Adulthood is hard. The list of decisions to make is ever growing. Are you a DC denizen or a Marvel maven? “Fish or chicken?” asks the air steward. Recently, I’ve had to make a decision in one of the best love triangles on TV: whether I’m rooting for Rafael or Michael, the romantic interests in Jane The Virgin, one of the most charming shows around.
Jane is a romantic comedy-drama with a marvellously preposterous premise: a young woman goes to a clinic for a routine checkup and comes out artificially inseminated with a stranger’s baby. To complicate matters, Jane has promised her grandmother, God, and herself (in that order) to remain a virgin until marriage. It’s completely ridiculous – but I have never believed in something more. This is largely down to the central character, played by Gina Rodriguez.
It may be the toughest gig on telly: she has to be cute and funny and strong and demure (but not prudish). In a melodrama that features a preening telenovela star, drug cartels, fantasy sequences and the cutest baby on air, it’s a big ask, but Rodriguez delivers (she won a Golden Globe for the role in 2015). She is ably assisted: Jaime Camil as Jane’s father is a particular delight, and I love the narrator, whose wink-wink-nudge-nudge tone is perfectly pitched. Jane The Virgin is a warm cup of cocoa spiked with brandy, and fully deserves its imminent third series.
Back to that love triangle, though. Here are your options: Rafael, a smouldering millionaire hotel-owner (and father of her child), or Michael, a sweet cop with puppy dog eyes (and her long-term boyfriend). Do the right thing. (It’s Rafael.)
