You know what? Let's just forget last season ever happened. Firstly because I'd love to, and secondly because... the show did. But to review: Mysterious French bastard kid, Claire's getting Hot Flash off the ground, Daniel's out and Wilhelmina is in as Mode EIC, Christina's pregnant with the spawn of Wili and the House of Meade, and Alexis has become both evil and retarded. The scariest combination of all.
Oh, and our heroine was "somehow" supposed to choose between a manipulative, judgmental dwarf, and a hot-as-hell nerd man who was so very unattainable that he invented new coincidental ways to be unattainable on a weekly basis, like getting people in New Mexico pregnant on his day off. In order to reboot the franchise before Betty managed to become completely, instead of mostly, irritating and unlikeable -- and because Gorham wasn't interested in moving to NYC just so his character mutations could continue to embarrass us all -- she Chose Me.
Not literally Me, like, "me" in the grand sense of Choosing Oneself. (Just like Potes said. She would never tell you this, being humble as well as lovely, but Potes is ... magic. I once saw a unicorn walk up to Potes on Rodeo Drive and ask her advice, and she totally played it off like it was no big deal. A goddamn unicorn.) Anyway, Betty's right now explaining this to an unseen apostrophe, somewhere outdoors with the city behind her, all about how she "had a choice to make" and: "then it hit me: literally, a softball hit me."
I don't really remember last season that well because it was mostly dumb except for Amanda and Mark, who were fierce the whole time because dumb is the name of the country where they excel. So I can't recall if any of this already happened, and there's a dependent clause in the finale recap that's throwing me off. So feel free to skip this paragraph, as she tells Henry (In a dream? Due to concussion?) that, while she loves him as passionately and deeply and hotly as any right-thinking human, she cannot marry him; then she tells Gio (In a memory? A flight of fancy?) that she cares about Gio, but not actually in that way.
Ah. The apostrophe is her dead mom. What is with this show and the downer openers? She explains to Mom that there is a lot she wants to experience before she settles into a relationship -- such as short-term mini-relationships with fine-ass singer-songwriters and the like -- but also in terms of non-relationships, like her career and grownupness and all the infinite things that would, and did, suffer due to Henry's unbelievably yucky babymama drama, and Gio's sandwichery and dwarven feelings of inferiority and whatever, and Betty's complete loss of all the things -- optimism, morals, focus, faith, compassion, resourcefulness, direction, willpower -- that make her my hero.
Betty makes kind of a powerful point here about how her Mom spent her entire life sacrificing to make sure that she and Hilda and Ignacio were happy, and between her husband getting murdered and her getting pregnant with the killer, then escaping across the border with him into the United States*, she never got to know what it was like to work it on a runway, get an overpriced apartment in Manhattan, go bicycling with lesbian survivors, or all the other meaningful things that make life living. All that dumb bitch did was raise a couple of beautiful, intelligent, strong daughters, make a wonderful home for them, then die. What a waste! Never even saw an iPhone. Or Eddie Cibrian's ass.
America Forever is a powerhouse when it comes to acting this kind of stuff, not to mention how weird it must be to do this whole emotional monologue without anybody but a headstone to talk to. She kind of breaks down a little bit talking about how it's time to figure out who she is, by specifically herself, without a bunch of horseshit going on. She doesn't know what she's going to find, but she knows where to start. She puts a picture of Ignacio and Mom on the abundant heap of lovely flowers at the grave, says goodbye to her Mom, and then the unmistakably exciting chords of "Roam" (See? Magic) start up over the title card.
(*It's possible I invented some, or all, of this.)
The screen goes scratchy like an old-time moviola and then it's a bunch of postcards of Betty visiting all kinds of lame clichéd places like the Grand Canyon and great big balls of twine or some shit. But then, if our positions were reversed and I was touring her native lands, I would totally be going to the Statue of Liberty and looking for Hubbell outside the Plaza and stalking Tim Gunn and whatever shameless touristy stuff. My new dream job is to give Gossip Girl bus tours, like, "Coming up on your right you'll see one of Chuck Bass's favorite spots for raping people..."
Anyway, it goes on for like the entire length of the song, and a pattern develops regarding Betty's fondness for ... bicycling lesbians? I wish that it had been some other song, because that song is overused and cheesy and literal. What about -- given our guest star particularly -- "Oh My God" by Mark Ronson? Same idea, but less '90s-fierce. Which is not fierce at all. She shows Hilda and Justin a picture of herself and "Peg" eating -- given our guest star particularly -- "clam chowder," in San Francisco. Man, after you've had Grubstick I guess there's no point in driving stick at all. Justin, proving that drag queens v. lesbians is intrinsic from birth, like handedness or ninjas v. pirates, smarts off about "that's a lady?!" Hilda rightfully smacks him one, but remains privately concerned about Betty's new ... directions.
Betty ... this part is weird because it's like a Mark and Amanda scene where they say something incredibly fucked up but really fast so you have to rewind it, except what she's saying isn't hilarious, just weird, as she explains in one sentence that somehow, while traveling across the country, she fell in with bicycling lesbians who have survived illnesses. Because sometimes that happens, I guess. In certain areas of the northern Midwest they just roam free, I heard. Survivor lesbians are the hardiest type of bicyclists there are. They are friendly and fun to talk to and very helpful, but just remember not to ever call anybody a "pussy" or a "bitch" in front of them, even jokingly, because you will spend the rest of the day being educated about some things.
Betty wants to tell their stories in Mode, along with other ideas she has had, and trapped for keeping in a big Betty-bling binder with a lightbulb on the front of it. Justin loves all of this, because since he spends the entire episode sitting in a chair he has to emote in new ways. Hilda is weirded out by Brand New Betty, and starts perseverating on a hideous turquoise dove pendant around her neck. Oh, yes: that's her power animal. It embodies the feminine energies of peace and maturity. Having grown up in New Mexico and Arizona, I can tell you that the first person who says "power animal" to me is getting punched in the face.
Hilda asks if, pursuant to a greater question she has yet to corner, this too was a gift from Peg. "No, she said feminine energy," Justin says. Justin is full of hate crimes today. Betty starts to tell them about her plans, but then Ignacio comes into the living room wearing a burger place uniform. Apparently, Betty's trip around the liminal spaces of America and her own sexuality has inspired him to flip burgers. That's ... much like a compliment, Ignacio. Randomly, he discovers his name Bedazzled onto the back in a hugely ghetto fashion, but Justin's logic is unassailable: "I was trying to put the 'U' in 'uniform'!" It's exactly this dedication to being himself and standing out in a crowd and marching to his own disco beat that's going to get Justin murdered.
Everybody takes this non-opportunity to awkwardly start cross-talking and yelling at each other for no reason other than so that Betty can yell really loud and they all stop talking again. OMG, that was as hilarious and fresh as it is in every movie and TV show, ever. What's more disappointing than lazy bullshit writing filler like that? Watching Betty build castles in the sky about her coping skills and self-reliance, and then knock them down. So here is Betty's plan. Which by the way is written on a placemat or something, in crayon, plus apparently Betty has the handwriting of the Unabomber as a little child:
Firstly, Betty's going to get a promotion at Mode within the year, by working hard and staying focused. Note how she leaves out two essential building blocks for reaching this goal. Firstly, she forgot the part about "not getting sucked into Wilhelmina's ridiculously baroque schemes," which science shows is 73% of the reason Betty's in her third year with the same job title. And secondly, she completely forgot what should be Rule Number One, which is "NO HELPING MEADES DO ANYTHING EVER," because that inevitably and inexorably leads to her ruin, usually within minutes. Just stay off the Hell Bus of Meade Family Bullshit and you will be fine.
Two. No romantic entanglements. Which would be fine, if they meant it, but they don't. I mean, she got rid of the two albatrosses but that doesn't mean she's going to avoid romantic entanglements; beautiful boys with sick bodies will continue to throw themselves at her in every episode of this show, or else we all stop watching. I like that Betty's got the spotlight back on herself, but this shit is starting to seem kinda lofty.
Three: moving out. To a New! Apartment! In The City! Every time this phrase or something similar is uttered, drink. I like the idea of Betty living by herself, not because I don't love her family, but it's like Betty, you're what, thirty-six? Thirty-seven? Come on now. Hilda and Ignacio are none too impressed, of course, but Justin throws down some feminine energies the likes of which you've never seen.
Ignacio and Betty fight their way down the street toward the burger place, and he's all over how she can't afford a NATC and she's not ready for a NATC and basically acting like it's NATC Germany and then in this corner she's like, "I saved money and rode bicycles! With lesbians! I'm a grownup!" Points for talking about her lost innocence on the biking trip, but no. Betty's wearing: a flowery dress that makes her look fat, hair that is easily three feet across but basically a variation on her usual hair, and canary yellow socks. She's fairly presentable right now, actually.
"Experiencing things, that's the whole point! Like trans-American lady love!" He tells her she's being naïve, which she totally is, and she freezes him out, which is also correct. Her face is still getting thinner, which makes the fake braces jut out more like a TV vampire, which in turn makes her look like a Lynda Barry character. Ignacio takes off and heads into the burger place; his boss is Kimmie Keagan, Betty's high-school torturer.
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 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.
Ooh! You know what I just noticed? We've never really had that story. Fey Sommers died before the show started, and then it's just been Daniel, with occasional interference from cartoony villains. We've never had the full-on real-life experience of Lady Editrix going off on people. (And while I think Amanda will eventually be crowned in some capacity, I don't think she'll ever turn into her mother. She's too nice, not to mention a functioning schizophrenic.) So I just stopped caring if Daniel ever gets Mode back.
Betty heads into Daniel's office, but it's been transformed into a creepy black and white devil baby room. It's awesome, there's like a gothic crib in the center of the room illuminated by evil and a creepy lace ... mosquito net thing. There are thousands of black and white teddybears (Cliiiiffffffff!) everywhere you look, and then a sledgehammer comes through the wall, and needless to say it's wielded by Wili, who has decided the contractors aren't doing the job right. She talks about putting in a window, so there will always be light on her little angel, and then spots Betty through the new hole in the wall: "Oh my. It's back." She informs Betty about the change of masthead and sends her downstairs to Daniel's new offices.
Which are sterilely grotesque in a Zoolander halfpipe scooteriffic kind of "zoomazoomzoom anna boomboom" way, which is to say a cliché, but maybe this time it's on purpose. I never know with Daniel. It's basically like a cross between your imaginary Google campus and your imaginary Maxim campus, but with women included. The magazine's called Player and its offices are raucously themed in Arrested Latency orange, Seventies Bush Is Back black, and Don't Tase Me Bro red.
Daniel comes running up in a track suit that is clearly evil in that it is less tailored, if you see what I'm saying, than usual: He's always been 40% pectoral. Daniel's in a bad, bad way. He explains to Betty about how Alexis has become so unrecognizable and unbearable that Romijn is quitting, but before doing so she and her giant circus tits are now evil, so he's out. Betty's flummoxed and calls Player "smutty," but Daniel defensively justifies that Player is "the third best-selling, no-nudity men's magazine," behind I assumeGQ and Esquire, so really he should express the numbers a little differently: by my count that makes it the number one best-selling straight men's magazine.
"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 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.
Mark offers to slap her out of her shock, but she grabs his wrist in the nick of time with her viper-like reflexes and points at what is indeed a Hot Flash cover, with Claire looking just ridiculous, like if you imagine yourself as a housewife in 1982 dreaming of being a romance novelist, that is what your author photo would look like, basically. On a yacht wearing a very flowy gown in Post-Menstrual raspberry. A vicious idea forms in Wilhelmina's mind like the Demon Seed of Slater-Meade in a drunken Scottish womb.
Oh! Speaking of. Christina looks fucking gorgeous, by the way, walking through the streets with Betty and trying to slap a happy face on the whole Playa thing. She says she's starving and wants falafel, even though it makes her gassy, which is fine because she's pregnant so apparently she can fart in public and talk about it in public. I think Christina just set an all-time record for how long it takes me to get tired of her shtick. She's like the Sookie St. James of this show: no justification for my hatred of her at all. Only shame about how unnecessary it is. Betty drags poor, underused, gorgeous annoying Christina toward the NATC of her dreams -- which is right above a falafel shop. If Christina farts in this episode I am telling you: I am through. Shortest assignment ever.
Hilda and Coach Tony bask in the afterglow of fucking, on a loveseat, in a family living room, under a crocheted blanket, near a street-level window. Gross. I know the Cibrian cannot be denied, but you couldn't hit the stairs? Or the floor? Or anywhere besides that couch, which I always imagined smelled like chorizo anyway? Um, this scene exists mainly to remind you that Tony is married and lying To The Vanilla Ice Extreme about how he's getting a divorce, etc. lying etc. like they always do, and they keep having romantic seconds that are ripped away by the wife's annoying ringtone.
I used to like Hilda the most out of anybody on this show besides the obvious Betty, but: if he says he's going to leave his wife? You say "Great, see you then." Anything else is a lack of self-control -- which is disgusting -- or you're in denial and secretly know that he never will -- which is even more disgusting. Both ways, the only person you're disrespecting is yourself.
The apartment in which Christina is probably about to fart is bright yellow -- Psycho Canary yellow and not Limoncello Yacht Morning yellow, or even I Can Easily Believe That It's Butter yellow -- which as the most horrible color of all time is also Betty's favorite. Christina goes all Debbie Downer about how somebody else is going to get it, then talks loud annoying Scottish shit about the apartment and chases off another couple, then it's back to going negative all over Betty about the apartment, can she afford it, what will she do, but all this wisdom is nothing compared to the shit-covered vermin that lands on the windowsill right then.
"It's my power animal," Betty moans in awe, and Christina's like, "Um, it's a pigeon." Betty, dorking out even in comparison to her usual self, talks pigeon at the thing while brandishing her power animal at it like some lost episode of Les Mystérieuses Cités d'Or, as DJ probably knows it, and she's about to unlock the freaky Mayan power of the pigeon.
Some girl snatches the place out from under her, and then the real estate agent -- whose stereotypical Star Wars ching-chong racist Yellow Peril accent varies widely from moment to moment -- scares Betty into taking a completely different apartment, sight unseen, on a higher floor. Christina, distracted by thoughts of falafel and flatulence to come, apparently forgets to babysit Betty's stupid ass for five seconds, and suddenly Betty is totally down. This is apparently because she has to live here or in the immediate vicinity due to her spirit animal being in the window. Betty Suarez, sometimes your spirit animal is retardedness. This is one of those times.
Hilda carts a box up five flights of stairs toward Betty's apartment, and they are both nearly dying by the time they get there. Betty says this way she won't even have to go to the gym, which she doesn't do anyway, blah blah blah, all you get when you play to the cheap seats is stupid viewers. Here's what I think: they're going to act like it's a shithole, and scream and yell, but the obvious architectural beauty of the apartment, and the amount of light it gets, are not things that can be cosmetically altered really for this phase of the story, so it's going to strike false when they act like it's some kind of abattoir.
Unless it is actually covered in blood, or feces, you can't fake a good apartment, and I can't see this show going there no matter how realistic it would be. Then Betty will whine for awhile but eventually she'll pull herself up by her bootstraps and take control of her life via her environment, and it will be beautiful, and they'll play either "Dancing With Myself" or "Suddenly I See," and she will dance around her apartment and claim her space, and we will all learn a little something about self-acceptance and not bitching about totally cute NATC. If I'm wrong, this show rocks. If I'm right...?
...Um, it's totally cute. There's a small puddle, and a questionable mattress, but architecturally it's awesome and the windows are larger than a Honda Fit. Fuck this! Betty, who's clearly months later still struggling with the aftereffects of getting beaned by a softball, has the nerve to be confused: "It's supposed to look exactly like the other one!" IT DOES, YOU HALFWIT.
Okay, to be fair: the promised "sexy views" include Ugly Naked Midlife Neighbors ("That is not sexy! Or sanitary!"), the refrigerator contains something dreadful yet unknowable, and there's a bathtub in the exact middle of the room. That's iffy. But the rest ... It's the loveliest shade of Heywood-Wakefield green. Hilda finally twigs to how she got it sight unseen, wonders if the occupant was murdered, and gets Betty to admit she spent her money on the place. As in all of it. In the world.
Hilda goes off for some reason I don't get about how dare Betty spend the money that she earned her own damn self when Hilda is poor, Ignacio is poor, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are poor, etc. "We are struggling! And you throw it all away?"
That's where I would ask Hilda to leave my house, honestly. "All you did was fight harder than anyone ever has to educate yourself, leave Queens, create a new life for yourself, and save the lives of an entire family of rich-ass lunatics. How dare you spend those resources any way you see fit, when your father and sister -- who have in common the motivation and focus of a fucking Ramen-addicted twenty-year-old who can't afford his Ritalin -- working at a burger joint and unable to get it together and overcome paperwork to become an American citizen in the thirty years he's lived here and/or starting ill-advised entrepreneurial failures every five seconds while fucking married men! These things have nothing to do with each other! I am obnoxious and throwing stones in a glass house!"
Anyway, Hilda threatens to call Ignacio and they wrestle over the phone and Betty keeps promising she's going to fix it herself. And to be honest, I'm nearly on Hilda's side but still. Especially when we cut to her sitting in her new office space complaining to her new landlord about how "tricky" it was for the real estate agent to be like, "Hey, do this incredibly stupid thing that even a person with limited life skills would find fishy, okay?"
And I mean, I would do that too. I have done that. I'm sitting in that, as a matter of fact, talking to you now: a house I happily would have signed on without going inside. And I would have been right. I love my house more than any other house in this world. But part of the assumed risk when you buy into something sight-unseen is that it will absolutely, positively, never ever look like you imagine it looks, for the very scientific reason that your Imaginer is located in your brain, while reality is all around the outside of it.
Daniel has finally located a fitted tee and some board shorts, which is the last nail in the coffin of my caring if he ever gets back to Mode. DJ has glued Betty to her chair, which is not funny, although it's pretty cute when he wheels her into the conference area to talk about the idea binder. A fairly cute-ish dude named Uno offers his thoughts on things, particularly how much he liked the story about the lesbian victims on bicycles. In fact, it's going to be the cover story. I sense an impending "natch."
There it is: the Playa angle is that it's going to be a pictorial about six hot girls on motorcycles, hitting all the biggest "party towns" of America. The assembled braintrust of Playa gives a heart boo to: diseases, old women, forty-year-old women, etc. What do they not boo? Harley Effin' Davidson. Talk about a brand overhaul. I can't imagine how deep you'd have to go to make motorcycles anything other than 100% Whiskey Tango. So now Betty's heading up the "biker chicks of Playa" event at a Harley show tomorrow, since it was her "original concept." Of course, it's Betty and her surfeit of self-esteem we're talking about, so all it takes is a round of applause from all the fake-boobed and goatee/beer-gutted masses, and she's sold.
Wilhelmina goes through looks with the stylists, ripping into them awesomely. "You give me Japanese floral garden kimonos?" (Mark: "More like kinonos!" Hee!) : "Dragon prints, Margaret? Really? After all these years," which is my favorite part of the scene -- like dragon prints are the equivalent of sleeping with somebody's husband -- after this sequence of awesome events: "And thank you, Rodrigo, for the gift of whiteface kabuki makeup. You really put the 'gay' in 'geisha.'" (Mark: "You should all kill yourselves.") I didn't know it until it happened, but it turns out I've been waiting 30.5 years to hear somebody tell somebody they put the "gay" in "geisha."
Wili reminds them all that this is the most important issue of Mode, or any magazine or periodical, of all time, and that their families will be killed if they don't perform. Alexis comes in, and Romijn's pregnancy boobs are so distractingly gigantic I've given them names as a sign of respect. The left one is Witch Baby and the right one is Cherokee Bat.
As soon as Alexis and the girls enter, Wili sends Mark off to make a call to Regis [&] Kelly. In fact, it is Gelman who answers -- Wili's crestfall at this fact is a beautiful thing -- and soon enough she's gotten herself (and more importantly Alexis) a booking on Live! As though this were exciting or interesting in any way, Alexis goes running around like a total moron pissing herself about "what am I gonna wear?" and bumping into things. I just ... did I completely miss the episode where she shit out her brain? If Romijn weren't already quitting I'd do it on her behalf. I miss Pepper Dennis sometimes, I won't lie.
Mark fans himself hilariously: "...Like taking candy from a tranny." (Which again, would be kinda offensive if we weren't so sure of his power-twink capacity for "taking" "candy" already, if you see what I'm saying and I think that you do, which again leads to: WHERE THE EFF IS CLIFF. Did he die and I don't remember it? Did Mark dump him for being too smoking hot? I just can't remember anymore. In my head he was like the lead character besides Betty, and I know that can't be right, so who knows.)
Betty's still on the phone complaining about how stupid she is to a person who does not care, and Amanda and Mark ambush her, begging her to do "something amazingly awful and embarrassing," and of course DJ shoots silly string (EXT: HARLEY SHOW. Short skirts, chicks on bikes, silly string. You know, all the stuff that gets our viewership off.) in her stupid face, and she tells Daniel to man up, and he returns the suggestion before running off, and then Ginger runs up babbling about how it's a 411 or a 911 or whatever because they lost the "R" in P-L-A-Y-A to that little French bastard's silly string and now who will represent that lonely, lovely letter. Jesus, really? ...Yeah. That'd be Betty.
Part of what keeps me internally balanced and uncrazed is pretending that Regis Philbin doesn't exist, so simultaneously: this will be quick, and this would be why. They talk about how Wili took over Mode from Alexis's fuckup brother (Alexis makes a firm-lipped smile about this and is a total hypocritical idiot); how she had to do this because Alexis is a terrible publisher who thinks with her giant fake boobs and because the only thing stupider than girls is MTFs (still smiling, still repugnant); how Daniel's been moved to Playa where the boobs are plentiful and the responsibilities few, which is right in his wheelhouse... What else is there to talk about?
That's right! This is all aperitif and amuse gueule nastiness before we head to the point, which is torpedoing Hot Flash. Regis, as a historically sexist clueless weirdo, says he thought it was a joke, not Claire Meade's pet project, and Regis gets the title: "Oh, it's like menopause! It's a magazine about lady business!" Which, okay, is funny. But not as funny as Kelly's followup: "I know it's real, but I don't necessarily want to read about it." Just like Sarah Palin's family!
Regis gives a real-life example: "Brittle & Horny: Afraid Your Bones Will Crack In The Sack?" And then he doesn't say anything else. Nope, nothing at all, no self-deprecating anecdotal comments, nothing of the sort. He just lets that be the punchline, and you should too. Don't fuckin' argue with me: there are things the human heart was built to handle, and then there's Regis's Bone. Cracking. In the Sack.
Betty gets ready to ride her motorcycle, setting her onboard to the exact latitude and longitude of slapstick embarrassment. "You can do this. You can do anything, you're a dove. A kick-ass dove. It's like a bike, only bigger." Just as she's getting ready to zoomazoomzoom out with the other letters, DJ silly strings her again and she drives into a pool of Jell-O with the frolicking bikini trash. Amanda and Mark agree that it was beyond their wildest dreams: "It's magic!" Ginger yells for somebody to call 411.
After Live!, Wili brings up a way for Alexis to "stop the bleeding" they just caused for Hot Flash, and help Mode at the same time. Alexis is reluctantly down, because she's an idiot now and does whatever Wilhelmina wants without question or even really understanding what she's being asked to do.
In the NATC, Betty waits for maintenance to come approximately ... her whole life. Eventually the offices close, and still nothing. She moans and puts her head in her hands, and then total chaos reigns supreme: Generic rock music comes pounding through the walls, Ugly Naked Midlife Couple is suddenly dancing with cocktails, randomly the ceiling starts dripping on her idea book, her spirit pigeons start divebombing her like Tippi. Wow. She eventually escapes into the hallway and looks at her sad, sad three-part plan and kind of rolls around on the floor. Also, her hair has grown to five times its normal bushy density and looks amazingly fucked up.
Hilda calls and tells her to come to the burger place in Queens, and don't tell Ignacio. Once there, Betty gets the 911 on both Kimmie's managerial abuses and the fact that her hair looks like Cold Case threw up on it. Hilda prepares to kick Kimmie's ass, noting that she's got her "big" ring on. Heh, that's the Hilda I love. Betty tells her to chill out, but then spots the previously unnamed Kimmie, and remembers the mildly malicious non-bullying she was subjected to. "She's pure evil," Betty notes, and Hilda again offers to kick her ass. "Stand by," says Betty, and they face off.
Kimmie and Betty say hello in that way where your name is a curseword, and Kimmie informs her that she's not the manager, she's "the onsite senior executive in charge of food operations." Which sounds worse and made up. I hate when they sound worse. I think it's awesome to be a fast food manager because it means you took what God gave you and applied some elbow grease to it. It's a decent wage, and Lindsay Lohan looks totally hot. I'd like to put the "U" in that "uniform," if you know what I... Wait, that's not it, is it? Hang on.
Anyway, Betty strikes up a convo about how Kimmie's been cutting Ignacio's hours, and Kimmie says this is "pretty much" true, because he is a slacker. Betty disagrees, saying that he's a "hardworking, good person." Both of which are true, I guess. Kimmie offers another theory, that maybe he's just getting old: "What is he, like a hundred?" Kimmie finds the fact that Betty's about to snap hilarious: "What. I'm not a cheeseburger, so I know you're not going to eat me." (Wait 'til you hear about Peg, there, Tiger.) Then they get into a foodfight, and that? Demeans us all. Important points: Kimmie deepfries the idea notebook and says some (INT: BURGER PLACE. Research shows that clueless white people sometimes co-opt black lingo from twenty years ago, which is funny) dialogue passably well ("Oh No You Dint!") and Hilda throws a salad bowl at her...
Just as salad's being tossed onto a plate at the Meade family lunch in what appears to be some kind of ... upscale version of Soup Or Salad? Which is not only something of which I had no knowledge, but a total impossibility. I frown on this, whatever it is. Claire is talking about how Hot Flash is necessary because "we," meaning Claire and people like her, need a forum to discuss "aging, menopause, personal dryness..." Daniel sounds the TMI klaxon and then yells at DJ to eat his déjeuner before dessert, DJ's not having it, he gets some Gallic attitude, Daniel asserts himself for the first time ever in his entire life and lo, it is sexy; they fight over the cake and it hits Alexis in the silk shirt which of course hurts her feelings right where her brain used to be, everything goes to hell; the chaotic mess that Meades leave in their wake separately is increased exponentially when they are gathered in one location, the center cannot hold, stay away from the Meades, the end.
Kimmie throws fries at Betty and Hilda straight from the fryer, which is ballsy! Betty shouts, "You mean, mean person," which she and Hilda agree is Betty-bodaciously lame, and Betty manages to turn it around on her by saying that "[being a bitch] doesn't come naturally to everyone," and finally a cop comes in and tells them to fucking grow up and stop this stupid scene from proceeding any longer, as a sign of respect to this show's dwindling audience. Kimmie tells them also, obviously, Ignacio is totally fired; Betty rushes her and gets nicked again, and Kimmie just laughs. "How ya like me now, UGLY BETTY?" I... like you a lot, Bitchy Kimmie. (Frankly, more than Betty this week. Or last season, from the stupid plagiarism bullshit episode forward.)
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.
(*This is a very funny joke about cosmetics. I am a little gay myself.)
Ignacio says she's right, because the actual grownup part is what she's doing now, which is dealing with actualities and fallout instead of designing the perfect life on paper and forgetting to build it. "It's not easy, but I know you. Te conosco. Right now, these things -- these moments, this -- is growing up." Nice speech, even though he still looks like the creepy Gepetto of all time. Plus extra points for the Dora The Explorer moment with translating yourself for no reason. I always yell DRINK! when people do this, which is why I'm always watching Dora drunk.
Kimmie is putting the "form" in "uniform" (nope, still not it) when Betty comes in and apologizes, but gets into a linguistic dead end somewhere around the middle and starts drifting towards how it happened because Kimmie Keagan is a kunt. Kimmie's like, "Nice." She apologizes again, and says she accepts Kimmie's hatred of her as a fact of life, but asks that Kimmie not take it out on Ignacio. (This does not work in real life, ever.) And then things get tremendously stupid. Luckily, the dialogue is awesome.
"I don't hate you, I'm just jealous. You have a NATC, a great job, your dad's all proud. Me? Everything's been going downhill since high school. I'm working at this awful job, I have a boyfriend I kinda hate, I'm tired all the time, I looked on the internet and I'm 98% sure I've got Lyme disease." Totally ♥. Perfectly written, perfectly portrayed. "Whatever you do, don't have sex in the woods on Fire Island." Betty thanks her for that helpful advice, and Kimmie goes off about how nothing's ever going to change, and Betty supplies some of her helpful goddamn sunshine about believing in yourself which normally is my favorite part of each episode but now, given that I'm 98% sure Betty has Lyme disease herself, or Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis, rings a little false.
"Don't be afraid to fall flat on your face," she says kind of smarmily: "I do it every day." Yeah. You could also try learning from your mistakes and stop taking candy from strangers and getting in their vans all the time. Kimmie tells her to get Ignacio back at noon, and horrifyingly shows her change of heart by calling him her "best guy on the fryer." I'm sorry, but he is a grown fucking man. Why are they all treating him like Leonardo Di Caprio in Gilbert Grape? "Good Ignacio. Bueno trabajando." DRINK!
That little French bastard finally comes out of the bathroom or wherever, and spots Daniel asleep in a chair with some soup (or salad). They have a long conversation in Dora-approved Franglish where they say everything twice and it's ridiculous and now I am drunk also. Basically they love each other and Daniel is apologetic about how being his dad also means acting like his dad and occasionally you have to force-feed them déjeuner before you let them eat cake.
PLAYA. Everybody cheers at the looped footage of Betty riding into the unsavory ladies (Uno: "Taste the watermelon!") and Daniel decides to daddy-bear them too, but Betty appears and admits that, as usual, her stupid actions are hilarious. But also, she agrees with Daniel that Team Playa is a bunch of idiots: which is why they should (INT: PLAYA OFFICES. BETTY: "Put it on the Playa website and leak it online." I don't know what any of this means but I know the WGAw fucked us on this last year. -- Wells) so that they can appeal to their demographic, which is themselves: 18-39 year old idiots who respond to this kind of humor. Uno has a newfound respect for Betty, Daniel has an oldfound same, everybody cheers her instead of booing. It's all just so formulaic.
Betty comes up the five flights toting a bucket and mop and whatever people use, and hears strange sounds coming from 5G. I am still no closer to figuring out the "cellar door" type linguistic reasons that "rape whistle" is the funniest phrase in the English language, because it really shouldn't be. Anyway, she puts her rape whistle in her mouth and heads inside, and it's Team Suarez scrubbing it up and painting over that lovely green paint.
She's wearing -- because aesthetic and design are essential in living a beautiful life -- a neon skirt in Electrocuted Youth blue and neon tights of Get That Looked At Right Away pink -- and her sister (Whose boobs look fantastic right now! You go, Glen Coco!) is wearing everything Vanessa Abrams ever put on herself, in shades of Get Aubergine Yourself purple and Whatever Happened To Natasha Lyonne rose. Hilda's boobs look really good. Betty randomly tells Hilda that she's her total hero because she managed to overcome whatever it is and succeed, plus the great dude attached to Eddie Cibrian's ass. Hilda says she's not all blue skies and puppy kisses, but does not yet admit her whoredom.
On the cheapest most insultingly crappy greenscreen of I guess Times Square, Mark and Wili act bizarre about how she ended up getting the billboard after all, and a huge terrifying Wilhelmina stares down at all her minions. Mark says her triple threat scores are "Editor, Diva, and ... Threat." Which better than Bitch, which is what he was about to say. They sing Ripa's praises for playing their evil games of PR obfuscation, which is why that show was created in the first place, and Mark pronounces her "as reliable as she is fertile." I too remember when jokes about Kelly Ripa's billion children were fresh and new. I feel young again.
They randomly put on sunglasses and, just before going after Moose and Squirrel or whatever the fuck is going on, the two Wilhelminas wink at each other, and Wili knows authentic sexual desire for the first time. Then she makes a weirdo face like that Joni Mitchell analogue from Dr. Teeth & The Electric Mayhem. That scene went haywire at some point.
Betty congratulates herself on meeting her goals, crossing them off, but just as she's considering her new cloistered life of chastity, the powerful and virile sounds of Val Emmich, my Myspace friend, total hottie, and frequent guest star, come rippling through the room and across her skin. She knocks on his door, they meet cute -- which in this case means, he is totally cute and she meets him, whilst stammering and staring like she's having a brain hemorrhage right in front of him -- and we meet cute Jesse, who is a singer-songwriter who has "gigs" and is a singer-songwriter. He gives her back her actual power animal, which is the good old B necklace from before, because she lost it when she lost herself, but herself is good and the necklace "suits" her, blah blah identitycakes. She goes home and immediately starts swooning. Is Betty actually stupid? Probably. She seems to think so.
But her house looks fucking chill now. She sticks her head out into her first NATC night and dances around while Jesse sings "American Girl," which is apparently our new song for self-discovery. This dancing around thing always makes me really uncomfortable because like many things we all do, it's a private activity that other people shouldn't see unless they are paying for it on the internet.
week: Wili seduces Betty back to Mode, she randomly becomes a total bitch, Daniel gets pissed, the word protégé gets tossed around, I attempt to put the "wee" back in "weecap," and there's what looks to be an epic Mark v. Betty showdown. Awesome. Here's to week!