An Apple a Day Brings the Farkas Your Way

It’s been a while since our last Ugly Betty, so let’s quickly review. Betty loves Henry. Henry loves Betty. Betty broke up with Walter to be with Henry (yay!), but since he didn’t know that, Henry got together with his ex-girlfriend Charlie (boo!). Brother Alex Meade has returned as Sister Alexis Meade and schemed to take over Mode and have Bradford arrested for Fey’s murder. But unbeknownst to Alexis, their mother Claire has confessed that she is the one who murdered Fey.

Remember all that?

Good.

Betty is off to the orthodontist, who is played by the actor I will refrain from calling “That Red-Headed Guy From That Terrible Show The Class”. We’ll just call him Dr. Farkas, because a) Betty does, and b) it’s way shorter.

Dr. Farkas has put new wires in Betty’s braces, and informs her that they might feel strange both to her and to someone who is kissing her. Betty reveals that she isn’t kissing anyone, because the guy that she used to like has a girlfriend. And then they talk some more about braces, and Dr. Farkas pats her shoulder and Betty smiles.

And there’s something about this scene that made me feel creepy on the inside. Part of it is that my own experience with orthodontia took place when I was 13-years-old, so associating an orthodontist with flirting can’t help but have weird pedophilia undertones. And there’s also something kind of creepy about an older doctor man flirting with a younger patient woman who is reclining in a chair. I’m not saying that some pornos start that way, but…

But Betty’s smile shows that she feels differently, and since I want Betty to be happy, I set my creepy feelings aside.

Meanwhile, Daniel is in bed with Grace Chin. Daniel is in post-coital bliss, but Grace is immediately checking her Blackberry and planning her morning meetings. Has anyone else noticed that while the Show wants us to think that Daniel is a Playboy, he has been the vagina in both of his relationships on the show? I think it’s just a matter of time until he paints his apartment pink and starts watching a lot of Lifetime Television for Women.

Daniel, impressed that he doesn’t have to cuddle, asks Grace “Where have you been all my life?” And Grace points out that he had an earlier chance, but he stood her up in college. Daniel follows up with “Damn, I was stupid back then. Why couldn’t I see past the glasses to how slutty you must have been back then?”

But there’s no time to wallow in the past, because Grace mentions that she wants to talk to his mother about Bradford’s defense. Daniel explains that she can’t because Claire had a relapse after Bradford was arrested and has disappeared. Damn, I wish my mom was an unstable alcoholic. I’d totally use it to get out of all of those pesky parking tickets and legal depositions.

Then Daniel races out of bed to hide Claire away in the Grand Regent hotel. When she sees that the room doesn’t have a park view, she likens the experience to a kidnapping – “I might as well be tied to a chair having my ear sliced off.” Really, Claire? Not having a park view is that horrible? Claire should have seen the view from my first apartment in New York – it involved a man who liked to sit in his underwear and stare into my apartment. Worse than having your ear sliced off? Well, let me add that his underwear was a weird gray color. Ew. I win.

Claire wants to tell Alexis the truth, but Daniel won’t let her. He explains that he and Alexis are finally getting along, but Alexis would turn on him if she found out that he hired Grace Chin. Let’s take a vote: What are the chances that Alexis will find out? My guess is zero. This family has such a great track record with secret keeping that Alexis will probably never, ever find out. And she certainly won’t find out in the next 42 minutes!

In the interest of extra security, Daniel decides that he should change the name the room is registered under. Claire immediately declares she wants the name Brandy Shaloo, a fake name that she says has come in handy for her before. My fake name would be Molly Ringwald. Or Mrs. John Taylor of Duran Duran.

And now it’s time for a TVGasm Public Service Announcement: Please come up with a fake name of your own. You never know when you’re going to murder someone, have your spouse falsely accused of said murder, and need to hide from your husband’s defense lawyer. And when that happens, you don’t want to have to take the time to google the internet and figure out a good fake name. Have it ready. But don’t tell your spouse! They’ll just tell it to their lawyer and ruin the whole thing.

Now back to our regularly scheduled recap: Betty arrives at work, followed by Henry, who is followed by Charlie. Seriously, why is Charlie always around? She eats in the Mode cafeteria. She follows Henry to work. Charlie is the Seeing Eye Dog of Girlfriends!

And then Henry invites Betty to Seeing Eye Girlfriend Charlie’s birthday party. I thought Henry was supposed to be a sensitive geek. And for a sensitive geek, that is a super duper insensitive move. I never thought I’d say this, but maybe Henry should take a cue from Daniel, who is more whipped than cream.

Seeing-Eye Charlie agrees that Betty should come, so she has more guests at her party than just Henry’s dorky friends from accounting who get drunk and talk about W-2s. Dr. Phil’s advice for Charlie: Making mean comments about your boyfriend’s friends is a sure way to hold onto him forever. Fact: There’s nothing guys love more than a woman who insults their friends.

Seeing-Eye Charlie leaves and Henry tells Betty that she doesn’t have to come if she doesn’t want to. Betty says that she needs tax advice anyway, and as Betty walks away, Henry calls after her: “Bring those receipts!” Aw, that’s the Henry we know and love – dorky Henry with hilarious accounting jokes. Everyone knows that nothing makes a party more fun than body shots and discussing deductions!

At the front desk, a mysterious man with an even more mysterious accent delivers a package to Amanda. It’s from Oswald Lorenso. Amanda physically pushed aside the competition to meet him at a party the night before. And I find that very impressive, because what kind of woman can be pushed aside by Amanda, who weighs all of about 87pounts? But it worked and now Oswald has declared that Amanda is his muse. He even sent over The Amanda — a tiny, silver rubber dress . Or, as Marc points out, it’s a “big, silver rubber.” Well, it seems obvious why Amanda would be the muse for that!

In Queens, Constance is making flavored coffee for Ignacio. “Viennese Chocolate Dream… It’s European.” After all, as Constance points out, Ignacio likes the finer things. For example, his plastic fruit collection in the living room, modeled after the plastic fruit collection of Queen Elizabeth I.

Ignacio wants to talk about his green card, but Constance’s “Hazelnut Symphony” coffee makes her want to dance. She stands up and grabs him and begins to dance. And just as I’m thinking: “Ignacio should just be glad that she didn’t try to the new ‘Horny Green Tea’ flavor,” Constance kisses him. Whoops, guess she should have checked the label more closely – according to their website, it’s “Hazelnut Symphony and Sex” coffee.

Wil is watching TV when Alexis comes in, bearing a Hermes scarf as a gift. Wil throws the box aside, saying that her cleaning lady will love it. Which makes me realize, yet again, that I picked the wrong job. Wil’s cleaning lady gets Hermes. At work, I have to put in a special order if I want Post-Its. And even with that, I’m not guaranteed to get them if the lady who does the ordering is in a bad mood. It’s a sad day when you realize that you’d be better off cleaning other peoples toilets.

Wil turns up the TV, where there’s footage of Grace Chin talking about Bradford’s case. Alexis can’t believe that Chin is her father’s new lawyer. And Wil rubs it in, reminding her that Grace has never lost a case. “Guess things aren’t working out as either of us planned,” Wil says, and Alexis stalks out. But of course, it doesn’t end there. Wil assigns Marc to follow Daniel.

Meanwhile, Betty is at her desk flossing. I personally try to keep my personal hygenie issues behind closed doors. But a girl in a cube near me keeps her tampons and birth control pills right out on her desk, so I suppose Betty is just the happy medium. When Daniel sees all the goodies that Dr. Farkus gave Betty, he comments that the good doctor must have a crush on her. Sure, that’s one possibility. Although my friend once bought deodorant for a co-worker of hers and secretly left it on his chair, and it’s not because she had a crush on him, if you know what I mean.

When Betty tells Daniel to call The Chin, Daniel says that he already saw her. He tries to make up a lie about talking to her between going to the gym and his breakfast meeting. But when Betty asks one more innocent question, Daniel breaks down and admits that he’s sleeping with Grace Chin. OK, further proof that this guy must be the worst player ever. According to Hugh Heffner, the correct answer is always: “Yeah, I’m bangin’ her, so what?” Daniel makes Betty promise not to tell anyone. And she promises. And he asks her to send Grace something from the Catherine Maladrino collection. Well, at least he got that part right – buy chicks stuff.

Betty goes to get the clothes from Christina, who immediately figures out that they’re “shagging”. Betty makes Christina promise not to tell anyone, too, but Christina has a very wise point: “I can’t see how a missing dress would be a scandal, what with all the murders and sex changes going on in that family.” Well said.

Henry comes by to give Betty direction to Seeing-Eye Charlie’s party. Christina is vehemently opposed to Betty attending the party. She reminds Betty of how Henry broke her heart by pulling used tissues out of the garbage: “This one was ‘Why doesn’t he love me, Christina?’ This one was ‘Make her go away, Christina.’” I suppose Christina’s point is that Betty was crying a lot over Henry, but my only take-away from this was “Doesn’t anyone ever empty the trash at Mode? And why is she touching all those dirty tissues. Ew.”

Betty tells Christina that she doesn’t want to lose Henry as a friend. So Christina tells her that if she goes, Betty has to bring a date. At first Betty is stumped. Who could she bring? And then she comes up with a magical solution – before we know it, she’s on the phone with Dr. Farkas, and tells him that a wire in her braces snapped. This, of course, necessitates an immediate visit to the office. And after she hangs up, she has Christina cut the wire.

Meanwhile, Alexis bursts into a meeting that Daniel is running. She really should let him work – this is the first time we’ve seen him doing actual magazine-reality activity in quite some time. Daniel tries to put her off, explaining that “crazy time begins at one,” but Alexis drags him away.

Alexis is furious about Grace Chin. Daniel denies knowing anything about her hiring, and denies even knowing her. Oh, Daniel, you shouldn’t do that. Remember how it worked out for Judas? Alexis is too angry to notice her brother’s bumbling over the subject of Grace Chin and they part ways. But of course Marc was listening and is thrilled by the latest development. Amanda hobbles by, and tries to participate, but ends up falling flat on her face. The Amanda dress looks like a total pain. Good thing that The Awesomeness Dress is an adapted potato sack. Not only can I walk, I can eat as much as I want and it’s perfect for sitting in front of the TV.

Betty’s made it to the orthodontist’s office, where she tries to convince him that she snapped the wire to her braces eating a bagel. Betty has obviously been taking lying lessons from Daniel. When Dr. Farkas responds “Was the knife still in it?”, Betty laughs and tells Dr. Farkas how funny he is. Sigh. Do you think Betty is one of those people who likes Dane Cook?

Betty then tells Dr. Farkas that he will have to monitor what she eats, as there’s a lot of dangerous food out there. “Like apples.” “And carrots.” “And corn on the cob.” Good God, this flirting is even worse than it is with Walter. Has talk of braces and carrots and corn on the cob ever made anyone want to make out??

Well, it apparently has that exactly affect on Dr. Farkas. We’d better hope that Constance never gives him the “Horny Green Tea”, I’d hate to see what happens. But it gives Betty the courage to ask him out, and a happy Dr. Farkas says yes.

Things are not going quite as swimmingly back at Mode. You see, the only dress Wil wants for her photo shoot is the dress that Daniel had Betty send to Grace. Whoops. Christina claims that she doesn’t know where it went, but Wil knows better. She threatens to tell Betty that Christina delivered the evidence to put Bradford in prison. She even picks up the phone and calls Betty, although when Betty answers, Wil just says “You have good hair today.” And hangs up. The first sign that Wil is bluffing: Wil complementing Betty on her hair. Christina finally admits that Daniel gave the outfit to Grace Chin, and it takes Wil only moments to realize that Daniel is sleeping with her.

Wil is thrilled that Daniel has been lying to Alexis the whole time. But just knowing isn’t good enough. She wants proof of the affair, so she sends Marc off to follow Daniel. Remember earlier in the season when Wil referred to Marc as Nancy Drew? Well, happily Marc’s Nancy days are back! Yay!

Remember this – my one and only attempt at Photoshop!?

Back in Queens, Hilda comes home with Justin to find Ignacio sitting in the dark with the phone unplugged. Turns out he’s hiding from Constance, who has been stalking him. Justin likes Constance, who even paid him a dollar to call her grandma. I kind of like the idea of the two of them together. But Ignacio has decided that he’ll just remain in hiding until his court date. But before anything else can happen, the doorbell rings and Constance is there. Hilda offers to talk to her.

Meanwhile, Daniel has discovered that Grace has found his mother and is off to the Grand Hotel to pick her up. Panicked, he rushes over and interrupts their dinner. Claire is about to tell the truth about her feelings about Fey, but luckily Grace has to take a call. Daniel tries to talk Claire out of the interview. Claire says that she won’t incriminate herself. But Daniel points out that she’s a terrible judge, because it was what she did that got them into the situation. He has a good point, but I’d also like to point out that Daniel isn’t the best person to be giving advice. Let’s recap – Daniel blew through his trust fund in a matter of months, he got engaged to someone who was only using him to get a story, and is currently sleeping with his incarcerated father’s defense attorney. With credentials like that, Daniel should write an advice book. You know, if you want really bad advice about how to do everything wrong.

Daniel sends Claire back to the hotel, telling her to stay out of the way. Situation fixed, right? Hardly – you see, Nancy Drew Marc was listening the whole time. Time for some Nancy Drew shenanigans!

Grace returns and is dismayed that Claire is gone. Daniel takes the only way to distract her – complementing her on her sexy brown wool business suit. Shouldn’t she be wearing the dress he bought her? Daniel then lures Grace to the back room of the restaurant to have sex. This is the moment of the show when I decide to never, ever to eat in a restaurant again. And also the moment of the show that Marc gets some naught video on his camera phone. Which is really kind of pervy, if you stop to think about it. So don’t.

Betty shows up at the Seeing-Eye Birthday with Dr. Farkas, where Charlie is predictably clinging to Henry. As the doctor goes to get drinks, Seeing-Eye Charlie is right there, talking about how perfect Betty and the doctor are together. That seems obvious – I mean, Betty wears braces, Dr. Farkas is an orthodontist – what more does a couple need to spend their lives happily ever after? Charlie even offers to get their star signs and do their charts. I hate Charlie. I remember when I felt bad when she had her brain sucked out on Heroes? I don’t feel bad about that any more.

In Queens, Hilda is styling Constance’s hair.

As she’s weaving in a natural and subtle shade of blonde, Hilda lets it slip that Ignacio has a way with the ladies and is dating someone else. Constance says that he shouldn’t have kept it from her, because if he doesn’t want her, it’s his loss. Presumably there are lots of other illegal immigrants out there who want to drink international coffees with her.

Betty’s romantic evening watching Henry dance with Charlie is interrupted when Claire calls asking for the corporate credit card. Betty has to go to the hotel, and decides to bring Dr. Farkas with her. Well, I guess when you live with your family in Queens, you have to visit hotels on first dates. Naughty Betty! But, disappointingly, it’s only to see Claire. Claire, who confuses Dr. Farkas with Henry. Whoops! That’s not awkward at all.

Betty tries to convince Claire not to skip town, but Claire really wants to go to the airport. So Betty tells her that she left the corporate card at home in Queens, and they’ll have to stop by there on the way to the airport. If I were Claire, I’d scold Betty for leaving the corporate card at home in Queens. But I guess if you’re going to illegal use the corporate card to run from the law, you’re not going to focus on smaller transgressions.

Back at Mode, Marc shows the video of Daniel and Grace to Wil. Listen, Show, let’s not pretend that it’s not really gross for someone at work to watch a sex video of their boss having sex. But Wil is thrilled – and presumably not just because she’s learning a few tricks. She slips the video to Alexis, who is furious that Daniel lied to her about not knowing Grace Chin.

Back in Daniel’s apartment, he and Grace are in bed together. And I find myself thinking: Didn’t they just have sex back at the restaurant? Is this the most sexually charged couple in the world, or is there just something wrong with me? But because I prefer to think the problem is never, ever me, I return my focus to the show. Grace tells Daniel that she knows that Claire killed Fey. But she doesn’t care, and that she is sure that she can get Claire off on self-defense. But just then, Alexis bursts in on them. And really, Show, the creep-out quotient is growing by the moment. Being caught in bed with your father’s lawyer by your sister who used to be your brother…. I really hope Daniel’s in therapy.

Back in Queens, Betty stalls and pretends that she can’t find the credit card as she tries to call Daniel. But Daniel isn’t answering his phone, since now his brother / sister is showing him the homemade porno that was made in the restaurant. Honestly, could Alexis have not just told them about the video? Do they really all have to watch it together?

Apparently Grace agrees, as she gets up, decides she’s not going to represent either Bradford or Claire, and tells them all to find a good shrink. Yay – it’s like she was physically reading my thoughts from a few paragraphs ago! After she leaves, Daniel finally tells Alexis that Bradford is innocent and that Claire killed Fey. Or, as he likes to say “You just put our mother in prison.”

Betty is trying to convince Dr. Farkas to stay when Ignacio arrives. Yet again, Dr. Farkas is mistaken for Henry. Constance is watching for the window as Ignacio removes Claire’s coat and offers to get her a drink.

Constance bursts in and gets into a shoving match with Claire. Dr. Farkas gets hit by mistake, but is it wrong that there’s a part of me that thinks he deserves it, just for being so darn boring? Although, really if anyone should be hit on this show, let’s all remember that it’s Charlie.

Ignacio brings Constance into the kitchen and explains that while Clarie isn’t his girlfriend, neither is Constance. Aw. So sweet…. until Constance declares Ignacio a flight risk and puts a tracking device on his ankle. I’m not saying that this is inappropriate behavior, but should Ignacio be treated the same way as Michelle Rodriguez? He may be in the country illegally, but I’m not sure that justifies house arrest.

Dr. Farkas finally realizes that Betty has feelings for Henry. I guess the google eyes she was making at Henry at the party, and other people confusing him with Henry four times for that to sink in. Betty apologizes, and Dr. Farkas goes on his merry way. Too bad Tom Cruise had his braces removed already – maybe Dr. Farkas would have had a chance there.

Betty is still trying to stall Claire, and brings down her library card instead of a credit card. Very tricky, Betty. And also surprising that Claire has ever seen a public library card. But Claire says that she knows that Betty called Daniel. And Claire also confesses that she doesn’t know what to do – she loved a man who loved someone else, and it killed her. She makes Betty promise not to make the same mistake she did. Sigh. I know it would be taking the show in a completely different direction, but would it really be so bad if Betty killed Charlie?! Come on, Show, just think about it!

Claire tells Betty that they both need to face things that they don’t want to, no matter how scary they are, because that’s the only way they can live with themselves. At first, I think she’s encouraging her to kill Charlie, no matter how scary it is. And I’m hoping that Betty will go back to the bar and kick some Seeing-Eye Charlie ass.

But, alas, moments later, there’s a helicopter above and cops outside the Suarez house and Claire is led out in handcuffs. Which makes sense — calling the cops and having them swarm in with the copters makes a lot more sense than calling a lawyer and turning herself in quietly at the police station.

The next day at Mode, the mysterious man comes back with another present for Amanda. When she tells him that the dress was horrible, he explains that it was only horrible because she didn’t have the hat. And the hat is a weird mix of a dunce cap and a princess hat.

And Amanda puts it on immediately. She’s too distracted to see the guy go behind the corner and laugh at her the girl that she shoved in the bar. I hate being shoved in bars, too, but doesn’t sewing a dress and making a hat seem like a really, really elaborate plan to get back for one shove?

Henry brings Betty cake, and also to ask Betty to have lunch with him and Charlie.

And again I must wonder if these two do anything separately? But Betty finally stands up to him, and tells him that they can’t be friends. In fact, they are now just two people who work in the same building. He leaves, leaving the cake behind. But Betty pushes in the cake in the garbage. Which, honestly, a real waste of cake.

So that’s it for this episode. What did you guys think? I bet there’s going to be some fireworks when Bradford comes home from jail. And you never know what might happen between Betty and Henry…