Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT New Modes
By Jacob Clifton | Season 3 | Episode 1 | Aired on 09.25.2008
The sad, beautiful music of this show -- That one song with the piano, you know, for when it's sad? I fucking love it -- plays as Daniel sits outside some room waiting for DJ to unlock the door, and confesses to Claire his guilt and confusion about simultaneously not letting DJ be a total shithead, but also not turning into Bradford. Claire points out that DJ's all alone, mom's in France, and that you're allowed to yell at your kid if it's appropriate. "As long as he knows you'll be there for him tomorrow, it'll be okay."
Mmmmmmm do I not like that. That is not true, and it's evil to say so. By the same token, I know my abusive husband will "be there for me tomorrow" when he sobers up and apologizes, but does that mean either of us have any respect for me? How about your treat your child with the respect you'd like him to show other people, and stop writing yourself passes for screaming at him like a frustrated child your own damn self.
Anyway, Claire gets a call and leaves her son to go bitch at her daughter about killing Hot Flash. "No, I downsized it. I was going to tell you at dinner..." Before the little French bastard ruined that also. Alexis explains that it just makes sense to turn Hot Flash into a quarterly or insert. Quarterly yes, but insert? Where you gonna put it? It's a niche market, which means you can't really bundle it with other stuff so easily. Mode more easily than most, but the whole point of Claire's brilliant point about underserved consumers is swallowed up by this strategy.
Claire points out that Alexis's brain has shit the bed and she's just Wili's puppet, and demonstrates how Wili has very quickly fucked Daniel and Claire over, leaving only one Meade to go. Of course, none of this makes any impression because Alexis is too busy staring into space and scratching her belly and wondering if NARS is really that great or if it's like Urban Decay 2.0 and mostly successful because cougars want to say "Orgasm" and "Deep Throat" in public as much as possible*.
Betty apologizes to her Dad for cheating him out of his shitty, demeaning job he never should have taken in the first place, and he agrees that there are better jobs in the world. He asks Betty WTF happened to her today and she goes, "Everything happened to me today. She realizes that she totally regressed and became a moron, starting that very morning and continuing all day: she acted like a stupid idiot child with Kimmie, she got what she (frankly, self-aggrandizingly) refers to as "duped" on the apartment, and her job has taken a huge step backward. She removes her power animal and immediately becomes wise Betty that we love. "You were right, I was being naïve." She says her dreams of having grown up while peddling across America on a bicycle built for two lesbians was merely a fantasy.