Series / Jane the Virgin

From left to right: Petra, Alba, Michael, Jane, Rafael, Xiomara, Rogelio.

"Alas, it was too late. Jane's life was now the stuff of telenovelas."

— Narrator

Jane the Virgin is a 2014 CW satirical dramedy, and an Americanization of the popular (and frequently adapted) Venezuelan telenovela Juana la virgen. It ran for 100 episodes over five seasons, with its final episode airing in 2019.

Jane Gloriana Villanueva is a 23-year-old hotel worker studying to become a teacher. Although she's been dating Fair Cop Michael Cordero for the last two years, she has sworn to God and her grandmother Alba that she would save herself for marriage, much to the chagrin of her Glamorous Single Mother Xiomara. When not doting on her boyfriend, she spends time with her family, eating grilled cheese and watching telenovelas with her mother and grandmother.

Then one day, when she goes in for a routine pap smear, a distracted doctor accidentally artificially inseminates Jane. Oops.

Now, the sperm belonged to Tall, Dark, and Handsome Rafael Solano, the new owner of the hotel at which Jane works, and with whom Jane shared a dizzying kiss five years earlier. It also turns out that because of chemotherapy Rafael underwent to fight cancer, he can no longer biologically father any children, putting pressure on Jane to keep the child. Also, the sample was meant for his wife, Gold Digger Petra, who had intended to use it to get pregnant so she can meet the duration clause of her pre-nuptials to make serious bank (5 years = 10 million dollars), though there's more to her than meets the eye.

Additionally, the doctor that made this mistake is Rafael's sister Luisa, and this event sets Luisa on the path to reconciling with her ex, Rose, in her quest for legal aid. And Michael begins to dig into a criminal conspiracy centered around Sin Rostro, "the man without a face," a drug dealer who apparently operates out of Rafael's hotel, instantly implicating Rafael, Luisa, their father Emilio and his third wife Rose — yes, the same ex Rose that Luisa just hooked up with.

Oh, and Jane's Disappeared Dad Rogelio, now the star of a popular telenovela, is back in town and wants to reconnect, both with her and with her mother.

Did we mention that's all in the first episode? In the second, things start to get really complicated.

The series is entrenched in a number of Soap Opera and telenovela tropes. However, it's also an Affectionate Parody and Decon-Recon Switch of said tropes, leading to a lot of subversions and twists. It also features an external Narrator (credited as "Latin Lover Narrator") who is practically a character in his own right. He provides infodumps, commentary, recaps, segues between flashbacks and the modern day, and occasional Lampshade Hangings or Deadpan Snarkery. Chyrons and captions help him keep the plot moving smoothly.

The show's primary focus, despite the drama (and occasional melodrama) of the plot, is the relationship between all the characters, particularly between the three generations of the Villanueva family and the new blended family Jane is attempting to create between herself, Rafael, and their newly-conceived baby (eventually revealed to be a son named Mateo). This is complicated by an ever-shifting love square with two separate Betty and Veronica dynamics, starring Jane, Rafael, Michael, and Petra.

Which brings us... here. Now.

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This series provides examples of:

A to E

• Abilene Paradox: One episode has Petra invite Jane and her family to a Mother's Day brunch before Anezka throws a wrench into their friendship. Jane, her mother, and her grandmother don't want to do go because it interferes with their established traditions for Mother's Day; later, Jane and Petra fight on the phone due to poor communication, and both refuse to cancel because they want to seem like the bigger person. Rafael also doesn't feel like being there because of external problems, but all parties go for the sake of their large mixed family. This results in a lunch so awkward that the narrator invites the audience to make a Drinking Game out of it.
• Aborted Arc: Michael's brother Billy and their shared criminal past gets a couple of seemingly important mentions in season one, but is never brought up again, with Billy getting only another brief mention in season 2.
• Accidental Marriage: Xo and Rogelio get a drunken Vegas wedding in the first season finale, much to their horror.
• Adam Westing: Britney Spears appears in Chapter Twenty-Seven, and when every single move she makes is perfectly mimicked by her troupe of backup dancers, there's no finer example of this around.
• Adaptation Inspiration: While ostensibly based on the Venezuelan telenovela Juana la virgen, it mostly only retains the basic idea of a virgin getting artifically inseminated and the issues that develop afterward as well as the telenovela style (which the show pokes fun at as well).
• Affectionate Parody: The show is one part telenovela and one part a parody of one. Chapter Fourteen takes this and runs with it, skewering the inherent drama in pivotal scenes by portraying them in "telenovela-vision"—character actions and reactions are heightened, clothing is more lavender, and there's an out-of-place sunset background. The show also benefits from telenovela superstar Rogelio and his over-the-top shows, which discuss, converse, and hang lampshades on many of the tropes used both in- and out-of-universe.
• Airplane of Love: When Jane meets her First Love Adam again at Rogelio and Xiomara's wedding, a gust of wind carries paper airplanes swirling into the air around them.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: As noted below, the two men in the primary Love Triangle are former teen rebels. But it's subverted, as Jane prioritizes Mateo over anything else and primarily wants to keep him safe, something a 'bad boy' can't do.
• Always Identical Twins:
  • Rogelio's ex-stepdaughters Valeria and Victoria, who are identically prissy and bitchy.
  • Roman Zazo has an identical twin brother named Aaron. Jane runs out of things to say when they meet and mentions her stepsisters.
  Jane: One of them has a bigger dimple than the other, I think...
  • Petra gives birth to identical twins.
  • Petra is revealed to have an identical twin sister, Anezka, whom she didn't even know existed. "Chapter One Hundred" reveals the sisters are triplets, with their brother Pyotr hiding out in Siberia.
  • Jean-Luc the wedding planner turns out to be a pair of identical twins named Jean and Luc.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Xo and Rogelio, for Jane. Xo tends to act like "a drunken sorority girl" when allowed to, and Rogelio is extremely over-the-top with his gestures.
• Ambiguously Bi: The narrator, who has no problem commenting on the attractiveness of both men and women on the show.
• Amicable Exes:
  • Even though Michael is still in love with Jane, and she knows it, the two still share a close and friendly relationship, with Michael helping to sweep Alba's immigration troubles under the rug, and expressly telling Xo to keep it from Jane, lest she think he did it to win her back When Jane finds out, she immediately goes to see him and without saying a thing, hugs him tightly. Jane even asks Michael to be Mateo's Godfather, even before learning the full extent of lengths he went to ensure Mateo's safe return. And later subverted, since they get back together and eventually married.
  • Rogelio and his Ex-Wife appear to be this. Seems somewhat necessary as she's also his manager.
  • Rafael and Petra are on the verge of becoming this as the two are now business partners and co-owners of his hotel, until Jane helps him set her up to reveal her true colors. Even still they seem to be moving past it for the sake of their unborn babies.
  • Jane and Rafael. While things were awkward at first for them since he still had feelings for her and she was moving on, having fallen back in love with Michael, they're now happy co-parenting together and have zero-ish bad blood between them at all. After Jane marries Michael, Rafael finally is able to move on, and the two of them are comfortable enough with each other to joke about her sex life with Michael.
  • Rogelio and Xo, the two broke it off because she didn't want to have anymore children, and he wanted to put some space between the two so he could deal. After Jane get's re-engaged to Michael, however, they both set aside their personal problems to help plan her wedding, as well as continue to be doting grandparents to Mateo. They get back together in the season 3 finale.
• And I Must Scream: Anezka is left completely paralyzed and unable to speak as a result of her past seizures, with only her eyes being able to move. It gets even worse when it's revealed that it's actually Petra that is paralyzed because Anezka drugged her and switched their identities. Petra can't do anything at all except watch as Anezka steals her identity and leaves her in the hospital.
• Arc Symbol: Jane's relationships with her two main love interests both have one that comes from where she had a important kiss with them: a tree for Rafael and snow for Micheal.
• Aroused by Their Voice: There's a reason the Narrator's closed-captioned dialogue is attributed to "Latin Lover Narrator."
• Artifact Title: Given Jane's MO of "Single Woman Seeks Good Man," it was inevitable that she would eventually be initiated into the secrets of the flesh. After it happens, the title card lampshades this by scratching out "The Virgin" and replacing it with something pertaining to the episode.
• Artistic License – History: In-Universe, Rogelio's telenovela Tiago a Través del Tiempo obviously plays fast and loose with history, with the titular Tiago using time travel to appear at crucial, dramatized points in history to heroically correct the problems of said time period. Even lampshaded with the chyrons after Rogelio's Tiago strikes a deal with Franklin Delano Roosevelt to institute his public reforms if Rogelio sleeps with Eleanor Roosevelt's lesbian chanteuse lover.
  #HistoricallyInaccurate
• As Himself:
  • Paulina Rubio appears as herself and gives Xo a motivational speech in Chapter 9.
  • David Bisbal is hired to perform at the hotel in Chapter 16.
  • Britney Spears passes through the hotel in Chapter 27.
  • Charo shows up in Chapter 38.
  • Bruno Mars sings at Jane's wedding—being Rogelio's third best friend in the world, and all.
  • Gloria and Emilio Estefan appear in Chapter 47.
  • Denise Richards, Carmen Electra, and Brooke Burke-Charvet all turn up in Chapter 51 as some of the potential dates for Rogelio.
  • Isabel Allende in Chapter 70 at the launch party for Jane's book.
  • Mario Lopez in Chapter 79 as a client of the nanny Rogelio wants to hire.
• Baby's First Words: In one episode, Mateo says his first word: "dada". This creates drama between his father Rafael and his stepfather Michael, because he said it to Michael, not Rafael.
• The Baby Trap: The plot is started when Petra attempts this with Rafael's sperm sample in order to maintain her and Rafael's marriage. She tries it again in the first season finale.
• Background Halo: Present in promotional material, where a halo is formed around Jane's head by things like the setting sun to emphasize her virginity and Catholic upbringing.
• Because Destiny Says So: Michael and Jane's first meeting is revealed to be this, or at least what Michael believed, and Jane herself comes to believe herself.
• Becoming the Mask: Rafael and Petra married each other for ulterior motives, Rafael to get back at Lachlan, Petra for Rafael's money, but in a flashback, the two seem to have genuinely been in love at one point in their marriage before Rafe fell out of love with Petra, though Petra's feelings for Rafe never quite went away.
• Bed Trick: Anezka pretends to be a distraught Petra, and has sex with Rafael.
• Been There, Shaped History: In-universe, the premise of Tiago a Través del Tiempo, Rogelio's season 2 telenovela, is Tiago using time travel to arrive at crucial points in history (such as the Stonewall riots or the Roaring Twenties) and bombastically correct the said time period's problems.
• Betty and Veronica: Has two:
  • Jane (Archie) between Jane's nice, safe, cop boyfriend-turned-fiance Michael (Betty) and Jane's sexy, rich, and emotionally troubled accidental babydaddy Rafael (Veronica). This dynamic between the three of them is highlighted in Chapter 15, which contrasts Jane and Rafael's fantasy whirlwind romance and her more grounded but genuine relationship with Michael. In season 2, Jane gets a Third-Option Love Interest when she tires of the triangle. Both Betty and Veronica "win" here — Jane marries Michael first; after his Disney Death, she ultimately marries Rafael after a few years and much healing.
  • Rafael as Archie between Jane and Petra. Petra is his wife of five years, but she is a glamorous manipulator with a shady past. Jane is his already-engaged employee, but she's kind, down-to-earth, and represents the familial ideal he is chasing.
• The Big Damn Kiss: The narrator lampshades how Jane secretly wants one telenovela-style, cheesy background and falling snow and all. Her first kiss with Michael was decidedly not this, but was still very sweet (with ceiling dust standing in for snow). Her second kiss with Rafael is this, with Foot Popping and flower petals (standing in for snow) and all. Her second first kiss with Michael goes into up-against-a-wall mode, complete with accidentally triggering an artificial snow button.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: The wealthy Solanos are messed up even by telenovela standards. Rafael and Petra's marriage is on the rocks, so Gold Digger Petra attempts to artificially inseminate herself in order to stay married long enough to get the money specified in the prenup. This is at the behest of her murderous, manipulative mother Magda. Meanwhile, Rafael has to deal with his past of cancer, his disapproving father, his mother whom his father bribed to abandon him, and making sure the hotel doesn't go under. His half-sister Luisa is a recovering alcoholic whose marriage is also on the rocks, and is responsible for accidentally bringing Jane into the mess in the first place. To say nothing about how stepmother Rose is having an affair with Luisa in addition to being sinister Big Bad Sin Rostro; on top of that, Rafael seems to be the son of another criminal mastermind, drug lord Mutter. It is frequently lampshaded how their dysfunction is straight out of a telenovela.
• Bilingual Dialogue:
  • Spanish; justified as the characters are Latino. Alba speaks Spanish almost exclusively (she demonstrates the ability to speak English when she feels it's needed), but the other characters understand her perfectly and respond to her in English. Spanish is also occasionally spoken by Rogelio and his parents, Liliana and Manuel.
  • Petra and her family will occasionally sprinkle Czech in their dialogue.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
  • Petra at first seems like a loving wife, caring and supportive of Raf. However, she's just a golddigger trying to keep him married to her long enough to get access to his money. Also, she used his only sperm sample to further this goal, ruining any chances he had at having a biological family of his own. Also, she's cheating on him. It does seem like she did genuinely care about Raf early in their marriage, and that she still has some residual feelings for him, but her miscarriage and his cancer put a lot of strain on the relationship that may not be mendable.
  • Rose is a Trophy Wife who only married her husband for his money, and not only is she having an affair with her stepdaughter, when Luisa wanted to expose the affair—not out of malice but just to clear the air between her and her father—Rose used her family's history of psychotic breaks to convince Raf and her husband that Luisa was insane and have her committed. Also, she's Sin Rostro.
  • Michael, to Jane, is the sweet and responsible fiance who's open about his feelings. To Rafael, Michael's the cop whose jealousy drives him to spend a year wrongly trying to pin the Sin Rostro drug empire on him, which mid-Season 2 culminates in Michael accusing Rafael of turning him in for letting his criminal partner go, then punching Rafael and throwing him through a glass table in front of Jane and Mateo. Eventually, he acknowledges that he had acted less than desirably, and Jane forgives him.
  • Rafael, when thing are going his way, seems to be a nice and easy going guy, however after breaking up with Jane, as stated above, he goes to underhanded tactics to keep Jane and Michael, from reconnecting, after finding out that Jane was going to choose Michael over him, by turning Michael in for letting Nadine walk away in return for Mateo. After Jane informs them that they are getting back together, he makes up an excuse that he worries for Mateo's safety due to Michael's job, Michael genuinely decides to quit his job on the force for Jane. Of course when Jane tells Rafael, she already knows it was just an excuse. Immediately after Jane makes it clear that she loves Michael, Rafael tries to get back together with Petra, who also turns him down, not wanting to be the rebound. After Petra turns him down, he hooks up with a random bar girl.
  • Elena, Rafael's mother, seems to genuinely regret trading him for a payout of $10 million and tries to reconnect with him. As it turns out, Rafael is two-for-two on maternal figures who turn out to be murderous crime lords.
• Bittersweet Ending: The second season finale. Jane and Michael are finally married, and Petra and Rafael seem to be reconciled. However, it comes at the cost of Anezka pulling a Twin Switch and leaving Petra in the hospital with locked-in syndrome, Rose turning out to be alive and running off with Luisa, and worst of all, Michael being double-crossed once again, this time by Susanna, who shoots him in the hall of the Marbella.
• Black Dude Dies First: Zaz is the most unambiguously black character, and by the end of chapter 2 he's the most unambiguously dead.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Petra is blonde, the Villanueva women are all brunette (Jane), and Rose has red hair.
• Book Ends:
  • At the end of the second episode, Zaz dies by falling from a great height and being impaled. In the second to last episode, Rose, dies the same way.
  • In the first episode, "Una Flor" is played as the intro to Rogelio's show, The Passions of Santos. In the last episode, the song is played as Jane walks down the aisle to marry Rafael.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The chyrons in Episode Eleven, describing Milos:
  Milos—Petra's ex
  A really bad guy
  Forgot her birthday, twice
  Threw acid at her mom, once
• Break His Heart to Save Him: Rafael does this to Jane in Chapter Nineteen. After the two almost had sex at Jane's request, he realises that he's a bad influence on her, and uses this since she hadn't accepted his previous requests.
• Bromantic Foil: Played with. Rafael and Michael seem to be gravitating towards this to one another, in relation to Jane (and the status of their relationships with her); however, it's noted that it's always going to be somewhat awkward between them because of Jane and Mateo.
• Casting Gag:
  • Charles Michael Davis, a main character on the vampire-themed The Originals, plays a book agent who rejects Jane's proposal because the market is oversaturated with vampire stories.
  • Haley Lu Richardson, Brett Dier's real-life then-fiancee plays Charlie, a rival rancher who hates Michael's guts. They end up engaged with a baby on the way.
• Celebrity Paradox:
  • "Una Flor" by Juanes plays constantly over the pilot and is mentioned as the theme song to The Passions of Santos. Juanes himself guest stars in Chapter 8.
  • In Episode 14, Jane mentions Orange Is the New Black. Diane Guerrero, who plays Jane's friend Lina, plays an inmate on Orange Is the New Black.
  • Michael calls Jane "Veronica Mars" at one point. Ryan Devlin, who plays Billy (Michael's brother) also played a significant character in the show's third season.
• Character Blog: Rogelio de la Vega's twitter account.
• Character Title:
  • Jane the Virgin.
  • On the Show Within a Show, The Passions of Santos and later, The Mystery of Tiago.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: What happened to Mateo's aide Alex?
• Cliffhanger:
  • The season one finale. At the conclusion, for a moment everything is perfect... then Jane's son gets kidnapped by Sin Rostro. Other minor sequel hooks include: there being a second sample of Rafael's sperm, the tracker in Nadine's phone, and Rogelio and Xiomara's drunken Vegas wedding.
  • The second season ends with Rose being Not Quite Dead and running off with Luisa, Xo being pregnant, Anezka leaving Petra comatose and switching places with her, then sleeping with Rafael, and Michael being shot by Susanna on his and Jane's wedding night.
• Closet Key: Jane Ramos is this to Petra. After a long history of dating men, many of whom were abusive and/or manipulative, Petra falls for JR and realizes she is bisexual. Lampshaded when she admits that she lied when she said she'd been with women before to get JR to have sex with her for the first time.
• Constructive Body Disposal: Sin Rostro kills Emilio Salano by luring him to the construction site of the hotel's new pool and burying him in cement.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • As is expected of a telenovela, Jane's pregnancy is rife with them. In order for things to happen as they did, Jane and Petra had to go to the same OB at the same time, Jane met (and kissed) Petra's husband five years ago, he's her new boss, Luisa had to botch her job spectacularly (thanks to the timing of her wife cheating on her then calling her back) and inseminate Jane instead of Petra (who is being investigated by Jane's boyfriend as of the first episode)... it's a very small world, apparently.
  • Lampshaded in "Chapter Forty-Five", where Petra's anesthetic wears off at the exact same moment Michael gets out of surgery, distracting the cop keeping an eye on Anezka (who had been impersonating Petra) long enough for Anezka to inject Petra with another dose.
    Narrator: I told you their fates were linked.
• Couch Gag: After Jane finally loses her virginity, the second half of the title is removed in various ways.
• Cultural Translation:
  • The entire show is an Americanized version of a Venezuelan telenovela.
  • In-universe, Rogelio pitches a telenovela version of Mad Men (Hombres Locos) as his next passion project.
  • Rogelio later gets the go-ahead to produce an American version of The Passions of Santos. The cultural differences between telenovelas and American soaps are explored in his clash with his co-star River Fields (not Brooke Shields); the latter wants to cut down the more outlandish plot twists and dramatic aspects for a more 'grounded' narrative. Rogelio eventually gets his way.
• Death of the Hypotenuse: Downplayed, then subverted. Michael's death paves the way for Jane and Rafael getting back together, but only after a few years and at least one Temporary Love Interest on both sides. But as it turns out, Michael's death was faked...
• Deceptive Disciple: Nicolas, Rogelio's assistant.
• Deadpan Snarker: The Narrator, in conjunction with the chyrons, is the snarkiest character on the show.
• Defiled Forever: The show's opening. Jane's grandmother has her (then a preteen) hold a pure white magnolia, and then tells her to crumple it up. When Jane opens her hand again, the flower is battered and bruised, and her grandmother explains that her virginity is the same way. That it's something that makes her valuable, and thus something to be guarded and treasured until her wedding night, and that once she loses it, she "can never go back." This scares young Jane, and spurs her to make a promise to abstain from sex until marriage. The flower (bruises and all) has been preserved and framed on Jane's wall, as a reminder of this lesson, and growing past this mentality and becoming more sex-positive is part of her character arc.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: How morally reprehensible the messages in Rogelio's telenovelas sometimes are is presumably intentional. In one, he (a man) sleeps with a lesbian, which is just unspeakably lesbophobic. In addition to the existence of multiple canon lesbians who not once show romantic/sexual interest in men, however, there's also the fact that an Abduction Is Love relationship in Rogelio's past telenovela encourages his stalker Lola to kidnap him and make him "fall in love" with her in the same way Rogelio's character got the woman he imprisoned to "fall in love" with him. Programs marketed as harmless romance can perpetuate incredibly damaging notions; it's Truth in Television, unfortunately.
• Diabolical Mastermind:
  • Sin Rostro, "The Man Without a Face," is apparently a major drug dealer who completely vanished six months prior to the start of the story, but also appears to be responsible for a series of incidents that happen in the show. Zaz is supposed to be Sin Rostro's point man until his murder in Chapter Two, then "Disgusting Tom" is a bellboy that may have been connected to his murder, but is murdered himself—apparently by Sin Rostro, if Tom's last words are to be believed—in Chapter Five. Michael and the Miami PD have been investigating this case since before the start of the series.
  • Mutter is another one, who seems to have recently resurfaced. Michael and the Miami PD seem to be on the hunt for her too.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Rose treats Rafael's dad to a bit of outdoors undressing at the end of Chapter Twelve as a prelude to what's next. Thus caught off guard, he doesn't expect to be hit by a stream of cement triggered by Rose—a.k.a. Sin Rostro—and knocked into a hole by said cement, in which he drowns. And then she sashays off whistling cheerfully, and cut to the credits...
• A Dog Named "Dog": Darci and Rogelio decide to name their newborn baby "Baby Michaelina De La Vega Factor."
• Double Entendre: Jane and Michael's dialogue near the beginning of Chapter Three, after she's told him that they should have sex. It's easily some of the steamiest dialogue you'll ever hear on non-pay TV... and then, we find that it's just Michael talking to Jane about talking to the police about the murder at the hotel, the night before. The way that the scene was shot, with extreme close-ups of both as if they're in bed, only magnifies the implied content of the scene.
• Dramatic Drop: Jane, upon learning of Michael's death. She drops her phone in slo-mo, before she herself collapses to the ground.
• Dramatis Personae: The first episode introduces the major characters through an Establishing Character Moment followed by a freeze frame accompanied by relevant descriptions in the subtitles.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The point of the show. This is invoked by Jane during the Season 3 finale once to describe her journey to finally becoming a published author which later inspires her to invoke it once more to describe her parents' tumultuous relationship as she officiates their wedding.
• Elevator Failure: In Chapter Ten, invoked directly by the narrator.
  Narrator: That, my dear, is the classic telenovela trope known as the 'stuck in the elevator' scenario, in which two characters at odds are... stuck in an elevator.
• "Eureka!" Moment: After Michael finds the underground surgery beneath the Marbella, the exact reason for its existence still evades him—until a few hotel guests who look like they've had some work done—some more than others—walk by. Then it hits him.
• Everybody Has Lots of Sex: And they're often very good at it, too. Probably to an unrealistic degree, but, hey — the events in the show are straight out of a telenovela, after all. Subversions include Michael, who's not horrendously bad at sex so much as he is... well, a realistic degree of skilled at it, with him overestimating his abilities to please until Jane lets him know he needs to improve.
• Evil Twin:
  • Rogelio, for his part, thinks this trope is a terrible cliche. As soon as he says it, of course, the narrator points out that just an episode ago, Roman had been revealed to be this for Aaron Zazo.
  • Anezka is this for Petra, as she tries to steal the latter's life.
• Expository Hairstyle Change:
  • In "Chapter Fifty-Four", after the show jumps ahead three years, we see that Jane has cut her long hair to above her shoulders, something that both shows the Time Skip as well as implies Jane has changed.
  • Also happens to Petra in "Chapter Seventy-Four", around the time she meets her Closet Key, JR.

F to K

• Fair Cop:
  • Michael is a detective with the Miami PD.
  • His partner Nadine is pretty easy on the eyes, too. Which makes their hookup after Michael's breakup with Jane virtually inevitable.
  • Michael's second partner, Susanna, is also good-looking. And even better looking as Sin Rostro.
• Fake Orgasm: While Jane loses her virginity to her new husband, Michael, in "Chapter Forty-Seven", she lies that she finished to Michael as not to disappoint him. After learning some lessons about spontaneity, communication, and processing one's loss of virginity, Jane and Michael are able to have mutually satisfying sex.
• Faking the Dead: Anezka pretends to hang herself in Chapter Seventy.
• Fan Community Nicknames: In-universe, "Rogelifans" for Rogelio's legion of fangirls.
• First-Episode Twist: Rogelio de la Vega, star of The Passions of Santos, is Jane's father and Xiomara's ex.
• 555: In Chapter Six, a dock where Sin Rostro is receiving a shipment is given the number 55-5; when included with other information and disguised as a phone number, the number has the 555 prefix.
• Flat "What":
  • Lampshaded by Rogelio in Chapter Four:
    Rogelio: I'm your father.
    Jane: What?
    Rogelio: ...I'm your father.
    Jane: No, I heard you.
    Rogelio: Yeah, but you said "What?" so I thought you didn't.
• Flower Motifs:
  • Alba (and by extension Jane) uses crumpled or otherwise ruined white flowers as a metaphor for losing your virginity—once you do it, you can no longer restore it to its previous beauty.
  • Milos is associated with yellow tulips.
• Flowers of Romance: White flower petals rain down on Jane and Rafael during their first kiss.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling:
  • Michael as the Responsible and his brother Billy as the Foolish. Although they have a shared criminal past, Michael became an upstanding (for the most part) police detective while Billy is still considered a good-for-nothing who consistently tries to mooch off his brother.
  • Zig-zagged with Luisa and Rafael. Five years ago, Luisa was considered the Responsible (she was still a doctor despite her stint in rehab for alcoholism) and Rafael the Foolish (as he was without a life plan, flirting with different girls and wasting his father's money notwithstanding). It's more muddled in present-day. Season 2 casts Rafael as the Responsible (as he's managing the Marbella) and Luisa as the Foolish (having swung back into alcoholism and not-so-sane misdeeds). Both siblings eventually settle on Responsible in Season 5.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Small bits in the pilot, leading to the First-Episode Twist as mentioned above:
    • First, Jane catches Xo looking at her while watching The Passions of Santos. While initially it's framed to be about Xo seeing how obsessed Jane is about the TV show, it happens right after a closeup of the main character, Santos.
    • Later, when Jane finds out she is, in fact, pregnant, she catches a tabloid with an article about "Rogelio de la Vega" and Santos' actor's face on the cover.
    • Then, the narrator mentions that Xo's ex, Rogelio, asked her to have an abortion, and that Xo decided afterwards that she needed the baby and not Rogelio.
    • When the narrator states that Xo saw Jane's father in plain daylight at Carla's Croquetas, "Una Flor," the theme to "The Passions of Santos," is playing.
  • The hooker hired to set up Rafael comes clean with Jane, mentioning that she'd been separated from her own son for some time, and during Jane's lactation classes, the overdramatic teacher warns parents not to let the nurses snatch their baby. Guess what happens to Jane's son when he's finally born.
  • In "Chapter Ninety-One", Mateo receives an ADHD diagnosis. The Narrator is also acting oddly, confessing that he's got a hard time keeping focus at various points throughout the episode.
• Former Teen Rebel: Both Michael and Rafael have criminal pasts. However, Michael reformed sometime in the past and is now a police detective, and Rafael bounced back from the deep end after his cancer went into remission.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Petra apparently has Scott's name on her phone as "Scott(vests)," as indicated in Chapter Twenty-Four.
• Friendship Moment:
  • Jane and Petra get two, one on the stairwell and one as Jane tries to convince her to stop her wedding, both about Petra's convoluted life.
    Jane: ...and I do care about you, in the "I-don't-want-you-to-marry-a-psycho" kind of way.
  • A third, more genuine one happens as Petra gives birth and Jane is the only one helping her through it in the hospital since Michael and Rafael were stuck in traffic. It's clear that a genuine bond was formed afterwards.
• Fun with Subtitles: And how. The onscreen chyrons are being input by the narrator, who happens to be the snarkiest character on the show:
  • One of the establishing character moments for the chyrons is when it lists Rafael as a Playboy, scratches it out, and replaces it with Trapped husband.
  • Shortly after that, it focuses on his sister Luisa, who is Married*
    • *In some states, establishing her as being interested in women.
  • "Chapter Two":
    • Luisa is described as an Artificial inseminat(Beat)er (sp?)
    • Rafael is described as The father of the baby(the word "baby" is deleted)milkshake.
  • In Chapter Four, the subtitles describe a "Pre-Cana" as Catholic marriage counseling, led by a priest*
    *Who has never been married
  • Chapter Five provides some actual fun with subtitles, by giving what is otherwise official police dialogue between Michael and Rafael subtitles indicating what their actual dialogue is about—Jane.
  • When Rogelio mentions Twitter for whatever reason, there's an 80% chance that chyrons will post relevant hashtags to whatever he's talking about.
  • Chapter Nineteen provides karaoke subtitles, in which Rogelio sings in Spanish and the subtitles highlight the relevant portions of the English translation as he sings.
  • Chapter Twenty-Four has Luisa exclaiming the name of a person—or what she thinks is his name—and the subtitles are thoughtful enough to supply the person's actual name.
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Both played straight and later averted:
  • Xo got pregnant as a teenager with Jane, and contemplated getting an abortion (even telling Rogelio she got one), but kept the baby anyway. Surprisingly, the devout Catholic Alba was the one pushing Xo to get an abortion.
  • Played pretty straight with Jane, who despite getting pregnant as a virgin, keeps the baby. To the show's credit, abortion is discussed as a valid option, and Jane's initial motivation in keeping the baby is to give it to Petra and Rafael.
  • Completely averted with Xo, whose abortion is treated very casually, happening in between episodes without much fanfare. Rogelio, Jane, and Michael all believe she made the right decision, with the drama kept to a minimum. The only conflict is with Alba's reaction.
• Happy Ending: By the end of the series, the main characters' dreams and romantic plots are neatly resolved. Jane sells her book for big money, Rafael has disentangled himself from the Marbella, has a better relationship with his family, and marries Jane, Petra plants the seeds of expanding the Marbella and gets back together with JR, Michael has found a new life in Montana, and his fiancee is pregnant, Rogelio's passion project premieres to acclaim, Xiomara pursues her new dream of nursing school and manages to balance staying with her family and Rogelio's show, and Alba is happily married to Jorge. Furthermore, since the narrator is a grown-up Mateo, it is implied that Jane's family's story, detailed in her book, is retold somehow... perhaps as a telenovela?
• Happy Marriage Charade: At the start of the series, Rafael and Petra put on a facade of being a happy, wealthy, in-love couple. In private, though, Rafael has fallen out of love with her and Petra, while still having feelings for him, attempts to manipulate him to get the money specified in her prenup.
• #HashtagForLaughs: The show parodies this with Jane's vain celebrity father Rogelio, who frequently uses hashtags on Twitter. Sometimes they're relevant to the plot of the episode, others are just for laughs. (#RogelioMyBrogelio) The Lemony Narrator often chimes in with the chyrons.
• The Hecate Sisters: Played with. Although the series revolves around Jane (the virgin), her mother Xiomara, and her grandmother Alba, and Alba is definitely the firmest and most world-wise, Xiomara is flightier, more irresponsible, and more of a "seductress" than her sensible daughter Jane.
• Hell Hotel: Invoked; the Marbella is slandered as a drug and murder hotspot in season two, while Petra and Rafael struggle to fix its reputation.
• Hereditary Twinhood: Petra gives birth to identical twin daughters, which sets up the reveal later in the season that she herself is an identical twin. And the finale pulls one last twist by revealing she is actually a triplet.
• Hollywood Genetics: Rafael is black haired and Petra has blonde hair. Their twin daughters are blonde, which is a case of Implausible Hair Colour, as even if their mother was naturally blonde, black hair is dominant.
• Hollywood Law: Some of the Manipulative Bitch legal maneuvering that Petra pulls off to harass Raf would never hold up for a second in court.
• Honesty Is the Best Policy: Much like the theme of the importance of family, lying is consistently shown to negatively impact relationships. See the What the Hell, Hero? examples below.
• Hostility on the Set: In-universe. Over the course of filming their reality show The De La Vega-Factor Factor, Darci and Rogelio slowly grow to loathe each other to the point that nearly every offscreen conversation they have is a fight.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Played straight with Jane and Rafael, somewhat averted with Jane and Michael: Justin Baldoni, the actor playing Rafael, is over six foot, compared to Gina Rodriguez's 5"3. This is shown realistically fairly often. On screen, Jane and Michael don't appear to be too different in height, despite Brett Dier's height being listed as similar to Baldoni's.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: How Petra accidentally informs Rafael of her affair with Zaz, when she knows the name of Zaz's brother (and Rafael doesn't).
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Rafael stops actively fighting for Jane when she makes it clear she doesn't love him anymore and is in love with Michael, but right before Jane and Michael's wedding it's revealed to the audience that Rafael is still deeply in love with Jane. He considers confessing his love to her moments before the ceremony, but decides not to when he sees how happy she is, effectively letting her go for good.
• Idea Bulb: Parodied when Michael realizes who Sin Rostro is; the narrator notes this should happen, and on cue, Nadine turns the lights on in the interrogation room.
• Identical Grandson: Jane's great-aunt Cecilia looks exactly like Jane (and is played by Gina Rodriguez). Alba doesn't see the resemblance.
• Identical Twin ID Tag:
  • Parodied when Petra asks Rafael how she can tell their twin daughters apart. Rafael had the nurses put an "X" on one of them.
  • Petra is a (presumably dyed) blonde, while Anezka is a brunette. This is used to trick the audience and other characters, like when Anezka switches their hair colours to take Petra's place.
  • Petra invokes this quite literally after being temporarily paralyzed and impersonated by Anezka. She forces Anezka to get a tattoo reading "NOT PETRA" on her forehead; in later appearances, we see that Anezka has grown out bangs.
• Imagine Spot: Jane is quite prone to them. Also nicely subverted when her favorite author starts talking about Jane herself at supposed book reading, and the narrator has to tell Jane she's not imagining it.
• Informed Ability: Jane's writing ability. It's not bad, but "not bad" isn't good enough to get into the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
• Instant Birth: Just Add Labor!: Played straight with Xo, who says she went from having contractions 8 minutes apart to giving birth within an hour. And just when it appears to be happening with Jane, going from no contractions to contractions every 4 minutes in the length of a bus ride, she averts it. After getting to the hospital, her contraction stay at every 2 minutes all night and even when she finally starts pushing, it still takes a while.
• Intergenerational Friendship:
  • Rogelio considers Michael to be his best friend. He's not as fond of Rafael, but they get there.
  • Alba ends up actually becoming one of Rafael's closest friends.
• Invasion of the Baby Snatchers: Pretty much every parent's worst nightmare. Hours after Jane gives birth, a nurse comes into her room and says she has to take the baby to get a hearing test. After leaving the room, the nurse cuts off the baby's ID bracelet and smuggles him out of the hospital. The season finale ends with the audience finding out that it is Sin Rostro, a notorious drug lord, that has kidnapped the baby.
• Ironic Echo Cut: Done nearly every time there's a cutaway.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Zaz. He was screwing Petra (his college roommate Rafael's wife) and was also using his position at the hotel as part of his dealings with Sin Rostro.

L to P

• Large Ham: Rogelio and Xiomara. Lampshaded by the Narrator during an encounter in Chapter Seven.
  Narrator: What you are about to witness is two creatures, who are inherently dramatic, attempt to behave like they are not dramatic.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: The season 5 premiere reveals that Michael can't remember anything about his past and, as a consequence, goes by Jason now.
• Last-Minute Baby Naming:
  • Almost subverted, as Jane and Rafael had narrowed it down to three girls names and then pick during labour. But when the baby is born a boy, they're forced to think of one last minute. They pick Mateo, after Jane's grandfather.
  • Exaggerated with Rogelio and Darci's baby, who doesn't have a name weeks after being born because they're too hung up thinking of one. They eventually settle on 'Baby Michaelina'.
• Late Coming Out: Rogelio's father Manuel is closeted, and kept up the appearance of a happy marriage with his mother Liliana for Rogelio's sake. In season two, Liliana and Manuel get a divorce after being married for about forty years so that Manuel can live as a gay man.
• Latex Perfection: In the season 2 finale, "Susanna" is revealed to actually be Rose wearing a latex mask and voice changer. It was such a good disguise that even Luisa didn't recognize her. Also for Rose is Eileen.
• Law of Inverse Fertility:
  • Xo having an unwanted Teen Pregnancy.
  • Petra wants a child to save her marriage, but had a miscarriage before Rafael's cancer and now has only has one chance to do it (using her husband's freeze-dried sperm sample). Too bad it goes to Jane.
  • A kid is the last thing Jane wanted, but she winds up getting saddled with one due to Luisa's mistake.
  • Xo, who very firmly never wants another child, finds herself pregnant by a one night stand in the season 2 finale.
  • In season 5, Lina wants to conceive very badly, but hasn't been successful so far and may be infertile. She announces her pregnancy in the series finale.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • Scenes will often transition by cutting to another character saying something that sounds like a reaction to or is otherwise related to the previous scene.
  • The characters frequently make comments about how telenovela characters would act in similar situations, whether it's Michael attempting to apologize to Jane with a romantic song playing in the background, or Jane explicitly trying to invoke a telenovela atmosphere when preparing for a romantic evening. Off that last one:
    Narrator: Then again, "perfect" doesn't exist, especially in telenovelas.
  • In Chapter Forty-Seven, Rogelio talks about making an Americanized version of The Passions of Santos on The CW. None of the characters have ever heard of the network.
• Lemony Narrator: The Latin Lover Narrator, who snarks at the characters and the audience both vocally and with the chyrons and is fond of lampshading tropes seen on the show.
• Literal Metaphor In Chapter 14, Luisa recounts how she and Rose got together. "And then she kissed me. And then there were fireworks." It was the 4th of July, and the fireworks show started right as Rose kissed her. And then they had sex in a pool, while the fireworks continued.
• Lost in Transmission: In Chapter Nine, Ivan realizes that the current storyline in The Passions of Santos matches nearly perfectly with his own situation (captivity). After he manages to acquire the items Santos needs for escape, he's about to listen to Santos' plan to break free when the television gets turned off. When it gets turned back on, Santos is already free.
• Love Dodecahedron: As one would expect of a telenovela:
  • The primary triangle is Jane, who has been dating Michael for two years and is now engaged to him, and Rafael, her baby daddy whom she kissed five years ago and also happens to be her boss. In addition to this, Rafael is married to Petra, who is sleeping with his best friend Zaz^note until he dies, anyway and is also pursued by ex-suitor Lachlan, however near the end of the first season she realizes that she's not so over Rafael. Plus, each person also has their own Temporary Love Interests over the course of the series.
  • Also, Luisa, even if her wife is unfaithful, is still married, but she's also sleeping with her ex-girlfriend. Said ex, Rose, is also Luisa and Rafael's stepmother.
• Madonna-Whore Complex: Deconstructed in Chapter Forty-Seven. Jane is writing about her great-aunt Cecilia, and she can't figure out whether Cecilia was promiscuous like Alba said, or if she was very devout and virginal. All of this is Jane projecting her own feelings, as she just lost her virginity and is having trouble reconciling sex as a non-sinful thing.
• Magic Plastic Surgery: A major source of paranoia for the characters is that Sin Rostro's illegal plastic surgery ring can make criminals look like anyone. Sin Rostro employs Surgical Impersonation a couple of times as well.
• Mama Bear: Jane in the beginning of Season 2, when she went to rescue Mateo from Sin Rostro.
  • Petra as well, when she killed Anezka, because Anezka threatened to kill her daughters.
• Meaningful Name: Sin Rostro (also known as "The Man Without a Face") references both her real name, Rose (which is lampshaded by the narrator) and her criminal plastic surgery operation.
• Meet Cute: Very much how Michael and Jane's first meeting was presented, and to a lesser extent, (more emphasis on romantic than cute) how Jane and Rafael had met.
• A Minor Kidroduction: Jane is first introduced as a young girl receiving a talking-to about virginity from Alba. Some episodes will also start with a flashback to her youth to set the theme of the episode.
• Missing Mom:
  • It's alluded to that Luisa's mother was mentally ill. In Chapter Twelve, Luisa outright states that her mother committed suicide. While this was later revealed to not be the case, she was still out of Luisa's life until she died.
  • Rafael says his mother left on her fourth birthday, and eventually hires a PI to investigate what happened to her. When they meet, he discovers she was paid off by his father to stay away from them.
• The Mole: In the season 2 finale, Michael figures out that Susanna is such a thing. What he doesn't find out, due to her shooting him, is that... well, see Not Quite Dead below.
• Monochrome Past: Parodied. A flashback to Petra's days in Prague starts out in monochrome, then changes back to color as the narrator points out that it was only five or so years ago.
• Most Writers Are Writers: Jane is an aspiring romance novel writer. Several writer characters appear in supporting and cameo roles.
• Ms. Fanservice:
  • Xiomara who can usually be found in booty shorts or dresses with high hemlines and low necklines.
  • Petra also qualifies, frequently wearing outfits that accentuate her beauty—and, occasionally, not wearing them.
  • Rose is a Trophy Wife played by Bridget Regan. It comes with the territory.
• Multigenerational Household: Mateo (son), Jane (mom), Xiomara (grandmother), and Alba (great-grandmother) all live under the same roof, and their living situation often inform their relationships in both comedic and dramatic ways.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Sin Rostro (which means 'The Man Without a Face').
• New Old Flame:
  • Rogelio and Xo get back together twenty-three years later.
  • Subverted with Lachlan and Petra, who get back together with their own ulterior motives.
  • Andie to Michael, after his fallout with Jane.
  • Alba and Pablo, her First Love who visits in season two.
  • Xo and Bruce, who apparently had an intense on-off-again relationship while Bruce was still married.
  • Adam to Jane. They dated (and nearly married) when Jane was 19, and rekindle their romance almost ten years later.
• Nice Girl: Abbey, Rafael's girlfriend, which even the narrator can't help but like due to her niceness, even Petra's enjoys her and is on her side. However Rafael, beware a Woman Scorned.
• No Periods, Period: Averted, but not until well into the third season. Which is pretty incredible given the premise.
• Nominal Importance: Most people introduced will have their full name typed on the screen via chyron. If they don't, they're not important (like Tammy the insurance lady that the Narrator can't remember the last name of in Chapter Forty.)
• Not Me This Time: Rose insists that she didn't kill Scott, when even Luisa thinks she did. She didn't - it was Eileen.. the real Eileen (who Rose is disguised as, with the real Eileen warned to leave the country and never come back), she killed him when he saw her in the beach, as she guessed that he'd realise there were two of them.
• Not Quite Dead:
  • Roman Zazo, thought murdered in the second episode, reveals to have killed his twin brother instead.
  • On the Show Within a Show, Santos's reason for surviving his son's betrayal is through a combination of several telenovela cliches.
  • Rose, who was actually shown onscreen to have been strangled to death. In Chapter Forty-Four it is revealed that it was only a decoy that was killed and that Rose was actually disguised as "Susanna", Michael's partner and Luisa's new girlfriend, the entire time.
  • In the season four finale Michael appears to have survived his death, although the circumstances of this are so far unknown.
• Odd Friendship: Jane and Petra hated each other in the first season. After realizing that Petra will soon be a part of her family, due to Petra carrying Mateo's twin half-sisters Jane begins to show concern and support for Petra. Petra in turn ends up sticking up for Jane, and secretly subletting the house that she and Michael are interested in, so they could afford the rent.
• Oh, Crap!: Said word-for-word by the narrator in "Chapter Twenty-Three" to show Petra's state when she realises that her assistant Scott put Rafael's sperm sample in among the gifts in Mateo's nursery.
• One Degree of Separation: Jane is inseminated by Luisa, who's the sister of baby daddy Rafael, who was also Jane's crush at some point and current boss. Rafael and Luisa's family is related to Sin Rostro's dealings, whom Jane's boyfriend Michael is trying to track down.
• Once a Season: Someone gets married every season finale.
• One-Steve Limit:
  • Averted with Jane Villanueva and Jane Ramos, the latter of whom appears in season 4. Petra calls the latter "JR" to differentiate them.
  • Averted with Petra herself and her triplet brother Pyotr, with both names being variants of "Peter". This has the caveat of Petra's birth name being Natalia.
• Orange/Blue Contrast: Present in the set designs, most of which feature some combination of warm or pastel orange and light or dark blue. Jane's house is a warm orange with pops of blue, while the Marbella is a bright blue with pops of orange and yellow.
• Overly Long Name: Mateo Gloriano Rogelio Solano Villanueva^note "Mateo" after his dead great-grandfather, "Gloriano" to match his female family members' common name of "Gloriana", "Rogelio" for his grandfather, and "Solano Villanueva" from his father and mother, respectively, but he is mostly just referred to as "Mateo". Jane and Rafael lampshade that his name is kind of long after the Last-Minute Baby Naming.
• Past Experience Nightmare:
  • Jane has several of these after Michael is shot. She wakes up bolt upright in bed after reliving the night when she found her husband bleeding out on the floor.
  • She also has nightmares of Mateo being kidnapped after his kidnapping in the series 1 finale.
• Pocket Dial: Jane's advice to Petra who misses her ex J.R. (who forbid her to contact her) is to "accidentally" butt-dial her. It works as it leads to them texting and then getting back together.
  Jane: You can accidentally butt-dial her. You just like let the phone ring a few times and hang up. She texts you back, you're in. If she doesn't, leave her alone.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Neither Petra nor Rafael know that the protagonists of Frozen are named Elsa and Anna, and don't see anything wrong with naming their twins that, to Jane's utter disbelief.
• Pop-Up Texting: Text messages appear as pop-up bubbles on the screen.
• Plot-Inciting Infidelity: She isn't the protagonist, but the show's convoluted plot is kickstarted when Luisa walks in on her wife cheating on her. The fragile state of mind this puts her in leads to Luisa making the crucial mistake of accidentally artificially inseminating Jane instead of Petra.
• Practically Different Generations: The title character is in her late twenties with a child of her own when her father Rogelio fathers his second daughter Baby.
• Protagonist Title: The show is named after its heroine Jane The Virgin.
• Previously on…: The narrator records a unique recap of the relevant information before the episode starts.

R to W

• Really Gets Around:
  • Xo apparently has her fair share of casual boyfriends.
  • Rogelio, the star of the Show Within a Show, apparently has a new girl every week, if the tabloids are to be believed.
• Red Herring: Mutter's identity. The police and the audience are initially led to believe it's Luisa's mother Mia. They were right that she faked her death, but Mia did it to escape Emilio and live a quiet life by a lake. Turns out it's actually Emilio's second wife Elena, Rafael's mother.
• Relationship Revolving Door: The Love Dodecahedron between Jane, Rafael, Michael, and Petra involves a lot of this. At the beginning, Jane is engaged to Michael while Rafael is married to Petra, before Jane and Rafael leave Michael and Petra, respectively, and get together. Then Jane and Rafael break up, and Jane gets back together with Michael and marries him. Then Michael dies, and after a lengthy mourning period, Jane gets back together with Rafael. Then it turns out Michael's death was faked by Sin Rostro, and he returns with Laser-Guided Amnesia under the name Jason. Michael eventually regains his memories of Jane, and Rafael, fearing Jane will leave him for Michael again, breaks up with her. Jane then travels to Montana with Michael to sort out her feelings for him and realizes she still loves Rafael, before returning to Miami, getting back together with Rafael, and ultimately marrying him in the Grand Finale. Meanwhile, in the midst of these break-ups and reconciliations, Rafael and Petra engage in Sex with the Ex on a few occasions. It's complicated, to say the least.
• Replacement Scrappy: In-universe; Chapter 56 replaces Scott, a manager nobody liked or missed who apparently died at the hotel next door, with Elvis, a fairly similar guy that nobody is fond of either.
• Running Gag: Rafael randomly picked the names Elsa and Anna for Petra's twins, which naturally means she has to constantly correct people that they're not named after the Frozen characters. (Elsa is later referred to as Ellie to stop the connection to you-know-what.)
• Sex as Rite-of-Passage: Decon-Recon Switch. When Jane finally stops being The Virgin (because she's found someone to marry), Their First Time is... bumpy. The way it would be for someone with a Madonna-Whore Complex; the way it would be when someone who's been told that her virginity is her Incorruptible Pure Pureness has finally reached the moment of abandoning it; the way it would be in a more realistic setting. Ultimately it is a rite of passage, but not the one where Jane grows up; rather, it's the one that where Jane grows up more.
• Sex with the Ex:
  • Rose and Luisa broke it off sometime before the start of the series, but begin doing it again after Luisa calls her for counsel.
  • Xo and Rogelio don't take long to reconnect, both emotionally and physically.
  • Petra and Lachlan (whom she had previously left for Rafael) do it too, although they're each doing it to manipulate the other.
  • Petra and Rafael as well, on more than one occasion although one of those times Rafael only thought he was sleeping with Petra, while in fact it was Anezka pretending to be Petra.
• Shipper on Deck: Xo and Rogelio are #TeamMichael while Alba is #TeamRafael.
• Shipping Torpedo: Both of Jane's parents independently state their disapproval of Rafael and his relationship with Jane. Both of them also prefer Michael, although they both put her happiness first.
• Show Within a Show: Rogelio stars in multiple shows over the course of the show: The Passions of Santos, Pasion Intergalactica, Tiago al travers del tiempo, The De La Vega-Factor Factor, and Los Viajes de Guillermo are the ones we've seen so far.
• Shout-Out
  • Emilio partially buried in cement, with head and hands visible may look familiar to some.
  • In season 2 Rogelio is held captive and abused for weeks by a Loony Fan who is angry about one of the shows he worked on ending. The name of the show was "La Miseria".
  • When Petra visits Magda in prison, the latter claims that "the red-haired lady in the kitchen is trying to poison her".
  • Petra decides to call her twin daughters Elsa and Anna. She insists that she wasn't inspired by the Disney movie.
• Single Sex Offspring: According to Jane, her family only has daughters, so Jane doesn't even bother thinking of a masculine name for the child she accidentally conceived with Rafael. It turns out to be a son, prompting some Last-Minute Baby Naming.
• Sinister Whistling: Crime lord Sin Rostro is often heralded by a signature nine-note Leitmotif, which they sometimes whistle themselves.
• Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace:
  • Subverted with Jane marrying Michael. Moments before the wedding, Rafael confronts Jane, telling her he loves her and begging her not to marry Michael... But then it's revealed that was only in Rafael's head. In reality, Rafael sees how happy Jane is and decides to let her go.
  • Played straight with Alba's wedding. A flashback reveals that a relative objected to the marriage in the middle of the ceremony due to Alba not being a virgin, causing a fight to break out.
• Stripper/Cop Confusion: Jane and Michael first met when he tried to break up her rowdy 21st birthday party while on duty. She mistook him for a stripper until she fired his gun at the ceiling.
• Slut-Shaming: Alba to Xo, which explores and deconstructs Xo's Ethical Slut/Good Bad Girl/Spicy Latina/Really Gets Around.
  Alba: Especially because you didn't need the encouragement.
  Xo: Oh my God, are you serious? You're such a hypocrite!
  Alba: No. What I did was different. It wasn't the same. I got carried away one time. You were sleeping around.
  Xo: I did not sleep around, Ma! Do not make me feel like a slut!
  Alba: I'm not.
  Xo: You are! Like you always have! And I am not! I am just a normal woman who enjoys having sex. And you have made me feel like crap about it my entire life. [crying] And that's why I'm so pissed. [leaves]
  • Later, it's learned that Alba was slut-shamed herself as a young woman, and so she thought it'd be better if Xo was shamed at home by her family so she'd stop, rather than having the whole town shame her.
• Snow Means Love: The Arc Symbol for Jane and Michael's romance.
• Snark Knight: The Lemony Narrator.
• Stylistic Suck: In general, the in-universe telenovelas have cliche plots and over-the-top acting. The audience gets to see a lot of Rogelio and Esteban's new show, Pasion Intergalactica, but it looks purposefully terrible.
• Take That!: The show is not shy at all about insulting Donald Trump, by name, after the election.
• Tangled Family Tree: The Solanos, hoo boy. Emilio's second wife (Rafael's mother) was the stepmother of his third wife (Rose), who had an affair with his daughter (Luisa) by his first wife.
• Their First Time: Deconstructed in Chapter Forty-Seven. Jane and Michael finally have sex, it's far from Idealized Sex, with Jane having trouble reaching orgasm and with their further attempts just getting more awkward. Jane realizes her feelings about losing her virginity are complicated, feeling like she has lost a part of her identity and struggling to separate sex from being sinful. After communicating her feelings to Michael, they are able to have better sex.
• Themed Party: Lina's bachelorette party is a Agatha Christie or Clue-esque Murder Mystery-themed party, because her fiance is a fan of the genre.
• Theme Twin Naming: Done accidentally by Rafael and Petra with their twins Elsa and Anna. Come the Time Skip in Season 3 it's learned that Elsa is now Ellie.
• There Is Another: Rafael's last remaining sperm sample turns out to not quite be the last of its kind.
• Thicker Than Water: A major theme. Family is given heavy importance.
  • All over the place in Chapter Twelve. Jane is inspired to write Rogelio's onscreen death at his son's hands by remembering Alba telling her that she will always forgive Jane because they are family. She asks Rafael to forgive Luisa too, for the same reason, although he's reluctant. Petra's relationship with her mother hits a wall because she learns that her mother had lied to her for five years about her disability.
  • By season four the main characters have managed to organize themselves into a more or less cohesive extended family, and look out for each other in their own ways.
• Time Skip:
  • Done deliberately within chapter 20 when the doctor says Jane's baby could automatically corrects its breech position after two weeks. It doesn't.
  • Every act in Chapter Twenty-Eight takes place one month after the previous act.
  • The end of Chapter Fifty-four jumps ahead three years.
• Title Drop: The mocking name of the website Jane's ex-step-sisters start is Jane the Virgin, and how the nuns running her school portray her.
• The Topic of Cancer:
  • Rafael is a cancer survivor; it's the reason he can no longer have children. He is cancer-free at the start, but pretends that his cancer has relapsed knowing that this would make Luisa want to come home, bringing Rose along by extension.
  • Season four sees Xiomara diagnosed with breast cancer. The high mortality rate of cancer greatly affects the characters, who react to it in different ways.
• Trivially Obvious: At Petra's baby shower Petra says she doesn't like insincere speeches so Jane rips hers up and just says Petra is.... having two babies.
• Troperiffic: The series includes and often deconstructs or parodies a large number of classic telenovela tropes.
• Two-Person Pool Party: In Chapter 19, Jane and Rafael make out in the hotel's pool. She proposes sex and he accepts, but they are interrupted by a security guard before anything can happen.
• Uncanny Family Resemblance: Gina Rodriguez plays both Jane and her great aunt, Alba's sister Cecilia.
• Unreliable Narrator: By Word of God, the narrator is someone within the Villanueva family, and therefore cannot be unbiased. He never even tries anyway.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Jane and Petra do not like each other and are constantly at odds in the first season, but the two do begin to bond over their shared connection with Rafael and motherhood.
• Wedding Finale: Given that this is a show steeped in the drama and romance of telenovelas, every season finale involves one of the Villanueva women getting married.
  • The season two finale is about Jane and Michael's. They pull in all the tropes—Jane and Michael fighting at the rehearsal, Jane worrying that they hadn't discussed basic wedding things, Jane almost not making it to the wedding, Rafael almost asking Jane to not do it, and the wedding still happens, and it's beautiful.
  • Xiomara and Rogelio's second wedding occurs in the season three finale.
  • The end of season 4 is Alba's Citizenship Marriage to Jorge.
  • And the Grand Finale is Jane's wedding to Rafael, her Happily Ever After. Discussed as well, since many of her childhood telenovelas ended with a wedding.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter Twelve. Petra fakes her death in front of her mother, who inadvertently reveals she'd been lying about being handicapped the whole time. Rogelio is fired from The Passions of Santos. Oh, and Rose is Sin Rostro and she just killed her husband by drowning him in cement.
  • And fitting for a season finale, Chapter Twenty-Two. Xiomara and Rogelio found out they got drunkenly married in Vegas, Michael and the police are hot on Nadine's trail, Petra just stole Rafael's secondary sperm sample and the most shocking twist of all: Jane's son gets kidnapped by Sin Rostro.
  • Michael and his new partner Susanna set up a sting operation to get Rose to think Luisa is in the ICU. Rose takes the bait. Susanna ends up with a bullet to the shoulder but Rose is killed via strangulation by blue silk cord - Mutter's calling card.
  • And again with the dramatic finales, Chapter Fourty-Four. Jane and Michael are finally married, but Michael is shot in the chest that night by Susanna, who is revealed to actually be Rose in disguise. Anezka has given Petra a drug that leaves her entire body paralyzed and unable to speak and has taken her identity, tricking Rafael into sleeping with her. And on top of all that, Xo realizes she is pregnant after a one night stand with Rogelio's nemesis.
  • Chapter Fifty-Four changes the entire course of the show. Jane gets a new job with Chloe Leland, a publisher for a major firm. Xo and Bruce plan to move in with each other. Rogelio joins his girlfriend's new reality show. Petra finally finds the maternal instinct within her, quelling all fears of raising Anna and Elsa without Rafael — as his plea bargain fell through and he's going to jail for the next nine months. Luisa's new girlfriend Eileen is Rose in disguise. Michael dies from unforeseen complications with his heart due to his gunshot wound while waiting to finish his LSAT. Then the show skips ahead three years as the Jane is rushing Mateo to get ready, as the two don't want to be late for "the wedding".
  • Chapter Eighty-One, which the narrator straight up warns will be full of surprises. Alba becomes an American citizen, and marries her love interest Jorge in a Citizenship Marriage. Petra and Jane R. decide to move in together, but then the latter finds out that Petra really was guilty and shoots someone to protect Petra. Rafael plans to propose to Jane, but this is derailed by, of all things, Michael's seeming survival. At least River's agreed to cooperate with Rogelio on their show!
• Wham Line: Occurs in the series finale.
  Mateo: "I practiced with Great Glam-ma.She said I'd be great at voice-over work."
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Jane calls Michael out for not telling her about Petra's affair, and breaks off their engagement. Petra's lover was tied to Sin Rostro, who may have had two people killed at the hotel, so not telling Jane about Petra's affair was in part Michael's trying to protect her from actual harm. However, Michael was also pressuring Petra to break it off so she'd get the baby despite knowing how important it was to Jane that the baby grew up in a stable household. It didn't help that he'd previously handwaved Jane's suspicions with "hormones."
  • In turn Michael calls out Jane after learning that almost a mere day after calling off their engagement she began seeing Rafael.
  • Jane is upset at Xo for lying to her about her father her entire life.
  • Luisa deploys an understated one at Rafael: how could he force her into a mental institution when he knows how terrified she would be of being in one? Rafael is shocked, since he was expecting a typical series of apologies and promises to improve herself, not a calling out, but manages to brush most of it off.
  • Jane later gets upset with Rafael, after he refuses to fire Petra, which technically he can't since she owns a third of the Marbella, after learning that Magda had pushed Alba down the stairs. She gets even more upset when he refuses to believe her and her grandmother and implies that Alba had been delusional when naming Magda as her attacker.
  • When Jane learns that Rafael paid off a friend of Nadine's to testify against Michael, she completely flips.
  • Petra gives Rafael one after his self pity and selfishness is preventing Jane and Michael from moving into their dream house 45 minutes outside of Miami.