Ugly Betty Episode 203 Recap: “Betty’s Wait Problem”

Marc: You listen to me lady! The Wilhelmina Slater I know and occasionally wish I was does not throw in the towel just because the old man she’s scamming has suddenly gone all soft for his “tramnesiac” daughter.
Wili: You’re touching me.
Marc: It was a risk.

Wili, who didn’t count on post-coma father-daughter bonding between Alexis and Bradford, gripes, “I hate that love won out.” Marc suggests it’s too bad Alexis doesn’t remember her lousy family history with Daddy, giving Wili an idea. She asks Marc if he knows Photoshop (Of course he does, Wili. How do you think he gets rid of blemishes before posting his picture on dudecruise.com?) and explains that they’re going to “rewrite history.”

Hamptons Home for Escaped Convicts Who Blend Right In with High Society. Yoga the Fish Monger and Claire appear to be getting on famously. Yoga’s made up a batch of frozen margaritas that, she says, “sho beats a 40 ounce.” Unless it’s a 40 ounce filled with frozen margaritas.

Claire talks about how, now that the wedding is postponed, it’s urgent she go to the ball and speak to Bradford in person. Yoga asks how Cinderella can go to the ball if she’s a wanted criminal. I’m guessing they’re going to break out the nun’s costumes again which, after all, do come in black and white, but Claire says she can go since it’s a masked ball. Great plan. I’m sure she won’t even have to worry about there being security. Why would there be, given this is just some high-profile event attended by New York’s most rich and famous where everyone’s encouraged to wear masks.

Cut to an enraged Betty ranting at Daniel, who spends so much of this episode in a wheelchair I was starting to think he was going to look out a window and solve a murder.

He even assigns Betty the task of getting him the hot new wheelchair all the cool kids are talking about, the “iBot,” which if it’s anything like the iPhone is going to have a lot of pissed off disabled people wheeling angrily around the Apple Store. Then again, it also means if Daniel can’t get the new one, he’ll only need to wait a few days before the newest upgrade renders it obsolete.

Daniel’s also pulling the business executive equivalent of “does this skirt make my ass look fat,” by insisting Betty get a novelty check for the benefit that doesn’t make his head look small.

But right now, Betty is just outraged by how rude Rico the sandwich man was to her. Daniel advises she visit that website she likes, “the one where the baby ducks think the cat is their mother.” It’s called “so_cute_its_sick.com.” When I heard that, I figured if you actually went there you’d be certain to see Betty and Freddy on the home page.

Seeing nothing is going to calm Betty down, Daniel asks her for the sandwich guy’s name and picks up the phone.

Cut to Hilda watching TV. Now that she’s done mourning Santos, shouldn’t she be back in beauty school? Or did she drop out? And if she did drop out, does she get to sing about it with Frankie Avalon? And if she does, would Justin want to be a T-Bird or a Pink Lady? These are the kinds of things that run through my mind all the time. It’s a curse. Or is it a blessing?

Hilda sees a guy on TV being threatened by a thug with a gun and then gets a call from a guy being threatened by a thug with a gun. It’s Papi! Down in fake Mexico and just calling to say “I love you.” And good-bye before he’s executed.

In my family, we always made fun of my father for being unable to distinguish between actors and the characters they play, like he always hated Meryl Streep because she abandoned her son in Kramer vs. Kramer. But I’m having a similar reaction now to Ignacio. After reading the main page interview with Tony Plana and seeing what an incredible guy he is (and gay friendly to boot), I find myself suddenly caring about what happens to this character. And right now, it’s not looking so good.

A mysterious figure entersthe room where Ignacio is tied up. His thug-captor says, “I think you know my father, Ramiro Vasquez.” It’s the wife-beater who was married to Betty’s mom who Papi killed in order to be with her! And, to paraphrase the dream sequence in Fiddler on the Roof, for a man who’s been dead 20 years, he looks pretty good.