Jane the Virgin recap: 'Chapter 59'

If last week’s Jane the Virgin was about big relationship developments, then this week is about turning up the heat — and making note with “Flirt Alerts” through a love radar.

Some spiced things up more than others, but keep in mind where they’re coming from. Jane, for example, didn’t do anything too crazy, but she took a big step in going on a date (!!!). But first, the story leading up to it. After announcing that she’s open to dating upon being able to tell the story of Michael’s death without crying, Jane is full of confidence. She throws on a flirty dress and seems to be catching the attention of all the men around her. We later find out that Jane was just perceiving it that way and that the men she thought were checking her out were doing quite the opposite (i.e. looking at her dress that’s caught in a door). That’s not so bad, but things do get awkward when Jane presumes Mateo’s new aide, Alex, is flirting with her. Alba tells her she needs to shut it down, so when she thinks he’s pulling out the moves again, she does. He’s confused and says he wasn’t (for the record, it totally came across that way), and Jane has to awkwardly brush it off. Rafael saw the whole thing and tells Jane they’re going out so she can potentially meet someone.

So they go to the Marbella — REMINDER: It’s a kids’ hotel, but Rafael insists it’s a divorcée hookup hotspot — and no one catches Jane’s eye. Petra shows up, and Rafael is freaking out because he thinks she’s into him after their night together (more on the aftermath of the hookup later). Petra tells Jane that no, she should not be looking for dating prospects at a kids’ hotel. Instead, she should go to the Fairwick, which is a “meat locker during happy hour.” Jane certainly has more options there, and, with some encouragement and coaching from Petra, she flirts with a guy across the bar and eventually works her way over to him. Things seem to be going great until he asks why she hasn’t been scooped up and she says she was, but her husband died. So he gets scared off, but Jane has a great story to tell Dennis, Michael’s partner and her boxing buddy.

Jane thinks they have a bit of a moment in the ring, but she’s unsure after the Alex debacle. Rafael says there’s only one way to find out: text him to know one way or the other. She does and immediately gets a text back asking her out. She has her concerns about whether she likes Dennis or if she’s just trying to keep Michael in her life, but she does eventually go on her mini golf date, and it’s her first date in more than three years. Things are a bit weird at first, and not just because Alba and Jorge are also there on a date. (Jane doesn’t see them because they run and hide behind some rocks, where Jorge plants one on Alba just in time for an employee to shine a flashlight on them and catch them.) Dennis brings up Michael, and Jane brings up Dennis’ ex-fiancée, who cheated on him, but eventually they find their groove. So much so that Dennis goes in for the kiss, but Jane runs away due to a “bathroom emergency” before they lock lips. She calls Rafael from the bathroom and explains that part of her felt like she should just get that first kiss since Michael over with, but another part felt that that shouldn’t be her reason to kiss him.

Rafael tells her to tell Dennis all this, in a nicer way — SIDE NOTE: Really loving Jane and Rafael’s friendship, but suspect that some romance is brewing… for down the line — and Dennis is confused. He thought Jane was giving him all kinds of signals, which she says she wasn’t. Ironically, part of him felt like he wanted to get that first kiss over with too, since he hadn’t kissed anyone since his ex. In the end, Dennis decided to give things another try with his ex, and Jane is at least happy that she put herself out there again.
NEXT: #RoXo reunites and it feels so good. Plus, Alba walk of shames?!

Speaking of exes getting back together… Xo and Rogelio FINALLY admit that they’re still in love with each other. Rogelio keeps asking if something is up with Bruce because he isn’t communicating as much as they approach settlement talks. Bruce is keeping his distance for obvious reasons, but Xo hasn’t told Ro about the breakup, so he’s totally in the dark. So, Xo tells Bruce he doesn’t have to represent Rogelio if it’s too difficult for him, but he says he’s a professional and can handle it. At the court, however, Bruce can’t stand seeing Xo and Rogelio together and feels it would affect the case, so he quits just before Rogelio meets with the judge. Rogelio is obviously so confused and pushes Xo to explain. She says they broke up and that she’s in love with him; Rogelio reciprocates, and they make out right there at court.

Romance is alive and well, so much so that Rogelio doesn’t care that he didn’t get the settlement he was hoping for or that he now has to star in a telenovela that he really doesn’t want to be a part of. It’s called Los Viajes de Guillermo and is very loosely based on Jonathan Swift’s 1726 novel Gulliver’s Travels as well as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Jane later sees that the two are back together and is clearly pleased (as am I). Jane and Xo head to the set of Rogelio’s new show to support him, and Jane expresses how hard dating can be for an over-analyzer like her. Xo tells her that you see how it’s all worth it once you meet that special someone and has a flirty little moment with Rogelio; Jane jokes that she’s worse than Alba, who had been talking about Jorge nonstop. Speaking of, where is Alba? OH YEAH, SHE’S WALK OF SHAME-ING ONTO SET. She says nothing happened with Jorge, but she wanted it to. She isn’t alone in that feeling, as soon after, Jane sets her sights on Rogelio’s handsome, shirtless co-star.

In other exes news, Rafael and Petra decide that their hookup was a one-time thing. Rafael thinks that Petra wants more when he sits next to her on the couch in her office and she leans close to him, and when she acts all couple-y with him at the Fairwick to make it clear that Jane isn’t taken, even after Jane leaves to talk to that handsome guy at the bar. Rafael confronts her, but Petra reveals she’s just trying to make Chuck — who, by the way, told the cops that she moved Scott’s bones — jealous and challenges Rafael to prove his game. He does, and it seems like they’re not just pretending anymore until Petra turns away, saying that Chuck isn’t even noticing. She starts bad mouthing Chuck, going off about how she’s out of his league and how she was embarrassed to be seen with him — and Chuck hears it all. Needless to say, she has some making up to do if she’s to be with him, which is what she wants.

She later goes to the Fairwick to apologize. She says it’s to maintain a good, neighborly relationship, but Chuck sees right through that and calls her out. She admits that she likes him and wants to be together, but he asks why he would want to be with someone who’s embarrassed to be with him and adds that she’s uptight, judgmental, and no fun at all. Not to mention that she doesn’t belong at the Fairwick. Naturally, Petra takes that as a challenge and hops on a mechanical bull with the hopes of beating Chuck’s score. She nearly does, but smashes her mouth into the bull and messes up her tooth before making it past those six seconds. She heads home, where Rafael teases her, and once again they seem to have a moment, or at least Rafael has one. That moment is interrupted, though, when Chuck shows up and tells Petra that what she did was wild and sexy; they kiss and, presumably, are back on.

Petra may have settled that drama, but she has a whole lot more to attend to — and this is where this week’s cliffhanger comes in. Chuck told the cops about the bones, so Dennis and his partner, Dana, tell Petra that they’ll make a deal with her — help them find her sister and they won’t charge her with tampering with evidence. They’re after Anezka because they’re talking to people mentioned in the burn book, and the book claims that Anezka and Scott got in a big fight just before Scott went missing. Petra says she hasn’t talked to Anezka in three years, but that doesn’t seem true from the email she sends Anezka, which the cops see and which translates to: “I won’t be able to contact you for a while. You need to go dark. I’ll make a deposit into your account,” she writes. (She leaned into Rafael earlier when he came into her office so he wouldn’t see this email, so that adds to the suspicion…) Dana guesses that Anezka is behind Scott’s death and Petra is helping her cover it up, but if I know Jane, it’s more complicated than that even if that’s true.