Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Ugly Betty: October 18, 2007

Fine. Let's talk about Ugly Betty. If you insist.

I just found the entire episode to be chock-full of character assassination. Maybe Wilhelmina spiked their drinks? Because no one was acting like themselves.

Come on, Betty plagiarized a paper for her Creative Writing class? Dude, she shows up to work at a fashion magazine everyday dressed like my grandma circa 1985. Is she really going to care if a class full of struggling writers like herself is going to laugh at her story about not going to her prom? Trust me, none of them went to their proms, either.

Then, the writers try to pass off on us that Justin has decided to grieve his dead father by becoming him. Leather jacket, failing algebra, kissing girls. I understand wanting to connect to your dad by picking up some of the things he loved, like basketball, but come on, it's hard to fight nature. What's worse, Hilda, concerned peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich-making mother that she is, does NOTHING to try to talk to her son about this showing out in grief. Denial not just a river in Egypt, people!

We also find out that Wilhelmina used to be Fey Sommer's assistant and was called Wanda, and Wanda was no Miss America. Amanda tries to use this information on Wilhelmina to get the lowdown on her Daddy, and Wilhelmina totally complies, to keep "Wanda" out of the picture once and for all.

Wilhelmina nice? Amanda using intelligence? What's happening to my show? This is the Halloween episode, right? Where we're really in Bizarro World?

Finally, let's talk about Henry, who is REALLY beginning to frustrate me. Actually this whole Henry/Betty dynamic is beginning to bug me. OK, so let's start from the beginning with him. He likes Betty. He tries to date Betty, but she's dating Walter. Betty breaks up with Walter, but then Henry's ex, Charley, comes back to town. Henry breaks up with Charley, only for Charley to tell Betty that she's pregnant with Henry's child. Betty tells Henry, and they break up even though they were never really together, and then Betty finds out that Charley's been catting around on Henry, and the baby might not be his at all! So Henry comes back to Manhattan, because he CAN'T FIND A JOB IN TUCSON, ARIZONA. (Come on! Am I really supposed to believe that an accountant can't find a job in Tucson?), and Christina (Betty's seamstress friend) tells Henry about Charley's exploits. At this point, Henry orders a paternity test and he and Betty decide to put their relationship on hold until they get the results back. Guess what? Turns out Henry is the baby's daddy, and now he and Betty really can't be together.

WHY DID YOU WASTE MY TIME, UGLY BETTY WRITERS??? Why complicate things further, if you weren't going to put them together in the first place. This whole things smacks of Ross and Rachel, and I am beyond over it. Now, that is not to say that I am over the show. In no way. But I am over Henry and Betty. Bring The Sandwich Guy back. At least he challenged Betty to think for herself again.

I hope they fired those writers who wrote last week's episode, or at least put them back to serving coffee to the writers who actually know how to advance the plot in a convincing way.

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