"Ugly Betty" (3.17) recaplet: Sugar daddy

This week's Ugly Betty didn't hit the same highs as last week's stellar episode, but it still had enough to recommend it. Both Meade publications and the Suarez family are in dire financial straits, but when one of them is offered a bailout, will they take it?

This hit-and-miss episode features a cooking show competition, Wilhelmina riding a bus ... a public bus ..., a secret benefactor, and a hunky AfterElton.com favorite.

We start with Betty heading off to work in a wha-wha-wha-what? An all-black outfit? Yes, it's true. No clown college ensemble, no "Magic Eye" blouse, just a solid black dress. Justin looks stunned and says, "Aunt Betty, you're almost ... fashionable!" which prompts this hilarious response: "Justin, are you crying?"

Ignacio isn't paying attention because he's too busy watching his favorite cooking show, Kitchen Rumble, which will unfortunately figure heavily into this episode. Betty heads off after mentioning that she'll be meeting her "new friend Matt" for dinner, which garners lots of "ooohhs!" and catcalls from her family.

Betty arrives at work just in time to get a phone call from her "new friend Matt" and a delivery of jellybeans and balloons from him. Awww! The sweetness of the moment is perfectly offset when Wilhelmina saunters through with Marc, and immediately pounces on an underling for daring to wear ... oh, I can't even say it. Oh, okay ... she was wearing gladiator sandals. Willi orders the shoes burned and fires the foolish girl. Isn't it nice to have Willi-on-Wheels back?

Willi, Daniel, and Claire meet to discuss the Meade financial situation (which you may remember is in a bit of trouble after Connor wiped all the accounts clean). As coincidence would have it, the federal government has sent a panel to NYC to look into a bailout of print/media, and it's decided that Willi and Daniel will try to convince them that Meade deserves a chunk of that change.

Back at the Suarez house Matt drops Betty off, and finally meets Hilda, who advises Betty to dump him when she learns that Matt routinely (and conveniently) forgets his wallet and makes Betty pay for dinner.

Unfortunately, they have bigger problems when Justin rushes in with a notice from the landlord. An eviction notice! The landlord is in financial trouble himself, and needs to sell the house. However, if the family can come up with the fifteen-thousand dollars that's needed for the down payment, they can buy the house themselves. I did a little math, and Betty says that the fifteen thousand is 5 percent of the cost of the home, which means their house is worth ... three-hundred thousand dollars? Really?

Because they don't want to arrive at the bailout hearing in a limo, Daniel and Willi decide to take a bus ... a public bus ... but unfortunately learn that they can't use their gold cards for the fare. After dismissing a poor peasant who was stupid enough to invade her personal space, Daniel admonishes her for not dressing down for the meeting, but Willi insists that the haute couture she has on is "what I wear to the gym."

At the meeting they make the case for a bailout, and insist that getting the money they need will help the many construction workers, photographers, and other peons, "many of whom we rode the bus with just this morning." The panel says they'll reconvene later to talk numbers.

Meanwhile, Marc and Amanda have been ordered by Willi to go shopping for baby William at a fancy-schmancy baby store (that apparently carries the "cashmere diapers" she wanted), and as they're heading back to the office, they run into a single gay dad on the street named Timothy. From the store bags they're carrying, he assumes that Marc is another single gay dad, and Marc wisely doesn't correct him. They make a "playdate" to meet up again, but I think it means something different to Marc than it does to Timothy.

BTW, the actor who plays Timothy intrigued me, so I decided to look him up. Turns out his name is Cheyenne Jackson, and he's an out musical theater actor from NYC. It looks like his Betty gig is a one-shot deal, but hopefully we'll be seeing him again on AfterElton.com in the future!

After adding up all of their savings, the Suarez family realize that they're still ten-thousand dollars short for the down-payment, so they try to come up with ways to raise some extra cash.

Unfortunately Justin is the only one who scores, thanks to his one-man street show of show tunes. But Papi has an ace up his sleeve, thanks to his obsession with Kitchen Rumble. Because of his persistent calling, he's picked to appear on the cooking game show, where the first prize is ten-thousand dollars.

Here's the part of the episode that just didn't work for me. The show sets up in the family kitchen, and host Frankie (played by the surprisingly non-f-bomb-dropping Sopranos star Steve Schirripa) and Papi begin the food challenge, overseen by a host played by pop culture gadfly Mo Rocca.

The two men compete to cook chicken dinners, but there's a "moment of crisis" when Papi collapses. It's a false alarm, though, as it's just his back acting up (gee, from the previews, you would have thought it was something serious ... certainly they wouldn't mislead us?). Betty has to finish the meal, and when it's done, the judges decide that the winner is ... Frankie!

The family is crushed, but I was just glad this particular story was over. It was just too silly to work for me.

Thankfully, my favorite moment in the episode occurs next, as Daniel and Willi have dinner in a fancy restaurant to (prematurely) celebrate their upcoming windfall. After Daniel doesn't respond to Willi's good-natured (for her) ribbing, he admits that he's distracted. When he starts in on how Connor stole everything, and how Willi must be devastated, she tells him to leave the pillow-talk for Molly, which leads him to confess that Molly is sick. Actually, she's dying. Willi is taken aback, but manages to reach into her heart and tells Daniel, "well, now you've made me feel awkward." Classic Willi.

Marc and Amanda check baby William out from the Mode closet (after convincing Christina that Willi wants Marc to bond with him), but it brings up bad memories for Amanda, who's still not on speaking terms with her family for not telling her sooner that she was adopted.

Marc's plan to use baby William for the "playdate" is upset when Timothy arrives sans baby. His child wasn't feeling well, so Marc dumps William on Amanda, and he and Tim head off together.

Amanda races back to Christina, and has a moment of self-realization when Christina talks about how your real family isn't necessarily your biological family, blah, blah, blah.

Marc comes back from the date and talks about how boring Tim was, and how he only wanted to talk about his baby, and how glad he is that the playdate is over. Wait a minute! So that's it? Two quick scenes with Cheyenne and then he's gone? And what the hell is wrong with Marc that he would so easily dismiss this kind of relationship?

Still reeling from losing the cooking show, Hilda opens the mail to see that someone has sent them a check for ten-thousand dollars. She starts screaming in the living room, and we immediately cut to her screaming through the offices of Mode. So, did she scream all the way from the house to Mode, or did she take a break from the screaming on the subway, and then start up again in downtown Manhattan?

She shows Betty the check, and even though she doesn't recognize the signature scribbling, Betty's convinced it came from Daniel.

Unfortunately, that's not possible, as Daniel tells her that when he and Willi went back to the bailout hearing to find out how much money they were getting, the incensed congressmen showed them a pic from the New York Post having the time of their lives at that fancy restaurant. Because of their hypocrisy and their blatant flaunting of wealth, the panel has denied them a bailout.

Still perplexed as to where the check came from, Betty meets up with Matt for dinner, and after he signs the bill, he excuses himself to take a phone call. Betty looks down and notices that the signature on the bill is the exact same one that was on the check.

She confronts Matt, who admits that he was the one who gave them the check, and also confesses that his family is rich. Super-rich. Betty tells him that she can't accept the money, but he tells her "you don't even have to pay it back, we throw money like this at charity all the time." Oops.

Willi and Claire are ready to throw in the towel and close up shop, but Daniel decides that in order to save Meade, he's willing to sacrifice everything he has. If he liquidates all his assets, it might keep the business afloat for a few months. Willi decides that she will help out, too, "as much as she can."

Daniel meets up with Molly and tells her that he wants to be there for her no matter what, etc., blah, etc.

Just when all looks lost for the Suarez family, Papi has a surprise. It seems that the show was fixed, and Frankie was required to win, but he was so impressed with Papi's chicken that Frankie has not only offered him a job in his restaurant, he also bought Papi's chicken recipe for ten-thousand dollars! So the family home is saved! How ... neat and tidy!

The episode ends with Amanda deciding to give her adoptive parents another chance, and Betty meeting up with Matt again, who apologizes for the whole check thing. Betty tells him that she's not mad at him, he just took her by surprise, and she wants to more about him. Cue a very sweet kiss, as we cut to the Suarez family at home, about to watch Papi's primetime debut.

End of episode

Like I said, this was definitely hit-and miss. I loved Willi this week, although they probably could have done more with the whole "we need to act poor" theme. The stuff with Matt was unexpected, and will hopefully lead to great things next week with the introduction of his mother, played by the fabulous Christine Baranski.

But the other stuff just didn't work for me. Why hire Cheyenne Jackson and then not give him anything to do? They could have at least shown him shirtless. He was just a glorified extra.

And the stuff with Kitchen Rumble was, frankly, lame, and could have been left out altogether. But the good outweighed the bad, so I'm giving this episode a six and a half out of ten.

What did you think?