Ugly Betty Episode 2.13 Full Recap

Here is the full recap of Ugly Betty episode 2.13, “A Thousand Words By Friday”.  This is the last new Ugly Betty until the WGA strike ends, but never fear: here at Ugly Betty news, we will keep you up to date with all the news about the stars of the show, spoilers about upcoming plans, and probably most importantly, any news of when the strike will end and the show might return.  There is hope – I will tell you about it in future posts.

A stay tuned, we’ve got some fun stuff coming up!

I hope and pray this wasn’t the last episode of this season; it wasn’t the best.  It seemed to be missing “something”.  Even Amanda’s incredibly funny musical performance couldn’t bring this episode to the levels of the others this season.  It was still funny, just not up to the usual Betty hi-wait for it – larious standards.

One last thing: did anyone else notice that Mark Indelicato’s voice seems to be changing?

Recap after the jump.

At the Suarez house, Hilda is “practicing” her beauty techniques on Betty, because she doesn’t want to “mess up on real customers”.  Betty has asked her to help because she wants to look good for Henry’s band’s first gig (Henry is the manager).  When Hilda swings Betty’s chair around, the hairstyle is formal and “princess-ey”, not what Betty was after.  Hilda then sprays almost a whole can of hairspray on Betty’s hair. They discuss the band’s name (The IRS – the Internal Rhythm Service – they are all accountants). 

Justin comes in with a letter for Betty, looks at her and says “Oh, God, No”…then changes it to “…interesting” so he doesn’t hurt his mother’s feelings.  Unfortunately, the letter is another rejection letter from a magazine for one of her articles.

At Wilhelmina’s apartment, Christina is on the bed; Wilhelmina is keeping her there until they are sure the embryo has implanted.  Wilhelmina makes Christina keep her legs up on pillows, and gives her cheesecake.  Wilhelmina tells her “just a few more weeks”.  In a rare moment of feeling, Wilhelmina tells Christina she can’t thank her enough for doing this.  She starts to hug her, but both of them think better of it.

At the bar (the Beer Hole), Henry’s band is playing.  Their singer is awful.  Betty tells Henry, “I don’t think those voice lessons are paying off”.  Henry says that the club owner has demanded they get rid of the singer before they can get anymore gigs.  Betty suggests Henry sing.  He doesn’t want to.  They talk about how the turnout is good (29 people), then Daniel walks in the door.  Henry is excited and goes to get him a free IRS mouse pad. 

Daniel looks at the band, and tells Betty that they don’t look like the flyer Betty had made (it had 4 hot-looking women on it).  Daniel wants to leave, but Betty gives him “that look”, so he stays and has a beer.  He tells Betty there is a bar next door called the “Bear Hole”, so some of the audience may have gone there.  Betty leaves to round up any of them from next door.

At this moment, a beautiful woman (played by Gabrielle Union) walks up to Daniel and says, “come dance with me”.  She says she wants to make her boyfriend jealous.  When her “boyfriend” starts making out with another man, she admits she made it up because she liked him.  She dances with him seductively.

They introduce themselves, but the girl (Renee) already knows who Daniel is.  He has to stop for a second to check his cell phone.  He leaves for a minute to talk to Betty.  The writer for the Phil Roth interview had just dropped out, and he needed her to find a replacement.  Betty says that she LOVES Roth, and insists that she be allowed to write the story.  She reminds him that he owes her for a previous incident in which she covered for him when he booked dates with two women on the same night.  He gives in and tells her he needs a thousand words by Friday.

Later, Daniel and Renee are in his bedroom, kissing.  They fall to the bed, and then we hear “That’s not the boob you think it is”.  Daniel rushes to turn on the light – Claire is in the bed.  She was there because she had to get out of the Meade house – too many memories.  As she goes to sleep on the couch, she says, “In prison, I learned I could sleep through anything”.  They break up the night, but promise to meet again.

At Mode in the sex room, Amanda is comparing her own picture to one of Gene Simmons.  She tells Marc that Simmons is not returning her calls.  Marc gives Amanda an idea: she needs to communicate with him in his own language.  “Hebrew?” Amanda asks.  “Music”, Marc corrects.  She needs to write a song for him, record it, make a video, post it on YouTube, and then wait for Simmons to respond.

Betty walks into the Mode offices carrying a copy of “Phillip” Roth’s book, “The Human Stain”.  Gio walks up beside her, and tells her Phil Roth is “in the house”.  She is surprised that Gio knows who Roth is.  Gio informs her that the Roth there today is “Phil” Roth, not “Phillip”.  This Roth writes books on how to pick up women.  Betty says she doesn’t want to interview a guy who writes books like that.  Gio reminds her that if she does it, she’ll be published in Mode, so she goes into the room with Roth.  She introduces herself; Roth holds up his book: Tap That.  How to Score With Hot Bitches.

Betty begin the interview (she is very uncomfortable, and wants to call the book something else).  He tells her, “Men want to get laid.  I want to help them.”  His technique is: “Approach, Subdue, Score!” Betty says, “ASS?  Clever.  I smell a Pulitzer!”  He explains that the nest way to break the ice with a woman is to insult her.  Betty asks if he really believes that women fall for that.

Amanda walks in eating a donut, and Roth says, “That is so great that you’re not worried what that donut is going to do to your hips.”  Amanda is upset, but he turns and ignores her.  She keeps trying to get his attention. Amanda asks, “Who are you, what is your name, why don’t you like me?”  He tells Betty that it usually doesn’t work that quickly.  Betty ends the interview, and after Roth walks out, Amanda says she thinks she loves him.

Daniel talks to Claire on the phone; she is bored out of her mind.  She reminds him that her friends have rejected her since she got out of prison.  She says she’ll just clean his apartment again, and tells him she found his “stash of magazines under between the mattresses”.  He tells her under no circumstances should she look in his top dresser drawer.

Daniel asks Betty to look into classes or cruises so his mother will have something to do.  She gives him her article, but it isn’t about Roth (she couldn’t bring herself to write it).  Instead, the article is about Hilda.  Daniel is angry with her and asks if she even read the book – she says no.  She shows him the book (a woman being served on a platter).  Daniel asks, “You are literally judging a book by its cover?”  He takes her off the assignment.  But then he tells her that Roth Renee about this; she says she didn’t tell him because she assumed that telling him she was Wilhelmina’s sister would scare him off.  He says, “It did” and starts to walk away.  Wilhelmina walks in and says she had underestimated Daniel (speaking of his manhood).  Wilhelmina and Renee argue over her seeing Daniel.

Renee calls Wilhelmina by her real name “Wanda”, and Wilhelmina calls Renee “Rhonda”.  Wilhelmina forbids her to date Daniel, Renee says she’ll date whoever she wants.  Renee leaves, and when Wilhelmina sits down, she notices that Christina has been there all along.

In the break room, Amanda and Henry step all over each other, putting up separate flyers.  Amanda needs a band to record her song, Henry’s band needs a new lead singer.  It takes them both a while to figure out that they can each help the other (kind of).  Amanda goes to call “these people”; Henry’s phone rings, and he tells Amanda, “Hi”.

Later at Betty’s house, Justin walks in as Both Betty and Henry are reading “Tap That”.  He wants to read it (he thinks it’s about tap dancing) , but Betty tells him no.  After he leaves, Betty groans; she is completely disgusted by the book.  Henry thinks it is genius, but tries to hide that fact.  He suggests she should go out and do an experiment, seeing Roth’s techniques in action.  He thinks he could do it, but Betty suggests Gio instead, because he’s a total dog.

At the bar, Betty and Gio are sitting together; he eyes a pretty blonde that he will “Nova” (the name of Roth’s philosophy).  Before he can, though, she gives her phone number to someone else.  It turns out to be Henry.  He walks up to Betty and Gio, and explains that he is helping with the experiment.  Gio and Henry trash talk and turn the evening into a competition: most phone numbers collected wins.  Betty reminds Henry that he has a girlfriend.  Henry says, “Not for tonight, I don’t”.  He then explains that he meant for purposes of the experiment.

We then see a montage of Henry and Gio insulting women (these are actually insults by faint praise), and the Nova techniques working every time.  Betty takes notes, collects the phone numbers, and can’t believe what’s going on.

At Mode, Alexis asks Daniel why he’s still there (he’s hiding from his mother who has taken over his apartment).  They both complain about having to “babysit” Claire.  As they are saying this, they walk into a room, and Claire is there.  She overheard everything and is very upset.  She storms out; the Meade siblings now feel guilty.  They play rock, paper,scissors to decide who will go talk to her.

After Alexis leaves, Renee shows up with flowers, wanting to make up.  She admits she originally went after Daniel to make her sister mad, but then she ended up liking him.  He thinks about it, and tells her it’s best they forget that it ever happened. (Daniel’s getting stronger – without drugs!)  Renee walks out.

At the bar, Betty tallies up the phone numbers, Henry won by one.  Betty starts to throw the numbers away, and Gio tells her he “earned them” and takes his share.  He leaves to go talk to one of the women.  Betty is upset both at Henry, and the fact that the Nova techniques seem to work.

At the Suarez house Hilda tells Betty that Roth’s book isn’t that bad (and that Ignacio is reading it).  She explains that women know the men are playing them, but let the men think they don’t know, so that they (women) still have all the power.  She says Betty should have a more open mind.

Daniel comes to the door.  (He needs someone to talk to about Renee).  After talking it over, Betty tells Daniel to “go for it”.  Being siblings, certainly Renee is different from Wilhelmina? 

Later, Wilhelmina tells “Christina” to stay away from her yogurt – it turns out to be Daniel, who spent the night with Renee.  Wilhelmina tells him he has no idea what he’s getting himself into.  She says he’ll regret it, and walks out.

In the sex room, Marc is playing a keyboard while Amanda tries to pen a song.  She tries the torch song route, but the song is horrible.  They keep the lyrics:

Gene Simmons, fire breather, blood spitter, I am your little girl…

…along with a cool rap narrative about Amanda’s search for him.  But, they put it to more of a rock/rap beat.  The song is actually pretty good.  Marc says, “I can only hope that one day I’ll have an illegitimate daughter who’ll sing me a song that’s that beautiful”.

At the Mode offices, Daniel and Alexis walk into a room and Claire is there.   She tells them she’s going to start a magazine for women her age, and call it “HotFlash”.  The children try to talk her out of it, but she is adamant.

Betty walks in to re-interview Roth.  She reluctantly admits that his techniques actually work.  He says the “smart ones usually don’t get it”.  She tells him that he was mistaken when he tried to get another writer, and Roth says he did not do that.  Apparently, Daniel had used the Roth techniques on Betty!

Betty confronts Daniel; he explains that she is limited because she will only write about what she knows.  He was trying to get goad her into writing about something outside of her comfort zone (as any professional writer would have to do).  She sees that he is right.  He says that her article was good, but Alexis canned it because SHE didn’t like Roth.  Betty is upset, but still thanks Daniel for getting her to write the article.

In the break room, Betty tells Henry she’ll invite Hilda and Gio to the band’s gig (with Amanda).  Henry is upset – he knows Gio has a “thing” for Betty.  He is jealous and competitive with Gio.  He tells Betty that he trusts her completely,  but he doesn’t trust Gio.  Betty reminds him that SHE has some say in the matter.  But, for his feelings, she promises to stay away from Gio from now on.

At the bar, Marc introduces Amanda and the IRS.  She sings this great song, describing her conception (she does that wonderful thing with her voice where she goes from singing off-key, then switching to operatic).  Someone walks in front of Marc’s camera, and it turns out to be none other than Gene Simmons himself!  The song comes to a crescendo (screams of “GENE SIMMONS IS MY DAAAADY!” –my goodness, it was hilarious).  He gives his approval by doing his “tongue thing” in response to Amanda’s tongue-flashing.

She rushes to meet him. He confirms that he is “her daddy”.  He says he found out about her because he Googles himself every morning.  He remembers the night, and says Cher was really pissed off (this makes Marc frown).  They hug in a sweet moment, then walk out to catch up.

Henry asks, “Who’s going to sing now?”  Betty says HE should sing.  He says he’ll only do it under one condition (she sing with him).

They then proceed to sing/rap “It Takes Two” by Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock.  The crowd loves it (so do we).