In general, Christmas is thought to be the most wonderful time of the year. But when it came to the Jane the Virgin midseason finale, holiday cheer quickly fell by the wayside thanks to Jane's ongoing fight with Rafael. You see, now that Jane knows Rafael had paid Eric to go to the police and lie, she feels completely betrayed and had literal fume coming out of her ears. And that's totally understandable. Rafael had been lying to Jane about this for six whole months, which is never an OK thing to do, especially now that they've been making such big strides in their relationship. But despite Jane's use of her helpful anger techniques, they were having a hard time even being in the same room together. (She even yelled at Santa!) Thankfully, Jane and Rafael both ended up agreeing to go to therapy to try to work out some of their issues. And it kinda worked!
Although Jane still didn't appreciate him keeping the truth from her (lying is sort of a hot-button issue for Jane, given the 23 years she missed with Rogelio), talking it out with a therapist helped her to see things from his point of view. She realized that her feelings for Michael really had clouded her vision about what was most important. He had let Nadine go — the only person that could've helped them track Rose down. (You know, the person who kidnapped Mateo and killed Rafael's father.) So was the therapist asked Jane to recount the story from Rafael's point of view, she was able to better understand what his motives had been.
Even Rogelio (who has always been strictly Team Michael) found himself somewhat siding with Rafael. Any fighting or custody battle would only end up hurting Mateo in the end. And Rogelio knows all too well what it's like to lose out on precious time with your child. He would hate to see Rafael go through the same type of thing. So while that by no means excuses Rafael for what he did, at least now we all know he wasn't just doing it out of jealousy and spite. Michael may still be the knight in shining armor in Jane's romantic fantasies (as it should be), but at least after this episode, neither Jane nor the audience should cast Rafael as the villain.
Image: Scott Everett White/The CW
