Jane The Virgin's Entertaining Conundrum
It’s been two weeks since the Season 4 finale of Jane The Virgin, and if you love, watch, or just occasionally follow Jane The Virgin at all, you are either a. completely caught up, or b. know that something big enough happened to warrant the following disclaimer:
MAJOR SPOILER ALERT.
As in, if you have not yet watched the Season 4 Finale, do not read this yet.
And if you are one of those that have not yet caught up until recently, don’t feel bad. I will admit that, amidst the sheer amount of television I’m trying to keep up with these days (in addition to, you know, real life), I slipped far behind the live episodes of Jane The Virgin. Had it not been for a text bombardment from my sister and various friends as well as more than one near-spoiler from Facebook statuses, I would not have even known I needed to catch up, and catch up fast. But given the severity in tone and ratio of Caps Lock to normal typing in the messages I received, I knew I hard to binge hard, and I am proud (?) to say I watched 6 weeks’ worth of storylines in one weekend.
I finally experienced the same shocking revelation that had been revealed in real-time to the devoted fans about 3 days earlier: Michael Cordero is still alive.
At least it appears that way. We’ll come back to that. But first, below is a real conversation I had with one friend, and I think it’s fairly representative of how most all of us felt:
It should be noted, first of all, that the whole finale, and really the last few episodes of this 4th season, was brilliantly written. I had fallen off in my watching because I had grown less interested in the writing and the various storylines, but MAN, the writers righted the ship in a major way. The last several episodes encapsulated everything amazing about the telenovela and magical realism genre: soap opera-level drama, grounded in enough rationality and presented with enough heart to make the highly improbable seem radically possible. The finale in particular was peak JTV, using the narrator to partially break the 4th wall and point out to us the specific elements that make a telenovela so alluring to watch (a move that, in retrospect, was likely guiding us towards the shock ending).
It also should be noted that the final shot was not the sole major event in the finale; not even close. Rogelio is facing a crisis with his attempt to star in American version of his telenovela. Alba and Jorge are getting married…for a Green Card, but feelings remain between them, surely. Xiomara does in fact have breast cancer, and tough as she is, her health is deteriorating. What I THOUGHT was going to be the big shock of the night was in fact the penultimate shot: someone has framed Petra for the murder of her sister, and has returned to finish her as well. Petra is saved by ex-lawyer, ex-girlfriend Jane Ramos, but both appear stunned by whom the would-be assassin is. However, who that figure is remains to be seen.
Yet, for all of this, the main (and perhaps only) thing Jane fans will remember in the wait for Season 5 is the shock reveal. This succeeds in making us extremely excited for next Fall, but I fear it has put the writers in a bit of a corner.
I think and hope they already know where Michael’s storyline is headed, but no matter what that direction is, the possibilities at hand make me worry that Michael’s fate is a rehash of what we’ve seen previously on the show.
The first theories are rooted in accepting that the person we saw at the end of Season 4 is in fact Michael. If it is truly Jane’s husband, how is he alive and why did he return after 4 years’ absence? The only explicable theory is that his “fake death” was intentional, a result of his police work and/or his seemingly never-ending pursuit of Sin Rostro. He did, after all, distance himself from Jane previously in order to dissuade Rose from including Jane in the game of cop-and-murderer. But why would he once again have to disappear (this time so drastically) if Rose was locked up, and how could he possibly stay away from Jane and co. for 4 years? My sister offered the theory that perhaps present-day Michael has had, or still has, amnesia. This theory is intriguing because a. it’s fairly original, and b. the narrator teased the element of amnesia throughout the Season 4 finale. However, it still doesn’t explain why or how Michael faked his death in the first place.
Then, of course, there is the possibility that ‘Michael’ is not, in fact, Michael. The only ways that could be true are via channels that have already been explored in Jane The Virgin. The ‘secret twin’ trope has come up more than once, for Zaz and Petra both. The other possibility is that this is someone else using a Michael face mask, a la Susanna/Rose in Season 2.
As much as I believe the explanation of Michael still being alive will be quite a reach, I have to hope that is in fact the case, and I don’t like either of the “not Michael” options. The former has been done almost ad nauseum already, and the latter is a step TOO unbelievable to revisit.
All of this being said, I refuse to be a pessimist with regards to Jane The Virgin’s future. The writers have proven themselves time and time again in their ability to render JTV one of the best shows in television, and no matter what the answers to these questions turn out to be, it will no doubt make for a brilliant send-off season. Besides, seeing the cast’s reaction to actor Brett Dier returning to set is enough for me to ultimately be happy with his character’s stunning rebirth.