YMMV / Jane the Virgin

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Is Michael a selfish, manipulative and reckless Dirty Cop like Rafael sees him, or a sweet and dependable Nice Guy like Jane sees him? The show takes something of a middle ground — while he does try to manipulate events in his favor in the beginning (like blackmailing Petra with her affair so they'd keep the baby, etc), he is loyal to and prioritizes Jane, and later admits his mistakes that led to their break-up. He is fully the latter by late season 2. Or rather, the writers went so far as to basically whitewash all his controversial traits and made him a sort of Marty Stu at that point, with almost every character praising how good he is. Then, when he comes back from the dead in season 5, his selfish traits are emphasized once again, even after regaining his memory (for example, he tries to get Jane back despite her being in a committed relationship with Rafael and not caring about the consequences his attempt to rekindle his relationship with Jane would have on her new life and family). In conclusion, it’s safe to assume he is a bit of both interpretations.
  • Is Rafael a fundamentally good person who makes questionable decisions as a result of the increasing dysfunction surrounding him, or a selfish, sleazy manipulator? Building on that, are his feelings for Jane grounded in reality, or just him projecting his desire for a stable family unit towards her and Mateo? Jane herself acknowledges that Rafael goes into dark places when things get bad, but also realizes how much the toxicity he has around him affects him negatively and recognizes how hard he works to be a good father for his kids and tries to improve himself in general. The two spend all of season 3 (including the three-year Time Skip occurring in 3x10) being Amicable Exes; by the time they rekindle their relationship in season 4, they are more aware of the potential consequences should they screw up, but since Rafael is matured a lot during all their time spent apart, during which they also got to know each other way better, they manage to form a pretty solid and healthy couple, ending up Happily Married in the Grand Finale. So, it’s safe to assume the first interpretation is definitely the right one as the series progresses.
• Angst? What Angst?: Aside from some initial shakes Petra never seems to show any trauma from being kidnapped by Roman, forced to have sex with him, getting chased through the woods and then accidentally killing him with a harpoon.
• Anvilicious: This show has addressed the subject of illegal immigration in the way any decent person would, but it is especially obvious in Chapter 61, which dedicates another Alba subplot to the issue, finally culminating in Mateo asking "why some people don't want peace" in America.
• Ass Pull: Michael’s return at the end of season 4. The show mostly does a decent job playing fair with how it could be possible with everything we saw before, but there’s still one major unexplained hole with who or what they actually buried.
• Awesome Ego: Rogelio de la Vega. The guy's so damn earnest about how great he is that you can't help but love him. This is contrasted nicely with his rival actor Esteban Santiago, who has just as big an ego but is much more of a jerk about it ("I'd like to thank God—for making me in His image…").
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Anezka. Some people find her funny, others find her annoying.
  • Luisa in Season 3. Some fans hated her claiming that she doesn't care about Rose killing Michael and would rather lie to her brother than risk her relationship with the sociopath who killed her father. She's still fairly popular among queer fans. They tend to either commend Luisa's Undying Loyalty to everyone in her life (not just Rose) or notice that season 2 and 3 were a huge Trauma Conga Line for her and that her relationship with Rose and reactions are not framed as normal and romantic, but as a dynamic of abuse affecting a vulnerable traumatized woman. After all, Rose had to kidnap her to force her to join at the start of season 3, and she was unaware of Michael being shot for long as a result of being trapped on a submarine.
  • Jane herself, of all people, in season 5. While most understand that she'd be thrown off by Michael's amnesiac return from the dead, she's still getting a lot of flack from Rafael fans for slipping back into the same uncertainty from the beginning of the show and from Michael fans for not taking the fact that he was tortured into consideration when she deals with his new personality.
• Broken Base: Michael's death midway through Season 3 and the 3 year Time Skip that followed it. Some thought it was an effective move that was well foreshadowed and led to fresh new plots. Others thought it was a cheap ploy to pull at the audience heartstrings and was just pulled so Jane could end up with Rafael.
  • Michael's return is causing just as much controversy. Specifically, the seemingly-pointless resurrection of the love triangle that has resulted from it, and how well or not-well Jane, Rafael and Michael himself are conducting themselves within the situation.
  • Jane and Michael's relationship, in general, seems to attract reactions in extremes. It was either the worst thing in the world or the absolute fucking best, although there are some whose feelings on it are somewhere in between.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Miloš is the one blackmailing J.R. to get Petra thrown in jail. After ruling out Magda, who else could it have been?
• Draco in Leather Pants: Rose is revealed to be a massive drug kingpin and regularly abuses her girlfriend Luisa in ways that range from gaslighting her to getting her locked in a mental hospital, but a lot of fans online massively downplay her negative qualities due to her charisma and Bridget Regan's good looks. Most online fanfics play Rose and Luisa's relationship as a fairytale romance and erase the abuse entirely.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Jane Ramos, a Straight Gay Femme Fatale of uncertain morality played by recent nerd favorite Rosario Dawson, who also brings out unexpected bisexual leanings in Petra that the fans are completely on board for.
• Fan-Disliked Explanation: "Chapter Forty-Seven" reveals that Jane has been having oral sex with her partners throughout the series. Some felt that this undermined the dramatic tension of her lovers choosing to abstain from sex for her, or felt that only considering penetrative sex as losing one's virginity was reductive and out-of-character for Jane.
• Friendly Fandoms: With One Day at a Time (2017), another liberal female-centric show about a Latino Multigenerational Household. Jane guest actors Justina Machado (Darci) and Rita Moreno (Liliana) have main roles, and Ivonne Coll (Alba) and Judy Reyes (Dina) have also appeared on that show.
• Fridge Brilliance: After it's revealed that a grown up Mateo is the narrator, a lot of his scenes narrating his younger self becomes Rewatch Bonus. In particular, when he is born, he's says he's one cute baby, and calls his first steps "the greatest moment in human history".
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Xiomara and Rogelio have a pregnancy scare in the middle of Season 1 which becomes this when Rogelio's desire for more children and Xiomara's decision to not have more kids leads to their breakup
  • In "Chapter Thirty Six", the parody "Murder Hotel" Marbella commercial says "our Honeymoon suites are to DIE for", then in the season 2 finale, Michael gets shot in the Honeymoon suite, and later dies of the wound.
  • The romance novel Happily Ever After that Jane imagines for her and Michael after he is shot. Several episodes later after Michael has died, the imaginary future of him and Jane growing old together becomes hard to watch.
  • The entirety of Chapter Fifty-Four Michael constantly complains of discomfort in the stomach and chest, blaming it on nerves for his test and the same bug that Mateo had. The morning before his LSAT, Jane suggest taking him to the doctor if the problem persists after his test. While taking his test Michael collapses and dies. If it hadn't been for all these factors, Michael's troubles with his Heart could have been caught and possibly repaired.
  • Rafael's concern about Michael's dangerous work is mostly jealousy...until you rewatch after he gets shot in the line of duty. Even worse after Michael dies from complications after that shooting.
  • In an episode that focuses on the concept of writer's block, many characters and even the Latin Lover Narrator shower author J. K. Rowling with praise, specifically for her strength of character. This just one year before Rowling would express political opinions that the Jane the Virgin creative team are diametrically opposed to.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Rogelio's personalized alarm that begins "Another beautiful day to be Rogelio" at first seems like just another joke about his ego. Then it turns out it's how his mother used to wake him up.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Sin Rostro turns out to be Rose, whose actress was also playing an evil character pretending to be an innocuous dimbulb on Agent Carter at the exact same time.
  • The two sitcom-antagonistic guys are named Rafael and Michael.
  • Young Jane actually appeared in Iron Man 3 as the child of the vice president—and her current father plays a president on TV!
  • Recurring actors Justina Machado and Rita Moreno became the co-leads on One Day at a Time (2017) at the same time that Machado started appearing.
  • Anezka saying "Sansa becomes very powerful" after catching up with Game of Thrones seemed a bit odd at the time, as she wasn't in an especially powerful position. However, she did indeed get there at the very end of the show.
  • The scene from Chapter Fifty-Nine when a naked Petra, post-sex with Rafael, hears Jane entering the room and the first place of hiding she chooses is the closet, from which she is found by both Rafael and a somewhat awkward Jane. Two seasons later, Petra is metaphorically out of the closet when we find out that she is bisexual.
• Hollywood Homely: Anezka is apparently hideous, but looks just like her "beautiful" sister's actress Yael Grobglas in a poor-quality wig.
• Ho Yay: Rogelio revels in his self-described "bromance" with Michael. When Jane gets back together with him, Ro goes hog wild inside his head.
• Jerkass Woobie: A lot of them.
  • Luisa Alver, light on the jerkass (more irresponsible than anything) but heavy on the woobie.
  • Petra Solano, who strikes a perfect balance between sympathetic, entertaining and loathsome.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • Not many fans were that concerned for Michael after the Season 2 finale, since his death would put a permanent cloud over the show that would make it impossible to regain its light, peppy tone. Unfortunately they did in Chapter 54.That crashing sound you heard was your heart dropping through the floor
  • Yeah, it's so believable that the show might reveal Mateo isn't actually Jane's biological son just three episodes before the finale.
• Narm Charm: This show lives and breathes it, being an Affectionate Parody of Spanish soaps (telenovelas).
• One-Scene Wonder: Gabriela, the bystander who helps Jane get to the hospital when she goes into labor.
• Paranoia Fuel: Sin Rostro is a Master of Disguise with access to visage-altering surgeries and Latex Perfection masks, not to mention Body Doubles that mean even if you kill her she could just be Faking the Dead. After she kidnaps Mateo at the end of Season 1, the cast all become paranoid that anyone they meet could be her. Properly Paranoid when it comes to Rafael, who correctly assumes that Luisa's new girlfriend in Season 3 is Rose in disguise.
• Portmanteau Couple Name:
  • Jafael: Jane/Rafael.
  • Villadero/Cordueva: Jane/Michael, with their last names.
  • Jetra: Jane/Petra.
  • Petramos: Petra/Jane "JR" Ramos.
  • Roisa: Rose/Luisa
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Rafael come season 3. With his revelation that his feelings for Jane are gone, Raf returns to the flawed but ultimately good-hearted person from season 1, and no longer the jealous manipulative Jerkass he was being driven to during season 2.
  • Luisa underwent this for much of the fandom in season 5, when it's revealed she's been working with the police as a mole to take down Sin Rostro, and then ended up being the one killing her in the end.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • David Castañeda played Nicolas for a few episodes in season one, years before he'd become known as Diego on The Umbrella Academy (2019).
  • Young Jane in the flashbacks is Jenna Ortega.
• The Scrappy:
  • Anezka, Petra's long-lost twin sister. Many fans aren't impressed with Yael Grobglas' dual performance, saying it pales in comparison to her work as Petra, her having No Social Skills often makes it hard to tell just how sympathetic we're supposed to be to her, and it's uncomfortable how her accent and difficulties with English are constantly played for laughs. Ultimately, she receives the ultimate Take That, Scrappy! when she receives a Disney Villain Death.
  • Bobby, Rose's henchman in Season 5. A paper-thin Smug Snake with absolutely zero character outside of being Rose's lackey, and the performance makes him even more annoying. He's ultimately randomly killed off when Rose sacrifices him to save her own skin, with us never getting a single hint of what the hell his deal was.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: The wars between Michael/Jane and Rafael/Jane... holy shit...
• Squick:
  • The deaths on this show tend to be more gory than you'd expect for such a show—when Zaz is killed on the marlin ice-statue, for example, as well when Disgusting Bob gets a corkscrew in the neck and finally Rose's impalement on the alien Rogelio statue.
  • Jane and Xo are extremely open with each other about their sex lives, often excitedly informing each other exactly when and where it's planned to happen. It's understandable given that Xo's young age when Jane was born caused them to essentially both be raised by Alba like sisters, but to anyone not as open with their parents or kids about this, it can get pretty uncomfortable.
  • Luisa banging Rose, her stepmom. No matter how attractive both ladies are, it's way too close to Parental Incest for comfort. Very much an Intended Audience Reaction.

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