Jane the Virgin creator on the show’s end
It’s official: the fifth season of the CW’s “Jane the Virgin” will be the show’s last.
The CW president Mark Pedowitz confirmed the news in a statement Thursday, in advance of the network’s Upfronts presentation to advertisers the same day. Though the Peabody-winning show’s devotees will no doubt be sad to see the departure of Jane and the vivid array of characters around her, fans of round numbers will have something to celebrate: “Jane the Virgin” will end its run with a total of 100 episodes.
In an exclusive interview with The New York Times, executive producer and showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman talked about the big twist that ended Season 4, the guest stars who will probably return, her fondest hopes for Jane’s send-off and her biggest casting dreams. (Ricky Martin, time to call your agent.)
Urman also shared some news: Gina Rodriguez, the star of “Jane,” will direct two instalments in the 2018-2019 season, including the Season 5 première, and the executive producer and director Brad Silberling will direct the program’s series finale.
Urman herself will be busy after a brief hiatus: she is an executive producer of “Charmed,” a reboot that was picked up by the CW for next season. That said, she plans to be a “godmother” on the revived witch chronicle, and will spend most of her time on the final leg of Jane Gloriana Villanueva’s journey.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Q: When did you know that five seasons would be the right number for “Jane the Virgin”?
A: When I first thought about the show, I thought it would run four years, and then after the second year, I thought, “We have enough to take us through five seasons.” We started to have those discussions in Season 3. The studio and the network were always really supportive. Mark Pedowitz told me early on, “Tell me when it ends. Just give me enough notice.” I was really grateful to have that because you don’t often have that leeway and confidence, and the foresight to be able to plan your ending. Gina and I are creative partners, and we talk about everything, and we were on the same page. It’s the ending I pitched when I pitched the show. I couldn’t have pitched them a million of the details that have happened along the way, and it doesn’t have to do so much
with the plot and with all the twists and turns. But the overall structure and what I wanted to say about certain things — structurally, that’s built into the ending.
Q: Are the twin pillars of the final season going to be, will Jane fulfil her creative dreams? And which man will she end up with — Rafael or Michael?
A: Definitely. It’s about how to balance all of these things — how to be a mother and a daughter and a writer and a lover, all of that together. It’s always been fun and romantic to see who she ends up with, but it’s really about her achieving her dreams — that’s been the longest and the most
singular trajectory in her journey. You could see a million different happy endings for Jane in terms of who she ends up with — if she ends up with anyone. For me, her achieving what she wants to achieve in her life and balancing that with being the parent that she wants to be is my biggest dream and hope for her.
Q: Her first book did not do well commercially, and she’s working on a new one. Will part of the final season be about her trying to get back on that horse, so to speak?
A: Definitely. She had this finish line, which was, “If I get published, my life is going to change.” I was always interested in, “What if it doesn’t? How do you believe in yourself when it didn’t go the way you wanted it to?” Part of it has to be self-reflection: “What can I do better? Do I have the motivation to keep going and set a new goal for myself ?” That struggle is such a difficult thing.
Q: What are the things that are important to you to do in the final season?
A: I’ll be emailing the writers pretty soon — I want to hear all of their dreams of things they haven’t seen Jane do. That could be on a fantasy level, it could be a conversation, it could be anything. For me, the biggest thing is to see how this new book comes together, and how things come full circle — how we feel like Jane as a character has changed from who we met to who she is now. I have some specific magical realism moments I want to see that we’ve been saving up. I ultimately want to see her dreams within reach, and I want her to have some of the success that she has fought so hard for. And of course, the difficulties that come with that.
Q: Justina Machado, Rosario Dawson and Brooke Shields were all important guest stars in Season 4 — are they coming back? What guest stars would you like to get for the final season?
A: The three that you mentioned, because we just love them. Justina’s character Darci is a part of Rogelio’s family, and the show’s often about the extended families that we make. We definitely need Rosario too; her and Petra’s arc was one of my favourites. I am also obsessed with Brooke. I have a bunch of ideas for (the telenovela Shields’s character is making with Jane’s father, Rogelio). Beyond that, I’d love for Rita Moreno to come back — I’d like Rogelio’s mother to make another appearance. We also have a Ricky Martin dream in our writers’ room. Rogelio’s alluded to a little bit of a history with Ricky Martin, and I’d love to see if we could get him on.
Q: You’ve had an inclusive directing roster for the entire run of the show, including Gina Rodriguez in Season 4. What was it like to watch her take that on?
A: She did an extraordinary job. I’ve never had someone prep so much and come so prepared — she attacked it with confidence and humility, which is a combination that cannot be beat. Her episode was fantastic, and it was one of the harder episodes that we’ve written. She had a leopard, she had sex scenes, she had so much going on. At first, the only thing I had in my mind was that I wanted her to direct her own sex scene with Rafael. That was important to me. Then all of these other giant events stacked up when we started constructing it, and I was like, “Gina, you got a big episode.” She crushed it.
Q: The cancer arc with Xiomara, Jane’s mother, was so affecting. Do you want to revisit that?
A: Yes, we’ll continue it. That was something that was personal to our writers’ room. She’s not through with her treatment yet; we’ll follow that and be as detailed and as grounded as we can be.
Q: Will we get a wedding, or weddings?
A: There will be weddings, yes. Different kinds of weddings. Especially in telenovelas, they do often build to a wedding, and we have telenovelas inside of telenovelas. The most important thing I will say is, we’re not going to end on a cliffhanger. We’re going to close things up. When I think about the season, I just keep seeing a circle, and bringing things full circle — that’s my goal in terms of the storytelling, the feeling and the mood.
Q: The show in so many ways is about the three generations of Villanueva women. Is it important to you to emphasize that as you head into the ending?
A: That is going to be a huge part of this last season. We’ve seen Xo move out of the house, and we’ve seen Jane getting ready to move out of the house. How do Jane, Xo and Alba (Jane’s grandmother) keep that same connection when they’re not on the front porch together every night? They’ve all had their own coming-of-age stories, just at different ages. That’s the heart of the show for me. That’s going to be a big part of the emotional journey of the last season — how we move beyond something, but keep our connection to it.
Q: Whether the Michael that viewers saw at the end of the fourth season is the Michael that Jane married — that’s something viewers will find out quickly when the show returns, right?
A: You’ll find that out in the season première, and you’ll find out what that story is.
Q: The grief arc after Michael died was so important for the show and for Jane. Is that a difficult balance, honouring all of that when a man who looks like him is back?
A: It is a tricky balance. He was not in her life for four years, and in real life people don’t come back. In a telenovela, they might. What does that feel like? What does that mean? How can you have grieved somebody and have that wound reopened? All of the feelings that people felt when watching it are the feelings that we would have Jane going through — shock, disbelief, horror, anger, utter confusion. As long as we look at all the nuances, and feel it as Jane feels it, then I feel like we’ll bring the audience along for that journey.
Q: When the Season 4 cliffhanger aired, what was it like to see viewers processing that twist?
A: I think it was what I expected. Some people were thrilled, some people were devastated, a few people were full of hatred. Most people said, “What the hell?” We were trying to let people know that something big and shocking was coming without revealing what that big and shocking thing was. There was definitely an explosion. On the whole, the “Jane” fans were mostly like, “How can you leave us like this? I’m truly shocked!” I think the audience knows we’re not just going to gloss over it — we’re going to dig into this new circumstance. Also, we had a baby kidnapped at the end of the first season, we had a woman who took off her face at the end of the second season. It’s definitely in our vocabulary.
Q: You’ve done the evil twin plot, so when it comes to Michael, I wonder if amnesia is in the mix.
A: Definitely a maybe.
Q: Will you and members of the cast and narrator Anthony Mendez do a podcast after the show is over, so I can continue to hear his voice?
A: (Laughs.) I always thought he should do Waze. I’ll suggest a podcast to him.