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But more indirectly, it was an essay aboutJane the Virgin.
The kind of transformative power I found inTullyhas been pumping through episode after episode ofJane the Virginfor years.
From its beginning,Janehas run on an engine of emotional realism.
Characters onJanerespond to these overwhelming events in the way a regular person would.
I still think thats true.
I still see so much ofJane the Virginworking exactly that way.
Conversations about grief anchor the surreality ofa husband coming back from the dead.
Conversations about class and money anchor a story about being seduced by a wealthy, sexy hotelier.
The boring, everyday details are a way to keep the silly absurdities rooted to the familiar.
But more and more, Ive come to see that the reverse is also true.
Its the same idea I grappled with when I writing aboutTully.
In a counterintuitive way, the heightened premise of a telenovela feels more accurate than reality.
But its a truth ofJanethats often gotten muffled.
Yes, Janes telenovela life is preposterous and those stories are a fantasy.
But its a fantasy that illuminates the real in a way that makes real life more visible to us.
Its hard to get enough separation from life to see life clearly.
TheJanefinale is not about the perilous parts of a telenovela, the life-altering stakes or the surprise identities.
Its not thatJaneexcised its telenovela DNA in the end, discarding the fantasy in favor of something more believable.
I was ready to miss its performances, its sense of humor, its comforting and sly narrative voice.
