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I rarely think about it when I give the A+, because I basically always give the A+, because I think quantifying art is, if not impossible, at the most subjective to a sort of horrifying degree. At what point do you go from "I liked it" to "it was good"? I don't trust myself to be accurate about that; I feel like it's enough to enjoy the ride they're putting me on as much as possible and getting as much out of it as I can. That way, the burden's on them. Having said that? Best episode in the last year and a half, possibly best altogether since the first season. A fucking Plus.
Betty, having noticed her lack of backbone and boyfriends, decides to stalk Cute Jesse across the hall. He's friendly and sweet, which can be hard when you've got all that Betty coming at you, but not to the point where he's actually upset when she breaks the insane news that this show just became awesome by moving Amanda in with Betty, and going six kinds of crazy bi-curious on her. Betty tries to ask him out on a few dates, each of which morph into a more horrible Pokemon version of themselves until she accidentally commits him to play this big Mode party... Which Mariah Carey is actually singing at. Oops!
Of course, Betty spends the entire episode wrapping herself in the velvet embrace of LIES, turning every buddy-buddy exchange into some deeply symbolic meaningful love gesture, but for the first time in I don't know how long, it feels less like Betty picked up Lyme disease on her intracontinental lesbian bicycle odyssey and more like... Sometimes that's just what a girl needs to get through the day: a functionally retarded guitarist with cute hair and no real shot at intimacy. I am seriously not judging on that one, for as many reasons as there are stars in the sky. (Or, you know, as there are indie bands in Austin, home of the sexually-confused, illiterate guitarists with cute hair. Represent!)
Amanda proves once again to be good at... whatever it is that she's good at, and creates massive buzz for a party on Betty's roof. She spends the entire time needling Betty, roommate-style, about her secret crush. Betty gives Jesse an amazing pep talk, signifying all that is good and right about Betty Suarez, and gives him the power not only to dedicate her a song he wrote about her, but also do a note-perfect rendition of that hot Val Emmich tune all the kids are bopping along to these days -- not to mention total Betty Suarez theme song -- "Get On With It," from Little Daggers which dropped back in May on Bluhammock, and you know I bought that shit so don't point fingers at me bitch, because this show and like every television show turned into a love letter to Emmich way before I showed up. Anyway, when Betty finds Amanda accidentally making out with Cute Jesse and wigs the fuck out, Amanda shows her very, very softest side, charming the pants off the universe and earning herself a few more episodes at Chez Suarez.
Meantime, ♥~♥Cliff♥~♥ asks Marc to move in, causing a total meltdown. Even Amanda tries to caution him against living with a fat-ass, and he finally gives just enough of a non-answer that it's an answer. Cliff is sad for like five seconds and doesn't return any of Marc's messages, it's like this horrible bloodbath. Then Marc feels so bad that he totally goes on a short-term slut spiral with some ripped set dresser/gay porn-looking stud from Betty's building. Which is sort of hot...
Cliff comes back explaining that he should have known better than to expect anything BUT a total meltdown, so Marc guilt-reflexes right into a proposal of gay marriage. (Thank God this show's not being shot in California, right Henry?) Marc's hot feet immediately turn cold out from under him, which means more Cliff abuse to come, but mostly I have to say, of all the adorable Marc outfits this week, he gets minus one million for the string of pearls/tietack combo. The fuck is that? It's a perfectly healthy instinct to give Marc St. James a pearl necklace, but it's unnatural as shit for him to wear it in public.
Meanwhile, Daniel's crush on Connor Owen reaches insane new heights, meaning that Marc, Daniel and Betty all agree on the same thing for the first time, like, ever. Usually there's at least one tiebreaker! Connor flirts with like everybody on the planet, driving even Wili to get all man-crush about him, but once Daniel and Wili start edging into Dynasty-type bitch fights about him, he tells them both to stop being assholes, declares his allegiance to both of them and neither, and promises to do his job no matter how ridiculously they behave. He then puts a tiny little chink in the chilled vodka martini Wili's got instead of a heart, causing her to bond sweetly with Betty of all people.
Which means that Betty gets love from both Amanda and Wili, which always makes the episode, and although she doesn't have any sweet scenes with Claire this week, Daniel's heartfelt defense of Betty's beauty in the face of Jesse's betrayal is worth ten of those. It's always nice when people are ridiculously affectionate toward Betty; even better is seeing her deserve it again. Best of all? That feeling of affection toward Betty, her friends and the family she's creating around herself, and most of all: for the show that bears her name, and her unfortunate countenance. I can honestly say I'm excited for week, which I haven't been since like the trip to Mexico a hundred years ago, and that's fucking awesome.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Oh, Betty. So she's dressed like a lunatic, as usual, hopping around behind her window waiting for Cute Neighbor Jesse to come home from his actual real life that he's been having while she's been capering behind the curtains like a pensioner with a crush on the UPS guy, practicing her hellos, and finally grabs two coffees and beats it down the stairs so she can crazily fake laugh about how they're "always running into each other. LOL!" Is this a low point for Betty Suarez? The fact that you have to think for a second about that, like it's a real question with a quantifiable answer, is part of the problem with this season, but if you ignore the rest of this season, the happy answer is: Not even! It's just cute! She's been way more pathetic than this! You go, Glen Coco!
Neighbor Jesse calls her "Betty Rocker," which is so multitaskingly amazing I just now figured it out, a day later. He compares them to two ships that pass in the AM, and tells her that his night was so-so, ending with getting spit on by the cook. I would never spit on Neighbor Jesse, not even if he requested it in some kind of scenario. She forces him to take her stupid sad extra coffee and then totally blows her own spot about how she got it by accident but it's accidentally decaf because the coffee guy accidentally knows that Betty accidentally knows that Jesse sleeps in the morning because he's accidentally a slacker musician.
Jesse's like, "Oh, speaking of, thanks for reminding me that I'm the lead singer in a band, and thus have no concept of other people. I knocked on your door last night to give you this CD so you can tell me how great it is, because that's what other humans are actually for: listening to my CD, loving the shit out of it." And Betty's like, "I have played that role my entire life, future husband." Speaking of things Betty can do for Jesse, could she tell him her honest true thoughts on the CD and be brutal instead of being so nice. What Jesse is saying here, if you don't speak Hipster, is that a fun game for us to play is to pretend that we have humility and pretend that the other person has humility, but then totally love the shit out of the CD please. In a "brutal" fashion. Betty says she can only ever brutally love it to death like Lenny with a rabbit because his music is "so emotional," which actually does explain Neighbor Jesse's facial resemblance to that little bitch Chris Carrabba.
Anyway, "I Made Her Cry" is a song of Jesse's that made Betty cry, with brutal love. Is there anything else that Betty can do for Jesse? Why yes, yes there is. He wants to watch a Miles Davis documentary but doesn't have a TV, so he asks about the TV in the laundry room so she'll offer up even more of her dignity. Because luckily, Betty has a TV, and the loneliness that accompanies it, and if you give her five seconds she'll produce some kind of Hungry Man dinner or something to accompany it. Then Betty wanders off to work, the wrong way, and giggles and shivers and acts like a moron. Which would be embarrassing if Neighbor Jesse didn't immediately retreat to a pot-soaked fog of solipsistic considerations of his personal style and whatever the second she stopped yapping in his grill, dressed like a circus clown off her meds.
Betty arrives early at Mode, I guess as a natural consequence of not having anything to do between the hours of five, when hipsters come home, and eight when luxury publishing begins. Also there is Amanda, brushing her teeth while running around the Mode offices completely ass naked, with hilarious props covering her bits a la Austin Powers, which would be lame and tragic except they're clever, like a desk lamp posing as an off-center miniskirt. Betty screams, "You're naked!" and Amanda stares her down, all, "And you're wearing a hideous ensemble, so?" She admits she was evicted, due to not paying the rent a couple of times and the inordinately nasty behavior this caused, and Betty's like, "You can't live here! And you have a hundred friends!" I'm so sure, she has like half of a friend. Come on.
Betty starts digging around in her purse to give Amanda some cash, and that was the moment I was like: We're back. That's the real Betty. And I realized that the problem has been Betty wanting things, which is why her being nice to Amanda and all the bullshit it causes is okay, because she knows for a fact that being nice to Amanda will have zero dividends, and can only lead to heartache and getting thrown down stairs. But the fact that she's doing it for no reason -- or as Amanda says, that caretaking is a disease for Betty -- means she can't be acting gullible, because there's nothing for her to get out of it, ever. Which is why the hell she ends up in this time is funny and touching, rather than being like this... lightning the gods are shooting at her ugly face. Anyway, Amanda blows her off and flashes her boobs at the security cam like she's got some kind of arrangement with the security guys, except she's still standing there where she was naked five seconds ago, and only flashing right now because Betty made her put on a dress one second ago, so it doesn't make a shitload of sense, but it's still awesome because Amanda is a lunatic.
Later, Betty's spazzing out to Neighbor Jesse's CD, singing along hilariously in the funniest, most Betty-esque Muppet voice, bouncing all over, and finally Daniel touches her shoulder, causing her to scream "HI!" at him. "THIS IS MY FRIEND JESSE'S NEW SONG!" Daniel's like, "Did you not choose Me at the beginning of the season? Why are you getting all queer over this dude across the hall when it's been less than two months of Betty Suarez Land?" Which I can't even bullshit about right now, because it's fun to have a crush and get dramatic when you're 24, I get that. But mostly because Betty then changes the subject and informs Daniel that M.I.A.'s people called and she's in Brazil somewhere and they can't find her. Get it? That's like the most subtle joke ever on this show, and it's basically a pun, but I'm still quite proud of them. Anyway, they have to find a music act for their stupid fashion non-event, which is going to create a lot of trouble for Betty, which is good, and then also, M.I.A. kind of ... is at the moment, but my theory is that Santogold murdered her and put her in a suitcase like S.W.F., which you must agree would explain an awful lot.
Connor Owen walks in with donuts and Betty and Daniel both stare laserlike at him with their mouths watering, and Daniel starts writing Connor's name over and over on his Trapper Keeper and carving little hearts into his arm and Betty's like, "BTW, when Wili finds out about your sneaky bromance trick, she is going to kill us all," but Daniel's like, "I need people I can trust. And I can trust Connor to hold me tightly against his strong sinewy form and protect me from every nightmare creature that woman can magic up."
Betty, as a lifetime charter member and founder of Team Daniel, supports this. It's like this whole scene is liminal to the action, like, they're almost too distracted by Connor Owen to even say their lines, until Daniel breaks the spell by talking about how much pussy Connor got at Harvard, but like, I totally get why even Daniel can't concentrate on what's going on. It's like Rachel Maddow all over again, is how I think of this particular effect. Like, concentrating on what she's actually saying is a challenge because she's so adorable and awesome that it blinds your ears to what anybody is saying, and with Connor Owen it's his hotness that is blinding your sense of light and sound.
Which train I'm happy to ride, right up until we jump to the other side of the office, where Wilhelmina Slater is standing there hating on womenfolk for being so susceptible, which of course means she's still crushing on him like she has been, and anyway the new distracting thing is the literal string of pearls around Marc's neck, like... What in the fuck. I don't even have a thing to say about that. It's blinding my sense of humor. I don't even... Like, is that a... Are they trying... It looks sort of cute, but only in the extreme future sociology where "commenting on gender" is actually what you're doing, and not just saying really troubling things about your relationship to your own. And perhaps there are individuals in this world who have reached that place, and perhaps Marc St. James is one of them, but those individuals, until we reach them in the extreme future sociology, are crazypants.
I collect old-school etiquette handbooks, specifically from the American Twenties to the Sixties and Regency London, and I've always loved this one quote that basically comes down to how being truly fashionable is a Goldilocks matter: being too avant-garde in your personal style is just as bad as being frumpy and old-fashioned. You gotta hit it just left of center, or else you're too far ahead, and looking like a fucking freak. And just as with anything else involving other people, the question becomes: "Does it really matter if you're right, if everybody hates you?" And just like everything once you've grown up sufficiently, the answer is simply: "No." So the pearls are actually wrong. I remember the clothes on this show being funny, but never super fucked up, and you would think Betty's clothes would be getting better, not worse. Hmm.
Anyway, Marc laughs at the women gathering all around Connor, although he admits he'd like to live in Connor's pants for about a year, and Wili calls them all fools. The only point of Connor, from Wili's perspective, is that he's an ally against Daniel. She then repeats that over and over to herself until she becomes weakened and dehydrated from insisting that it's true so hard, because it's a total lie and she's crushing even harder than Daniel Meade right now: "He'll always side with me against Daniel."
Boom! Connor totally sides with Daniel for about the hundredth time, and then goes on and on about whatever it is, and Wili's like, "Daniel is having a brilliant fucking day!" Connor tries to chill her out and she finally just fucking yells at him to find money for her ideas, and Connor's had about enough. He tells them about how he has this great relationship with Condé Nast and wants to sell a few of their titles over to them to open up their cashflow, and Wili's feeling that, but Daniel throws a fit because it's interfering with his father's legacy. Um, your father's "legacy" is a murderous bipolar daughter, a clueless playboy son falling head-over-heels into forty, a hardened ex-con of a wife, affairs with two different Brides of Satan, and a kidnapped sperm-popsicle baby now being fostered in the unwelcoming pickled Scottish womb of a near-moron, down in the fitting room. By no means should we damage that by selling off a couple of magazines, Rosebud. Wili screams and yells about nothing in particular while Daniel throws his little fit, and finally Connor's like maybe Daniel has a point and says he'll think about less drastic measures, and bounces because it's obvious Wili and Daniel are about to freak out. Unable to control himself, Daniel blabs to Wili about how Connor is his very specialist very bestest friend, and she got played, and then carves into the conference room table, "CO + DM 4 EVA" and runs off to buy Connor some little token of his admiration.
Betty rummages around in the saturated fats and processed sugars that constitute her refrigerator, pulling out both chips and dip, in case he's exactly who he is, or carrot sticks "in case he's that guy," which impulse would lead me less to indulge than to be like, "And a gun, in case he's a carrot stick guy." She's talking to Hilda, who looks more fabulous each week, and she's all, "If I put out candles that's romantic, but maybe it's too romantic for a date that doesn't exist that I can motherfucking guarantee you he doesn't remember you're having, or maybe I'm just the kind of girl that has a billion candles around, like, all the time." And... you kind of are, Betty. Don't hate.
"You are crushing hard!" Hilda says. The only truly unhealthy thing about Hilda's close relationship with the rapidly expanding beanpole that is her son is the way she says things like "crushing hard" without even warning you. Betty's like, "Yeah, but he will never date me, because who would." Hilda says Henry and Gio, like that's... Even Betty calls bullshit on that one, pointing out how Jesse is fabulous and vacant, and nobody's made any kind of agreement to pretend that Jesse's ugly, like the whole show did with Henry and his sick body, or that Gio is human size for that matter, so in the universe of the show yes, he is too hot for her.
Hilda, and I finally see what her problem is, mentions the CD: "If a guy needs you to tell him how great he is, he likes you!" HILDA! NO! That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! How destructive and delusional, it's like that whole "gay is a phase" thing they tell you in middle school so you won't figure out how awesome kissing dudes is before they mess you up. It's a lie that only causes you to go insane and waste time being sucky. If a guy needs you to tell him how great he is, he is a guy. That is all you have deduced: something you already knew.
Then Justin is awesome about, "Aunt Betty, it's not that I don't love what you're wearing right now -- it's very you? -- but maybe for tonight we can go a little simpler." She throws them both out of her apartment as they continue to chatter adorably, and then throws the good Justin clothes in the bathtub so she won't have to look at them and consider her own failures as a human being tasked with dressing herself, and then magical music starts to play. Betty stares at her insane hair in the mirror for awhile, perhaps wondering how come, and screams COMING! even though it's a one-room apartment and Jesse, um, knows that, then counts to whatever number means stupid and then opens the door. But it's not Jesse, it's something way better, which is Amanda in a crazy wild blue trench dress thing holding her dog and smiling freakishly and saying the Meade Building management kicked her out, "So I guess we're staying with you!"
I hope it stays this way forever and ever, like, to the degree that the second this started I got sad about how everything on this show only lasts three episodes, no matter how much of a big deal it seems like when it's happening. That's the key to this show. But this, I love. Amanda's like, "So romantic in here. You have a boy coming over? Okay, it's a boy, right? I need to know these things if we're going to be roomies..." Amanda, this whole speech time, has been taking off her clothes and you're realize she's wearing like everything she owns, which is the only way you can even compete with Betty Suarez in terms of layers.
Betty's been shocked speechless since before the commercial break because if you're thinking it's a Jesse chocolate and you bite into it and it's Amanda instead, that's just Whitman fucking with your mind and it's going to freak you out guaranteed, but finally she pulls it together and explains that Amanda cannot stay in Betty's one-room apartment with her dying dog, because when she told her to stay with a friend, she meant that word in the usual way, not a secret atypical definition that means "punching bag," but Amanda only has one of those kind of friends, and it's Marc, whose friendship she would never want to jeopardize, plus Cliff (CLIFF) basically lives there, so...
Betty keeps trying to tell Amanda to fuck off and Amanda is not hearing her, and finally Amanda just throws down and says she only thought of it because Betty was so sweet this morning, and then for good measure hurls the chunk of Kryptonite at Betty's face: "You're Betty! You're nice!" BOOM! Betty knocks on Jesse's door to "cancel" their "date" -- which he absolutely cannot remember making, but covers well -- by explaining that a "friend of mine, or... person of mine..." is having hard times, which I love because that's exactly what Amanda is: a person of Betty's, and neither of them understand that yet.
Jesse's like, "It's fine that you're breaking the date I wasn't interested in having and don't remember planning with you, because my band lost a gig to another band called Buffalo Hump -- they SUCK! -- and so he's just sad. Betty mouths more meaningless platitudes of encouragement at him, and he's very touched because that's the only kind of conversation that appeals to him or that he can really understand, because he's Amanda only instead of "pretty" it's "talented," or like Betty only instead of "nice" it's "pretty." Amanda's insane voice rises to a scream across the hall: "We're out of diiiiiip and I'm HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONGRY."
Daniel tries to climb Connor like a tree and Connor distracts him with a list of his ideas, which Daniel throws in the air like confetti at their gay wedding because he trusts Connor so much because of how they're in love that he doesn't even have to ask because Love Means Never Having To Ask Should I Do This Thing You Told Me Not To Do Behind Your Back, and Daniel and Connor raise their pilsners and bump their little fists. They are terrorists, but now we can see that terrorists feel love too. Wili's like, "This is why I voted for McCain, that little fistbump right there. I am so glad Connor and Daniel can no longer legally wed in the state of California, or else they totally would" and then sends Marc to research other ways of getting rid of Connor or blackmailing him, because she doesn't want to be constantly overruled by the Access of Hotties that has aligned against her, and Marc goes off to dig dirt with a fist bump proffered and rejected in favor of punching him in his little face.
Betty's apartment has been redecorated in Urban Hobag, with pictures of Amanda and Halston and Marc cluttering each and every surface, including one with Marc in that insanely hot footman's outfit from last week, and in the middle is the hobag inspiration, Amanda, flouncing around madly in garters and fruity bra and panties. Amanda's so great because you always wonder, "What was happening right before we walked in?" She points at Betty's PJs, which are fruity in a different way and frumpy in a Betty way, and screams! "OMG WE TOTALLY MATCH!" She runs to Betty screaming about how they are going to have so much fun and then hugs her so hard she picks her up off the floor. Up. Off. The floor.
I always think of Betty as kind of like that little girl from Tiny Toons that wants to smother all of the animals and stuffed animals in the universe and sleep in a big bed with them, but actually if you think of Amanda that way it's like a billion times more terrifying. Short montage of Amanda pulling Halston's head out of Betty's lunch, then handing it over apologetically with Halston saliva all over it, and cut to Betty waking up with Amanda hovering over her with the cutest grey furry sleep mask, causing her to scream and then shoving her over and climbing in bed with her because she can't sleep. "Sometimes it helps if you tickle my back and tell me I'm pretty," she explains, and then presents her back to Betty for tickling. Man, Betty, if you don't think this the best thing that's ever happened to you, I feel like I don't even know you anymore. I realize Amanda's a bitch and dangerously insane, but she has the makings of a good citizen. I can sense it.
"You tickled her back? Weird," says Christina, or something. I don't really understand her when she talks. I don't speak Useless. Although she does get an awesome joke in about how she can identify with doing things you don't really want to do so you can get some sleep already, so I'm giving Christina a pass for this week. The whole conversation takes place in circles around this model Christina's pinning, which is somehow really funny too. Christina changes the subject to urge Betty to make an asshole of herself w/r/t taking her crush to the level, so Amanda appears out of nowhere shouting about how she knew Betty had a crush going on, and she knows it's somebody in the building because Betty's "always darting in and out all sweaty and mysterious," and Betty tells her to back off. One of the coolest things about this episode is how Amanda spends the entire time trying to figure out Betty's crush but Betty's so into telling her to fuck off that she creates a horrible perfect storm disaster.
Betty notices that Amanda's adorable one-piece sheath dress is actually made from her leggings, and Amanda's like, "I know, cute, right? And the other leg makes a matching scarf!" Christina approves, getting a big eye from Betty, and Betty runs away. Amanda follows them, all about "I know who your lover is!" Her guess is "that troll in 3G" who walks his guinea pig on a leash: "When are you two crazy kids going out?" Betty still hasn't noticed that Amanda has now chosen her, so she blows it off again and says the guy doesn't even for sure like her, and Amanda's like, "Invite him to the Mode party!" Christina agrees, because if Betty's luck holds and she's just living in crazytown, it won't be awkward or cause him to break her heart because it won't even really be a date, and Amanda points out that it will also give him the option, should he turn out a serial killer, to find someone else to cut into pieces. "YA WELCOME!" she says, and bounces. Betty and Christina agree that this is the perfect low-risk way to take things to the level.
Marc's looking delectable in a v-striped sweater with intensely big Jimmy Dean hair when Cliff jumps up from behind his computer screen. "Hey, Big Tiny!" Marc exclaims, which Cliff thinks is not as cute as Marc does, and Marc gives a speech about how after work they have to go to Prune because he's dying for a parsley and dandelion salad and if he doesn't get one, swear to Barbra, he will throw a fit with the fury of a thousand queens. Do people talk like this? Cliff is like, "Move in with me." Marc is thrown, because Marc has no idea what acting like a fruitcake does to those burly top photogs, and starts to wig out. Cliff shoots some serious puppydogs about how they're together all the time right so it just makes sense right right huh right? And Marc basically throws the table against the wall in the intensity of his flight. Marc, comes on. Cliff just watches the debris settle in the wake of Marc's instant egress like, "Girl, you are a mess."
Betty gets stalky again and ambushes Jesse, but then fucks it up with babbling about how the Mode party is for global warning, not for-for it because it's evil but for like awareness, and she has to find the band and blah blah and it's like a Far Side cartoon about What Dogs Hear because all Jesse heard in the babbling was the word "band," so his hands go insane in the air as he thanks her for inviting him to play this huge fashion party and not out on a date at all, which saved him from some dire fate he will now write into a song and then he runs off to squeal to his real friends, and says she's like a Snow Day, which is Christmas for slackers, and then Betty stares into space and wonders where she fucked this one up exactly.
Betty informs Daniel proudly that she has found a way to fuck up their party but good -- Oh! Fashion Heats Up is the party, it's about Global Warning, I just figured that out, and I also just realized I've started typing "global warning" without even meaning to, which just proves how powerful Amanda really is -- and Daniel says they've got Mariah, because Connor knows her, because Connor is the coolest guy in the entire universe and when he kisses you it's like eating a cake baked by a rainbow, and Betty's like, "Let's put a pin in Mariah." Which sounds dangerous, considering where you put it, so I think this is one of those party games where you don't cover the eyes. She says Jesse's band -- Dark Sexual Journey, okay -- is "way fresher" than Mariah anyway. In the heightened universe of Ugly Betty I have to wonder what constitutes a dark sexual journey anyway, because it's either the tamest thing you've ever heard or else it's one of those things where you can't unsee it and it drastically alters the course of your life by how fucked up it is.
Betty swears that Jesse's band is this close to breaking, and Daniel punches some random buttons on his phone, awesomely, and pretends to call Mariah. "Hey, it's Daniel Meade! Hi! Turns out we don't need you, yeah... We got Jesse's band! From my assistant's building! Yeah, he is so cute. He's just the dreamiest." I love Daniel Meade. Betty runs away with a scowl instead of being like, "You wanna talk about a motherfucking man crush? Because God forbid we make gigantic decisions about this company's future based on how adorable somebody is."
Amanda and Marc take a turn around the place with her head on his shoulder as he's wigging out about how he can't live with Cliff, it's such a huge step, sometimes he totally is in love with Cliff and other times he can't even believe that they're together. Cliff is so the new Henry, like we all have to pretend that he's not Grade A hottie so that he represents growth on Marc's part, and Amanda's like, "You are not horrible for freaking out about commitment, you're just scared, and also living with a fatass is really difficult." Heh. Marc's like, "Word!" She talks about how her live-in boyfriend Betty is always hogging the bed and making messes and borrowing clothes, and then Marc points out her adorably hypocritical outfit. Amanda preens. "It's Betty's blouse, I totally belted it." I love how Amanda never uses "totally" right, but more than that I love how Amanda can even turn the raw material of the hellish clothes in Betty's closet into cute stuff, but Betty still seems to think that looking repulsive constitutes a moral victory. Wili appears looking scary, and she and Marc stare Amanda out of the room before discussing how stupid women are for crushing on Connor while both admitting they also are crushing on Connor just like everybody, and Marc says he'll set up a meeting.
Over street vendor shawarmas, Christina omits the part where the Dark Sexual Journey debacle is her fault, and tells Betty she has no choice but to tell the truth: "My dumb friend encouraged my futile crush, and then my roommate sidestepped about ten miles of my rudeness to create a perfect situation for us to spend time together, which I then fucked up by dorking out." She's pretty cute about it, though: "You should have seen his little face!" Yeah, I'm feeling that actually. When you're as incredibly sweet as Betty Suarez and myself, I'll be honest, that face of gratitude is like the finest grade of black tar heroin. I robbed my parents once, just so I could sweep in all Ty Pennington-style and refit their home in updated British Colonial, and don't you judge me. I fucking needed a hit.
Amanda appears, again out of nowhere, desperately trying to be a part of Betty's life no matter how classless Betty is determined to be: "Bring it! Who's gonna hate you?" Betty's like, "Fuck off. Why are you ... always around?" Amanda grins. "Betty, we're roomies now! This is what we do! I'm supposed to be all up in your biz. So why the brown face?" Betty looks for a second like she's thinking of making Amanda shawarma, because what? Christina busts out with the entire story, while Betty wigs at her, and Amanda's like, "So it's a musician!" Instead of fessing up, Betty goes, "Are you wearing my blouse?" Amanda tells her not to change the subject and says she should invite him to play at the afterparty. Once again, solving all the problems. Betty's like, "There isn't one?" And Amanda explains she's talking about the one she just invented, on the roof of their apartment building, which will also produce cash for her credit card bills, and then plinks Betty on the nose and disappears again, and Christina and Betty are like, "Actually, that's great. Maybe we should stop being assholes to Amanda and actually let her help."
Claire is totally stressing out because she is having delirium tremens and thus cannot pull it together to drink water out of a glass, so she bitches at Daniel for replacing their Fiji carbon footprint with glasses they have to fill themselves: "Why not put a hamster bottle in the corner and we can take turns sipping on it?" It's her delivery that saves it, because bottled water is just about as trashy at this point in history as prostitution or dealing cocaine, and she should know that, so this is a weird complaint in order to get us to the plotpoint, which is that Connor is cutting costs. Claire says she recognizes the sorta gay gleam in his eye, and that he's always had a pattern of handing over all personal power to any boy in the room that he admires, just like when Alexis was Alex, and Daniel is like, "No, this is different because our love is real and whenever he looks at me I feel like I can believe in the stars again." She backs off a bit, but points out that her Wilhelmina stalking has provided the info that they're having secret meetings together, and maybe he should politely asks for his nuts back from Connor just long enough to figure out WTF that's about, and he screams "OUR LOVE IS REAL!" and stomps off, but he knows she's right, and mancrushes will always be his downfall.
Betty's flyer for the rooftop party does look, as Amanda describes it, like something promoting a rodeo at a women's prison. It's got a rainbow flag background, with Betty's gigantic awesome face staring freakishly out at you and a cartoon bubble coming out the mouth with relevant details. Cut to Amanda's flyer, which is black with white lettering:
the roof
friday
get on the list.
Betty doesn't get it, like, they won't even know where or when it is, and Amanda patiently explains that if they want to get in bad enough, they will figure it out. If you make it hard to get on the list, the whole party is full of people who are desperate to be there, which means they will all act crazy and think they're having fun even when they're not. "Trust me... roomie," she says. She's got that funny voice she does sometimes that's like ten times more crazy than her regular voice, where she's like whisper-growling about inappropriate things, and I love it, and it gets a workout in this episode because everything she says to Betty ends with that. Like this intense, kind of sexual threat.
"Paris Is Burning" by Ladyhawke plays during the expected montage of people IMing and texting and phoning and whatever, all, "what is the roof?" and "who has the list?" and "what's the 411 on the roof?" but my two favorite conversations are, #1: "ru on the list?" and "bitch im always on the list" and #2: "can I b ur +1" with some totally nerdy guy going, "2 late!" Amanda sneaks up on Betty an hour later and shows her the guestlist, which is up to 300 already. Betty starts to realize that Amanda is awesome, but then immediately clamps down on that feeling, because once you stop feeling sorry for yourself you realize that Janis Ian is no better than Regina George, and the best thing we can do for ourselves in life is to be a cunt to nobody at all in this world, instead of feeling like any amount of mistreatment lets you off the hook for being a jerk yourself, and she's not there yet. This seems to be a theme with this show, and also Stylista, where it's like the point of the show: being a victim doesn't make your behavior anybody else's responsibility, so grow up and show some character.
Wili's got a headache trying to have her meeting with Connor, because life is so hard when you have to drink water out of a glass and there's no money for whatever photo shoot thing she wants to do, plus getting ready for the big party, and Connor works some of that Connor magic on her, massaging her headache away and suggesting they share some scotch. He says a girl like her's gotta have a '61 around somewhere, and she points at the cabinet: "'48." He says older is always better, and she distractedly says, "I wouldn't know, I've been the same age for years." He hands her the drink and tells her she's the reason he's there, because he wants to learn from her or something, and when their hands touch around the glass, "Let's Get It On" starts playing and Wili hallucinates that they are making out hardcore. She snaps out of it, ducks even touching the scotch, and tells him she just remembered her dinner plans. Good girl! No crushing on company time! Don't lose your focus! That's how Daniel got took! She runs away, telling him Marc will reschedule, and Connor's confused.
Ignacio bitches at Betty about the size of the rooftop party, for which he's cooking, and Betty's like, "I know, I'm freaking out." He bitches about how she's going to so much trouble for a boy, and Hilda's like, "She likes him! I have done way worse things for affection!" Betty remembers for a second that she is not in a place where a boy is going to do her a lick of good, and Hilda starts naming off the things she's got going for her, like the apartment and her youth and the job. Justin offers that she's even wearing heels sometimes, thank God, and Betty switches whining to how she can't afford the party.
Justin says it doesn't have to be expensive, because he read in Vanity Fair one time about how cheap is the new chic. Which... "I heard about this trend one time" is not the most effective way to make your point, because that issue of VF could have come out during any of the three depressions the Bush family has handed us over the years, but not this one yet. Ignacio is like, "I'll make mole!" and Hilda fabulously says they should do sangria: "Cheap wine, old fruit, box of sugar? People get drunk, they don't care." She shoots a belated "drinking's bad" memo Justin's way, and he blows her off, yelling that they should have a South Of The Border theme. "Tacky Mexican stuff is so kitschy!" he says, and they all stare at him, because nobody knows if that's offensive to say, and he's like, "I can say that because it's my heritage." I guess so. Mostly it just sounds totally stupid and if I was confronted at a rooftop party by a South Of The Border theme, I would jump. Betty calls them a Snow Day, and says it's a good thing, because Jesse's dumbness is already infecting her.
Marc asks if Connor cried when Wili confronted him with the big folder of secrets Marc put together, and if Connor possibly is in need of a comforting hug, which is code language. Wili tells him to fuck off, stop asking questions, and do what she says. Marc is shocked. Connor comes in and she's all flirty about how her "door" is "always open" because she cannot help herself, and Connor asks how dinner was, confusing Marc. She's like, "Fun! Delightful! Thanks for asking!" Connor leaves to go sell everybody's ass down the river, and Marc's like, "You don't even eat dinner. You are a lying crush-haver! You haven't saluted anybody since Cheney! You have fallen to Connor like everyone else here!" Wili says she is not like those other women, ruled by emotion, and Marc delicately tries to explain that sometimes it's okay to "feel ... something" and she informs him that this is incorrect (this whole scene Marc is wearing a tie that says lovelovelovelovelove, wonderfully) and that ambition always wins over feelings, which is how she became Wilhelmina Slater, which is why she's awesome.
Marc tiptoes around to avoid Cliff, but it doesn't work, and Cliff is like, "Dude, three days we haven't talked, after a very important question?" Marc babbles about how with the nonstop blackmailing, backstabbing, and Pinkberry runs, he hasn't had time to take the curlers out of his hair. And I was wrong before, because Marc knows exactly what he's doing when he queens out like this, and the reason that I know that is that the thing he does is literally turn his back on Cliff and ask if he's still got curlers back there, which is sort of bizarrely non sequitur, but also, come on, pretty genius at the same time. Cliff is not distracted, though, and flips Marc back around to ask what the effing problem is with even discussing the idea. Marc spazzes out about how moving in is like getting a kid, do you go Russian or Chinese or "stay local" and get something South American and what if it clashes with the furniture... Cliff tells him to forget it because that's his answer, and walks off. NO! Because that's not even the actual answer, because the actual answer is one more layer of BS behind that, which is that he's thought about it, hard and independently of discussing it with Cliff, and doesn't know how to have the conversation they're actually supposed to be having. Which is both better and worse than where Cliff left it, I guess, but makes Marc's position here a little more sympathetic.
Betty helps Daniel dress for the parties, and he's fretting about how Connor hasn't called him back because what if he's with some other playboy publishing scion and whoever that bitch is, Daniel's going to claw his eyes out, and plus he's technically Connor's boss so he deserves to know where he's been all day, and then his eyes fairly cross as he notes Betty's cute, inappropriate and crazy outfit, and reminds himself to calm down and not listen to his shitstirring mother who forced him to hire Connor in the first place, and focuses on Betty for a second. She thanks him for the donation to the South Of The Border party -- and once again we see Daniel indulging even Betty's most tragic concepts with all the love of a brother -- and he's like, "Well, it is the Mode afterparty, and besides, I heard the singer is to die for..." And again, Betty just makes that face and giggles instead of being like, "Yo, Kettle? Cram that shit because I'm nervous as it is."
The party, it is insanely kitschy. Everything is Christmas-lighty and piñata-tastic and there's like snowflake-cut menus hanging and Ignacio's worthless ass is wearing a big stupid sombrero, and like I don't even know. It's the Suarezes doing it, and I guess it's up to them, and maybe the semiotics of this are completely different because I live in Texas and that's a very different place from New York, but this just seems stupid and a little demeaning to me, even in the narrative context. Amanda's forcing people to hand over "crisp George Washingtons" at the door, in her scariest voice, and wearing a silvery kind of madness, and everybody's dancing including this one very intense young gay gentleman extra who somehow got on the list, and Hilda -- gorgeous as usual, and again rocking off-the-shoulder purple -- is harassing the sangria-drinkers like, "Mama owes the government!" and some hipster dude tries to borrow Ignacio's sombrero, probably just because anybody wearing a sombrero is automatically less troubling to look at than Ignacio Suarez wearing a sombrero, because WTF. Betty geeks out on Hilda about how an understudy from Spamalot used her bathroom, and Hilda tells her Jesse is downstairs looking so cute, so sad, so tortured. Barf.
Daniel admires his feet in those cute Manolos he bought to take his mind off Connor Owen, and he's like, "Sometimes people try and try to get you on the telephone, and they say the number doesn't answer. I'm not just saying that to help myself; that really happens. You know that really happens, God. Oh, God, keep me away from that telephone. Kcep me away. Let me still have just a little bit of pride. I think I'm going to need it, God. I think it will be all I'll have. Oh, what does pride matter, when I can't stand it if I don't talk to him? Pride like that is such a silly, shabby little thing. The real pride, the big pride, is in having no pride. I'm not saying that just because I want to call him. I am not. That's true, I know that's true. I will be big. I will be beyond little prides." And then he gets a message from Connor, and the sun comes out again. Claire's just pissed that she had to listen to Scarlett Johanssen babble about climate change and Connor didn't, but before Daniel can get the info from his voicemail, Fashion Buzz tells them that Meade's selling off some titles per the orders of their new CFO, who met with Condé Nast for hours earlier. Daniel wigs out and as usual Claire's like, "Sorry everything you touch turns to shit, but only a little because I love your sister more."
Betty runs downstairs to comfort Jesse and her feet don't touch a step until she's standing there shaking like a Chihuahua in front of him and trying to hug him to death with her mind. He's like, "Oh, I forgot I'm a total poseur! My bad." She explains that he's awesome, and this is just stage fright, and that he's not a faker, he's totally awesome even if he can't feel it right this second, she can see it in there, and it's the bad thoughts that are fake, so he needs to get it together because once he's onstage he will remember that he is awesome, and everybody else will see what she sees. Which is a good speech, but even better because it works the principle of musicians to the utmost, which is that as long as you told them somebody would clap for them, they would climb over any amount of broken glass and stage fright, because all art is ego. Jesse is like totally sweet and grateful, and they breathe -- Betty gives a little "woo!" -- and he tells her she's so beautiful, and takes off upstairs.
And because she wasn't around for the beautiful nachos he had for breakfast -- or the beautiful episode of Tyra he watched when he woke up, or the beautiful vegetarian samosas some other beautiful girl just like Betty brought him earlier that beautiful evening, or the beautiful Japanese kicks he customized and bought online an hour ago, or the beautiful and courageous mullet of the girl at the copy shop yesterday when he was printing out the beautiful liner notes of his self-produced album -- this causes her to go completely retarded.
Jesse does a fairly decent job of performing Val Emmich's "Get On With It," a fabulous song and the lyrics of which Betty's apparently immune, and Betty's like, "So amazing! Especially now that we are in love!" Justin doesn't even have time to deal with Betty's crap, though, because he just spotted Ivanka Trump putting a burger in her purse, so he needs to notify Gossip Girl stat, and Betty's left with nobody to spooge all over about Jesse, Jesse, Jesse.
Marc's standing around panicked with his phone, and Amanda creeps up to guess that Betty's crush -- still fixating on it, note, because she's digging Betty right now which is all we have -- is the horrible old man in the sombrero. Marc's like, "A) That's her dad, and B) Me talk now." He complains about how Cliff won't call him back because somewhere in that mountain of flesh there's a broken heart that thinks Marc doesn't want to move in, but it's like, things are so good and he's so in love with Cliff right this second. Everybody's lives and hair products are in their rightful places, and everybody looks good, so this is like an attack on things, like a War on Happiness, and Amanda plays devil's advocate for a second before she spots cake and runs away without offering a word of advice. Marc drinks his beer sadly, really kind of broken up about it, and then spots this set dresser who sounds Australian and has intense pectorals that Michael Urie thinks is hot in real life even though he's pretty clonelike, and they start flirting. And as we learned from the Lesser Queer As Folk, whenever two men look into each other's eyes for more than half of one second, sodomy is the automatic result. CLIFF! GET YOUR HOT ASS UP HERE!
Jesse dedicates a song ("Snowy Day") to a girl who is "just really special." Jesse kind of makes me want to vomit tonight, even though he's still rocking that awesome camouflage guitar strap. Betty's all, "Hope it's me!" The lyrics are pretty standard, leading up to how this girl the Snow Day in Question made him feel like he was just working too hard at being a slacker musician and helped him remember the important things in life, such as beautiful nachos. Betty basically shits herself, of course. Hilda screams and squeals and helps Betty build preposterous castles in the clouds for awhile, and Betty -- oh, girl -- tells her about how he called her beautiful, and I mean, that's really when it turns into Saving Private Ryan, because we have a man down. Man down, do you copy? Somebody needs to ... not burst her balloon, but maybe slip her a mickey? Anyway, Hilda is no longer in the balloon-bursting business, so she holds Betty's hands and they breathe together for a second, awesomely, before Betty launches herself at shame once again.
Justin says what's up to Wili, but she is not feeling him, and then finds out that she's accidentally partying on Betty's roof, which makes her feel ill. She spots Connor just as Daniel, on the other side again like at the beginning of the episode, sees him too, and they converge on him like squabbling children for a good long while until he explains that they are assholes who can go ahead and fuck off, because he's not going to pick sides. He sold the magazines because Daniel took the muzzle off, he got together with Wili because he wants to work with them, and any kind of blackmail bullshit she's got up her sleeves means nothing to him, because after he nearly went down the Martha Stewart hole he decided to become the kind of man that he -- and apparently everybody else -- could love, so excuse him, but he's nobody's bitch, and he plans on doing the job he was hired to do, not fuck around with sperm-stealing weirdos and bromance douche-chills. After he's gone, Wili and Daniel have orgasms of such intensity that they have to hold each other up so they don't get Betty's roof on their clothes.
Betty goes to Jesse's apartment to embarrass herself, but he's not there; there's girlish giggling -- plus Amanda giggling too -- coming from Betty's apartment, and you'll never guess who's macking in there. Betty runs off and Amanda follows her, yelling about how it was obviously bound to happen because she's a ho, so time she'll hang an oh-so-discreet bra on the doorknob, and Betty screams loud like a monster, "You are the worst roommate! You are selfish and insensitive! I want you out! Be gone by tomorrow!" Which is... what inevitably happens when ugly girls get hot roommates, and frankly at 24 you should know that. But what makes it amazing is Amanda's face, which bears the saddest face a face has ever sadded. OMG, Amanda, that is rough! You can't be my roommate either, because you are a hot mess, but I do feel terrible for you right now.
Wili approaches Connor, awkwardly apologizing: "I always backmail people when I'm nervous," she explains, and he smiles all hot. She says it's counterintuitive to meet actual nice people with integrity in business, so she didn't know what to do, which is fairly awesome. She asks if they can start with a clean slate, and he's like, "Great. As long as I don't have to bump knuckles with Daniel anymore, because that is weird." She smiles and flirts about how they still have to try the scotch, and he says it's a date, and she's so happy! That something horrible must happen! His phone rings and he's like, "Dang, it's my fiancée and I have to go talk to her, later buddy," and her nod is very eloquent after he's gone, because this is exactly what she was saying would happen, and she fell for the universe's trick anyway. Everybody is getting eponymously crush'd! Cliff! And Amanda! And Wilhelmina and Daniel! And of course Betty! But if they all get crush'd then who will be left to be awesome?
Marc, apparently, who tells the random anonymous sex guy that his name is Hunter Farthington, which is exactly what you should do when you've just got boned by somebody who would live in the same building as Betty Suarez and Neighbor Jesse, because even if you don't know what the problem is yet, assume there's a problem. Real estate is the new zodiac. Marc adjusts his clothes and feels horrible for a second, and then Cliff comes running up all adorable, because he "wasn't avoiding" Marc, he "just happened to get all twenty messages" just now.
And let me tell you that this also is a lie, because really it involved a lot of staring at the phone as the messages piled up and drinking a beer and leaving the phone around the house so it's not staring at you all the time and eventually going out the house altogether for awhile, and then coming home having forgotten about just the necessary amount of angry that is keeping you from listening to the messages, so you listen to just one, just in case it's not about that or it's an emergency or something, and then there's smiling and one more message, and then twenty messages later you have completely forgotten to be mad, and then comes the running, and the sweating, and the jumping around the entire building looking for Marc, and here he is.
"Sweetie, I'm sorry. I should have known asking you to move in would cause a meltdown. You're a neurotic mess! And I love that about you..." The sex guy from a second ago comes out of his apartment to go be a part of the horrible Betty party, and Marc feels yucky, and Cliff's like, "All that matters is that we love each other," and the guy is all flirty and refractory at Marc, who panics and proposes marriage to Cliff, who's just standing there sighing (or wheezing!) and Cliff's like, "What?" And Marc jumps in his arms and says he wants to be with Cliff forever, and Cliff is the happiest boy in the world, and on the other end of the hug it looks like Marc just saw the scariest thing.
Daniel comes out of the building and sees what's left of Betty sitting on the curb like garbage feeling stupid again, but that's so natural for her he doesn't even notice it, and is all about crying about how he made a fool of himself with Connor and fucked it up bigtime, and then I must admit Betty got me a little bit in this scene. "Pretty sure I'm a bigger fool," she says, and then with the saddest, most embarrassed face: "I threw him a party," like she just can't stop thinking of all the ways this was mortifying.
Daniel asks if she's crying, and she really is. "I was so stupid to think that he would like me. Of course he picked Amanda!" She explains about the kissing, and how she should've known better than to assume that he meant beautiful on the outside, where she isn't. Daniel tells her she is beautiful, and then she gets even sadder and says that she's fine with who she is, but that beautiful is not one of the things. She is totally breaking down, you guys! That's so rough! Daniel explains that men are stupid and "go for the obvious," and like even Daniel does it, when he should know better, which: it's adorable that he thinks he knows better. He then reminds her that when you're 24 you are allowed to be totally stupid and have crushes left and right and cause all the drama you've got energy for, and also that she is so beautiful, and then he holds onto her so tight and feels so bad about how other guys are just like him, and well, this episode is perfect. And not even over.
Betty's cleaning up inside the apartment and Amanda comes out in her sparkly outfit with a bag, really sad, and you can tell she's been crying, and Betty won't look at her, and she gives her all the money she made at the party, toward paying Betty's rent, and Betty keeps ignoring her, and Amanda walks around behind her and is amazing. "Hey, so remember that guy I was kissing earlier? I don't think you know him... Anyway, I'm so over him! I was talking to him, and it turns out he's kind of stupid. Yes, he's the kind of guy a girl would totally fall for, but..." She stares at Betty: "He is so not worth it." Betty's shoulders relax, and Amanda's so serious: "Betty, I had no idea." Betty tells her she's not the worst roommate ever, which Amanda is intensely grateful to hear, and offers her more time. Amanda is so happy! She's glowing! This show remembered to be awesome!
"Betty, you're lucky. When somebody falls in love with you, it's real. I never had that. I never know if I'm loved for who I am, or because ... I'm so pretty." Ha! Now it's just like showing off, zooming into the cliché and then pulling out again like a barnstormer. Betty's like, "Fucking seriously, you nutsack. Clean up in here." They stare at each other for about a million years and then Betty heads upstairs to clean the roof, and Amanda watches her go with this like intense look of love. I've always liked how Marc and Amanda would never under any circumstances admit to how much they totally adore Betty, or how the little détentes always fall apart immediately, but I don't guess there's really a reason it has to stay that way, any more than Betty really has a reason to be hideous at this point.
One more, just for fun: Betty's cleaning on the rooftop and spots a dark frightening figure looking out over the city: it's Wilhelmina Slater, watching the sunrise. Betty stands very still for a moment and then tries to get away. "Betty. Have a seat." She points at the picnic table to her, and Betty nervously sits down, and "Look" by Sebastien Tellier starts all amazingly, and Wili hands her a beer without looking at her, and Betty takes a drink and hands it back, and they look out at the city together. What a fucking perfect episode.
Look back at Betty's soapiest moments.