TVSquad

(S01E21) I wish Ugly Betty's Christina could sit down with The Office's Pam and tell her the same thing she told Betty - "You can take care of yourself, princess." How original. How wonderful. How like real life.

(S01E20) Betty is back and in fine form. The writers have officially ditched all the weak links - Constance, Nico, the warm-hearted version of Wilhelmina. The bitches are out in full force, and the camp is in overdrive. And, oh my god, I think we have a new word in the pop culture vernacular - "faux-mo!" This week was great, but we're clearly just setting up for next week's Medieval meltdown. Who doesn't want to see a bunch of fashionistas plopped down at a RenFaire to dissect the tragedy? But, that's next week, let us focus our attention on Betty as Carrie, hairapy and little orphan tranny.

(S01E17) Here's the formula for a great Ugly Betty episode - let Wilhelmina be bitchy, let Marc and Amanda be campy and send one of the Manhattanites to Queens to have a fish-out-of-water bonding experience with Betty. Throw in a little geek chemistry, and you've got yourself one shiny Betty episode.

(S01E16) To quote Lucy Liu as O-Ren Ishii in Kill Bill and as The Chin on Ugly Betty, "You didn't think it was going to be that easy, did you?" Tonight's theme - "it's complicated." I ended my review last week by saying this, but I think it bears repeating. Watching good TV can be an emotionally masochistic endeavor. One of the first lessons you learn in "how to be a TV writer" class is to put the screws to your characters. This lesson is often phrased as, "Give the audience what they want, and then take it away." This week's episode was all about giving us what we wanted and taking it away. Betty opens up to Henry about her feelings for him. Done. Christina catches a break. Done. Alexis gets to feel a little human connection post-op. Done. Justin gets to see Hairspray. Done. Hope you enjoyed it because now those cruel, cruel writers are going to make us regret that we ever wanted those things to happen in the first place.

(S01E09) Tonight, we got a "very special episode" of Ugly Betty. Heavy on the holiday sentiment, the hour kicked off with Daniel's question to Betty, "What is a family?" One day in Queens later, and he just may have figured it out. Fortunately, Marc's last minute blackmailing of Wilhelmina and Ignacio's arrest kept things from getting too sticky sweet.

I know a few writers who think creating parallels between characters or storylines is a cheap, sorta lazy tactic, but I love it. Juxtaposing characters and letting them play out similar themes in separate storylines is always satisfying to me. The show has contrasted Wilhelmina and Betty effectively in the past, but the series' real core involves the parallel arcs of Daniel and Betty. They're both young, in new positions at Mode, have trying family situations and are romantically-challenged. They have the greatest potential to learn from one another - Daniel about family and Betty about her capacity as an independent, professional woman.