‘Jane the Virgin’ creator on crafting the perfect TV rom-com

It’s Summer Lovin’ Week here at Mashable, which means things are getting steamy. In honor of the release of Crazy Rich Asians, we’re celebrating onscreen love and romance, looking at everything from our favorite fictional couples to how Hollywood’s love stories are evolving. Think of it as our love letter to, well, love.

When one hears the phrase “romantic comedy,” chances are likely that the first reference to follow is a movie. Romance has always been the work of film and of literature before it. In TV, it can deployed on a whim as a plot device, a way to force characters together or apart in order to sustain conflict for an uncertain episode run.

That’s still true of small-screen romance, but in our era of peak TV, television relationships are now some of the most gratifying and intense ones in fiction. TV, with its drawn-out narratives, is the true mirror of our lives, from every kiss in the snowfall to every catastrophic breakup.

That’s the kind of emotional drama showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman and her writers strive for on The CW’s Jane the Virgin, which is as much a family drama, crime thriller, and situation comedy as it is a romance. Urman spoke to Mashable about the beating heart of her show’s love story and Jane’s journey thus far.

Urman is a lifelong fan of romance; she grew up reading Jane Austen and adoring films like Love and Basketball or My Best Friend’s Wedding. As a writer, she enjoyed looking at them with fresh eyes in later years, figuring out exactly what did and didn’t work and what types of wish fulfillment were at play.

“It’s an evolving relationship and I definitely love them,” she tells Mashable via phone interview. “An excellent romantic comedy is so joyful and fun.”

One thing Urman criticizes is the classic rom-com scenario in which a misunderstanding (or several) lead to bringing people together. She says that isn’t realistic, and that it’s more compelling for characters to be honest and work through their issues. Vulnerability, she says, leads to deeper intimacy, and can ultimately be more romantic.

“As you get to know each other, you start to get a little bit more mature and relationships evolve,”  she says. “You can’t hinge things on misunderstandings because you start to lose character credibility.” 

In TV, a complicated situation has to be faced and solved in order to be replaced with a new one and lead to character growth.

She points specifically to “Chapter Seventy-Two,” the ingenious Season 4 episode that got Jane and Rafael talking about perception and consent, without ever having to state the lesson explicitly for the audience. In the episode, Jane and Rafael have just kissed after years spent as friends, and their reactions are vastly different.

“It had all the trappings of what we would traditionally think was a romantic comedy, but then we went inside and found out that she was not feeling that same way,” Urman recalls. “We were able to play with some of the comedy about his disbelief that she wasn’t in the same moment as he was, but it was ultimately through communication and through listening to each other that they get to romance.”

“You can have a favorite, but there’s no villain.”

Unsurprisingly, the great romances of Jane come from great characters – and by extension, great writing. There’s Jane herself, a writer and mother who values communication, and whose starry-eyed view of romance has “radically shifted” during her 20s; there’s Rafael, the textbook bad boy with the crumbling marriage, the cancer in remission, the mommy and daddy issues; and there’s Michael, poised to be a jealous boyfriend but instead putting love before pride, again and again.

“The more [the actors] were asked what their story needs and dreams were, the less they became plot pivots and the more each one of them presented as good choices,” Urman says. “The better the choices, the better it reflects on your main character, because you don’t want somebody who’s just going to make a wrong choice and you’re rooting like, ‘Don’t do that, don’t do that!'”

“We just really try hard in the writers’ room to understand each of them and make them three-dimensional, so you can have a favorite but there’s no villain,” she adds.

Even when Rafael or Michael, the guys in Jane’s love triangle, are in the wrong, they aren’t painted as bad guys, but as troubled young man facing difficult decisions or internal struggle. As much as Jane fans might prefer Team Michael or Team Rafael, everyone is on Team Jane.

“The job of the show is to keep it romantic while also deconstructing what is romantic,” Urman says. “[Jane’s] ideas of that change as you go.”

So where does that leave Jane now – a widow and a mother at age 29, versus the titular 23-year-old virgin from the pilot? 

“She was somebody who just sort of thought there was ‘the one,’ and that if she made that decision then the pieces of her life would fall into place,” Urman says. “She still wants to have moments where she’s swept off her feet, it’s just that would not be the big primary concern in choosing who she wants to be with and how their life is going to look like in the long run.”

As for Season 5 (which doesn’t premiere until 2019), Urman is understandably mum. Season 4’s shocking cliffhanger will throw a massive, Michael-shaped wrench in Jane and Rafael’s comfort, which Urman says will complicate everything in a “delicious” way.

“I’m so excited for this upcoming season,” she says. “I think rewatch some old favorite episodes and get ready.”

Jane the Virgin is currently streaming on Netflix.