Welcome back to The Young Folks’ Jane the Virgin Season 2 coverage! Click here to read our previous coverage of the series.
In the excellent “Chapter Twenty-Eight”, we’re privy to snapshots over the course of five months as Jane learns and grows from being a mother as well as being a grad student. Documented as if being put into Jane’s extensive baby book, all the moments are firsts and it allows the amount of time that passes to be given substantial story moments.
JANE THE STUDENT
Over the course of the five months we see Jane working rigorously at being a good student, although it starts out as terribly as one could imagine. She’s late to class and her Professor Jonathan Chavez is less than impressed. To make matters worse, she then takes a phone call and is locked out.
Not a great start.
Over the elapsed amount of time we witness her get her first grade below a B+ (a C-) despite working tirelessly to impress Chavez. The first happy moment she has in the class happens on their retreat when she finally makes a new friend (although we learn later he has ulterior motives).
Jane’s ambition to be a writer is just as important as her want to be a good mom, and it’s nice for the series to show that a young woman can try to both accomplish her dreams as well as be a good parent.
JANE THE MOM
Jane’s experiences with motherhood are more noticeably emotional, and resonant in how the stories touch upon her insecurities and time management in realistic and sometimes, unglamorous ways. There’s a full storyline about whether or not Jane should continue pumping instead of giving Mateo regular formula, and it’s something I feel like I’ve rarely (if ever) seen depicted on television with as much frankness. This is how the world operates, and while the actual pregnancy lasts nine months, a woman’s body isn’t instantly recovered and it was nice to see the show addressing this.
Jane also has to deal with missing moments, with her retreat taking her away from Mateo for a night, the first time ever. She’s learning to cope with the notion that she’ll have to miss things, however small, even if it’s something like Mateo being fitted for a helmet due to him developing a flat head from lying on his back so frequently.
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Bigger parenting moments come between shared interactions between Jane and Rafael. Returning to the differences of class that made the pairing so interesting at the start, the two disagree on how to handle their son’s inheritance, and Jane has to come to terms with the fact that her son, against what she believed were the odds, is rich. She wants him to always known the value of hard work, but she learns by the end that there is no escaping the fact that Mateo was born into money.
In Jane’s mom moments she also get’s to help out a very pregnant (with twins) Petra, telling her that at the beginning she was lost as well. Luckily for Jane, her mother wasn’t becoming a literal pirate and slashing throats after losing a hand in a grenade explosion.
Best sentence ever?
The Petra and Jane relationship is one of the show’s sweeter developments, and her being invited to Thanksgiving at the end felt like a genuinely deserved moment.
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Other bits
Rafael in Mommy Group Class is freaking adorable.
“Let me ask you something, do you like Mateo”.
“You know you don’t have to starve to be a good person.”
Rogelio’s new show is genius and I want to see more of it.
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I’m of the rare opinion I know but I didn’t really care that Michael was largely absent. Bring in more scenes for Petra and skim down on Michael’s screentime and I wouldn’t be bothered, however I hope he and Nadine brought back some juicy details on Sin Rostro’s location.
“Legitimately literary”
#theworldweeps
Are we digging the potential, rekindling of Rafael and Jane? He dated and it went badly, so maybe this time it will all move well?
Jane being awful while sick is fantastic and allows the permanently sweet character to grow and edge.
Next week is a Target ad? Woot?
You may have already noticed this, but no, I am not Gaby, your regular Jane the Virgin re-capper, who will be back to review the show. Until then, thanks for reading my coverage! Jane the Virgin is one of the best shows currently airing and I’m excited to give my two cents.
Rating: 9/10
“It should be noted that…”Jane the Virgin airs Mondays at 9/8c on The CW.
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