Ugly Betty Episode 209 Recap: “Giving Up the Ghost”

Wili is there to announce her plan to launch Slater, which just happens to be hiring at that very moment. She’s offering a 15% raise, dental benefits, and free cosmetic surgery. When Amanda hears this last benefit, she encourages Betty, “Go, go, go!” Personally, she had me at dental.

Anyway, given that great package, pretty much everybody ditches Mode. Except Amanda, who rather surprisingly decides to stick around, explaining to Marc that she feels an obligation to stay out of respect for Fey. You know, the woman who did so much for her, like abandoning her in infancy and never acknowledging or supporting her.

Daniel tries to guilt people into staying to fulfill Bradford’s legacy. Wili remarks that, while that’s a nice speech, the fact is Bradford thought Daniel was an “incompetent buffoon” and that Alexis was “a circus freak.” Alexis takes great offense at this, but circuses have come a long way; thanks to Cirque du Soleil, they’re as pretentious and boring as most foreign films and documentaries.

Meanwhile, back at Casa Suarez, Hilda and Papi are fighting over proper draping technique for the tree lights, leading Hilda to fall down from the ladder and bring the entire tree crashing down with her. And then the tree spontaneously combusts as easily as a fruit cart side-swiped by James Bond.

Betty calls home to check on things, and can tell from Hilda’s voice that she’s hiding something, just like when she was pregnant and kept telling Papi she was just a little bloated and gassy.

Hilda fesses up to the tree having caught just a little bit on fire, the only serious casualty being Popsicle Stick Santa. Betty lets out a horrified yelp, but it’s not Popsicle Santa she’s upset about. It’s the fact that Bradford’s head has now cropped up on her “So Cute It’s Sick” screensaver. And he’s threatening the “So Cute” kitty with bodily injury if she doesn’t give Daniel one of her “annoying little pep talks” right away.

Inside Daniel’s office, Betty gives her pep talk to a defeated Daniel, and it’s indeed annoying but also rather touching. She assures Daniel that his father believed in him. And she remembers that when her own mother died, she learned she had to “step up” and fulfill family traditions herself. It’s time, she says, for Daniel to step up.

Besides which, Daniel has help. Wili took most of the staff, but others have stayed in support of him. People like Henry, and Ileana Douglas, and a bunch of assistants who presumably couldn’t bear the thought of working for Marc, and somebody named Veronica we never heard of before who suddenly has a lot to do this episode. She’s played by someone who looks like a blonde Lea Thompson. Given we haven’t seen her since Caroline in the City, I’m just going to assume it actually is Lea Thompson.

In the Mode Conference Room, we go into the “Hey kids, let’s put on a magazine!” part of the episode, as Daniel assigns various jobs. Since Henry’s a great cook, Daniel names him the new food editor. And he asks Betty to write a review of the last book she read. Unfortunately, she was babysitting, so the last book she read was “Snuggle Bunny.”

I’m wondering why Daniel’s bothering with any of this since a) fashion magazines don’t have things like book reviews and recipes; and b) no one reads anything in fashion magazines anyway. He should just do what every magazine does for filler and publish a “Best Of” issue.

Alexis, for her part, thinks she can finagle an extension on their deadline from the printer, a notorious lech named Arthur Kaplan, who’s apparently something of a boob aficionado. Hey, we all need our hobbies.