Why Jane the Virgin is My Favourite TV Show of The Year

I just wrapped up the finale of season 4 of Jane the Virgin, and asdiuasd98a7s9dauhsdlakjshdlkajdy9s8df76yasdyhasdhalksjdhxo9d87fy9a8sdyhaskjdhlkcjvhosi8d70a98sdyasdjhsdajshdalksjdhlaksjdhlaksjdhlasjdhasoid8ya09sdyasdhalksdjhalskjd.

Allow me to try that again.

I can’t find the right words to describe how I’m emotionally invested into this show, and how much more I want to look into watching an actual telenova. I’m guessing that just like the main character’s famous actor dad’s journey in bringing the telenova to the American market, Jane the Virgin as a show had the same trials and tribulations.

But it was so worth it.

This isn’t a structured article, but rather a passionate about my favourite TV show of the entire year. Because I’m dedicated to writing about what I love.

***

Jane is my hero

The characterization of this show is incredible, and you develop your connection with each character in their relationships with other characters alongside.

When Jane, the main character, fell out of love with her fiancé Michael and into love with her artificially inseminated baby daddy Rafael, I was right with her, emotionally, every step of the way. When she fell out of love with Rafael and back into love with Michael, I was on the same emotional rollercoaster with her.

Up and down we went!

But what touched me was her growth and her dream of becoming a writer. I relate to her history of needing to control because her childhood was so out of control. I relate with her Type A personality of needing to make lists, organize, to sum things up in an Excel sheet.

I was right there with her in her journey to becoming a writer, with her doing grad school. Her moments of trying to juggle grad school and life (and a baby, to which I cannot relate) were so relatable. Her first scene where she stood at the front of the class and no one answered any of her questions? The cringe hit crisp.

When I envision productivity now, I envision her writing and in the flow. I imagine her fingers typing quickly and the words being animated on the screen as single Hot Words flew in every which direction. As her expression lit up and she was engaged with what she was writing. I imagine that that’s what I look like when I finally get into the thick of writing for my PhD thesis, albeit with less perfectly curled hair.

Beyond her successes I also envision and empathize with her creativity blocks, writing blocks, and her life being filled with a series of unfortunate events. Sure, my life isn’t as telenova-level wild with artificial insemination, evil twin sisters and babies everywhere, but mine has its own series of slightly inconvenient events.

Mine is more like that quote from Lemony Snicket:

Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don’t always like.

***

The Narrator

In a way, the narrator is that little waiter in my restaurant that is the telenova. When asked about my favourite character, I might passionately talk about how much I love all of them equally, but truly, my favourite is actually the narrator.

I’ve never naturally been conscious of the narrator before. And that’s part if it. You’re supposed to not quite notice the narrator, until your English teacher points it out and you have to write a whole essay about the narration style.

But in this particular TV show, the narrator is what spices up the storyline. It’s how he depicts the story and frames it that makes it great. He gives structure to the magical realism (which, wow, I guess I’m going to dedicate a whole section to later now).

At one point, he even competes with another narrator, who steps in to “narrate” another new character who comes into the show. Their competition brought excitement and tension into the storyline in a parallel fashion to the tension between the “main characters” that each narrator was in charge of.

I appreciate the narration so much and it’s been used in such a way to really challenge how I view and enjoy this show.

***

The magical realism

Magical realism is a huge part of Latinx literature and I’m glad we had a revisit to this topic. The way that additional animations were done, how romantic moments were dressed up with pathetic fallacy, etc. etc. The way that drummed up pathetic fallacy was used to illustrate the dark moments (hurricanes!) and romantic moments (the petals falling around Rafael and Jane when they first fell in love).

I didn’t even realize that the term to the amazing ways that Jane’s story was being presented was magical realism, though I had learned it in English class years ago.

For context, when I had learned about magical realism all those years ago, it was through Laura Esquivel’s Like Water For Chocolate. Unfortunately, the only thing I truly remember about English class and magical realism was the scene where one of the characters takes a shower and bursts into flame and yet another who has sex on a horse and rides it into the horizon. (My exact memory of the details may or may not be wrong.)

It’s unfortunate simply because I ended up associating it with the immature laughs that people had about sex, being teenagers, and remembering my own discomfort with the topic myself.

I’m glad that I’m getting to revisit this topic from mature eyes, to actually see the magical realism for what it is and to enjoy it the way it’s presented.

***

For those of you who got it this far, thank you for bearing with me through an entire article that was written without an outline, fueled solely by passion. I hope to do a more in-depth review of the show when I’m done the fifth and final season, more maybe you’ll see more than that. If anything, I’ll need to find something to fill the void after I finish this show.

I’m rationing this final season and going slow, I type now, knowing that by the time this article publishes I may have already binged it all. Stay tuned to find out!

Either way, you know a tv show is great when there is a void to be filled and you feel true grief that the vivid scenes and characters have left you forever (or until the next time you rewatch it).

***

Lucy (The Eggcademic) is an avid Jane the Virgin, which you probably already knew, if you got this far into her article.

This piece was first published here.