“Jane the Virgin” showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman examines one of the longest-running storylines on the series.
Michael’s bout with amnesia and how it affects Jane (Gina Rodriguez), has been a staple of the series for seasons. The fifth and final season of “Jane the Virgin” looks to bring that plotline full circle.
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“Amnesia was the thing that first entered us into that space with Rogelio’s telenovela, and so once we knew Michael/Jason was coming back, amnesia felt like the right move in terms of just how to create so much drama for the finale season,” Urman told Variety. “The emotional toll of how someone you love looks at you like a stranger felt very exciting but also challenging, in terms of how to ground that.”
For Urman, one of the most significant building blocks of the storyline was having Michael (Brett Dier) carve a new identity for himself. “We had to recreate everything,” said the showrunner. “How would you do that if you didn’t know if you were a good person or a bad person?
“You wouldn’t be talking all of the time because you’d be afraid of what you may say that could be bad or incriminate you in some way or give away something that you don’t know,” she continued. “So that made us think about him as somebody who was just sort of keeping his head down, quiet and observing — just sort of watching people for cues and things. That made him a more internal person because he’s lived without any kind of sense of history, memory — anything — to hold on to.”
The change in character offers Dier a chance to dig deep into a more complex character. He is “this new character, but she’s looking at him as her husband.”
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“It raises interesting questions about the soul and soulmates and what makes a person,” Urman added. “If we’re a collection of the stories we tell about ourselves, or if we’re actually what’s essentially there — and how experience moulds us.”
“Jane The Virgin” airs Wednesdays.
