Where to begin with the “Jane the Virgin” Season 1 finale? How about with a phrase frequently uttered by its narrator: “Let’s do this!”
Just over a year ago, members of the media began getting copies of the pilot for “Jane the Virgin.” By August, there was hardly a TV reporter or critic who didn’t have a mild or major crush on the show. It was so smart and precisely calibrated; it was bold and melodramatic at times, but it efficiently mixed heartfelt family drama into its telenovela constructs. The "Jane the Virgin" pilot was simply light-years better than most of the turgid, forced pilots the broadcast networks aired last year.
But did any critic really believe the show could sustain the impressive deftness of the pilot for an entire season? Asked to contemplate that possibility, critics tended to get worried expression on their faces. Of course, we wanted to bet on Jane Gloriana Villanueva and her family; we wanted to think it could be done. But TV is in the business of breaking hearts, and many a fine show has gone down in flames a few months, or sometimes just weeks, after a promising debut.
How awesome is it that “Jane the Virgin” rewarded our faith in it with an incredibly strong and entertaining first season. The finale energetically capped a series of season-long sagas that kept twisting and turning every week without generally losing their shape, and now that we know Jane, Rogelio, Xiomara, Alba, Michael, Rafael and even Petra better, nearly every moment of the finale landed with more force and every in-joke was that much more fun. Not only has a lot of old business been wrapped up, there will clearly be many soapy twists and tear-inducing moments when Jane, her little son Mateo and the rest of her clan return in the fall.
In the interest of keeping things as spry and sprightly as the addictive CW show, I’m going to skip right to a list of the best parts of the finale. Of course, if you wanted to get distracted by this feature on the show and by these interviews with cast members Gina Rodriguez, Ivonne Coll and Jaime Camil and with executive producer Jennie Snyder Urman, you are welcome to do so.
But without further ado, here are a few of my favorite elements of the fab Season 1 finale:
- The baby! The idea of Jane becoming a mother is so familiar by now that it had practically become mundane — except, as things transpired in the finale, it wasn’t! It was genuinely moving when Jane held her tiny son in her arms, and before that, the sight of the three Villanueva women together, with Xio cheering on Jane and repeating what Alba had told her during Jane’s birth, was just magic. There has been a lot of turmoil lately when it comes to the men in Jane’s life, but the show returned to its core strength in that scene: It focused on the three women of the family, whose love for each other and for the new member of the family could practically be felt in waves coming off the screen.
Ryan McGee and I discussed the "Jane the Virgin" finale, as well as several other shows, in a Talking TV podcast that you can find here, on iTunes and below.