In the fourteenth episode of the fifth season of Jane the Virgin<\/i>, Lina asks a huge favor of Jane. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Jane the Virgin<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of fertility issues, anxiety.<\/b><\/p>\n
Eggs<\/b><\/p>\n
Oh, I missed Lina so much, and WHAT A RETURN FOR HER CHARACTER. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a testament to the writing and the chemistry between the two actresses playing Lina and Jane that they can just return to CLEARLY being best friends after so much time apart. So, on that level, this was an utter delight, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. Which is great because THIS GOT SO DEEPLY UNCOMFORTABLE. It was uncomfortable, though, not out of malice, but because Lina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s difficulties conceiving a child with Danny brought her to her best friend. It makes absolute sense that Lina would turn to Jane to ask her to donate an egg! Like, of COURSE she would turn to her!!! And of course Jane would consider it! THESE ARE THE BEST OF FRIENDS, THEY WOULD BOTH DO ANYTHING IN THE WORLD FOR ONE ANOTHER.<\/p>\n
But\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 would they??? Because what I found so compelling about this plot was how honest<\/i> it felt. The writers constructed this so that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d never forget what Lina was going through and how hard this situation was for her. Even though we see the majority of it through Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eyes, I should note. At the same time, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re taken through Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision-making process, too. We see her consulting her family and Rafael, and it was fascinating to me how quickly everyone thought this was a bad idea, but not<\/i> for the reason I anticipated. I mean\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s true! Jane is a character who has a hard time letting go of things. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s literally one of the cornerstones of her characterization! In particular, though, the writers use Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s long history on Jane the Virgin<\/i> to tell this story, and as a writer, I fucking LOVED this. There were so many callbacks to the previous four seasons in this single episode, and it helped to ground Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision. How would she feel about Lina and David having a child with one of her eggs? What would she be able to let go, and what would still be challenging to her?<\/p>\n
Of course, this wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be Jane the Virgin<\/i> without some emotional messiness, and wow, Jane really has bad luck surrounding wedding dress shopping, doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t she? Whew, that callback to the first season where she learned that Rogelio was her father? GOD, SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED ON THIS SHOW. Hell, within the show\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s chronology, that was SEVEN YEARS AGO, OH MY GOD. With that time, however, came a new emotional growth on the part of Lina and Jane. Both of them have become such different people than they were at the beginning of the show. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d actually argue that Lina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s maturity grew the most out of the two of them, and it was a delight seeing her stand up for herself and express things that were deeply uncomfortable but necessary<\/i>, like when she called out Jane for assuming that she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand the serious nature of what Lina was asking for.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Things resolved themselves in a way neither person respected, but I enjoyed that regardless, Jane came to a place where she could<\/i> let go. It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t an easy journey to get there, but I saw that as a sign of growth. Maybe Lina will never ask Jane for one of her eggs again, and maybe Jane won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ever have to put her decision into practice. I still think Jane was<\/i> ready to go through with this, though, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a big deal.<\/p>\n also I JUST LOVE THIS FRIENDSHIP, OKAY.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The Wait<\/b><\/p>\n Oh, this was\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 this was too real. So, full honesty with y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all: I had a very terrible thing happen to me in October that is thankfully BEAUTIFULLY resolved and won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ever bother me again, but it landed right at the same time that I had four major deadlines due within a few weeks. It caused me so much stress and anxiety\u00e2\u20ac\u201don top of me being an already anxious person\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat I had to call my therapist in an emergency to ask if I was having a heart attack and what I should do. For the record, after she walked me through some exercises to help me temper my first panic attack in nearly a year, she told me something important: Mark, if you think you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re having a heart attack, GO TO THE HOSPITAL, DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T CALL ME. (She is also a doctor so I lucked out here because she immediately knew my symptoms didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t match up with a heart attack.)\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So, aside from learning this lesson, I also realized that I really, REALLY needed to work on like\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 a ton of different things. Not packing my schedule up so that I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deal with sudden changes to it. (This was actually one of the major influences that made me realize I had to put Mark Reads on hiatus; I needed to reclaim some time for myself or I would have ACTUALLY worked myself into the hospital.) But like Rogelio, the harder thing for me? Learning to let go of things I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t control.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, my anxiety LOVES things that are an unknown. Loves them!!! Goes absolutely buckwild when there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see or predict or anticipate! Through therapy, I am coming to understand why that is. (SURPRISE, IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S ROOTED IN TRAUMA.) For me, my childhood was so deeply chaotic that I absolutely CRAVE stability. And when I perceive that things are unstable in any way\u00e2\u20ac\u201deven if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m imagining that\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthen my little trauma brain goes into overdrive.<\/p>\n Is that the same thing Rogelio is going through? No. Totally different context here. And yet, I related to this a lot!!! I know what it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like to feel just utterly unable to let go of something. I know what it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like to obsess over something I have literally no control over, and to freak out repeatedly and with greater escalation. I AM TRYING TO WORK ON THIS. Unfortunately for Rogelio, he learns this lesson the hard way, as he quite literally stresses himself out INTO THE HOSPITAL. Fibrillation!!! holy shit!!!! Mind you, this is all happening while Xiomara is also<\/i> waiting for news she cannot control: whether or not her nursing school application will be accepted. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interesting, then, that she doesn’t<\/i> have the same reaction as Rogelio. Understandable, yes, because we all deal with stress and the unknown differently. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear in hindsight that while Xiomara was nervous and anxious, she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feed into it. She didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t use social media to build up that anxiety. I get it, though. It made Rogelio feel like he was doing something, despite that in reality, his ongoing livestream probably wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ever going to affect that decision. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what he had to accept: Sometimes, things in life happen that truly are out of your control. What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the value in amping yourself up? Why make yourself feel worse<\/i>? Again, I FELT LIKE MY THERAPIST WAS SCREAMING AT ME THE WHOLE TIME. This episode was too loud! Too personal! How dare you!!!<\/p>\n A New Partnership<\/b><\/p>\n Oh, my HEART. Look, I think season five has been a pretty painful experience. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve liked it, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know that if I ever re-watched Jane the Virgin<\/i>, I could actually make it through this again. It hurt! So badly! At the same time, part of what has made it ultimately so fulfilling has been the growth of the protagonists. Seriously, look how far Petra and Rafael have come, from being in a deeply toxic relationship with one another, to a painful break-up, to marriages and children and more break-ups and PETRA IS BISEXUAL, I WILL NEVER GET OVER THIS. Like Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plot with Lina, I found this storyline to be equally satisfying because so much of it relies on building off of the past. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an acknowledgment of what came before, you know?<\/p>\n Because this doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t happen without Rafael losing the hotel and Petra eventually acquiring it and, as Petra states, making the Marbella actually<\/i> good. God, the Marbella used to be\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 so toxic, right? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not saying Petra runs things perfectly. (And I would really like her to stop snapping at Krishna, for the record.) But Petra does<\/i> deserve credit for building up the Marbella, which had such a drastically negative reputation from when it was run by the Solano family.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I also recognize how painful this is for Rafael, who was supposed to follow in his father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s legacy and continue working in the hotel industry. Life took him to a strange place, and we know he never thought he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have been without a job for a while OR that he would have no wealth OR that he would eventually work in real estate. So I also get why it was appealing to him to have a chance at getting back to his old job in some way. Look, he does<\/i> know his shit when it comes to being a hotelier, or when dealing with branding or business opportunities. Still, there was an aspect of this episode that was deeply uncomfortable: Rafael was throwing himself into work like he had before. Again, much of this episode relies on the past, and I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but remember Jane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s previous break-up with Rafael. Remember when he couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let go of his job? Remember when he was obsessed with making money?<\/p>\n I worried he was returning to that place. He kept missing important deadlines or meetings that Jane had said up! I was SO DAMN FREAKED OUT. Was Rafael going to ruin this? Was this engagement going to fall apart because he was throwing his entire self into this new opportunity? However, two important things prevent this from happening. One of them is Petra! She establishes boundaries that will prove to be vital if she and Rafael are going to succeed in this partnership. He has<\/i> to accept that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be the boss. What is important here for both Jane and Petra is that each of them is a different person when compared to who they used to be with Rafael years ago. And all parties have to make their peace with that! In the context of Jane and Rafael, Rafael realizes how poorly he treated Jane when he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t manage his time or his priorities well; Jane, on the other hand, was ready to accept that sometimes, Rafael would have to prioritize other things. They ended up meeting in the middle, and THAT is growth. I see these two as much more ready to compromise rather than stay in conflict. Again: growth!!! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s satisfying!<\/p>\n Now, could Magda \u00e2\u20ac\u0153grow\u00e2\u20ac\u009d off this show? I HATE HER SO MUCH.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Chapter Ninety-Five\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – My second novel, EACH OF US A DESERT, is now out in the world!<\/a> In the fourteenth episode of the fifth season of Jane the Virgin, Lina asks a huge favor of Jane. 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-7711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jane-the-virgin","tag-mark-watches-jane-the-virgin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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