Episode Report Card Jessica: B+ | 5 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Pilot
By Jessica | Season 1 | Episode 1 | Aired on 09.27.2006
And Betty runs off. Daniel looks moderately guilty some more, but dutifully goes over and reports to Philippe that Betty finally quit. Philippe is assuring him that this is all for the best, but his arguments trail off when Betty comes out of the dressing room, all kitted out in a pleather hot pants, opera gloves, and thigh-high hooker boots. Now, listen: America Ferrera is as cute as the proverbial button, but this is...not flattering. In fact, it is so not flattering, I might need to hide my face for a little while. "Please allow me to introduce myself: MY NAME IS SUPERSTAR," screams the music. "Where do you want me?" Betty asks bravely. Philippe places her between two glamazons, and this is when the giggling begins. It's all very unprofessional, and Daniel finally puts a stop to it, but not before Betty runs out into the street, still in her streetwalker outfit. He goes after her. "This is what you wanted, wasn't it?" she asks him. "To humiliate me? To make me quit? God forbid you had to work with the ugly girl your dad forced you to hire. Well, congratulations." She leaves. Daniel has to the good grace to continue to look mildly uncomfortable.
Queens. Betty sits on the stoop in her sweats. Justin comes out and gives her some tea. "I'm sorry it didn't work out. Mom said she wasn't surprised," he tells her, explaining that Hilda doesn't think such things ever work out for "people like [them]." Betty sighs. "Unless you're J. Lo or something," Justin adds. Oh, Justin. You of all people should know that J. Lo is from the Bronx, not Queens. "She says, she wishes you'd be more realistic, but I think she's full of crap," Justin adds supportively. Betty's about to say something when the smacking and murmuring and cooing from her neighbor Gina's house becomes too much for her to handle in her already humiliated state. She storms over there and throws the door open. "I just want to say that this is REALLY UNFAIR," she yells. "I live TWO DOORS DOWN. I can HEAR YOU!" And as soon as Gina unfastens her mouth from her paramour, we see that it is not Walter at all, but some other hapless dude. It seems that Gina was just using Walter to get his discount on a flat-screen TV. Enraged at this, Betty storms out of Gina's house, slamming the door behind her. The force knocks the TV off the wall and onto the ground. "Bitch, you broke my plasma!" Gina yells after her. Man, Gina is douchey, and not at all fabulously so.
Over at Mode, the Fabia presentation is getting underway. Gina Gershon's Fabia is clearly modeled on Maya Rudolph's version of Donatella Versace on SNL: crazy fake accent, crazy fake lips, crazy fake blonde hair. She's shoveling candy into her mouth. Fabulous. Daniel begins showing her the shots from their photo shoot, which are totally over the top: flaming primary-colored cars, piled up all over each other, surrounded by semi-nude, totally-shiny models. Underneath the image, it reads: "COLLISION." It is tacky and terrible, and Fabia looks horrified. She smacks the table. "Thees iss a freeeking joke, right?" she asks. Daniel meekly offers that it is not. "STUPIDO!" she screams at him. In the corner, Wilhelmina looks tremendously pleased. "STUPIDO!" Fabia screeches again, and flings an entire handful of candy right at Daniel's head. "Idiot. IDIOT!" she screams, and storms out. "What just happened?" Daniel asks, after a beat. Evil Marc offers that Fabia is probably still a little sensitive about "the accident." See, it turns out that she ran over twelve people outside Marquee last month. Whoopsie. Daniel looks at Philippe, who pipes up that he was out of town when this happened. Daniel wonders why no one told him about this. "Daniel, if I may?" Wilhelmina says. "You didn't include me in the concept. And we all thought you knew what you were doing." She sort of shrugs at him, and smiles. I'm beginning to get the impression that Daniel's attempting to outwit Wilhelmina is sort of like the fashion-magazine equivalent of Nicole Richie trying to best Homer Simpson in a donut-eating contest.