This week's episode of ABC's Ugly Betty opens with our heroine continuing to deal with boss Daniel and the cesspool known as Player magazine.

They're on the steps of a NYC courthouse* with scantily clad models in lingerie posing as lawyers (isn't that how Nancy Grace and Gloria Allred got started?), when Betty realizes that Daniel has been making notes about the upcoming issue of Mode. He denies caring about what happens to the magazine he was fired from, but Betty doesn't buy it, and later brings it to the attention of Alexis. She dismisses it at first, but after looking at his input, is intrigued ... could she be regretting her decision to replace him with Wilhelmina?

Hilda and her too-beautiful-for-words boyfriend Tony (Eddie Cibrian) are taking a romantic stroll past Riker's Island when he proposes they do something "special"... in a few days when his wife is out of town. For some reason, this doesn't sit too well with her, but he promises her that she's not "the other woman", she's the "only woman" (a groaner of a line, but with abs and package sincerity like his, you can almost buy it).

* On a side note, the production of the show moved to NYC this season to make it "more authentic", and they're certainly milking the location shooting for all it's worth.

"I like Doggie Chow, too"

Alexis takes Daniel's notes and confronts Willi about the upcoming issue, but Willi is suspicious about the crudely written post-it notes on Alexis's mock-up, and realizes what's going on ... she can recognize Daniel's dangling participles anywhere.

Nervous that Daniel might be trying to usurp her, Willi and Marc plot to stop him ... by removing Betty from the picture, which leads to this chilling line that reverberates through the halls of Mode: "Betty, you have a lunch date ... with Wilhelmina".

Betty and Willi have lunch together, in the most uncomfortable scene of its kind since Showgirls, and Willi (who looks like she's wearing a bottle opener around her neck) makes excruciatingly awkward small talk. After she tells Betty that her blouse is "lovely", Betty calls her on her BS, and Willi delivers my favorite line of the night: "you're right, it's hideous ... like driving through Ohio". Willi makes Betty a job offer, working for her at Mode, but says, "don't worry, I won't ask you to do anything morally suspect ... that's what i have Marc for."

Betty discusses it with her family (in the only scene tonight where they're all together), and they're for her going back to work at Mode (especially Justin, for whom reading Player is like reading a National Geographic about lost pygmy tribes).

Willi runs into Daniel in the elevator, and "innocently" mentions the lunch she had with Betty, and when he confronts Betty about it, they have a tiff, which leads her to accept Wilhelmina's offer.

Even with Bob Mackie's help, the musical version of Sigmund and the Sea Monsters was panned.

Marc makes it clear that he's still in charge (but tells her that if she gets the filing right, he won't "beat her with a bag of oranges"), and Betty takes on her first assignment ... delivering a cup of coffee to Willi during the big meeting with an Italian cosmetics advertiser. The owner of the company (who's wearing an atrocious green outfit that makes her look like a hairy celery stalk) asks Betty if she wears her line of makeup. Betty says no, she can't afford them, but if he woman advertised her new budget line in Mode, all the girls in Queens would buy it.

The woman ends up extending her contract with Mode, thanks to Betty, which garners a smile from Willi (unfortunately, Marc explains that she wasn't actually smiling, but "showing her teeth").

Will Betty be seduced by the dark side? Find out after the break!

The Birthday Boy, Eddie Izzard

In a continued effort to bring you all that is important in the world of gay entertainment and ensure that you are being spoon-fed images of gorgeous, commoditized manflesh, we present the newly-minted AfterElton Briefs. Following the usual assortment of carefully-selected news items, interested readers can find a refreshing pic of a hot man in underwear after the jump. Yes, we're serious.

• Hey, Mitt: Don't let the screen door hit you in the ass on the way out. Not that it, or anyone else, would want to.

• He's not gay but we love him anyway: Happy Birthday, Eddie Izzard! Here's to hoping he got a nice new party dress.

• Hey Texas: R.E.M. (with out frontman Michael Stipe, of course) was just announced in the SXSW lineup, along with about two zillion other bands. Check 'em out.

• Despite being apparently designed by Monk, NYC's new coin-op toilets still aren't clean enough for me to set foot in. And what's with the 550lb weight restriction? Two's company but three's a crowd?

• The Hitchcock-inspired pics from Vanity Fair's 2008 Hollywood Issue are just genius. Check out Milk's Emile Hirsch (taking the role played by bisexual actor Farley Granger) and James McAvoy in Strangers on a Train above, and check out this behind-the-shoot video for more.

And today's Briefs are brought to you by...

A nifty behind-the-scenes teaser trailer was released last week for Valkyrie, openly gay director extraordinaire Bryan Singer's upcoming World War II epic, due out next summer. Valkyrie is based on a true story and revolves around the German plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Tom Cruise stars as Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, with Bill Nighy, Terence Stamp, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson, Eddie Izzard, and Stephen Fry rounding out the rest of the cast. Early footage looks promising and I've got high hopes for the film, as I've loved just about everything Singer's done, including the vastly underrated Superman Returns.

Singer's filmography is fascinating in that he obviously has a predilection toward films with themes he can relate to; growing up both Jewish and gay has obviously influenced him a great deal. After all, few filmmakers would have opened a big budget superhero film in a Nazi concentration camp or included a "coming out" scene, as he did in X-Men and X2, respectively.

It will be interesting to see how Singer handles a film more explicitly about these themes when he tackles the Harvey Milk biography, The Mayor of Castro Street, which Singer is still (as far as I know) attached to direct, before he moves on to the Superman sequel. That film will be in competition with Gus Van Sant (another openly gay director) and his, as yet untitled, Harvey Milk project, already in pre-production.

UPDATE: A higher quality version of the teaser has been uploaded to the Apple website, in glorious Quicktime.

• Ask a Gay Man to be a webisodic show on Bravo's OutZoneTV, starting June 21st. Until then you'll just have to ask someone else.
• Gay director Bryan Singer adds Eddie Izzard to his fact-based drama Valkyrie, which tells the story of a unit dispatched to kill Hitler during WWII. Did I mention that Tom Cruise stars? No? That's because I actually wanted to you read the whole bullet.
• Breaking: Gay icon Ellen Pompeo (Grey's Anatomy) was essentially raised by drag queens. Related: Ellen Pompeo (Grey's Anatomy) is a gay icon.
• This is already a bit old, but it's kind of funny: a parody story about the nonexistent teen girl reaction to David Hyde Pierce's coming out.
• Ugly Betty's Michael Urie (who plays gay Marc) participated in a reading of Lou Diamond Phillips' Burning Desire, a romantic comedy that co-starred Amy Smart and Phillips himself as the devil. And yes, you just read that right (above pic snagged from the ever-wonderful Televisionista).

Regis and Kelly (Syndicated) Check local listings
Neil Patrick Harris takes a turn as guest host on today's show. Considering how the two hosts usually spend the a part of the show discussing their domestic lives, this could be very interesting -- although NPH didn't make mention of his romantic life in his guest-hosting gigs while Regis was off having surgery. Wouldn't it be cute to see Kelly and NPH comparing their spouses' quirks? Meanwhile, Broadway Week continues with the cast of Grey Gardens performing today.

The View (ABC) 11:00 AM EDT
Gay comedian Mario Cantone stops by to talk about his turn as the voice of a surfing penguin in Surf's Up. Loraine Bracco takes a turn as guest host.

Say Uncle (Showtime) 8:00 OM EDT
Queer as Folk's Peter Paige directed and stars in this dark comedy, which makes its cable premiere tonight, about a gay artist who seeks the company of children after his godson moves away. Eventually, one mother begins to worry that his intentions in spending so much time with children might not be so honorable. The fabulous Kathy Najimy plays the mother who starts the hysteria. Check out the trailer after the break.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Comedy Central) 11:00 PM EDT
Cross-dressing comedian, Eddie Izzard stops for a chat. Izzard has an upcoming movie role in Ocean's Thirteen but I'm hoping we'll also get to hear talk about Izzard's riveting TV series The Riches, which finished its season this past Monday.

We've been wondering the past few weeks where the new FX show The Riches is going to go with the character of the gypsy family's young son Sam, who prefers Girl Scout uniforms to jeans and sneakers. We'd guessed that the character was intended to be an echo of the show's lead, Eddie Izzard, who himself has been known to wear dresses despite being devoutly heterosexual.

During last week's appearance on Ellen, Izzard referred to his own cross-dressing as an "alternative sexuality" comparable to Ellen's lesbianism (and for a moment it looked like she might debate the point). She raised the topic of the dress-wearing little boy on the show, and though they promised to discuss further after the break, the subject was never revisited.

In a recent TV Guide interview, however, Izzard directly discussed the character, confirming that the little boy is a reflection of his own straight transvestite coming-of-age:

"I pitched it to the show that he should have my sexuality 'cause when I came on board he was already written as being a transvestite. I don't call it "drag," I call it wearing dresses. Basically Sam is like what I would've been. Hopefully his journey, particularly with his sexuality, would be what I would've worn if I was his age and allowed to wear whatever I wanted to at home. So that's what he's going to explore. Straight transvestite sexuality is sittin' here. I know it and you can keep checking with me where it should go."

It's interesting that much discussion of the show has been referring to the kid as gay, and nice to see the folks behind the show speaking directly to the topic -- at least they're not using an "is-he-or-isn't-he" tactic to string people along. And this character is a great reminder that sexuality and gender identity -- though often related -- are not one and the same.

Has anyone else been watching? What do you think about the handling of this character?