‘Jane the Virgin’ Chapter Ninety-Seven: Criminal Minds

Alright, Jane fans, there are only three episodes left and while we’re still wondering what the heck Rose is up to, every other storyline is tied up for the most part, right? Well, that’s what we thought at the start of this episode, but the writers are really keeping us on our toes until the last minute. Here’s what happened:

Switched At Birth?

Last episode, Jane finally got an agent to represent her book. This time, we find out that while her agent loves her book, she’s got a ton of notes. She mainly wants Jane to work more on the crime aspects of her novel. The agent has a specific idea: what if the baby that was stolen was actually switched before the return? That is… what if Mateo isn’t actually Mateo? I know, right?!

Jane begins to spiral at the thought of this (what mother wouldn’t?) and shares the idea with Rafael, who also doesn’t take it so great. They eventually decide on giving Mateo a DNA test just for peace of mind. We spend several scenes worrying about whether Mateo is or isn’t their baby. Fortunately, we don’t have to wait as many weeks as we would in real life (yay Hollywood magic!) and when they do finally get the results, they’re just as we suspected: Mateo IS their biological son. Phew!

Petra’s Problem

Petra’s excited to entertain a new investor at the Marbella but later finds that the investor has someone by her side helping her make her decisions. Who else should it be but Magda! I know, telenovela stuff for real, especially since Magda was just in the hospital last time. Oh, well. Petra tries to bribe her mother to leave, but of course, she refuses. It seems like Petra’s doomed to be haunted by her awful mother forever, but fortunately for us, Alba solves this problem.

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Alba the Citizen

For decades, Alba has navigated her world as an undocumented person. That means she’s been afraid to speak up, allowed herself to get bullied around, and worried endlessly about what others think or know about her. It’s an interesting storyline to bring back up, but now that she’s a U.S. citizen, we find a new Alba… but not without a few hiccups first.

For one thing, Alba inadvertently finds out that Jane has included a lot about her in her book. More specifically, she finds that Jane wrote about the fact that Alba had premarital sex when she was still in Venezuela. Alba demands that Jane strike this all out of the book or at least changes it around. Jane struggles throughout the episode to do this out of respect, but eventually, Alba has a change of heart. And surprisingly, it’s Jorge who has helped her see the light. When Jane asks Jorge what it is he said exactly, he merely explains that Alba has been so scared of people finding things out about her for so long due to her previously undocumented status, that she was still reacting this way now. He reminded her that she no longer had anything to fear, and it was enough to help her change her mind. 

But we also see Alba have another breakthrough. When she finds Magda in a stairwell of the Marbella, she confronts her as well. She’s been wanting to do this for a long time, but now that she’s a citizen (and also quite handy at recording things with her phone), she manages to get Magda to say some pretty incriminating things that would land her in jail. Magda ends up finally getting her come up moment and decides to (hopefully finally for real this time) leave Alba, Petra, and the Marbella behind her. Yay, Alba!

A River Runs Through It

First off: Passions the pilot got picked up to become a series! Yes, finally! But now there’s more work to be done. Rogelio tries to help River with her daughter problems throughout this episode since River refuses to work in Passions until her relationship is fixed. Ro does everything he can to help out, including re-creating a scene from Pond’s middle school years when her mother snubbed her during an award acceptance speech.

The plan, oddly, works out. But Ro wasn’t prepared for what was next: Pond wants to live in NYC and River does as well. That means River will move the production of Passions out of Miami and to New York. What does that mean for Ro, though? Especially now that Xo is feeling better and has started nursing school, and his baby, Baby, also lives in Florida? Might be time for Ro to let his passion project go.

A Rose By Any Other Name

After Jane and Rafael’s major scare, Jane realizes that she needs to confront Rose once and for all. Except when she does, something else major happens. Remember last time when Rose had all those other decoy Roses? This time, Rose calls a guard into her cell to show him how she stabs herself in the leg. When an ambulance comes to take Rose to a hospital (I don’t know that this would happen in real life but then again, we aren’t watching real life), she times it perfectly so her decoys (who are all inside a white van) crash directly into the ambulance. This results in Rose being able to flee while all the other Rose decoys also run around, confusing the police who are searching for her. They capture a few but it seems our real Rose escapes.

Furthermore, we end up finding out some big news: When Jane and Raf try to see Rose, they’re met with Michael’s old partner who informs them that Luisa has actually been working with them this whole time. We see Rose meet up with Luisa, but Luisa actually turns out to be a cop in disguise (two can play at the mask game it seems!) and when it seems they’ve finally almost caught Rose…well, she escapes again! So now Rose is out of the clink, Luisa is MIA, and we still have no idea what she’s been up to. Part of me is waiting to find out that Michael’s been working on this the whole time incognito and he’ll come back in for one final rescue that allows Jane and Raf to have their happy ending, but who knows. As they say at the end of each episode, to be continued…