Ugly Betty: Sisters on the Verge of a Pay-Per-View Smackdown!

Dear Crabby: When are we going to see a smack-down catfight between Betty and Hilda over Papi?
-Couch Ass Groove

Dear Couch: When Player magazine can sponsor it!

Casa Suarez is eerily empty as we begin this edition of Ugly Betty, although it does look like someone cleaned up the chips that were all over the floor from the party. Phew. Justin, Hilda, and Betty are at the hospital with Papi who is costing them I’m guessing about $5000 a day with this nonsense. The all put their hands on his, probably to see if they can steal and pawn his watch.

Let’s see if he has any toe rings we can take, too.

But wait…their hands switch over to another set of hands being held in a Corona commercial, excellent! No, wait – it’s Daniel and Molly holding hands, smooching, and clinking glasses of what looks like delicious Mojitos. Wow, looks like they got over their guilt fast. And thanks for rubbing the beach in while yours truly keeps wondering at what point in the late afternoon will my street be snow-plowed so I can go out and buy Mojito mix?

Hey, we’re in a stylized Chanel commercial!

And speaking of no guilt because of no conscience, Wilhelmina is clinking champagne glasses with Connor while they both soak in a tub in Switzerland (I figured Aspen – isn’t that the cheating side of town for rich people? For the rest of us, it’s Queens and I don’t even live in New York). Connor and Willie kiss, and I doubt he could remember his own name let alone Molly’s, what with all the blood in his head currently residing elsewhere. But I rooted for this, so YAY Willie!

Montage of sad music continues as we see Papi has come home, day turns into night and back again. Thank Copernicus, to you and heliocentrism! Sorry about your persecution. Suddenly, Papi coughs like he’s a 3-pack a day smoker, everyone craps their pants and comes running into the living room to ask him what’s wrong. “Tickle in my throat,” he says. Oh, we thought it was another massive coronary, our bad.

Betty says that recovering from a quadruple by-pass could make little things seem big. WTF? Did I say $5000/day? I meant $10,000, not to mention the daily medication. They should have sold Papi for parts!. I bet Pam Anderson would have paid $50K for his liver alone. Hilda hits Betty and tells Papi it could be nothing and not to worry or get stressed. Papi asked for a chili dog with fries. Again, they should have sold him for parts.

Betty notices the pile of medical bills in front of them. My dentist won’t even do a routine checkup without my paying anything first, but Papi gets a quad bypass just because he shows up without insurance. Whatever! By the way, Papi looks damn good for just having had heart surgery. My understanding is that you feel like a Mack truck hit you after a bypass. I know I go white just thinking about making a gyno appointment.

Anal much, Howard Hughes?

Hilda and Betty fake hearing a bluebird in the back yard so they can go argue in the kitchen, which they do over all the post-its Betty has left all over the kitchen and the list of to-do items she’s made for Hilda. Betty, do not make me side with Hilda this episode!

Betty heads back to the city and her apartment which looks like, well, like Amanda has been living there. It’s a mess, there are a ton of bills, and even more cockroaches. Ain’t it grand to be home?

Daniel and Molly are looking through their vacation photos which seem to have been taken in front of a Coney Island backdrop. I guess we’ve all been hit by the recession. Daniel says he will miss running into Heidi and Spencer the whole time. Molly admits she doesn’t know who they are, and I just don’t because I’m too old. Oops – one of the pictures is of Daniel and Connor shaking hands, which, really? Is that his screen saver? Ick.

Back at work, Betty has like a kajillion messages, and I’m thinking next time, someone ought to step in to check those, Amanda. She has a ton of stuff all over her desk but no, stop everything so you can take Daniel’s photos down to get printed. What a tool, he probably passed like 50 Duane Reade’s where he could have dropped that damn disk off.

A sure sign your epidermis is dying.
The upside? At least you got some!

They bump into Willie who has a horrible ski-goggle sunburn. For someone addicted to Botox, you’d think she’d know better. I guess everyone was on vacation this past week? Uh-oh, Connor has the same ski-goggle sunburn, unless he wasn’t skiing and it was just Wilhelmina’s boobs that cast the shadow that caused the awkward white circles around his eyes. “Looks like you did some skiing too,” Daniel says. Willie says she was in Switzerland, Connor swears he was in Aspen. See? It totally looked like Aspen. Which I’ve never seen.

Willie chases after Connor to get in a little make-out session in the bathroom (ew) and to give him some illegal substance to put on his face to make the sunburn go away. Seems like they should have thought about that when they were showering together that morning, but I know, funny ha-ha. Connor and Molly sure had a great, strong relationship for those 4 years. “You’re not allergic to panda, are you?” Willie asks. No, sloth only, that’s why he left Australia.

Kangaroo placenta works wonders on burned skin!
Just ask Nicole Kidman.

Betty calls home to check on Papi, and Hilda has done something really nice to help Papi relax. She’s scheduled 15 girls to style for a Quinceañera party and as everyone knows 15 year old girls are calm and well-behaved, especially prior to a huge birthday party. Good one, Hilda. That money will really help pay for one hour of Papi’s stay at the hospital. Betty is worried Hilda hasn’t taken Papi to the doctor for his cough and Hilda just says bye and hangs up.

Claire takes Daniel’s vacation photo disk off the desk where Betty clearly has a huge project in process that probably should not get out of order. Is Claire drinking again, because she is so fun that way! She just got back from Paris where she was spending time with tranny Alexis (remember her?) and her bastard grandchild Jean Paul Gaultier. Who the hell was minding the store while all the adults were gone?

Is that a teething ring around her neck?

Claire tells Betty to take Papi to a great cardiologist she knows, but Betty balks mostly because of the cost. Claire tells her he works in the “Meade wing” of the hospital, so it won’t cost her a thing. Seems like they might have spoken up when they needed the quadruple bypass in the first place, but the Meades aren’t known for being bright or for thinking of others. I’m sure a trip on the train into the city will be great for Papi too.

Betty is back home and tells them about the new doctor for Papi, but Hilda says “Dr. Steve” said Papi probably just has a cold. Seems like maybe something to be concerned about – Papi’s defenses being down, not to mention he might split his stitches/staples/medical glue or whatever they use to hold your chest together after cracking it open. Silicone? Double-sided tape? “Do you hear a bluebird?” Betty asks, somewhat tersely. God, she can be insufferable sometimes, good citizen award be damned.

Observe the bluebirds of bitchiness
in their natural habitat.

She and Hilda get into it in the kitchen about the post-its, to-do list, Papi’s meds, and the bluebird, and Hilda uses the phrase “Betty Bossypants,” so you know it’s a mature fight. I bet Hilda could kick Betty’s ass and I’d pay to see it!

At the expensive doctor’s office, Papi is sitting in a paper smock with black socks and one of those thick compression pantyhose things you wear for circulation. Super sexy. The doctor blows in like a rich doctor who doesn’t care like Dr. Steve probably would, says he wants to run some tests, then confirms that Betty did the right thing bringing Papi in. Well thank God and the Meade wing for that.

The speculum is as cold as this office, Papi.

Back at the office, Willie and Connor come into her office and Willie is wearing an unfortunate outfit she should have saved for the Star Trek convention – I’ll borrow it from her later for the regional convention. They want to celebrate one of their clients increasing their ad buy, and again, I have to ask, does Mode not have account managers who would do this? Why would a Co-Editor-in-Chief and the CFO be going on ad buy appointments? Hardly a good use of their time. But for those of us in corporate America (or recent refugees from it, thank you economy), don’t all execs butt their noses where they don’t belong every now and then? Oy.

Why use the Vulcan Death Grip
when you have that stare?

Instead of the bubbly, Connor and Wilhelmina decide to close the sheers in her office – SHEERS, people – and enjoy some carnival horndog instead. Although a step down from the usual Cristal, horndog does include Connor naked, so per usual, I’m in.

We can still see you, you know.
And Mazel Tov to you both!

Unfortunately, one of the advertisers, Colette, her assistant Klaus and her other assistant Klaus, show up to meet with Willie, but as we and the rest of the office know, she is currently consumed with another willie. Not wanting to be Air Lingus Interruptus with Willie, (they should invest in an intercom in her office), Marc stalls by dragging all three of them around the office a few times. Yeah, cause Germans love to be jerked around. (Well, they are Swiss, but they speak German, so same diff).

Wow, looks like his shoe size was right on.

Hilda and Betty have another pre-fight smackdown on the phone, it’s work versus Papi versus other work. Why, why, why would Hilda schedule all 15 girls at the same time? Is she my grad school stats professor, because she is 100% dumb, and that’s a +/- 3% margin of error with my calculation. On my Elmo calculator.

Amanda calls Betty and says the photo lab guy says she messengered her phone bill to him…what could that mean? What? Oh crap, perhaps everything else she was working on got FUBARed as well, meaning Daniel’s vacation photos went to none other than Suzuki St. Pierre. J’adore him! And I’m glad to see Claire hasn’t given up being part of killing someone, because when Daniel finds out, Betty IS DEAD.

Betty tells Amanda she needs help tracking down all of the letters she sent out because she’s at the hospital waiting for Papi. You know, when Amanda is your go-to-guy, you are screwed. Amanda is worried Betty could have a heart attack just like Papi because it’s “generic.” Just like the medicine Papi is on!

Willie and Connor finish their afternoon tryst and Willie says she is going to throw people out of the conference room for her meeting with Colette and Klaus2 . Marc tells her it’s too late, they are gone. “They came early?” she asks, ironically, considering why she was held up. Marc tries to delicately tell her that he’s worried about her lack of attention to her job, but can’t seem to get it out. “Marc! Mince when you walk, not when you talk!” she says. He blurts out he’s worried that the top woman in fashion is missing meetings because her head is elsewhere. As is Connor’s, ba-dum-bump!

Betty’s on the phone with Daniel telling him about the work SNAFU – she sent his vacation photos to Suzuki instead of leaking the Halston photos, so they just have to swap them out. Daniel freaks because his CFO’s former fiancé as of a like a week ago is in them in her teeny weenie bikini and probably less, and he knows that will be news. Sadly, it’s not the worst thing Daniel’s ever done. Also, didn’t Connor say he slept with his best friend’s wife (or girlfriend?) once? So, I’m sure he’ll be cool with it.

Betty, however, is not. She keeps calling Molly “Connor’s Molly,” and Daniel no-likey. He needs the photos back like yesterday so Connor doesn’t find out. Will Betty leave the hospital or not? I say yes. And she does! Mostly because unsympathetic nurse Ratchet says that her father will be getting tests done for at least four hours, and what Betty does with that time is up to her. This is precisely when you need Travel Scrabble!

I won’t give it up because
this story is FAAABULOUS!

Suzuki is in no way, shape, or form giving up the scandalicious photos of Daniel frolicking with the Mode CFO’s former fiancé! Amen to real journalism, my brother! She asks him to do this one favor for her and he’s all like, “Do I know you?” which is exactly what I would do to Betty if she impugned my fine journalistic recapping abilities. Ahem. Cough.

Amanda is sneaking around the closet looking for clothes to wear and/or hawk on eBay to pay the cable bill when Marc grabs her and pulls her out. Suddenly Wilhelmina and Connor exit, looking flushed. Amanda is totally and completely awesomely thrilled with this new gossip that Marc swears her to never telling. “Why must God test the pretty people so much more than the regular lumpy people?” he spats. Because your skinny frames won’t handle the punches like our lumpy frames can, that’s why!

Sweet Jesus, this is good scoop!

Betty hits up Marc and Amanda for help in finding a gift for Suzuki to get something important back from him. Amanda cuts to the chase and tells her she’ll have to blackmail Suzuki and I get chills! This is going to be excellent. Turns out Suzuki’s ex works at Meade, and according to Amanda, “That bitch will dish!” Did he date Marc?

Amanda and Betty accost said ex in a park and he does not want to talk about it. Who would? He is in no mood to help Betty until Amanda says she will tell everyone he has “ambiguous genitalia, like a Ken doll. And that’s the kind of stank that don’t wash off.” It did for me, it just took until my 15th high school reunion.

Okay, but I’m only tweezing your palms this once!

The ex gives them an address…in Jersey. Garden state my ass. The ex says nothing and walks away. Intrigue ain’t just a car, you know.

Now Hilda’s on the phone with Betty asking how Papi is doing, but Betty is in Jersey with Daniel. Great use of time, kids. Why not send Tony Soprano? Betty says he’s still going through his tests but since she’s not there, how would she know? Bad hija, bad!

So Daniel and Betty are in the horrific burbs of New Jersey and they are at the address the ex gave them. Daniel opens the mailbox and sees the contents are addressed to Byron Woo. Betty admonishes him by telling him that he’s not supposed to go through people’s mail. Betty, how else are you going to get their credit card numbers to buy stuff at J. Crew online? Doyeee.

Suddenly a van pulls up and Daniel and Betty hide behind a fence. They see someone who looks like Suzuki with a wife, kids, and a Jersey accent that would drop a horse dead, telling the kids he wants to grill some brats. Wait, are they on the south side of Chicago?

The walk up to him and say, “Hi Suzuki. Or should we say, Byron Woo?”

“Oh crap,” Suzuki Woo says. Oh my God, Suzuki St. Pierre lives in Jersey, eats brats, and horror upon horrors, is a straight man in a gay man’s world. Will the madness never end? Methinks Daniel will be getting his pics back, tout suite.

Oh crap is right…he’s just like the rest of us.

In Suzuki’s back yard, he’s grilling out brats while his own brats run crazy around the play set. He graduated from Columbia journalism school and he wanted to be Woodward or Bernstein (the bears? Oh, that’s Berenstain), but most of the work was in entertainment “news.” Daniel is still confused. “So Suzuki St. Pierre is made up?” Jesus, Daniel, thank God you are rich.

This would be my hell, people. HELL.
You kids get off my lawn!

“Let’s get down to brass tacks,” he says. Or “brass asses,” I’m not sure what he’d rather have now. He wants to know what they want now that they know his secret. “We’re not here to blackmail you,” Betty says, much to Daniel’s confusion again. But she wants the pictures back because they could ruin people’s lives, Byron. “You have your own secret. You should understand,” Betty says. How is that not blackmail, what she just did?

Suzuki looks at his family adoringly, and for a split second I think I’m watching Jon & Kate Plus 8 and I vomit a little in my mouth. Seriously, Planned Parenthood will pass out birth control fro free, people. Daniel and Betty get the pictures back. I am so glad Daniel doesn’t have a magazine to put together this month, and instead gets to jerk around all over Jersey.

Daniel is holding a brat in his hand which
must be a nice change of pace from his dick.

Willie and Connor are about to go into the meeting with Colette and the Klauses (Klausi?) when they once again get all horndog on each other. How are they even walking right now? Even the bunnies in my backyard take a break now and then (usually because one of the dogs has found the nest and eats them, but even still). Their hormones aren’t as classy a match as I had anticipated.

We can both get some Frenching in today, dammit.

In the conference room, Marc takes action and begins the meeting in French. He begins to walk Colette and the Klausi through the campaign and they love it. Good for you, Marc!

Enjoy your transfer to the Bernie Madoff wing, bizzitch.

Back at the hospital, Betty has lost her dad and Nurse Ratchet really needs a pillow over her face. So she does the stupidest thing ever, she calls Hilda who has music blasting and teenagers everywhere. “I think I may have lost dad,” she says. Or, he just took the train home, what the hell else did you expect him to do? And I’d check every chili dog and fries stand between here and home, sister.

My other version of hell.
You girls get off my lawn!

Wilhelmina comes into the conference room and interrupts Marc’s presentation. She totally lies and said Marc never told her they were there, it’s becoming a problem, yadda yadda, and Marc is pissed because he knows she was off Lobster Bisquing with Connor. Why couldn’t she have said that she was tied up in another meeting? Why trash on Marc?

Back at the hospital, Hilda and Betty are yelling at each other and want to find Papi. Turns out his tests came back normal and Hilda’s like wow, he didn’t have to come to Richie Rich’s hospital after all, and she storms out. Here it comes, people…HUGE fight in the middle of the street. Hilda said she was scared to death about Papi and Betty’s controlling attitude makes her feel like she doesn’t love Papi…everything she does is wrong and Betty’s always right (she’s got you there, lumpy!).

“This is exactly what happened when mom got sick, it had to be your way or no way,” Hilda says. Betty reminds her that when their mother got sick, Hilda disappeared, off with Santos and clearly no birth control. Betty screams back, “Do you have any idea what I had to give up in order to stay at home every day?” I’m guessing it was Y.E.T.I. because there is no way they’d let her skip any classes and stay in the group, 40 new contacts or not.

This would have been much more interesting, effective, and loud if they had screamed at each other in Spanish. Hilda finishes with telling Betty that with all the lecturing, she wasn’t even there…Hilda was the one at the house when Papi had the heart attack, she was the one in the ambulance, holding his hand. “You were at some party,” Hilda says. Oh, burn. Hilda’s phone rings. Papi’s at home. Really? Duh. Hilda storms away from Betty. In your face, beyotch. And? I’m glad I didn’t pay $49.95 to HBO for the fight, I’d be pissed.

Lost and Found. Did you lose an expensive old man?

However, back at Casa Suarez, Papi tells them to knock the bluebird shit off because he’s apparently not dumb or deaf. He tells Hilda and Betty to get over it. He’s hired a nurse (aka Love Interest) with the money they don’t have except that Medicaid will help pay for it (and a Hoveround! Get one, Papi!), because he doesn’t want to come between the two of them.

In Hilda’s salon, she recommends Betty get a trim. Or a Michael Jordan close-cut head shave. Betty apologizes to Hilda for not being there. She and Hilda make up and it’s really sweet, so I can’t make fun of it. Damn.

Locks of Love called and said
they’d rather go bald.

Back at Mode, Willie gives Marc a watch from Colette because they landed the account. “Great. Now I won’t be late to any meetings,” he said, pointedly. Damn, hope he’s wearing a cup!

“Did I miss something? You’re my assistant, you took a hit for me, I brought you a nice gift. I expect gratitude, not attitude,” Wilhelmina says. Wow, she and Daniel are totally abusive bosses!

Marc flat out tells her he was humiliated and that after four years he expected more. “Getting thrown under the bus to make me look good is part of your job,” she says. Bad economy or not, Marc should polish up the resume and see if he can get back in with Robbie at Elle. Marc should have yelled at her after Connor bounced her on her chaise, she would have been in a better mood.

On the streets we find Molly and Daniel looking through the New York Post. There is a picture of Heidi and Spencer, and behind them is a clear view of Molly holding someone’s hand…but that someone, aka Daniel, is cut out of the picture. Seems like a better publication would have PhotoShopped or cropped Molly out, but it is The Post.

The jig is up! And Heidi has weird abs.

Over in the Mode elevator, Connor sees the picture while staring over someone’s shoulder (this is why people in elevators never talk: other people are creepy gawkers!). Don’t be pissed, mate, you’ve been dorking like donkeys with your new toy. Let it go!

Oh, that Heidi and Spencer.
He has weird abs.

Marc comes into Willie’s office with some paperwork and she gets her soul back long enough to ask him to handle an ad meeting that afternoon. Bone? Consider it thrown.

Goosed or promoted?
Such a fine line.

Back at Betty’s apartment, she is going through her bills with Amanda, and I see it coming like I didn’t with The Sixth Sense. Betty’s moving back home. Probably a good move, considering she’s spending probably $4000 a month on her apartment and bills, and that’s on the conservative side. Will Amanda get someone else to move in or will something else work out so Betty doesn’t have to move back? Time will tell.

Yeah, I always move once the
cockroaches show up too.

And time we seem to have, as once again ABC is providing loyal Ugly Betty viewers with yet another rerun this week…as well as a threatened mid-March “hiatus” so they can promo Samantha Who? in the same time slot. I call bullshit!