TVSquad

(S01E06) One of the reasons I like Ugly Betty is that the characters aren't "TV stupid." You know what I mean: instances where the main character or one of the side characters blithely accepts someone's help without even considering why that person is offering help or what their motives might be. Or characters that continue to be played for suckers even though everyone around them, including the audience, start screaming for the person to wake the eff up.

But Betty is different. Betty knows that Wilhelmina's offer to pay for her dad's legal services was done to help drive a wedge between her and Daniel. Whilhelmina knows that her daughter Nikko is acting out when she gets thrown out of boarding schools and shoplifts. And Amanda is smart enough to know that Daniel is never going to settle down with her... he's looking for bigger fish to boink.

Well, now we know why Salma Hayek disappeared from the fake telenovela Ignacio watches... they wanted to make her into noted author Sofia Reyes, editor-in-chief of a new Meade publication and a romantic foil for Daniel. She's challenging, not like the women he's bedded down in the past; always one step ahead of his smarmy advances. The elevator scenes were especially hot, weren't they? When Sofia gets coffee on her blouse and she takes it off in the elevator, the red-blodded male in me was thinking, "whoa, look at those!" Of course, so was Daniel, and the fact that this is a person who he can't get just by citing the size of his "circulation figures" is driving him nuts.

There really was nothing special or unexpected with Wilhelmina's dealings with her daughter. Willie's a tough bitch who's only looking out for herself, and having a daughter around is an inconvenience. Nikko acts out because she wants her mom's attention. Willie's keen on that because she did the same thing with "the Senator," whom she probably hasn't called "Dad" since she was a kid. Really, the plotline wasn't anything earth-shattering, but it did show why Willie is the way she is, and it also shows that her single-minded quest to control Meade Publications can be sidetracked by real life.

Of course, Betty experiences nothing but real life. The latest indignity she suffers is having to sell Hilda's Herbalux crap at Mode to help pay for Ignacio's immigration lawyer. All the while, she's investigating why her mom's wearing a wedding band in a picture taken before her parents were married. Ignacio doesn't want to say, which leads to conflict. But when he finally spilled at the end of the episode, though, his story suddenly became very, very interesting, didn't it? He killed their mom's first husband trying to defend her, and that's why he never applied for a green card, even when there was an amnesty period in the eighties. How are Betty and Hilda going to deal with this shocking news, since Ignacio was their rock all this time? Betty especially is going to have a hard time dealing with it, considering how much she worships her dad.

So, as I said last week, the drama is ticking up a bit, but that's OK, since the storylines are starting to come together very nicely. The only thing that feels separate right now is the "Fey Summers haunting Bradford" story, but I'm sure the whole meghilla will get integrated into the rest of the goings on soon enough.

Some interesting tidbits:

• Fey's tomb looks just like the Mode offices, doesn't it?
• Hilda's observation of those offices: "It's like a gay version of Star Trek."
• The "Herbalux sale-a-thon" montage was funny, especially when Hilda and Betty throw those pills up in the air.
• And Betty's sales pitch would have probably been effective: "Tired of sticking your finger down your throat? Then why not try Herbalux?"
• Oh, and Debi Mazur? Playing a loudmouth lawyer in Queens? Talk about casting against type...