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
Kimmie confirms that he was talking to his daughter, the one with the job at Mode and that took the big trip, and then suddenly she flips the script on him about how they can't be chitchatting and corporate is "all up in [her] grill about hygiene" -- which is the last place, in terms of irony, they would be, generally speaking -- so he's off the fryer and onto the toilets. I love Lindsay Lohan. I wish she would stop fighting herself and go back to being awesome, don't you? She's a great actor, she has freckles and poorface, and she's really smart plus queer: automatic next Jodie Foster. It's been clear since she was about fifteen. And yet somehow she keeps dodging that magic crystal ball in order to act like a methed-up teenage boy in a Camaro, and it pisses me off.
Betty tells the elevator, whilst white-knuckling her Idea Notebook, that Mode best get ready for Betty. When she gets off the elevator to a winding-down soundtrack, everything's different and scary. It's really cold, everything is Bipolar Expedition white and Heart Of Darkness black, including the clothes of every shivering person. I always pictured the inside of Wili looking something like this. Or somehow combined with a hunting and game theme, like leather wallpaper and mooseheads and rifles all over the place. (OMG that makes Wilhelmina the cooler, less evil version of Sarah Palin!)
"New Mode Magazine, how may I direct your call?" Amanda sounds shuddery and weird, because of how it's all dystopian. Betty calls out to her and she ... vaults across the foyer towards Betty, babbling about quasi-missing Betty, and forgetting "how big" she is. Heh. Betty asks why it's so cold and Amanda says "She" likes it that way because it keeps everybody sharp. Then Mark runs up telling Amanda that "She" will destroy you if you don't at least look busy while you're fucking around, and he notices Betty and starts palpating her face. "Is it real? Am I hallucinating?"
They surround her with terrifying hugs and practically carry her down the hall. It seems partially that she's radiating heat that they desperately need. Amanda compares her to a "long-lost teddy bear" and Mark rubs her upper arm: "Furry!"
...HEY. Where is Cliff, now that you mention it? He was the only good thing of last year. Is he really gone forever?
Anyway, she asks why they're being so creepy/nice and they say it's because she reminds them of the good old days, how when she was there she could be counted upon to "say something weird" or "wear something hideous," and Amanda notices the ugly power animal, grabbing at it. "We can say so many things about that!" Mark squeals. But before they can get started -- or hear the delicious Sapphic tale of its acquisition, which would blow their mean little hearts with its awesome potential -- the click-clack of Fall '08 Manolos sends everybody scurrying like the rent is due and Miranda Priestley's the landlord.