And yet, I know that for the rest of my life, there will be these little time bombs littering my mind. I found one today, on August 28, as I was standing in the coffeeshop prior to making the video for this episode. Beyonc\u00c3\u00a9\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153XO\u00e2\u20ac\u009d started playing. I have not listened to one of her songs since I lost Baize. I know I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. My love for him and my memories of her songs are too closely tied together. I literally can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even think<\/i> about Beyonc\u00c3\u00a9 without thinking of Baize. I took him to his first show of hers on the Formation tour, and we saw her again a couple years later for On the Run II, on the eve of flying to the UK for the 2018 Discworld Convention.<\/p>\n They are inseparable. So when the song came on, I burst into tears and had to leave. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m crying again just thinking about it. It is like Jane and giraffes. She will forever have that association. But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not necessarily a bad thing. One of the best memories of her life will be that giraffe Michael whittled for her; I will always cherish dancing in the stands of the Rose Bowl to Beyonc\u00c3\u00a9 with Baize.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also going to be painful because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a reminder of lost potential. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a brutal line in this episode when Rafael asks Jane about the dreams that she had, and she remarks that she used<\/i> to have a dream. It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean that what is currently in her life is awful. She got a book deal! But it also means that the readjustment to a dream without<\/i> Michael is hard, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always going to be that way. I had the same issue earlier this year when I met a life goal and got to write for Star Wars<\/i>. I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t escape the thought that I would be fulfilling this dream\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 without Baize.<\/p>\n But the adjustment is happening. I have something very huge to share in the future that is life-changing. I have my own home in Brooklyn now, all to myself, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s absolutely a dream come true. And Jane the Virgin<\/i> reminded me of that: I am allowed to be happy again. Without<\/i> Baize.<\/p>\n The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Chapter Fifty-Six\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 twelfth episode of the third season of Jane the Virgin, Jane deals with big news; Rogelio is exposed; Petra and Rafael cope with a discovery. 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-7650","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\/7650","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=7650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7650"}],"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":"