“Family/Affair”
Oh, Ugly Betty. You’re one of those TV shows where the titular heroine/ostensible lead character has the least interesting story. That said, with only one villain running amok and possible redemption for Bradford, things are looking up!
Betty Spoilers!
In short:
- Henry returns to New York because he has to work to support the impending baby, and pledges that he and Betty should be “buddies”;
- Amanda claims her inheritance, a dog (the ugliest ever) and decides to keep it when she realises that it’s the only thing that connects her to Fey;
- Ignacio tells Hilda that she shouldn’t hold onto everything of Santos’, and then decides to break free for America
- Justin starts interning at Mode, then feels bad when he realises he’s having a good time. He thinks that he’s nothing like his father and should do something to remedy that by picking Santos’ basketball from his worldly items (generic basketball is sentimental?);
- Betty breaks into Wilhelmina’s apartment to steal the book, only to realise that Wilhelmina is having an affair with her bodyguard. Wilhelmina realises this and brokers a deal with Betty whereby Betty keeps her mouth shut and Ignacio is allowed back into the country;
- Daniel realises that Bradford has pretended that he never told Alexis that he’d rather she were dead than a woman, yet he decides against telling the truth. Bradford decides to postpone the wedding so that he can repair his relationship with Alexis.
- Ignacio begins to pack to return to the country, only to get held up at gun point by the avenging family from the end of last season!
- Having been told by Christina that Charlie was a (very convenient) sleeper-around, Charlie tells Betty that it’s got to be on.
Crap, I accidentally kind of went above and beyond the call of summary right there. At any rate, there’s a few things worth noting about this episode.
I was relieved to find that Alexis was no longer desirous of being a woman, but rather that she is tickled that she actually managed to go through with it. I think that Daniel must be suffering a bit of memory loss of his own, because he’s blaming himself for the accident. It is true that he is the reason that they were in the car together on that night, but the overriding cause of the accident was that the brakes were cut. I know that self-blame is a tricky thing, but really, Daniel! Your sister was perfectly capable of driving and had complete control of her senses at the time!
I’m really hoping that this is a case of him being too out of it at the time to have heard Alexis cursing the lack of brakes in the car. Maybe someone should look at the car for foul play, I don’t know. Brake cutting is so indicative of foul play. As for Bradford, I like Alan Dale. I think that, seeing as he’s entirely innocent of any crimes in this whole continuum that he should be given another chance with Alexis. That said, maybe an honest reconciliation would be preferable with this blank slate Alexis.
Re: Betty, though … I don’t really care. Betty and Henry are the most boring potential couple ever. Where does love on TV come from? I’ve honestly got no idea where the eff, but this is not even vanilla! This is like carob or something! Obviously you need Betty for the show to work but she’s much more interesting when she’s making shady deals on creepy “thunderous” rooftops.
The Justin story has led some to fear that Justin is going to abandon his whole personality, but that’s obviously something that would lead to disaster. It’s not dangerous for him to take up a sport, apparently some guys like that (yeah, I’m not one of them …). Justin is “fabulous” in some sort of parlance but I like to think that the “sexual” part of “homosexual” hasn’t blossomed yet. He just likes campy things so far, and we can be assured of a forced boy/girl “romance” or something!
Yeah, you have to write about Justin using quotation marks. Speaking of marks, Marc was grand in his relation to Justin; the boy needs some guidance, Marc needs three different threads to be an accessory to. Everybody wins.
As for Ignacio … after the Spanish episode, you knew this had to happen! I would say “what took them so long?” but the obvious answer is that they had to set up his exit from Mexico. What this means is that, with Ignacio’s abduction (hopeful abduction … the gun being timed to thunder on Wilhelmina’s rooftop had better be creative foley) and Wilhelmina’s wedding postponement, both sides in the Immigration/Affair Underhanded Dealing fail to receive what they want.
Such is Betty. And I took so long getting around to putting this down that I’ve actually got the next episode to look into! Compelling TV is the best kind.
