Welcome back, Virgins! I’m happy to be your recapper this season as we follow the lovely Jane Villanueva as she navigates new motherhood. Oh, who am I kidding? We’re here for Luisa and Sin Rostro! (Not that we don’t adore Jane, because she’s pretty much the best.)
We pick up right where we left off last season, when a fake nurse nabbed baby Mateo, just moments after birth. No one will be shocked to know that Sin Rostro was behind the kidnapping, but what could she want with little Mateo? We’re about to find out.
While Rafael and Jane are cooing over baby pics, Michael is drowning his sorrows at the local bar. Gotta say, Michael’s grown on me a lot. I’m kind of rooting for the guy.
Michael gets a fateful call from one Sin Rosetro telling him she has Jane’s baby and is willing to make a trade. She wants the Dragonfly brooch that Luisa took from her the night they got freaky in the mental hospital.
It’s been cataloged as evidence so Michael needs to get it and exchange it for the baby. Jane and Rafael find out right about the same time that Mateo has been kidnapped. Michael fills them in on the phone call and Jane insists on joining them on the hunt. Sure, she literally gave birth, but she’s not going to let that stop her. When Michael finds that the brooch is no longer in evidence, he calls Luisa. Of course she has it. Lesbians can’t help but keep a box of keepsakes from an ex. All is fine until Juicy, Luisa’s current squeeze, finds out about the box, and tosses everything (including the brooch) out the window.
When Michael, Jane and Rafael get there, Luisa is a blubbering mess and the brooch is somewhere at the bottom of the pool. Luckily Jane rescues it from the filter and they are one step closer to rescuing Mateo.
Michael meets up with Nadine, his ex and one of Sin Roseto’s minions. Before she hands over Mateo, she tells Michael that inside the brooch is a chip that has all of the evidence he could ever want against Sin and everyone she’s helped with her plastic surgery ring. He is unfazed and makes the trade. Jane is overwhelmed with joy to see Mateo, but Michael doesn’t tell her about the choice he was given.
After the kidnapping, Jane becomes completely consumed with Mateo’s safety. At the doctor’s appointment, he appears to be losing a little weight and hasn’t been breastfeeding very much. This makes Jane feel terrible, like she’s done something wrong, but it’s a very common thing with new moms.
There’s talk of nipple confusion, which is not at all what I thought it was, and Rafael is pretty much a dear in headlights. Per usual. Back at the hotel, Petra is sleeping off a night of heavy drinking and sperm stealing. Rafael arrives to wake her for an important meeting with the bank. He doesn’t notice the sperm canister, because I suppose it could be confused for a fancy coffee can. The night before, between chugs of vodka, Petra was trying to decide of she should impregnate herself with the stolen sperm.
Back at Jane’s, she is finally getting some much needed sleep with Xiomara and Abuela by her side when she hears a hubbub outside. Apparently, Rogelio tweeted about the kidnapping, and now people think that Jane had a virgin birth.
Thanks to that website that Rogelio’s step-daughters created, people think that Jane is some sort of miracle maker. So much for a nap. Good old dad at least help’s Jane sneak out to attend lactation class. Well, actually that was Michael who gave her a police escort. While Rafael and Michael wait together awkwardly outside of Jane’s class, Rafael asks Michael for advice. He’s finding it difficult to be a part of Jane’s very tight nit family, and he wants to know what Michael thinks he should do. Rafael, stop being the worst.
Inside, Jane is open about her struggles to get Mateo to nurse, and the lactation specialist asks to see her boobs. After making some strange faces, she tells Jane to just act like her breasts are hamburgers and just stuff ’em in.
At the meeting with the bankers, things didn’t go as planned. Luisa crumbled at the mere mention of juice and ruined everything, sobbing about her lady love problems.
After Petra kicks Luisa out of her office, she realizes the sperm is missing. Apparently her assistant thought it was a baby present and put it in Rafael’s suite. Time to do some breaking and entering. When Petra gets into the nursery, she can’t help but think about the baby she and Rafael lost a few years back, and I can’t help but think that this was one of the things that profoundly changed Petra. She swallows back the tears and retrieves the bag. Naturally, she runs into Rafael on the way out and to cover her tracks, says she was looking for him to give him the scoop on Luisa’s disastrous behavior. He calls to berate her and she just apologizes like usual. Is anyone else worried about Luisa? It feels like she’s lost everything important to her.
At Jane’s, Michael finds Rogelio feeling down in the dumps. He blames himself for this whole paparazzi mess, and Michael advises him to just try and be a good grampa (excuse me, papa) for Mateo and father to Jane. In Jane’s room, Jane is trying to feed Mateo again and feeling pretty awful. Xiomara tries to comfort her, and Jane admits that she feels like she failed Mateo by not knowing the fake nurse was fake. To help, Xiomara and Abuela take turns stuffing Jane’s boob into Mateo’s mouth to feed. Ah, family.
When Rafael arrives, he actually has some good insight about the feedings. See, he’s been reading about parenting because that’s what Michael advised him to do. He figures out, based on what he’s read, that Mateo is cluster feeding and that’s why he’s eating so frequently and for short periods. Jane’s mature milk is just coming in! Everyone is thrilled and Rafael gets to feel like he’s a part of things finally. Michael pops in just in time to hear Rafael and Jane have a sweet conversation that must feel like daggers in his heart. Jane invites Rafael to stay with them for a few weeks so he can be close to Mateo, and he’s thrilled. Michael sees a tweet sent to Rogelio’s phone of Jane and Mateo, complete with photoshopped heavenly light. Damnit, it was one of the moms at the lactation class.
Jane rushes out to the crowds still gathered and tells some nuns she used to work for that she’s not a virgin (which isn’t true) and to shut this all down. They begrudging do so, just as Jane sees that she’s lactating like whoa.
After a call with her mother Magda, from Litchfield, Petra decides to move on from Rafael. Well, that’s until Luisa leads her to believe that Rafael really wants to be with her and not Jane. Oh boy.
So what does Petra do? Well she gets to turkey basting with Rafael’s sperm. She’s happy about it until she’s confronted by her assistant Scott about the sperm theft.
Mateo weights in at a pound heavier and everyone is relieved. So relieved in fact that Xiomara decides to come clean with Jane and Abuela about her drunken Las Vegas marriage to Rogelio. To her surprise, they are actually pretty happy about it.
Jane and Michael text, and Jane realizes that Michael’s outside in his car. She thanks him for all he’s done for her and Mateo. She clears up that Rafael is just there as Mateo’s dad and not her boyfriend. Maybe there’s hope for Jane and Michael afterall. Rafael meanwhile, bonds with his son.
Somewhere in the alps, a mystery woman (not Sin Rosestro) sees an article about Mateo’s return and orders her henchman to go after Jane. But why?!
So what did you think of “Chapeter 23?” Do you think Luisa and Rose belong together? What about Jane and Michael? What will become of Petra? And who is this mystery woman?
