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
"Don't I look relaxed?" he asks. Because he was such a workaholic before becoming King of Douchetown. Betty says yes, distastefully and missing the muscles, and gives thumbs up to his sad, toolish little toolstache. He says also, this is going to give him time to hang with his son. (Dress him up like Marie Antoinette and such, probably.) Betty asks why he didn't tell her about any of these huge changes that affect her entire life, and he looks at the (I guess?) Amanda of Player, a Hooters girl name of Ginger, who says "they" meaning "she" left Betty a "lot" of messages. Betty asks what number "they" were using, and Ginger hands it over on a piece of scrap paper. Funniest line of the episode not involving Mark? "This is six numbers and the letter P!"
Daniel introduces Betty to everybody and they boo at her, then howl and cheer for Ginger's booty dance. One of them asks if Betty's his "beeyotch," which Daniel explains is code for "assistant." Whatever, it's dumb, they're cartoons but that's the fratty point, Betty asks what he needs and he tells Ginger to give her the lay of the land, she was once voted Lay Of The Land. Aaaaand I'm done with Player! Just like that. This is dumb. This is like what John Wells would think is hip and happening. INT: PLAYER MAGAZINE. Young hip urban slacker professionals are dapping each other with their fists, playing pinball games, skateboarding. N.B.: Have we thought about changing the title to PLAYA?
Wilhelmina uncompliments Claire's perfume, calling it "musky," and Claire suggests that Wili bite her. Awesome. On the other side of Claire's pod of Hot Flash cubes, there's Alexis's office, where Wili wants more money. Alexis compares her New Mode launch budget to that of the next Harry Potter film, wherein Snape and Dumbledore tenderly and nervously do it while floating on a cloud of magic. (Spoiler alert!) Wili explains that she needs to completely erase the concept or memory of Daniel from this earth so that people will understand Mode no longer sucks.
Alexis blows her off, and tells her also that the giant billboard she wants is going to Hot Flash instead, because it's not an establish brand of any particular stripe yet. "I'm cutting you off," she says, and just as Wili's about to grab the nearest Clio and bash her over the head with it, Mark appears and whisks her onto an elevator, offering a comforting susurrus of Wilhelmina's Favorite Things: "Macaroons, Sade, Karl Rove..." (This is the kind of thing I was talking about before, because while you're asking yourself if he really just said " Wilhelmina's Favorite Things," part of your brain is hearing him say "macaroons," and while that's processing a third part is actually getting the punchline.) The woman exiting the elevator falls on her face for no visible reason, and once inside Wili screeches wildly because of something (presumably a Hot Flash cover) on the elevator onscreen.