Midway through the fifth and final season premiere of the CW’s warm-hearted telenovela ‘Jane the Virgin’, the eponymous heroine spends a seven-minute-plus scene gradually freaking out over the apparent resurrection of her late husband, Michael and what it may mean for her and her family.
“We’re actually not moving today,” she tells some confused movers, while failing to seem calm and rational, “because my husband came back from the dead!”
The scene is impressive in small part because it was shot as a continuous take. Mainly, though, it’s remarkable because it does that thing that has always made Jane special. It uses the craziest of soap-opera tropes while letting Jane and her loved ones react to them like the very human beings they are.
Without spoiling exactly what happened to Michael – or even whether this really is Michael – it’s safe to say that the storyline is wild yet emotionally grounded. Like so much of what creator Jennie Snyder Urman has done thus far, the development functions simultaneously as a parody of a telenovela and the genuine article, self-aware but also sincere.
God bless Anthony Mendez, the hardest-working narrator in show business. The meta voiceover lines that Snyder Urman and her team give him – “Then again, this is a telenovela, as we all know” – work wonders in allowing the series to have its cake and eat it, too. Every time it seems like a story is too ridiculous or contrived, Mendez’s velvety voice will appear to confess that he agrees with you. It’s not only funny, but shows enough respect for the audience’s intelligence that – as with Jane’s genuine reaction to events such as Michael’s return – it gives the series license to try even more manipulative things down the road.
At the 72nd Golden Globe Awards, ‘Jane the Virgin’ was nominated for the award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy, received the Peabody Award, and Gina Rodriguez won the award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy. It was also selected as one of the top 10 Television Programmes of 2014 by the American Film Institute
All of the new episodes are similarly deft. The show seamlessly juggles the antics of criminal mastermind Rose with Jane and frenemy Petra passive-aggressively texting each other parenting articles, or lets the comic feud between Jane’s narcissistic father, Rogelio and his show-within-a-show co-star turn into a serious commentary on both the gender pay gap and this precarious moment to be brown in America.
This series is a miracle. Enjoy it while it’s still here.
‘Jane the Virgin’ returned on Wednesday to the CW. I’ve seen the season’s first three episodes.
‘Jane the Virgin’ is an American satirical romantic comedy drama developed by Jennie Snyder Urman, that debuted on The CW on October 13, 2014. It is a loose adaptation of the Venezuelan telenovela Juana la Virgen created by Perla Farías. The series stars Gina Rodriguez as Jane Villanueva, a devout 23-year-old Latina virgin, who becomes pregnant after an accidental artificial insemination by her gynaecologist. The program parodies commonly used tropes and devices in Latin telenovelas.
At the 72nd Golden Globe Awards, ‘Jane the Virgin’ was nominated for the award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy, received the Peabody Award, and Gina Rodriguez won the award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy. It was also selected as one of the top 10 Television Programmes of 2014 by the American Film Institute.
Beginning with the fourth episode of season three, the series’ on-screen title card was modified, with “The Virgin” crossed out in favour of a substitute corresponding to each episode. This mirrored the storyline, in which Jane is no longer a virgin.