S03.E20: Chapter Sixty-Four

[natyxg]

So, I’m all caught up thanks to Netflix. I gotta say, I was very disappointed by the second half of the season, after Michael’s death.

Sometimes shows hit a wall and become stale, and they need a big change to spice things up and breathe new life into them, which is when people usually start to die and babies start to get born and time jumps start to happen. But I didn’t feel like that was the case with Jane. Her marriage with Michael was working and didn’t feel stale (yet) and I thought the show was going as usual. Michael’s death felt random totally gratuitous, to me, like it wasn’t needed at that point at all. So in other for it to feel justified what came next needed to really wow me and it really... didn’t.

Things after the jump just felt, overall, like rehashes of the same things we’ve seen before. Like they made some changes, only to revert back to the same thing again in a couple of episodes.

Rogelio gets in a reality show... then within a few eps is back to telenovelas.

Xo spends THREE YEARS with Bruce, just to throw that relationship to the trash in a heartbeat and back to Rogelio.

Rafael spends a full year with Abby... just to throw her out the window and back to Petra (or Jane).

Petra’s thing with Chuck reminds me of her thing with Milos, you know, Petra with “bad boys” and then back to Rafael and insecurities about Jane. And round and round.

The police investigations at this point feel pasted on... ooh, another murder! ZZZZZ. Though I did like Scott, so there goes another death of a character I liked.

I don’t know, killing Michael was super drastic and I don’t think afterwards came such big improvements or things that couldn’t have been done with him there, including the time jump or Jane having a fling (they could have separated at some point or something). Also, I thought the whole fling plot was tedious and too stretched out. I imagine they wanted to show Jane’s changed attitude towards sex, but I didn’t feel like it was so needed at this point. I could have waited for it, or maybe even lived without it completely. I think Jane came across very bad, going on and on about how she just wanted to use Fabian. I also wasn’t sold on how dumb they made him, it’s not a trope I’m fond of.

In a way I guess killing Michael spared him and his relationship/love with Jane from being ruined, but I couldn’t help but hold everything that came afterwards at a higher standard and it just didn’t live up to it, for me..

I did like Jane’s relationship with Petra, who is becoming one of my favorite characters/actresses. And I LOVED that the twins are perfect little angels while Mateo is a disaster, lol. Though I kept waiting for there to be a plot that actually involved the twins so we could see them as people and not props, and we could see Petra mothering them instead of just being told that she’s such a great mom.... apparently offscreen. I imagine now that ship has sailed and they will focus on other things, which is a pity.

Now they brought out Jane’s first love to keep the stalling going, but they’re not fooling me at all. I’m as convinced as I’ve always been that Jane will end up with Rafael. That’s why they killed Michael, come on. Adam is just new love triangle fodder.

Now that Rose is in jail and Luisa has control of the hotel I wonder if she will finally become a regular and actually be on screen. Her storyline with Rose feels so improvised and stretched out beyond its expiration date that I’m glad to see a potential change. But who knows? Maybe in episode 403 Rose escapes from jail and goes to see her and round and round we go, like with everyone. One thing to say though, I loved Yara during the scene where her heart turns dark. She's a good actress, I think, who has been very underused so far.

I don’t know if watching it all on Netflix over a week or two diminishes the enjoyment of this show just because you can see all at once the repetitiveness and the way things go round and round, but I feel like I left my Netflix catch up less of a fan, to be honest, and feeling like there’s a lot of improvisation on this show and that when you see it all at once it really shows.

Not particularly looking forward to season 4, though I will watch. Maybe they should end it on season 5 and call it a day.