"Ugly Betty" (3.03) recaplet: Crimes of Fashion

Previously, on Ugly Betty:

"You're dating a married man?" "You think that doesn't tear me up?!" "Well, then walk away" "I can't! I'm in love with him."

"Are you offering me a job?" "You will be my protege" "But that's Marc's job!" "And now it's yours!"

"Stuart, what are you doing here?" "What's wrong?" "I think he's doing drugs again." "What?"

"I was on that trip with you to Paris, I don't remember you drooling all over his mother!" "Your son's grandparents in France filed a claim for custody". "I vant to stay wit my fadder".

"I've made a decision. Tonight we are welcoming back as editor-in-chief of Mode, Daniel Meade!" "You can't push me aside!"

"AAAIIIIYYYYEEE...I'm pregnant Christina, and someone from the show has just pushed me down a flight of stairs!"

Tonight, on Ugly Betty:

We open with Betty being interrogated by guest star Mark Consuelos (who can plant his evidence on me anytime), and she gets flummoxed when she's asked where Daniel was the night before. Could she be covering for him? Probably.

We flash back to "six hours earlier", with Betty on the phone to her dad, who's worried that she doesn't have enough locks on her door. She insists that she's safe, but as she's leaving, notices that someone has stolen her umbrella (which she kept outside her front door). Okay, I don't live in NYC, but I've seen enough movies to know that you don't leave stuff outside your door. Between the C.H.U.D. and the mute vigilantes with .45's, an umbrella is not likely to last for long.

Back at Mode, Daniel asks Betty to get his raincoat dry-cleaned (for some reason, it's covered with dust ... hmmm) and he asks her to lie and say that the two of them were together the night before. Well, it's obvious that he's guilty, right?

Marc stands on top of the desk and tells everyone to gather around, like he's Norma Gay, and announces that Wilhelmina is in the hospital, but not to worry, she's just there to visit Christina, who ... oh yeah, fell down the steps and is unconscious.

We get one of those fashion newsbreaks from Suzuki St. Pierre, who helpfully provides a list of the possible suspects, and Willi holds a press conference announcing a reward for information about who tried to harm her unborn child ..."and others". Back at the magazine, she and Marc are in full Mr. Burns and Smithers mode, as she teeters on the edge of cartoonish super-villainry, and he has to pull her back.

Later, she visits Christina in the hospital (accompanied by a platoon of paparazzi), and in my favorite scene in the episode, does a perfect Aurora Greenway at the nurses station, pleading for a glass of water.

Over at the Suarez house, Betty tells her dad and nephew that she let it slip to the police that Daniel asked her to lie, and Justin quips about watching cop shows, and how fabulous Mariska Hargitay looks in pantsuits. Justin has averaged about two lines an episode so far this season, but thankfully, that's about to change.

Hilda comes in, and asks Betty for permission to use her apartment, so she and Tony can "talk". Betty has trouble believing it, but Hilda insists it's just to "talk", and Betty agrees.

Eddie Cibrian is bringing back the lost art of conversation

As Hilda and Tony are "talking" at Betty's apartment, he mentions how dirty he feels, and the water is out at school, and Hilda asks if he wants to take a shower. Okay ... you know what ... that's so hilariously blatant that I have to give Eddie Cibrian props for being such a good sport. He must open the script every week and get a chuckle at the lengths the writers go to to get him naked. Naturally, as he's taking the shower, Ignacio comes in (he's there to add more locks to Betty's door) and catches him naked ... and sees his wedding ring.

Back at the office, the police arrest Daniel (something about his size 11 shoes being a match for the footprints at the crime scene), and Betty vows to find out who really pushed Christina down the steps.

Whodunit? Find out the shocking answer, and see the even more shocking revelation, after the break!

Betty starts investigating, in the greatest TV mystery since Carol's earring went missing on The Brady Bunch and Bobby used his detective kit to find the culprit.

After she finds out that the security tape for that night is missing, it leads her to Amanda, who was trying to do some investigating herself, to get the reward money Willi offered.

Amanda remembers hearing a scream that night, but it wasn't Christina, it was Marc. She walked in on him yelling at Willi, then saw him slap her. They confront Marc, who admits to pushing Christina (out of the way, to get to the elevator), and as for slapping Wilhelmina, he has an explanation for that.

Anyone else think Vanessa was a little stiff tonight?

He did slap Willi, but it was actually her mannequin. When the pressure builds up, he needs an outlet, and assaulting her plastic double provides relief (which is the exact same storyline from a classic Halloween episode of Little House on the Prairie, in which Laura believes that Mr. Olsen beheaded his shrewish wife, when it was actually her look-a-like mannequin. Is it pathetic that I remember that?).

Anyway, Marc mentions seeing Christina being accosted by Claire before he got on the elevator, and so it's her turn under the microscope.

Claire admits to having too much to drink and slobbering all over Christina, but she couldn't have pushed her because she was passed out in Alexis's office. Alexis confirms that she helped her mother, even though she was dealing with her own "personal problems" that night (a nasty case of five o-clock shadow, from low estrogen).

The culprit came clean once confronted by Jessica Fletcher and the Fletcherettes

After all those dead-ends, the Odd Squad decide to return to the scene of the crime, and send Willi's mannequin down the steps to see if they can learn anything. All they learn is that tossing a mannequin down a flight of steps is a stupid thing to do, so they decide they need something heavier ... like Betty. In a scene too groaningly silly for words, they all end up tumbling down the steps, which leads Betty to an important clue: dust. The dust at the bottom of the steps is the same dust that was on Daniel's raincoat (the one he asked her to have drycleaned ... hmmm).

Meanwhile, Willi is visiting Christina at the hospital again, and is curiously unnerved when Christina tearfully tells her that the treatments for her husband didn't work, and he's most likely going to die. Later, in a rare show of humanity, Willi fills the hospital room with flowers, and banishes the photographers (and we even see a brief attempt at a smile).

Back at Daniel's office, Betty's trying to figure out a way to confront him when she sees something even more incriminating in his briefcase: the security tape. She swipes it, and back at home, her father convinces her to watch it. What she sees is even worse than she could have imagined ... Daniel and the State Department Lay-aison (Ha!) are going at on top of the office copier.

Confused, she asks Daniel why he would choose to hide something that could exonerate him for the attempted murder, and he explains that if it was found out that he was sleeping with the liaison, she could lose her job, and he could lose custody of Rafa, Jr..

Ecstatic that he's not guilty, Betty's relief is short-lived when Daniel asks her to return his newly cleaned raincoat ... to Alexis. Apparently she borrowed it a few days ago, and it looks better on her anyway.

I guess the bloating and morning sickness is from guilt ... what else could it be?

She confronts Alexis, who breaks down and admits to being guilty. It seems that her rage for Wilhelmina took over, and when she looked at Christina, all she saw was the smirking face of her nemesis, and that's why she pushed her down the steps. All the clues pointed to Daniel, but she was sure he would be exonerated, so she didn't come forward.

The episode ends with Hilda and Ignacio coming to terms with her relationship with Tony, and Alexis admitting her guilt to her family and the police. But there are still two shocking turn of events.

After being handcuffed, and just before being led away by the police, Alexis tells her mother that she accidentally read a letter addressed to Daniel. It was a paternity test. Daniel is not Rafa jr.'s biological father ... Alexis is.

As far fetched as that is, it pales in comparison to Betty returning home to find that ... her umbrella has been returned.

Well, what did you think? I liked that they tried to humanize Willi and Marc just a bit (Marc with his talk about having a dream, and Willi with her reptilian smile attempt), but it was obvious who the culprit was going to be (even if you didn't know that Rebecca Romijn is preggers).

Next week, we get the return of Gio, who now apparently hates Betty's guts, and we'll be here to provide all the details!