With its occasional glimpses of steamy telenovelas on the Suarez Family TV, Ugly Betty has never hidden its affinity for the soap operatic. They’ve done the coma and amnesia thing, and last night it was time for the obligatory trial.

While there were no “Joan Collins walks into the courtroom” shockers, it was at least mercifully short and finally put an end to the whole Fey Sommers murder plot that’s been lingering since the pilot. I’m grateful because the Meade family and their problems never hold much interest for me, although I really like Judith Light and am looking forward to seeing what she'll do next, now that she’s free of orange jumpsuits and Chained Heat innuendo.

The best thing about the trial was seeing guest stars Paul McCrane (a.k.a. E.R.’s evil Dr. Romano), and Barry Bostwick as dueling attorneys. Which meant we got to see the gay guy from Fame go head to head with bisexual Brad from Rocky Horror. If either of them had started singing (“I want to go crazy like those dogs in the yard” or “Dammit, Janet, I love you”), I think I might have become as deliriously giddy as Betty during her 48-hour bender.

Betty spent most of the episode tripped out of mind, having spritzed herself with frog venom perfume that Fey had used to try to kill off Claire. Suddenly, Betty was acting just like Lisa Simpson after she drank the acid-laced water at DuffWorld and got all “I am the lizard queen! I can see the music!”

America Ferrara did such a good job acting stoned, and the show used music, camera angles, and trippy costume designs so effectively to show her POV, that I started to feel kind of queasy myself. It was like watching a Skittles commercial drawn out for 45 groovy minutes.