Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Elle In A Handbasket
By Jacob Clifton | Season 3 | Episode 11 | Aired on 01.08.2009
If there were more worthy dialogue (meaning, I guess, Amanda) or the Daniel/Molly-Wilhelmina/Connor storyline didn't feel the exact same way, down to using the exact same placeholding beats instead of actual scenes with a brain or a heart or any courage at all, it probably wouldn't be so noticeable but the fact is that everything I just said about the Suarezes applies double to the Connor-Molly story, for the same reason. Which means that of the three plots here (Queens, YETI, Mode romance) in this episode, the only one with any life or humor in it at all is the one guest-starring Nikki Fucking Blonsky, which is the most offensive part of all.
Wili lounges briefly against her kitchen counter with Marc in her perfect apartment, planning her move on Connor while Marc hints and mugs and begs, all outrageously, to come to the party, and of course she says he's not, but you know this episode well enough by now to know that he will be at that party obviously, and that Betty will too because it's the same night as Hilda's whatever. Marc does call this plan "juicy couture," which is funny, but it's not that funny.
No, this scene is good, actually, and should have carried the whole storyline. The redecorated Casa Suarez looks like Claire's just felched a Spencer's Gifts, which is how Hilda likes it, and Christina walks in quacking like a duck at her, and Hilda pretends to understand her primitive crazytalk, and then there's about three really sweet seconds where Hilda gives herself a well-earned, awesome pat on the back, and then basically explains the actual issue, which is that Betty is still working on balancing the various parts of her life, and Hilda just honestly misses her. Which is all you had to say, honestly, because that's real. Which means that yet again Ignacio has ruined everything by trying to be the voice of all morality, when the actual conflict here is that Hilda wants to impress Betty and show her what they have in common. That's a story you could love, because then Hilda's whining and constantly bringing it back to Betty would make sense and wouldn't seem so petty and thick.
I guess the only solution -- since you have to have Ignacio front and center in this episode to give the ending some weight -- would have been to make him the third front somehow, instead of awkwardly making him the standard-bearer for an unrelated conflict so that he's the voice of Betty's guilt. Which would imply her having something to be guilty about, which would imply her doing something to be guilty about instead of just blundering through the episode and constantly looking like she's going to vomit. But whatever, cute scene, and then Christina has some kind of contraction or something and they bond or whatever.