‘Jane the Virgin’ Chapter Eighty-Three Recap: Guilt, Lies, and Line Dancing

Tonight’s Jane the Virgin opened up with the return of a couple major themes set in place in the first season. One is the theme of Catholic guilt, without which Jane the Virgin would have never existed in the first place. In early seasons, we encounter Catholic guilt by way of Jane holding onto her virginity (even after she’s been impregnated). In this episode, it finds its ways into the plot both when Jane guilts Rafael to approve of Mateo’s CCD classes, and also when Jane acknowledges she doesn’t exactly believe in divorce. This is, of course, especially tricky since she finds out that she is still technically married and won’t be able to do much about it for at least six months. Or at least, that’s how the episode begins.

Next, we move on to Alba and Jorge — whom you might recall is currently married to Alba by convenience. Unfortunately, we start to pick up on Alba’s feelings for Jorge returning. So much so, in fact, that by the end of the episode, she pulls some celebrity strings to get him out of her home — and she hopes — out of her heart. Truth be told, I still don’t get why these two aren’t together for real, but maybe we’ve all just got to hold out for our happy ending (this is a telenovela, after all).

Speaking of telenovelas, did you know Jason/Michael doesn’t even know what one is? For shame, I know. In “Chapter Eighty-Three,” Jane tries once again to jog Jason’s memories to no avail. We have another cringe-worthy scene with him checking out Petra at one point (again, we must beg the writers to not let this go any further). In another scene, we have Rogelio hire him as an amnesia consultant, because comedy relief and also really, where would we be without Rogelio? No where we’d want to be, anyway.

Moving on to Rogelio, he spends most of the episode trying to one-up River Fields (no surprises here). Here is where we see the resurgence of the fantasy/magical realism aspect of the show: flames randomly appear behind River Fields as she laughs maniacally about something or other so as to make her appear especially evil. We also see a few other scenes where virgin Mary statues appear to be speaking to Jane. I appreciate the return of this recurring theme.

Before we go any further, there’s one really big pseudo-reveal in this episode: the reason why Rose faked Michael’s death. Or at least, the reason we’re given. In the scene, (and after she makes Rafael feel extremely insecure) Rose confesses that she had run into Michael just a few days before she was to be introduced as Luisa’s girlfriend. But as Rose was wearing a mask, she thought Michael might have noticed it come loose during their encounter and put two and two together. As such, she at one point tells Luisa, she opted against simply killing him and instead created an elaborate plan to fake his death and give him amnesia — all in the name of her love for Luisa, or so she claims. The whole thing seems a bit odd, though, and perhaps a little too clean and convenient. Chances are Rose is hiding something, or maybe many things. Perhaps the former Detective Cordero was onto something (something to do with Rose’s new henchmen)?

But let’s go back to Luisa for a minute. While she’s always a huge softy for all things Rose, in this episode, Luisa appears determined not to fall into any of her former lover’s traps. She does her best to remain neutral and stoic during their meeting, though we can already see Rose slowly slipping her way back in with her. What’s more, at the end of the episode we find one of the young people in Rose’s bizarro team is living right next door to Luisa’s new apartment. You know, the one that Rose should know nothing about? Surely we’ll finally get to know what Rose’s squad want, both with Luisa and just overall. Let’s hope we get a little more of this storyline for next episode.

Ah, what else?

#Jafael

Jafael are quite the mess this episode. Both Jane and Rafael experience anxiety over what it might mean if Michael’s memories return. They both stress over Jane being married. And by the end of it, they come to an agreement that Jane should get a divorce — complete with sweet kisses and adoring looks that are making it seem more and more like Jane really might end up with her baby daddy after all.

#Cordueva

While Jane and Jason/Michael struggle to see eye to eye at first in this episode, a conversation with Jorge prompts Jane to do her best to meet Jason on his turf. He seems to appreciate this (especially since he was about to walk away from his entire former life), and takes Jane out for pickle backs and line dancing. For a while there, they’re having a good time smiling and dancing. That’s when Jason decides to bring Jane in for a kiss, which…she’s just not feeling at all. Sorry, #TeamMichael fans, I know. I was heartbroken by her reaction, too. But one final plot twist: When Jane comes around to ask Jason/Michael for his return papers, he lies and tells her the dog ate them. Camera then pans down so we find the neat stack on a table right by the door. So why isn’t Jason/Michael ready to sign the papers? Seems like we’ll be getting our answers in next week’s episode.