Ugly Betty Episode 201 Recap: “How Betty Got Her Grieve Back”

Mode magazine reception. Marc strolls in and talks to Amanda, and I’m waiting for the DVD set of this season that includes the lost episode where Amanda and Christina somehow manage to escape from Fey’s secret love dungeon. I guess I can understand why they skipped over all that, because we all know there’s nothing more boring than coming out of a closet. You wallow a bit, drink one too many, and then just come out. No need for drama there at all.

Marc is wearing a suit he stole off a crime scene victim; we can tell because it’s still got the chalk outlines. He tells Amanda he was at the gym and only seven inches away from Emilio Estevez in the shower and, through the steam, could see “Elmo’s still on fire.” I’m not buying that any gay man would find Emilio Estevez hot – not in the Brat Pack years, and certainly not now. And I’m definitely not buying that any gay man would be able to reference that movie without mocking it.

Noticing chocolate on Amanda’s lips, which she lamely claims is lip gloss, Marc accuses, “You’ve taken a lover! A lover with a creamy center!” and opens her drawer to reveal her secret candy stash. He says that all the stress about the birth certificate she found — the one that indicates she’s Fey’s daughter — is making her eat too much, and the camera pans down her body to show us what three weeks of binging will do for you. Her face is still the same, but down below it looks like she’s about 10-months pregnant. With twins. That she’s carrying in her ass.

Gesturing at her very ample bosoms and buttocks, Marc says, “You’re starting to look like two fat girls hugging.” He advises her to “bite the bullet” and confront her parents so “the healing can begin. And by healing, I mean a three-day fat flush.” Amanda insists she hasn’t gained that much, but then Wili walks by and calls her “Betty,” which she should really take as a compliment because Betty is so much skinnier than her right now. But it’s enough to convince her Marc is right.

Cut to the Hospital, where Daniel is lounging around in bed in one of those fun traction things you only see on TV, with that single scratch on his face they always use to indicate when good-looking people have been grievously injured in harrowing, near-death accidents.

Betty asks if he’s visited Alexis and tells him she’s been reading a lot about the importance of talking to coma patients. He snaps that he’s been doing all he can, which in his case is taking whatever painkillers they toss his way, and why shouldn’t he? At least here his addiction will be covered by Empire Blue Cross rather than paid out from the Mode petty cash drawer. Daniel gives Betty notes to pass on to Wili about an upcoming photo spread and we go right to…

… the Mode conference room, where Wili thanks Betty for the notes and gives them to Marc, who promptly tosses them out. But the conference room is all abuzz with activity, and they’re surprisingly doing the kind of work that real employees at a magazine might actually do. It’s kind of a shocking shift for this show, like when Ed Asner went from being the funny, curmudgeonly Mr. Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show to the serious journalist/bitter alcoholic of Lou Grant.

Wili asks someone named Sheila for an update on the Victoria’s Secret spread, and hey, look, it’s Illeana Douglas, who I know I’ve found hysterically funny in countless roles, none of which come to mind right now. Except for when she had a hunk of her face bitten off by Robert DeNiro in Cape Fear which, come to think of it, not so funny.

Sheila says they’re planning a spread on “What’s Sexy Now,” which I thought was pretty much the universal theme of every fashion spread in every magazine everywhere, like if the clothes aren’t sexy now, what’s the point in showing them. Sheila adds that she herself is wearing the new Victoria’s Secret push-up bra, and Wili says, “Save the ass-kissing for the client.” While I appreciate that the show at least snarked at their own shameless use of product placement, it still rankles. I hope this isn’t a new trend on ABC, like soon on Lost you’ll hear the castaways saying, “This would never have happened if we’d flown Continental.”