Jane the Virgin: “Chapter Sixty-Four” Review

By: Angela Russo (@NerdGirlForever)

This Week on Jane the Virgin:

As Jane wrestles with her feelings for Rafael, her efforts to write a moving ceremony for her parents puts her on a quest for an old love letter from Michael that leads her back to her first love. Xiomara and Rogelio have an intimate candlelit wedding as a hurricane rages outside. After an emotional talk with Chuck, Petra breaks up with Rafael. Luisa discovers the addendum to the will and casts Rafael out of the Marbella. When Anezka learns Petra’s role in Scott’s death, she holds her sister at gunpoint.

Themes:

The season three finale took a heartfelt, soulful look at the connection between destiny, love, and choices. Some people may feel that life has no room for things like fairytale love or the concept of destiny, but Chapter Sixty-Four explored a perspective that is both realistic and uplifting.

Scott’s True Killer

Criminal mastermind Sin Rostro may be behind bars but Scott’s killer still roams free. The narrator confirmed my suspicions that it was not Rose in disguise, but the real Eileen who struck the killing blow. In a comical twist, his death was not part of a larger nefarious plot, but simply a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Love is a Choice

After all the planning and hype over Xiomara and Rogelio’s grand fairytale wedding, I was concerned that it may turn into a cliché excuse to have a lavish episode. Nothing was further from the truth. The profound depth surrounding their ceremony was positively breathtaking. Amidst the chaos of a hurricane, a surprise pregnant ex, a ruined dress, and a power outage, the true foundation of marriage shone strong. Jane’s speech was one of the most beautiful TV wedding ceremonies ever written:

“They chose each other. In the face of a million obstacles, they chose each other. When it seemed like they should give up, they chose each other, and they keep choosing each other in the face of every single twist and turn life brings them every single day. That is not destiny, that is not fate, that is commitment…they have earned their happy ending.”

It is beautiful because it is real, raw, and honest. In spite of the telenovela/parody format of the series, Jane the Virgin consistently touches on deep truths of life in incredibly moving ways. Instead of giving fans yet another picture-perfect representation of love, the episode offers a positive example that is much more applicable to life. Life is not a fairytale; relationships inevitably have obstacles. What matters most is building and nurturing the love by choosing each other.

Old Patterns

Xiomara and Rogelio may have moved on from their will-they/won’t-they phase, but Petra and Rafael still haven’t learned. It’s unclear if Rafael was pining after Jane during the ceremony as Petra insisted, but he was clearly paying close attention to her speech. When he catches Petra and Chuck together afterward, he doesn’t fight for the relationship. Instead, he tells Jane that she was right and seems very much at peace about the breakup. His attitude makes me wonder how he would feel if Jane was honest about her feelings for him.

Revenge of the Twisted Sisters

Petra and Rafael are a terrible couple because they share too many of the same flaws…manipulating their unstable sisters being one of them. When Anezka and Luisa compared notes in a car ride destined for disaster, the truth comes out and payback is swift. In the closing minutes of the finale Luisa, confronts Rafael with the addendum to her father’s will and cuts him off. Meanwhile, Anezka lures Petra to the pier with texts from Rafael’s phone and holds at gunpoint.

So many elements have come to a boiling point, leaving many questions unanswered: Is this the end for Petra? What will happen to Rafael and his family now that they’re kicked out of the Marbella? Running the hotel was his sole source of income. Will the hotel fall apart under Luisa’s haphazard management? The ramifications are bound to be catastrophic.

Closure for Jane

Over the past few months, fans have watched Jane deal with the fallout of Michael’s death. The tragic loss transformed her from a romantic, hope-infused optimist to a jaded pragmatic shell of her former self. This drastically impacted the dynamic of the series. Many fans attribute the shift in tone to the absence of Brett Dier. Personally, I viewed the change as intentional writing that honored Jane’s natural grieving process. When her husband died, a good amount of her joy did as well. In real life when something that monumental happens, people are never the same. It stands to reason that Jane wouldn’t be either. The past few episodes were a journey of rediscovery and rebirth culminating in Michael’s love letter. Reading his letter revived Jane’s hope and reminded her to cherish the things she has thrown to wayside in his absence: destiny, romance…the belief in all things beautiful, deep, and magical. This chapter of her life may be over, but that doesn’t mean all that came before is lost.

A New Chapter Begins

In Chapter Fifty-Nine, the narrator foreshadowed the entrance of Jane’s first love. As the finale concludes, Jane walks to the patio with Michael’s letter to meet the tenant who found it. There she comes face to face with her first love: Adam. Who is this first love? Why did they break up, and why did she think she would never see him again? This development changes everything. Now that Jane’s belief in destiny is renewed, will she see his arrival as fate, or will she work up the courage to confess her true feelings to Rafael? Jane returns for a fourth season this fall and is moving to Friday night. Join me here on Nerd HQ for the next exciting chapter!

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