"Ugly Betty" (3.13) recaplet: Kissed off

On this week's light and breezy episode of Ugly Betty, our heroine has a score to settle with her super-cute guitar strumming neighbor, and this time ... it's personal!

Also, a secret relationship is exposed (with dire consequences), and Betty and Amanda hunt for a new roommate.

You'll never guess who they pick! (Well, maybe you will) ...

Betty has decided to move back in with her family, and as this episode opens, she's moving boxes filled with her precious collection of green packing peanuts. We officially meet Elena (played by the fabulous Lauren Velez), the nurse they've hired to care for Papi.

Betty mentions that she's subletting the apartment, and she and Amanda have to interview prospective roommates (which you know won't go well). Sure enough, we get a montage of roommate wannabes, with Amanda giving a thumbs-up to each one (except "baby teeth girl"), and Betty nixing all of them.

As Betty bemoans the fact she has to leave (the apartment was supposed to be the beginning of her fantasy life in the city), she hears the familiar sound of coffeehouse angst in the hallway. It's Jesse, the cute singing neighbor, who broke her heart when he ended up canoodling with Amanda instead of her.

Not wanting to leave the apartment with unfinished business hanging over her head, she decides to confront him, but one look at his puppy-dog eyes and John-Boy Walton mole, and she melts.

She invites him in for a good-bye drink, and starts talking about that night on the roof, that awkward night. Wouldn't you know that Jesse actually has a song called "Awkward Night"? In fact, Jesse seems to have a song for just about every occasion. He starts serenading her (which leads to a funny scene involving his cell phone, which has a Jesse ring tone), and when he gets up to leave, moves in and kisses Betty.

Naturally, Betty is shocked and delighted, and confused, and next morning tells Amanda what happened. Amanda decides they need a male point of view about what's going on. She settles on Marc.

Marc and Amanda (who are at their bitchy Wondertwins best in this episode) decide to recreate the moment, which leads to an uncomfortably lingering snogging session between the two. Ick.

They decide that either Jesse really has feelings for Betty ... or he was just drunk off his ass. Betty decides to find out for sure, and that night knocks on Jesse's door to talk to him. When he doesn't answer, she calls him, and when she hears his ringtone coming from inside his apartment realizes that he's screening calls, and obviously doesn't want to talk to her (or just maybe he looked through the door peephole and saw that a giant albino Tribble was attacking her head, and he got scared).

Furious, she decides to hash it out with him, and shows up at the coffeehouse where he performs. (I'm not sure of the name, but it's probably "Central Jerk"! Church!). She's taken aback when he apologizes profusely and asks to make it up to her by taking her to dinner.

She accepts, and at dinner it soon becomes obvious that Jesse is madly in love ... with himself. Every time that Betty tries to bring up a subject, Jesse turns it back towards himself and his songs, which leads to the funniest scene of the episode, a perfectly realized fantasy sequence starring Jesse called "Me".

Betty is finally able to see things clearly, and realizes that she was just using Jesse in one last attempt to fulfill her fantasy city life. She tells Jesse goodbye, and resigns herself to the fact that the city will just have to wait a little longer.

But she does have a shock in store for Amanda. She found a roommate to replace her. It's someone who's responsible, has a stable job, and great fashion sense. Gee, who could it be?

Meanwhile, things are still complicated in the Wilhelmina/Daniel/Connor/Molly story. Willi has noticed a definite cooling off in her relationship with Connor, and enlists Marc to find out why. In what I'm sure must be a regular occurrence for them, they conduct covert surveillance, following Connor in his car, til he parks next to an apartment building.

Unfortunately for Willi, Connor is conducting his own covert surveillance, and the apartment building he's parked in front of is where Molly lives. He knows that Molly is seeing someone, and wants to find out who it is. What's worse, Daniel is in the car, too, somehow getting roped into Connor's little jealous spy game.

Daniel has been trying to find the right time to tell Connor that he's the one seeing Molly (who's given him the cutest nickname - rich jerk), but realizes that sitting in a car casing the joint is probably not the ideal moment. Things go from bad to worse when he sees Betty (who's still being consumed by that rabid tribble) rounding the corner to deliver the flowers he wanted to give to Molly. He manages to send Connor off and intercepts Betty in the nick of time, but not before Connor sees the card attached to the flowers, signed by "R.J.". What on earth could that mean?

Willi realizes that Connor is still obsessed with Molly, and tells him in no uncertain terms that she doesn't play second fiddle to anyone. Connor finally puts the pieces together and realizes that R.J. = Daniel, and he's the one who's been secretly seeing Molly. Connor decides to confront Daniel about it ... in the boxing ring at the gym, and leaves the poor pretty-boy with hamburger where his face used to be.

Now that it's all out in the open, Connor begs for forgiveness from Willi (literally, on his knees and with welling tears and everything) and she accepts his apology. He also makes peace with Daniel, but I'd be willing to bet just about everything that it won't last long.

Papi appreciates that his daughters cared enough to get him a nurse, but he's just not having it. She won't let him do any of the things he wants to, like make massive heart-attack omelettes, and she actually forces him to stand up and walk around. Finally, she explodes and tells him off, saying that if he doesn't want to do it for himself, do it for his family, etc.

Somehow he falls for it, and agrees to toe the line. I don't have any spoilers for what's coming, but it certainly looks to me like they're setting up a relationship between Papi and Elena, which will surely not go over well with the family (especially Hilda).

The episode ends with Betty leaving her fantasy city life and returning home. But will she be able to incorporate what she learned in the city into life in the Suarez home? Stay tuned!

Great moments:

Justin asking to move in with Amanda. How awesome would that be?

Betty: "Jesse kissed me, then he left" Amanda: "Was it your breath again?"

Mark: "Where did Jesse kiss you?" Betty: "On My couch" Mark: "that's not a euphemism, is it?"

Amanda: "Is it possible he was just licking guacamole off your chin?" Betty: "Nope, I wasn't even eating" Mark: "Not eating? This story is growing more and more preposterous".

Another solid outing, I like that it wasn't as heavy-handed as recent episodes, and tied up some loose strings. I still don't like that Betty moved back home, but we'll see where they take it.

This week's episode gets an eight on the Marc Fabulous scale.