Buttinsky Betty’s Back!

Who’s that climbing into Betty’s bedroom? Answer I’d like: Henry. Answer I’d hate: Walter. Real answer: Hilda.

Hilda’s sneaking back in after a night out with Santos. She’s been hiding her relationship from the family, because she doesn’t know how she feels about him yet. I did the same thing with my love for the show “Medium”. I don’t like to tell people that I watch it every week, because it’s kind of cheesy, yet I watch it every week because it’s also kind of fabulous. Just like Santos!
When Hilda wonders why Betty isn’t at work on a Monday, Betty explains that she’s going to call in sick. She’s been hurt by Christina, Daniel and Henry, and that’s just too much hurt to take. Hilda tells her to be an adult and go into work – “A job isn’t about making friends. It’s about making money. And stealing office supplies.” She forget it’s also about surfing the internet and stealing other people’s food out of the office fridge.

Meanwhile, Wil and Bradford wake up in bed together. He wishes he didn’t have to leave to meet with Alexis. She encourages him to open up about his problems. But the only thing that Bradford wants to open up is his pants, so he pulls out his bottle of Viagra. I suppose we should commend Ugly Betty for it’s willingness to show that older gentlemen like Bradford can still get some… but if I wanted to see old folks action, I’d be watching Hugh Heffner on The Girls Next Door.

Back at Mode, Lena is threatening Daniel – either he puts Petra on the cover of Mode, or she talks to the police. He tries to pay them off with a check for $75,000 and an offer to put her in the photo shoot for Mode Brazil that day. But apparently that’s insulting to the “next Kate Moss.” Proving yet again that I am in the wrong industry. I think I’m going to become a supermodel. And by super, I mean, “short, too heavy person who will do anything for more money.” Look for me next season with Tyra.

After Lena and Petra leave, Betty gathers herself and goes in to see Daniel. He wants to talk about Friday night, but she’s all business. As she goes downstairs to buy a bagel for Daniel, Amanda tries to give her messages for Christina, but Betty tells her to throw them away. Wow – Buttinsky Betty really is gone.

Wil wants Marc to replace Bradford’s Viagra with something else. It seems Wil is exhausted by seeing to Bradford’s sexual needs. Marc thinks that the affair might not be worth it, but Wil sees marrying Bradford as her only way to run Mode. She may be right – actually doing your job seems to have little importance at Mode. But Marc tells her that if she wants to be more than a mistress, she has to make herself indispensable to him. I’m assuming he means indispensable for things other than fulfilling his foot fetish needs.

Bradford meets with Alexis and offers her $10 million to resign from Mode and disappear. Bradford says that he has one child now, Daniel, and he wants him in charge of Mode. Alexis gets upset. She throws the check back at him and tells him that she isn’t going to leave until she makes him pay. Not to question Alexis’s logic, but wasn’t that what the $10 million was doing? And with $10 million couldn’t you start a really awesome magazine of your own, without interference from your nasty father?

While Betty is outside getting Daniel a bagel, she passes Petra who gets carded while trying to buy cigarettes. Then she runs into Charlie and Henry, who are fighting. Charlie thinks that Henry should come home from the office earlier, but Henry thinks she shouldn’t rely on him for everything. Does it make me a bad person that I’m glad they’re fighting? And also that I want Henry to break up with Charlie, and then have Charlie turn into a crazy stalker? Because you can totally see that Charlie has crazy stalker inside her, and I think this show could use a crazy stalker.

In fact, every show could use a crazy stalker. Imagine how great that would make House.

Betty gets the bagel and returns to Mode. But back in the office, Christina, Daniel and Henry are all waiting for her. And then it becomes a weird flashback scene that involves pilgrim costumes and animals.

Either Betty is having a bad acid flashback or the show made a weird choice here (Hello, Show, you’re not Scrubs, so enough with the fantasy sequences), but it’s enough to make Betty declare that she’s sick and run into the elevator.

Meanwhile, Daniel’s plan to get Petra on the cover backfires. This is surprising because his elaborate, well thought out plan consisted of walking into a meeting and announcing that they had to put Petra on the cover. So weird that Alexis didn’t respond to that.

Wil blows off a meeting with a brand new designer known as Tavarez (I think Tarvarez. I had a hard time understanding what his name was, but we’re going to call him Tavarez, whatever his name might be). He snaps and says things like “fierce”, so naturally Amanda thinks he’s gay.

She feels bad for him, since Wil so cruelly stood him up, so she puts him on Wil’s calendar for the following Tuesday. To thank her, Tavarez gives her a leather jacket. Oooo, is Marc in danger of having his beard find a new chin? A chin that can give her free clothes…

A photo shoot for Mode Brazil is also taking place somewhere in the Mode offices. Because it obviously makes more sense to recreate a fake Brazilian beach in New York than to shoot on an actual beach in Brazil. But while that was confusing, one thing makes perfect sense – the introduction of the hot creative director for Mode Brazil, Rodrigo.

Apparently it’s part of the creative director’s job to dance on set with the models. Which means that perhaps Daniel would be better suited for a job in Brazil.

While watching the shoot, Marc slips Wil the Viagra that he has replaced with mints. And I’m not saying that isn’t an excellent plan, but wouldn’t Bradford notice if his Viagra also suddenly started making his breath minty fresh? But no time to think about that, because Amanda interrupts. Wil admires her jacket, although thinks that the buttons ruin the line and Amanda tells her that Tavarez is in her book for Tuesday. But no time to think about that, because Alexis shows up at the shoot. Apparently it’s a slow day at Mode, because the entire staff is now there.

Well, the entire staff except for Betty, who is visiting Hilda at the beauty school. Hilda recognizes that Betty is in desperate need of “hairapy” and puts her in the chair.

Betty immediately begins to wonder if she should get new friends who won’t let her down. I’m glad that she doesn’t even consider if she shouldn’t have been buttinskying into Daniel’s business. The fault is obviously Daniel’s, who is crazy enough to not want his assistant stalking him to nightclubs. Anyway, Hilda thinks that Betty is too hard on her friends, and when Betty disagrees, Hilda mentions Trina DePalo.

And this name is a show stopper for Betty. “But who is Trina DePalo?” you ask. Well, it’s all explained in a flashback – Betty was Trina’s best friend in high school. Since neither had dates, they planned to spend prom night watching “Carrie”.

But when Trina got a call from her crush, whose date got sick, she left Betty all alone. Betty viewed her as a traitor, and never spoke to her again.

Hilda tells Betty that she should have told Trina how her feelings were hurt at the time, and she should do the same to her friends now. Boring! Who wants a TV show where people work things out and talk about their feelings?! Not me!! After all, this show is long overdue for a cat fight! That’s right – what kind of nighttime soap opera doesn’t have cat fights?

Back at Mode, Henry comes to see Daniel to find out why he needed a $75,000 check. Daniel tells him the whole Petra story and wonders if he should face the consequences of his actions, but Henry thinks that he should fight to put Petra on the cover. And if you can’t listen to your accountant on high profile fashion magazine decisions regarding statutory rape, who can you listen to?

At the photo shoot, Rodrigo flirts with Alexis, and then asks her to dinner. Alexis says that she has a lot of work to do. But later she tells Wil the real reason: “It’s dinner, and that means sex. I know that, I used to be a guy.” You know what else means sex to a guy? Not having dinner. Watching television. Reading a magazine. Breathing. So you’re pretty much covered on the sex thing either way.

Alexis also admits that she hasn’t “taken the new car out for a test drive.” Wil tells her that sooner or later, someone will “have to put the key in the ignition.” This dialogue makes me think that they are both still guys, because I don’t know any women who would talk about having sex by using car analogies.

Acting on Henry’s advice, Daniel tells Alexis the truth about Petra. But, surprisingly, Alexis is unmoved. She tells Daniel that he is going to be a pawn in the game she’s playing with Bradford, and he is going to have to resign. Daniel is surprised that Alexis would screw him over just to piss of Bradford. Which means that Daniel is really, really unobservant, because that is pretty much all that Alexis has been doing since she returned.

Over in Queens, Ignacio has discovered what Hilda has been up to and has asked Santos over for lunch. Ignacio is convinced that Santos is going to break Hilda’s heart again, and asks him to leave before “anyone starts dreaming about a future that’s never going to happen.” So Santos gets up and leaves the house. Well, that was easy! Who knew that Ignacio had the Wonka Bar of Golden Powers of Persuasion!

Alexis has decided to have dinner with Rodrigo, and nervously breaks the news that she used to be a man. She’s surprised that Rodrigo already knew – he says that he doesn’t care who she was, he just cares who she is now. And they kiss.

And after taking that out for a test drive and applying some new brake shoes, they discover that the torque is in tune. Or, if you know anything about cars, just replace what I just wrote with some other car talk that means “Alexis is really into him.” And let’s just all pretend that a macho Brazilian guy wouldn’t care that she used to be a man, because Alexis deserves to be happy. Fact learned from reading lots of self-help books: You should ignore any and all red flags if that person is a good kisser.

Betty goes to the closet and leaves a Post-It for Christina asking to talk. Then she runs into Henry who fills her in on the Daniel situation. This of course necessitates running off to Daniel’s office. Daniel says that he didn’t mean what he said and blah, blah, blah feelings, feelings, blah.

They make up and then Betty yells at him for sleeping with a 16 year old. Yay! Buttinsky Betty is back! Betty wants to try to fix the situation, because that’s what Buttinskies do, but Daniel thinks that his only option is to resign. Does anyone else think that Daniel gives up way too easily? Alexis is willing to fight for Mode, but Daniel has thrown in the towel about once an episode. It’s kind of sad when your transsexual sister is more of a man than you are, Daniel.

That night, Ignacio thinks that Santos is going to stand Hilda up. But he arrives, comes inside, and tells Hilda that they don’t need to sneak around any more. He gets down on one knee and asks her to marry him.

It was actually quite sweet, and Hilda seemed thrilled. I would have been more surprised and excited if I hadn’t seen it in the trailer a week ago. I’m just saying, you don’t have to give everything away in the previews, Show.

The next day, Hilda shows Justin the ring, which he immediately recognizes as a half carat, emerald cut. Hilda admits that she hasn’t given Santos an answer yet, because she wanted to talk to Justin first. Justin told her not to make the decision for him, but because she loves Santos. Which is totally lame – What if she loved Ted Bundy? Or the Unabomber? Or Dick Cheney? Wouldn’t you want a vote then, Justin?

Back at Mode, Daniel is about to sign over control of Mode to Alexis. Betty and Henry watch sadly from outside the conference room. They’re joined by Petra and Lena, who are there to take some test shots for the cover. When Petra takes out a cigarette, Betty has a realization – she remembers Petra showing ID to buy cigarettes.

Betty grabs her purse and runs into the conference room, shoving her passport across the table. When they realize that Betty grabbed Lena’s purse, Henry grabs the right purse and gets out Petra’s passport, which reveals that she’s actually 20.

Daniel decides to stay and tears up the contract he was about to sign. Betty and Henry are thrilled about the turn of events – Betty feels like “Wonder Woman” and Henry feels like a “bad ass”. Which just goes to show you even a little bit of excitement is too much for an accountant. Betty and Henry hug, and admit they miss each other. As Henry touches her face, Charlie gets off the elevator.

She looks shocked and upset. And maybe I’ll get that cat fight I wanted after all!

Amanda tries on one of Tavarez’s dresses, and we discover that Tavarez might not be so gay after all. He admits that he’s been in closet about his sexuality, because no one in the design world will work with a straight guy. Amanda doesn’t care that he’s a “faux-mo”. They decide that when they’re in public, Amanda will be part of his entourage and when they’re alone, they’ll be a couple. Oh, and she’ll get free clothes. These two are kind of fabulously cute together!

Out in Queens, Hilda gives Santos back the ring. She tells him that she doesn’t want to rush into anything, and that she doesn’t want her heart broken again. But then when he leaves, she decides that she does love him and chases him out. And he’s waiting outside for her, and they kiss too.

Alexis goes to see Rodrigo. And because she’s had a really bad day, she suggests that they skip dinner, and Rodrigo puts the keys in the ignition, if you know what I’m saying. If you don’t, you are lame because it’s part of a string of bad car jokes that I can’t seem to let go. While they’re lying in bed afterwards, Rodrigo asks her to move to Brazil with him.

Back at the office, Daniel wants to celebrate the end of Petra-gate. But Betty thinks that there’s nothing to celebrate. She even tells Daniel that he has a problem and that he just sleeps with women to distract himself from what’s going on in his life, and that he needs professional help. Surprisingly, Daniel isn’t interested in discussing his feelings (thank goodness, haven’t we had enough of that?) and leaves the office.

Betty then finally talks to Christina. And, damn it, we have more talking about feelings! Enough already with the FEELINGS! Christina is sorry, but wonders if she can use her new relationship with Wil to get some information that could help Daniel and Betty.

Then some non-feeling stuff happens. Yay! We find out that Bradford is paying Rodrigo to seduce Alexis and woo her out of the country. And not only that, but the entire plan was Wil’s idea. That’s what I’m talking about, Show – less feelings, more women having affairs with married men who are also their bosses and helping them hatch evil plots against their transvestite sons. Just like real life!

Wil thinks that she and Bradford are the perfect team. But Bradford tells her that he is never going to divorce Claire. But of course Wil doesn’t believe that. She’s sure that the power of her fish eaten feet will be enough to change his mind.

That night, Hilda shows Betty her engagement ring, and Betty’s excited about planning the wedding. She also tells Hilda that she’s going to be home late that night – she called Trina and they’re having dinner. And just when it seems like everyone is going to live happily ever after, Ignacio comes into the kitchen and announces that he’s being sent back to Mexico.

Only three episodes left… What could happen? Ignacio in Mexico? Hilda getting married? Wil getting married? Claire getting out of jail? Christina getting back at Wil? Betty making out with Henry? There is so much possibility!