Ugly Betty Recap 204: “Grin and Bear It”

Okay, I can handle Justin making out with a girl — he’s not the first young man to decide he needs to taste certain dishes before deciding if he can actually go ahead and eat them — but I can’t believe he’d stoop to doing it with one dressed so trashy. If you’re going to try the hetero thing, at least pick a girl whose wardrobe you admire and can occasionally steal from.

Henry is just as shocked, especially when he sees they’re also drinking. And in the episode’s best delivered line, the tramp sits up and says, “Wha? It’s jus’ be-ah.”

Cut to Mode’s clean, cavernous men’s room. Here’s how you can tell that, despite the odious likes of straightboy asses like Deputy Leo, Henry’s cube mate, and The Head, Mode is still mostly made up of gay men. The men’s room, although the size of a small hotel lobby, has only three urinals and they’re squished awfully close together, thereby making it easier for guys to check out the packages of their neighbors. Which this one guy is now doing with Daniel, and I am REALLY curious how Daniel stands up in that department. But sadly we don’t get any intel.

Alexis comes up behind Daniel, making him understandably jump up and yelp in surprise. She heard about Atlantic Attire and how Daniel turned down The Head, and considers him the best brother in the world. Daniel realizes that after he got all preachy to Betty about telling the truth he needs to do the same. Admitting he was loaded the night of the accident and they were rushing him to the hospital, he confesses to Alexis, “It was my fault you almost died.”

Alexis approaches and you think she’s going to slap him but then she embraces him, telling him it was just an accident. And that’s where it comes. That moment in every Betty episode where my sappy impulse overrides the snarky one and I get all choked up.

Cut to Amanda in the Secret Love Dungeon. “Hi Daddy!” she says, looking at a picture of Ted Kennedy taped to the wall. Then she tries it out with Warren Beatty and Ricardo Montalban. Using a list that Wili gave her of party guests at Studio 54, Amanda’s identified all the men who might be her father. I’m guessing she was able to eliminate Liberace and ALF right off the bat.

Staring at the wall filled with photos of handsome, eligible father figures, she vows, “I will find that Tweety Bird if I have to search every one of your asses!”

Meanwhile, Marc comes running up to Wili in her office.

Marc: Big big big big big big big! I just talked to Tommy at Ralph Lauren who went up to Ralph at Tommy Hilfiger who slept with Calvin at Donna Karan who had drinks with Karen at Calvin Klein…
Wili: The point?

Marc explains how they all heard about Atlantic Attire and are considering pulling their ad pages too. Really? Are these hip fashion places really that closed minded? Nobody seemed to care when Alexis put herself on the cover of the magazine. But Wili is completely unperturbed by this and lets on that she may have started a few rumors about Mode being in trouble.

Marc: Oh my God. It’s happened. The botox has finally seeped into your brain. What are you doing?
Wili: I took lemons and made a lemon martini.
Marc: So you want to destroy Mode. Don’t get me wrong. Mad props on the evil. But why?
Wili: Follow the breadcrumbs, Gretel.

Meade can only have one fashion magazine, she explains. But if something happens to Mode, there’d be room for … Ta Da! And she unveils this enormous cover with a picture of her favorite model on it – herself. It’s a new magazine called “Slater,” natch.

Marc: Holy Rosie, Oprah, and Martha!

Outside Bizarro Casa Suarez. Betty comes home to find a distraught Henry camped on her doorstep. He tells her all about Justin swapping spit and chugging brewskies with the tweener tramp, but Betty is willing to brush it off.

Justin, she says, is going through some “stuff” and, like any kid his age, is just making some mistakes. Like repressing his essential nature in a misguided effort to conform to societal expectations as represented by paternal authority figures. Nope, don’t know anyone who’s ever done anything like that.

But Henry won’t drop it. And when she asks why it’s so important to him, he says he needs to know how to handle this stuff since he’s going to be a father. Oh, is that all? Nice to let her in on that little bit of news. Actually, he’s known for a few days but didn’t want to tell Betty just yet, so he could enjoy his fantasy where they actually get to be together. He says he’s sorry. Don’t worry, Henry. She doesn’t need you. She’s already got a hot sandwich guy all lined up.