“Jane the Virgin” returns with its Season 3 premiere on Monday night, and the episode will quickly dive into the aftermath of its last episode’s cliffhanger.
In the Season 2 finale, Jane’s wedding day had a nightmarish ending when she found her new husband, Michael Cordero Jr., shot and bleeding on the floor of the Marbella after saying “I do.” With the fate of Michael up in the air, Access Hollywood turned to Executive Producer Jennie Snyder Urman with all our burning questions.
AccessHollywood.com: Michael — how badly is he injured as the season begins?
Jennie Snyder Urman: Well, he’s injured very, very badly and … Jane will find him a few minutes after it happened and that’s where the story will begin.
Access: Talk me through Jane’s reaction to this. Not just the immediate emotions, but what she’s going to be going through in that first episode.
Jennie: Well, the first episode — it’s really intense. The question in the present is whether Michael will live or die and Jane’s story is all about that waiting and worrying. His mother is also there, and who is Mrs. Cordero and who has the right to make decisions comes up about Michael and so there’s some stress there. And then that’s all very, obviously heavy and real and it’s juxtaposed with the story of Jane and Michael – you know how they met that night. It was her 21st birthday and she shot the gun into the ceiling, but you don’t know what happened the next day. And we go back through the past to sort of take everybody through how Jane and Michael ended up together. And that past story as an effect on the present. You get to go lighter in the past. It allows us to go lighter and have more comedy in the past because obviously nobody is in a laughing mood in the present.
Access: [With] Michael getting shot — there’s two people it’s going to affect out of our main characters the most – Jane and then Rogelio, his best, best, best friend. How does he take the news?
Jennie: Well, he’s obviously devastated along with the rest of everyone, and in those situations everybody is trying to figure out, is there something that they can do and the answer unfortunately, is nothing. You’re just waiting. And our last cliffhanger, after Season 1, you remember that when the baby was kidnapped, Rogelio got everybody into a bit of a jam because he tweeted about it and then it brought a lot of press and unwanted attention over to Jane and there’s a moment when people see Rogelio at the hospital and are about to tweet and he will do anything not to have that happen again because he doesn’t want to add to Jane’s stress. And she’s so worried about Michael.
Access: When you say ‘anything’?
Jennie: Anything. Anything!
Access: Here’s something else happening in the hospital – Petra is unable to move or talk. Are we going to get an inner monologue from her this season?
Jennie: Well, you will get Anezka pretending to be Petra, and she has a specific plan that goes a little bit haywire because she wasn’t expecting Michael to get shot and the hotel to be crawling with police. So Anezka, in order to keep Petra frozen — or Anezka-tized as we like to say — she has to give her an injection every, I think it’s 10 hours, so she has to get back to the hospital if she is going to keep her sister frozen and assumer her identity — as one does.
Access: Of course, [one] of the reasons she’s doing that has to do with Rafael. I’m curious how that will be going? He’s got to be noticing things [considering he was engaged to Petra].
Jennie: Well, he didn’t notice after that first night, but it has been a while since they slept together. Not since very early in our first season. … At the beginning of this episode, the news of Michael is the thing that [is] foremost in everybody’s minds, except Anezka because she doesn’t really know him or care that much, but Rafael certainly does. So their relationship – there’s a pin in it until Michael’s fate is revealed and then we can move forward from that point, so it does get a little complicated.
Access: How soon, based on what’s going on, are we going to deal with the Xo pregnancy situation (Xo is pregnant by Rogelio’s arch nemesis and hasn’t told him yet)?
Jennie: In the first episode you’ll find out what her thinking is and we’ll take it from there.
Access: Is it true that this is the season that Jane is going to lose it?
Jennie: She is. She’s gonna lose it. What does that mean? What does it mean for the show? What does it mean for the character? We’re going to be looking at all that.
“Jane the Virgin” premieres Monday at 9/8c on The CW.
— Jolie Lash