Jane the Virgin: Can Jane and Rafael's relationship survive the proposal?

Last week’s Jane the Virgin had a major Jane-Rafael development. Rafael proposed to Jane, but she said no. He was upset, understandably, and now, a major question remains: Can the couple recover?

Gina Rodriguez, who plays the titular Jane, promised this will be addressed in the next few episodes, while speaking in advance of PaleyFest’s Jane the Virgin panel on Sunday. “You’re going to go on the journey of what happens when two people are not on the same page,” Rodriguez began. “Jane does things very differently than most people do—or like the general, popular thing to do. I think most people would be like ‘Ehh, yes’ because it’s terrifying to tell somebody what you really feel and it’s terrifying to break somebody’s heart that you love, and it’s terrifying to think that you could actually convince someone that you want the same things just not right now. It’s a very relatable experience. They are definitely not on the same page, and Jane has never been afraid to be, like, ‘slow down’—except, we’ll see the way Rafael takes that.”

Justin Baldoni, who plays the hunky hotel owner boyfriend at hand, said Rafael doesn’t take Jane’s reaction to his proposal very well. “When he’s rejected, I think it brings up a lot of stuff from his past: His mother, obviously his father. He never had his father’s support. He had daddy issues, and was kind of always living in the shadow of his father. To his father, he was never good enough. Now, his father is dead. I think this brings up all these other things for him, and now he’s trying to figure that out amidst all the craziness of Jane the Virgin happening. You have Jane, and their relationship, but you also have the hotel and Petra, and all this crazy stuff going on, and Sin Rostro. It’s a lot, so he’s just trying to figure it all out.”

Team Rafael fans can likely rest easy, though, because Baldoni believes Rafael is still very interested in making a relationship with Jane work. “I think that’s what he wants,” Baldoni said. “It comes down to: Is it meant to be or is it not meant to be? No matter what, they’re having a baby together. I think we’ll always root for them to be together because we see two imperfect people trying to bring their baggage into a relationship and make things work.”

Beyond Jane and Rafael’s relationship, showrunner and executive producer Jennie Urman teased that viewers can expect Rogelio to go on a ride-a-long with Michael in Monday’s episode to pick up some detective moves for a part he’s playing. Their bromance will continue to develop from there. There will also be many more developments where the Jane-Rafael-Michael love triangle is concerned. “You’re going to see a lot of movement between Jane and Rafael and Michael,” Urman said.

As for the finale, which airs on May 11: “We’ve been building to what the season finale is all season, and I think it’s going to be pretty exciting for everybody,” Urman teased. “Every character has a major turn that happens, and we’re going to be leaving them in very different places than they started.”