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Connor has ushered the heads of the company and the various magazines off to a woodland corporate retreat, but the scenes there are refreshingly free of the usual ropes-course/trust-fall clichés. They are not free of crazy, however: Claire Meade spends the second day of the retreat dressed as Tim Burton's brain, and nobody even notices. Wili and Daniel have left the final look at this month's issue to Betty, and just after she's approved it -- and its "fashion tornado" cover shoot -- a real actual (non-fashion) tornado rips through Kansas, killing like a billion people. PR nightmare, Peter Parker!
So Betty and Marc set out in search of Daniel and Wili to recall the issue before it goes out -- and Amanda comes along, because what is the point of this show otherwise -- in Cliff's car. Stressing about his upcoming gay marriage issue, he crashes into a tree on the way to the retreat lodge. One thing you might not know is that between the island and upstate, there's a place called Arkansas where the people all wear bib overalls and chew on hay while drunk-driving, it's a whole mess. Anyway, Betty finally hires a skywriter and gets Daniel to call her, but he and Wili make a last-minute publicity-stunt decision and send the issue out anyhow.
Betty ends up on Fashion Buzz once again, this time as the classless harebrained assistant who luxuriates in the pain of dead trailer trash, the titular "Tornado Girl," and for five seconds she's as T-shirt famous as when Winona had (as Justin puts it) her "troubles." There is a heartrending scene in which Betty fully breaks down in Daniel's office and seriously explains to him just how horrible he's treated her this time. He responds by apologizing at a press conference, taking all the blame onto himself, and selling the issue as a limited-time offer, all proceeds going to help the victims. Awesome.
Hilda continues to be really confused about basic municipal shit, and can't understand why they turned down her beauty shop permit. She and Betty go visit Karate Cutie Archie Rodriguez, for reasons that aren't really very comprehensible, and basically consist of screaming at him in the middle of his office for awhile and then wandering away like freaks, even though A) none of this has anything to do with him and B) he's not in charge of beauty shop permits and most importantly of all, he can't even pronounce the word "permit." He keeps saying perMIT, like, just to drive you fucking nuts, and nobody else does, which is tight of them. Anyway, because Hilda is gorgeous and needs to go out with Archie, they just ignore the entire lame plot that got them there and he shows up schlepping this box of, like, candles and saying that Hilda's Beauticles or whatever it is can get a permit by becoming a boutique. Meanwhile, Justin is turning into something amazing you've never seen before, like this... cross between Rihanna and David Sedaris's Mom.
You know what's stupid? They're remaking Karate Kid. Even though it's just like common knowledge that the franchise hit its apex in 1994 with The Karate Kid, specifically the part where Michael Cavalieri goes, "You said you had all the answers, Colonel. You were wrong." Or when they invent the pink belt so Hilary Swank will look more like a girl and less like a big old giant man.
But now what about the actual main characters, you ask. Amanda's main plotline is dressing Betty at the beginning of the episode basically, but it carries a lot of weight because Betty looks fucking awesome the entire time. Still busy and kind of insane, but not a hot mess like normal. It's like she has a personal style or something. I applaud this. Either that, or Claire Meade's crazy outfit sucked all the crazy out of everybody's outfits, except for this weird Mondrian necklace Marc is sporting.
Other things Marc's sporting include his cutest hair ever, Betty's admiration for telling her about the Daniel betrayal in an adorable noir fashion, and the total shame of having cheated on Cliff. Oh, and Amanda finds a Tiffany's receipt for their rings, which causes him to go on a serious downward spiral. Proving that you should never trust a Suarez, he takes Betty's advice and comes clean about all of it, breaking my poor Cliff's heart to a possibly unfixable degree. And you know, normally I would be stomping mad about this development, but: cutest hair ever. Now if you'll excuse me, I believe I've something in my eye.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Betty and Amanda walk to work, Betty excitedly chattering about the new Mode issue, themed "Eye Of The Fashion Storm." Amanda, noting Betty as having the look of someone with a handle on science, asks why tornados always hit "shantytowns"; she offers the possibility that God just hates poor people. Betty's not feeling that, and changes the subject back to the eye of the fashion storm, particularly the one she's in the center of: a cute T-shirt with a pink skull, high-waisted herringbone pattern skirt, a cool Chanelesque midlength jacket, a funny '30s hat, and white gloves. She looks awesome, and not in the "awesomely fucked-up" way of late, but actually like the cute girl she could be. Amanda calls her a "plus-size princess" and says dressing Betty up in the clothes from Amanda's "hefty years" is like playing dressup with a big squishy doll. She fawns all over Betty and begs to do it every day. Say yes! Amanda looks about sixteen feet tall in a big faux-fur coat and ruffly headmistress dress with puffed sleeves. Marilla Cuthbert wouldn't be impressed, of course, but Blair Waldorf would approve.
Betty, as usual, reacts negatively to the idea of dressing like an actual person and not the nightmares of clowns, and changes the subject to the big Meade retreat at Talmadge Hall. She paints a word-Bosch about some horrific doings in the woods such as "sharing ideas" and telling "anecdotes," and Amanda correctly identifies this as being fantastic in an amount equal to having a scorching herpes outbreak. Betty's phone rings and she hands Amanda her bagel, which promptly goes in the trash ("It's for ya own good!" Amanda shouts hilariously), and answers her phone. Whatever it is, it's bad news, but it also makes her smile so big you can smell the lox in her braces.
Betty runs into Daniel's office and says that the issue's final approval has to be pushed back, because there's been a problem at the printer's. Daniel is crestfallen like a boy in love, because that means he won't get to ride in Connor's awesome car and have awesome Connor adventures and be in the "fun car." You know what the "fun car" is? Whatever Claire's doing. That broad is always ten times weirder when she's bored. Betty offers to do it, in a rehearsed way, and Daniel kind of blows her off because it's a huge deal, but she assures him that, having watched him do it a billion times, she's in control. He admits she is sort of terrifyingly OCD -- she prefers "helpful," which is one word for what she is -- and he tells her to go for it, which of course engenders a total whooping freakout.
Wilhelmina's wearing a huge white fur and red dress, and spots Connor when the elevator doors open. She tries to close the doors on him, but she's too late, and they ride together with a wolf prowling the background on the video screen. He asks about the retreat and she tells him, again correctly, that this is an exercise for people too dumb to get out of it, and he orders her to come. When she reminds him that he's her employee, he drops to one improbable knee and kisses her hand, telling her that her brand of leadership is exactly what they need. Wili feels the pangs of emotion or whatever, and it causes her to walk kind of crooked.
Marc's looking adorable in a cute sweater vest, sweet Peter Pan collar, bizarre complicated necklace like something from a forgotten metalworking civilization, and straightened emo hair that makes him look older and younger at once. Amanda descends on him like a crazy Valkyrie ("So, Bridezilla...") and starts nattering about the big gay guilt wedding. He changes the subject to her hair, producing a tiny curling iron and telling her she's frizzy. She looks totally amazing with bright red lips and hair piled up to compliment the naughty librarian thing she's working, but she sits obediently. She realizes he's changing the subject, and catches us up on how he's all gay and stuff, and he changes the subject again to what games they'll play while the bosses are gone. His first choice? Making the temps kiss each other. God I love Marc and Amanda. Why didn't we ever think of that?
Amanda asks if Marc's punishing her for her stance on gay marriage, which she corrects saying she only disapproves in the case of unattractive gays, and besides, unattractive Cliff is growing on her. This makes Marc's stomach hurt, of course, due to his slut spiral and panic proposal last week, but luckily he's saved by a summons from Wili. Breezing into her office, he's shocked into a scream by the large gun pointed at his head, and hides behind a sheer curtain. She doesn't drop her weapon, awesomely, and keeps it pointed at Marc's pretty little head while she complains about the enraging Connor: "He's so self-confident! He won't listen! And he's not afraid of me!" Marc automatically says he's afraid of her, and she snorts that she doesn't need a gun for Marc. "Five little words and I could make you pee your pants." I want to know those words! She is magic!
Marc asks if Connor's still getting under her skin, and she whines and stretches out on a chaise, with Marc on the rug beside her like a setter, and starts talking about how Connor has that unknown fiancée: no doubt twentysomething, fabulous, European and thin. Marc immediately says Wili's all of those things, even though that doesn't make sense, and offers to get her a room on the opposite side of the lodge. "Thank God it's hunting season," Wili muses: "If I can't be with the man I want, at least I can kill something." Dude, that is exactly what my last week has been like, you have no idea.
Betty spends about a thousand years checking every page of a copy from the press, whiffling the pages past her face and smelling it and pissing the teamsters off. She starts in about how the binding adhesive has a smell and might overpower the perfume samples, and the main guy Phil is like, "Oh shit! Well, I'll destroy all of these magazines and then invent an odorless adhesive, how's that." (Um, not as hard as you're making it sound? Like, ordinarily when you make glue, first you need to thermoset your resin, and then after it cools you have to mix in an epoxide -- which is really just a fancy-schmancy name for any simple oxygenated adhesive, right? -- but if you raise the viscosity by adding a complex glucose derivative during the emulsification process, you're golden. Come on, Phil.) Betty asks him to take a picture of her dorking around, and he won't, so she takes the shot herself: "Eye Of The Fashion Storm, first Mode issues approved by me!" Say cheesy!
Connor gives a short speech to the assembled magazine guys about how magazines are in trouble and they all need to go walking through the woods and come up with bold ideas so their magazines don't get shut down. Claire, watching Wili play with her phone, clears her throat: "May I offer a crazy suggestion right now?" We wouldn't have it any other way, babe. She tells him to take away everybody's cells and PDAs, and they love it. Wili almost has a heart attack, and Claire's still smirking long after Wili's offered to go Cheney on her ass in the woods.
Everybody's hanging out at Amanda's desk when Betty comes back babbling about the issue, and Marc's like, "Yeah we know, because you emailed everybody that pointless photo." Amanda shows her how she put a hilarious mustache on the picture, but before Betty can get all offended there's a breaking news story about this tornado tearing through the shantytowns of Kansas. The newsreader is all, "We won't soon forget this iconic image of destruction," and Amanda somewhat unnecessarily points out that the iconic destruction is not unlike the cover, which is a lady in the middle of a tornado, and Betty stares at it and it goes all CGI for a weirdly long time, because Betty is I think maybe a touch schizophrenic.
Betty begs Phil to stop the shipment, and he tells her that, as cute as she was being earlier -- and she was -- she has no authority in reality. She gives a limp, "That's an order?" But he's kind of tired of her, and tells her he needs to hear from Daniel or Wili. She complains that she can't get through, and tries explaining how she begged for the responsibility, and really just needs help at this point, and he gives her four hours. She runs off screaming thanks and he totally goes, "Whateva!"
Salsa music! That means Hilda! And I'm sure Justin, because he doesn't seem to go to school anymore, just lounge around in bright pink outfits and dispense sage and bitchy advice... and there they are. Hilda's all excited because her business permit has arrived, except obviously their little house is not zoned for that, and Ignacio has to explain to Hilda that she's been turned down. She goes off about how this is all Archie "The Rat" Rodriguez's fault because he is a Slick-Ass City Councilman who told her (and the breathless, insane way she shouts this is fucking hilarious) "You need to applyforyour permit legally!" She sits down, bereft, and Justin's like, "Fuck it." Ignacio sticks his big old stupid face in there about how it's breaking the law, and Justin's all, "What, like they have undercover hair police hiding across the street?" Hilda gives him a look and says Papi's right, so Ignacio kisses her on the forehead and leaves, and she's like, "...We can't risk getting caught!" And they slap five. Hilda and Justin are the most awesome team.
Daniel walks around the woods thinking to himself about bold ideas and some girl he used to know with pretty and good penmanship, and then a girl falls on him out of a tree. She's cute, not glamorous but very pretty, kind of like an outdoorsy Lily van der Woodsen, and they wonder if her ankle's broken, and Daniel admits he's not a doctor, and she's like, "Duh" and he changes the subject to the somewhat apposite Why Were You Up A Tree, and she complains that everybody's always saying she's too old to do stuff. He is touched, because what's better than a free spirit or something, and he helps her back to the lodge.
Wili stalks the forest in a leopard hat and giant red plaid thing, with a big gold necklace, but her prey is Connor, in the cutest hunting vest and hat, and they end up pointing their guns at each other. He offers her the first shot, and she's like, "Aren't you supposed to be 'thinking?'" Then they engage in some single entendres about how being out in the woods and killing things is just like sex, and decide to hunt together as a substitute for the fucking they're obviously going to be doing at some point.
Betty's running around like a tornado girl when Hilda calls asking for all the hats Betty bought during her "ugly hat phase," which Betty remembers more as her "hat phase," and when Hilda explains her plan to create an "underground styling speakeasy," to give her haircuts a "sense of danger," Betty's like, "I don't even have time for your crazy ass, but whatever you're doing don't do it," and Hilda, having located the ugly hats, lets her go.
"I smell pluck!" Marc says, and whirls around. Betty's hustling somewhere and he gets suspicious, so she babbles at him about how they took away everybody's phones at the retreat, so she has to go to Talmadge Hall, except the wait for a town car is 45 minutes, so she's taking the petty cash and calling a cab. Marc gives her a look and says the jig is up: "I underestimated you! I thought it was all about poor homely Betty worrying about the poor homely people of Kansas, but no, no, no, this is about your career!" He says if she averts this disaster she'll come up smelling like a she-ro, and she's like, "I don't care what I smell like!" His eyebrows give an eloquent, "Word." I think about this every week, to be honest, because you know she smells like something. I say off-brand Frito's like at a gas station. Betty Suarez smells like Frito's. He says no way is she going without him, all outshiny, but he'll be damned if they're taking a cab. He says Cliff's out of town, so they can take his car, and Amanda appears out of nowhere with bags packed, screaming "ROADTRIP? SHOTGUN!"
Driving Cliff's cute car upstate, with Amanda's cute little feet out the window and cute little disaster updates on the radio. Betty keeps telling him to drive his boyfriend's car more recklessly, and he fully goes, "Easy-Duzzy, Fuzzy Wuzzy!" He tells her to think of her worry lines, not that anybody would notice behind "that canopy of hair," giving Amanda a cheap laugh. Betty whines about the time crunch, and Marc's like, "Yeah, and constantly tormenting yourself with tornado updates is really helping," which is sort of sweet, and she starts yelling at him about her "process" and he's yelling back to get her big old face out of his face, and finally Amanda screams, "LADIES! Chillax!" Easy Does it, Fuzzy Wuzzy!
Amanda explains that she wants to talk about the wedding, and he changes the subject, but she's all over it: she only came on the trip to talk about the wedding anyway. Betty's so excited about Marc's wedding, and can't understand why he's not talking about it, saying that she would never ever stop talking about hers. "And we would all kill ourselves in six different ways," Marc snaps, and she asks if there are going to be two best men, which he says is offensive, which gives her liberal straight guilt, and she's all over gay marriage and whatever, but obviously the best man is Amanda. She starts talking to herself about how she already bought a fuschia dress and Betty's all No On Prop 8 and finally Marc turns on the radio and makes them listen to Christian radio. Which as far as I'm concerned is exactly what getting married's like anyway. Barf.
Wili hears something and crosses her fingers that it's an eight-pointer, but no, just the one: Daniel, carrying his new crush. She screams -- "Is it too much to ask for something with antlers?" -- but then, that's about to be Connor, by the looks of things, and she tells him it's Daniel with "some cripply wood nymph." Connor draws his sight on them, and tells her sort of prickly that it's his fiancée Molly, which cheers Wili up because she's age-appropriate and wearing ugly boots.
Connor notes the surprise in Wili's voice, and she's like, "Well! She's wonderfully ordinary!" Connor steps over that steaming pile and rushes over, because she's limping. Just as Daniel's getting the 411 that she's there with an employee, Connor runs over and sweeps Molly into his arms, leaving Daniel holding his gun like a little boy. She giggles and grins goodbye over Connor's shoulder, but I mean: Daniel, you have the pectorals of a seriously overcompensating former fat kid. You could have carried her that whole way, if you'd thought about it.
Betty's still giving minutely updates about how far they're going, and Amanda's like, "Betty. Now's a good time for some stress eating." Assuming Cliff's a food-stasher, she opens his glovebox and squeals a high-pitched squeal. She tries to play it off, but finally gives up the goods: a Tiffany's receipt for two wedding rings. There's collective apoplexy in the car, and Marc does the following things in quick succession: has a panic attack, hits his asthma inhaler, snatches at the receipt, and crashes the car. The act out, horribly, is on just Betty's screaming mouth, like those scary teeth that walk.
Marc's screaming, "What have I done?" And Amanda helpfully explains that he has crashed Cliff's car, but Marc's been shocked by the crash into making the car an objective correlative for the "car" meaning heart that he has "crashed" meaning fucked with, so "How can he ever trust me again!?" Amanda's like, "Um, you get it fixed? And it's ugly anyway?" Then, intriguingly, Marc throws himself down on his knees with his ass in the air and starts rubbing his face on the pavement. Betty's yelling at the cab dispatcher because it's going to take too long, and tells Amanda to help her push the car, for some reason.
"These stilettos were not made for pushing," Amanda says, but then it occurs to her that they might be for something else. And it's a testament to the total insanity of Amanda that I thought she was going to kill a forest creature, but no, it's way better. She steps past Marc, who moans into the road, and then does a Rockette kick for a passing car which she immediately tosses into this very pomo Amanda-does-Madonna-does-Marilyn finger-in-the-mouth roadside attraction thing. (Remember "Justify My Love" and all the insane shit going on in the video, and then she's naked doing this exact thing?) It's pretty amazing, and they kind of gloss over it, but I think we just figured out what Amanda is, and it's the thing at the end of the hall of mirrors, like in The Mouse & His Child.
The car doesn't stop, and Amanda does this adorably distracted mumble, "Wait, wait I wasn't ready..." And Marc's still rolling around ass-up on the ground, suggesting they get back to the city before five so they can all get completely drunk and act like none of this is happening. (This is also how I spent the last week.) Betty's like, "Marc, you stay in that strange position..." -- Marc gives a thumb up in his awesome driving gloves, like only Marc St. James would wear leather gloves to drive a Volvo station wagon, but also only Marc St. James can pull it off -- "...Amanda, you come with me." She wants to go back to this store she saw and get a ride. Amanda informs her that the stilettos were not made for walking. I wonder what will happen when Amanda figures out what they actually are for? Betty heads off by herself and Amanda tells her to grab her some beef jerky, but at least she says thank you. Betty does that thing where somehow her deltoid muscles do the complaining, and keeps walking.
The secret knock at the Speakeasy Salon, hilariously, is "shave and a haircut," and Justin's challenge ("I got the horse right here") is met by the beautiful lady at the door with the proper response ("His name is Paul Revere"), but he doesn't let her in until she says she's not a cop. (And I am so morally opposed to musical theatre that I don't even get that joke, thank you very much. Although I will say that I saw the Sweeney Todd revival on Halloween and it was about the best thing that's ever happened to me, so you know I can't be trusted.) She's only there to have her lovely silver roots done, and gets past him easily. Inside, Hilda's jamming an ugly Betty hat onto the head of the last client, and giving her all kinds of paranoid rules and hassle, and as she welcomes the lovely lady into the salon, Ignacio appears in his Flushing Burger costume and his usual look of disapproval, and they talk about standing up for yourself or whatever. When he talks, I just hear the theme song to Clone High. Not because he has any relation to that show, because it's awesome and he's Ignacio Suarez, but I don't know. It soothes me. It's so pretty and self-aware, but it's a little sad, too. It's like the song equivalent of Wilhelmina Slater.
Betty's hoofing it down the road, gasping and adorable, and inside the store it is so effing creepy, with the jars of candy and everything kitschy and wooden and like rocking chairs. Where the fuck are they? This gives me hay fever even to just see it. You can smell the diesel on the guy. He's like, "Lady, I would love to give you a ride, but the government didn't want me driving after that third DWI." There's a little boy there, but he can't drive either: just throw a balsa airplane at her head while she's buying Amanda's beef jerky, and then hide behind some boxes of wine or buckshot or deer corn or whatever they sell at places like this, DIY divorce paperwork kits, Shrinky-Dinks, those little plastic purses that you squeeze sideways, I'm flying blind here. But not Betty, who snatches the airplane back from the kid and reads the side: "Sky-Rider." She asks for a phone book, and because I am distracted or illiterate, I was like, "What, she's going to dust some crops too? ...Oh, right."
Claire Meade is wearing the greatest outfit in the history of clothing. Imagine! Willy Wonka 2.0-purple riding jacket, a huge white cravat, a giant Mad Hatter hat with an entire pheasant jacked up on top of it, but then everything's like... You know how in Beetlejuice all of the angles are off, and it makes your brain scared? It's like that. Like she's wearing something that science would say no, but nobody asked science. She wants her effin' phone, dog, and Daniel laughs because everybody's all about that right now. Claire asks if he had any revelations in the woods, and quickly determines that he's crushin' on somebody. He admits it but blows her off and she goes, "Her name wouldn't be Betty, would it?" He takes a second to think about that before exploding with some sound effects, and she giggles at him, but lets it sink in before tapping his arm: over his shoulder, the skywriting says, "DANIEL CALL BETTY."
While the tow-truck guy takes care of Cliff's car, Betty gets some beef jerky upside the head from Amanda ("This is Teriyaki!") and luxuriates in the praise from Daniel. They discuss how he paid for the skywriter, which cost less than the PR nightmare it could've been, which is in turn less than the suffering of the tornado victims, and the whole time they're in little bubbles that keep popping and bouncing all over the screen, and finally they hang up and Wili tells him maybe they don't have to cancel the issue after all.
Ignacio makes his special "Betty Saved The Magazine Pancakes," which in fact are just pancakes with whipped cream smiley faces on them, and Hilda's so proud of her for thinking of the skywriting, and Betty's all, "I'm just happy to show I'm equal to the challenge" and then Justin comes in scandalized, brandishing a copy of the issue in question. On Fashion Buzz Lloyd's all about how is this Bad Timing or Bad Taste, because something terrible has happened in "one of those flat states I can't find on a map," and the real question now is what Daniel and Wili knew, when they knew it, and what they were wearing. And that it's not a cynical jump to think that this was no mistake: controversy sells... And gets ratings, which is why Lloyd vows to never stop talking about this story.
Betty follows Daniel down the hallway trying to help him figure out what happened, and he's all shade and guilty, and then this entire press corps appears and Lloyd pushes past Daniel to have a chat with "our favorite sweaty Modey," whose fault it was. He shows Betty a picture of her giving the final approval of the issue, and Daniel's all, "Betty is not responsible!" And Lloyd awesomely turns to the camera: "Its name is Betty." And I officially cannot be annoyed by him anymore, because that was awesome. Daniel protests that she tried to stop it, but Lloyd produces time-stamped footage of Betty in the Kreepy Kitschy Kountry Store "buying questionable meat products and stealing toys from children," and they both start babbling about the skywriter, at which point Lloyd calls bullshit on the whole ridiculous story. "Any last comments, Tornado Girl?"
Cut to Daniel watching FB on Wili's office screen, feeling super guilty and wanting to come clean. "Don't be boob," Wili says, and points out that the bottom line is that it's a total hit. Daniel says he never would have gone through with it if he'd known Betty would get blamed, and Wili goes, "Tralalalala!" Just like David Bowie would. "Look at the big picture, man." This gradual dissolution of Wili's sense of self in the onslaught of Connor's sexual awesomeness is causing some pretty awesome dialogue. She says the frumpy assistant gets her feelings hurt today, it's no big because she's used to it, but it helps avoid layoffs tomorrow. It'll blow over, and in the meantime they can't get their hands dirty. "Taking the fall is what the little people are for!" I want a T-shirt with that on it. On the screen there's a tornado with Betty's stupid face coming out of it and it says TORNADO GIRL.
At Ignacio's, her phone is ringing off the hook and people are screaming at her about this and that. "That is disgusting! And not even physically possible!" She hangs up -- stop answering, douche -- and explains that somebody put her cell number on enemiesoftheheartland.com. What an awesome website. Hilda's grossed out, but nobody can figure out what happened, and they commiserate about how they tried to do the right thing and got burned. Ignacio produces fudge, but it's not enough to calm Betty down. She's really taking this hard. This is like the most emotion she's shown all season. She says everything's spinning out of control and gaining momentum and how normally she hates that saying "No good deed goes unpunished" -- me too -- but that it really seems to apply here... And Justin walks in wearing a hideous cheap-looking T-shirt with like glitter paint of TORNADO GIRL and an ugly hand-drawn picture that looks like a cross between Betty and Anna Wintour, and Justin apologizes and tells her not to talk it personally: it's just that there hasn't been "a T-shirtworthy scandal since Winona had her troubles." (Which is not true. My BFF could have made a fortune with his EMERGENCY? CALL MARY-KATE T-shirt, except it was too soon and CafePress is too square.) Ignacio launches into some kind of soothing, poignant speech about a high school for clones.
Predictably, everybody waiting at Archie Rodriguez's office, which is like a thousand people for some reason, are all reading the Fashion Storm issue. Hilda is wearing a gorgeous cropped black leather jacket which does not distract Archie's secretary from identifying Betty as Tornado Girl, and whatever finally he comes out into the waiting room and they descend on him screaming, for no reason because this has nothing to do with him and everything to do with Hilda's sense of entitlement, so he's just kind of bemused while she accuses him of the nothing he did wrong, and storms off after yelling for awhile, and then Betty's like, "Her life is unbelievably shitty and this is the only good thing that has happened to her, ever. Fix it." And those puppydogs of hers are powerful juju, so you know he will. He's got some pretty good ones of his own after they leave. Dude, when did Ralph Macchio get hot? Maybe he's from that Ryan Seacrest species of person where puberty doesn't even start until fifty. Man what a whirlwind that will be. Ralph Macchio, I'm so proud of your changing body!
Betty gets snatched from the Mode hallway by a mysterious person, who is Marc. By the light of the copier, he says strange things. "Powerful forces are arrayed against you," he says, and "Things are not what they seem," and "Not all birds fly south in the winter," but she's not feeling him so he finally flips the lights on: "For God's sake, Betty, I'm not going to jeopardize my job by spelling it out. Go talk to Phil at the loading dock." He turns the lights off again and whispers awesomely, "He knoooooooows."
It's ever so noir. Phil's not talking, so she bugs him and bugs him -- "You're like a gnat with glasses!" -- but when she says she can spend all day there not reading hatemail from the Daughters of Kansas, he admits she got a raw deal. "You're a pain in my ass, but you don't deserve this." He pulls her to a secret nook -- all this whispering! -- and tells her the call from Daniel wasn't to hold the order, but to ship it.
Daniel comes into his office and Betty's looking out the window so sadly I can't handle it. "You lied to my face, Daniel." He swears she wasn't supposed to go down, and protests that he defended her, but she's not having it. "Things are not as simple and you and I wish they were," he says, and calls it a business decision to save jobs. "And ruin my reputation!" He says it'll blow over, but she reminds him she's not Daniel Meade, she's just an assistant, hopefully not in perpetuity, and that all she has her is reputation, which is now ruined: Betty Suarez has become Tornado Girl. She takes off and the precursor to that sad song starts playing while Daniel feels bad. Oh man, they're totally going to play that sad song they play, with the piano! During Marc's conversation with Cliff, I just know it. Goddamn it, I have no immunity to that song! It makes me cry every time! I hate you, show!
Ignacio shoves yet more high-fat sugary snacks down Hilda's face and then Archie shows up with this big box, looking all dreamy, and Hilda's snappish. She asks if he's there to evict them now, which is hilarious, and he says he doesn't want to be the guy even tangentially related to the killing of her dreams, which he isn't except in her crazy head, and says he found a loophole. If 30% of her profits come from selling products, she can get a permit for a boutique. Hilda asks what she's supposed to sell, and Justin is amazing some more, lying on the couch and flipping bitchily through the Fashion Storm and pointing without looking: "Are you kidding? First you can get rid of this hideous lamp, and then get rid of a half a dozen of those saints, and while you're at it get rid of Betty's hats." Without looking up, and you can tell the actor is loving every second. Everybody stares at him because he's turning into something strange and wonderful. Archie produces some random candles from the box and Ignacio doddles off to get his camera, and she flirts with Archie, and Justin pretends not to be loving that, and long after he's gone, Ignacio wanders back downstairs and looks old and lost and senile and Hilda's like, "Oh, Papi." It's cute.
Betty clears her throat and tells Marc she talked to Phil and Daniel. He makes that face and says he has no idea what she's talking about, and they're very different people, but they are in the same position now -- which I never thought about -- and have to look out for each other. She says Cliff is having a good influence on him, and that he's a very lucky man, which provokes this snorting weird meltdown and Marc wanders off into the closet all, "He's ... Yeah. Yep, yep, yep, he's really really lucky..." She follows him and he swears everything's perfect, and she's like, "It's not my business, but something's up." His eyes are so sad! He turns on her all, "You're right. It's none of your business," and tries to ignore her, but those sweet eyes of hers work their magic and bore through his cute hairdo and he's like, "Fucking fine. I cheated on Cliff and then proposed out of guilt. And I am a horrible person, and you have to think so too, so get lost." She swears he's not a bad person, but that she knows from earlier today that lies from somebody you trust hurt worse than regular lies, and that Cliff deserves the truth. And then that fucking song starts playing. Damn! I knew it!
Wili tells the guys at the press conference that by tomorrow -- or by the latest, week -- the hottest Mode issue in history will be off the stands. Lloyd asks, to loud laughter from the other journalists, what will happen to Tornado Girl. She tells him it's a private internal matter, and Daniel's looking all over, panicked, and finally spots Betty in the crowd. Molly's there too. Wili's like, "We're all human, we all make mistakes," and Daniel steps up and says the mistake was his, it was a cynical decision and he feels gross about it, but not as gross as watching his assistant go down for it. Wili's all, "I am SHOCKED!" and Daniel says they're donating all proceeds from the issue to a relief fund, shocking Connor and Wili both, and the crowd goes wild. He tries to get to Betty, but they're all throng, so he sweetly and frantically mouths, "I'm sorry!" And she silently thanks him ("There's glass between us! You can't handle my infinite nature, can you?") and feels great about life.
Marc's working when Cliff appears, asking what's so important that he had to rush over. He's totally afraid this is it, with his arms crossed and his back straight and strong. Don't! No! That song starts playing for real, and Marc stares at him for awhile before admitting... That he crashed Cliff's car. Cliff's entire body goes like a whooshing balloon, and he starts chuckling, all embarrassed and feeling silly, and Marc admits that's not all. He pushes a chair over and they sit down, and he puts his hand on Cliff's arm.
Daniel looks out over the city and worries about what his good deed cost him, and Molly comes up to congratulate him on being awesome at the press conference. The second he hears her voice he lights up like a little boy. "Hey, Tornado Boy!" She says it's like a superhero name now, and that she's not often seen a bigshot go under the bus for an assistant, and then geeks out about her ankle splint and says the word splint like a hundred times and then admits she's on painkillers. He tells her to sit down and wait for Connor, but it's their anniversary, so she says she's going to go find him. "Don't drink wine!" he blurts out as she's leaving, and it takes her a second to figure out the counter interactions of her meds before she adorably puts one hand over her mouth and nods. He crushes so hard, but secretly door Wili's been watching the whole scene play out, and has an idea that for once involves destroying marriages and people for reasons other than financial gain.
Ignacio talks about how both Betty and Hilda fought for themselves, and it's awesome, and Justin shouts, "I taped that press conference and I just can't stop watching it!" Hilda goes off to find champagne, and he snits, "If it's not made in France it's sparkling wine, and that's bottle's from New Jersey." And I thought it was Hilda giggling, but actually it's Ignacio and this isn't the first time I've thought that, because Mr. Suarez laughs like a scary woman. Betty's still kind of bittersweet about the whole thing still, and confides in him that she honestly thought she'd done something so awesome that it "would make normal different." He tells her to keep putting one foot in front of the other, keep his eyes open for those open Sarah Palin doors, and eventually she will succeed. I love it when the 98-year-old guy in the burger uniform that laughs like a lady tells me my dreams can come true. It's so fucking comforting.
Daniel watches Connor kissing Molly and is jealous, but who knows who he's more jealous of, and Wili struts over with her slinky sexy gold dress and tells Connor that, since Daniel is now just handing out money, they have to strategize. He doesn't even put up a fight, just agrees to reschedule his anniversary dinner, because even he can hear the whistle of the anvils. The camera pushes toward the Mode logo on the wall so, so slowly, like just so you know it's going to be horrible, don't, don't, don't, and then there's my wonderful Cliff shrugging off Marc's arm and backing away and then walking down the hallway so embarrassed and sad and hurting, and it's really bad, and Marc watches him go.
Then it's a short uneventful montage, Wili fully watching Molly fight Connor on the cancellation and then slowly drawing those same sheer curtains across her face like we got The Magic Flute over here for something, and all the Suarezes drinking champagne except for Justin, who is drinking milk out of a champagne flute, which is good and healthy. And speaking of healthy living, Cliff, just do what I've been doing all week. First go find some of that Stoli with the blue label. Copious amounts of that, a strange amount of "Coming Around Again" and "In The Winter" on repeat (because apparently heartbreak turns me into your mom), and then when the sun goes down you just go sarging and mug down with every low-risk/low-yield in a ten-mile radius. (And girl, let me just tell you that in Austin TX, the risk is low, and the ROI is nonexistent, which is perfect because it's quantity, not quality, that matters here. Don't even dress up. Fuck it.) Hopefully your bestie is also having a time, and you can do these activities as a pair; if you're making it a group activity, throw some Sparks or RBV's in the mix, which: I know, but trust me, this is my Grandmother's recipe. The only thing you must remember is this: if at any time a guy gets drunk enough in your home to start crying and talking about his dad, you get the eff out. You can't be there for that, because it gets too weird, and you want the opposite of weird, so be on the lookout because they all do it eventually. Then when you're done with your slut spiral and get up off your living room floor a week or two later, it's time to turn off the Carly Simon and Janis Ian, and clean your filthy house. Then you make some coffee, buy a cute outfit, and you're gold. Then you can come back on the show, right? Because a photographer in the fashion industry and you work for Mode? Right? RIGHT?
week: a 48-hour blank issue magazine contest pits Betty against Marc, and the prize would seem to be editorship. Hmmm.
See the soapiest moments in Betty history.