How Jane the Virgin Made the Case for Jane and Rafael—Even to Skeptics

This post contains spoilers for the Jane the Virgin Season 4 midseason finale.

A lot of Jane the Virgin fans are probably celebrating right now—because finally, after so long, Jane and Rafael appear to have reunited.

Throughout the season, Jane and Rafael have taken turns playing a hypothetical game of “what-if.” Rafael briefly reunited with Petra; Jane got back together with her old flame Adam (as played by the charming Tyler Posey). But in the end, both wound up single—until Friday night, when Raf took his own advice and made a brave play for Jane’s affections. The good news for him? It worked. Throughout the episode, Jane’s present—in which she’s on a book tour while getting over Adam leaving for Los Angeles—is interwoven with flashbacks to her past. Specifically, we revisit moments in which it was Rafael who pushed the usually cautious Jane to be brave and take bets on herself—most notably, when he convinced her to continue working on the very book she’s now on tour promoting. In the end, as they stand in the kitchen, he kisses her. The windows open as a breeze full of flower petals surrounds them, just like when they first kissed.

Granted, not everyone has climbed aboard the Jane-Rafael ship. But in the time since Michael’s death, it’s gradually picked up steam. The arguments for their reunion are pretty obvious: he’s the father of her child, and he helped her see the world through a new lens when they were first together. The rationale against rekindling their romance is equally intuitive: just because Michael died doesn’t mean that Jane should be with Raf. She chose Michael for a reason in the first place, and after all of each characters’ personal growth, the move could feel inorganic. But Jane and Raf’s path back to one another was also sweet and romantic and, as much as anything in a series that takes its cues from telenovelas, felt pretty believable.

I should probably disclose now that I am and have always been a Raf skeptic. Although he does push Jane to be brave, he can also develop troublesome tunnel vision—especially when money gets involved, as we saw earlier in the season. His values can, at times, run directly opposite from Jane’s—which, I’d argue, remains a major roadblock to their longterm compatibility. Still, this installment highlights the best asset Raf brings to the table: like Michael, he understands Jane, and is able, most of the time, to make calls that are healthy not just for him and Mateo, but for her as well—even as a platonic co-parent. Take, for instance, his decision not to let Jane know that Mateo was sick—both so that she could focus on her book tour and also so that she wouldn’t fuss over Mateo in a way that would make their young tot even more scared of getting sick, as he has been since Michael died. Although Jane was upset by the decision at first, Rafael was able to explain it in a way that both gave Jane feedback as a parent but also didn’t degrade her sense of confidence as a mother.

Still, the question remains: are Jane and Raf better as partners than lovers? It’s a question I’m guessing Jane the Virgin will continue to explore as it returns next year; as a telenovela, it’s unlikely that these two will remain happy and cooperative for too long. But if this is the beginning of Jane’s true happily ever after, it’s off to a romance novel-worthy start.

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Laura BradleyLaura Bradley is a Hollywood writer for VanityFair.com. She was formerly an editorial assistant at Slate and lives in Brooklyn.

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