Ugly Betty Episode 3.03 Full Recap

Copyright © 2008 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc./ PATRICK HARBRON

Here is the full recap of Ugly Betty episode 3.03, Crimes of Fashion.  First, a few thoughts:

There seemed to be a consensus in the live blog that this episode wasn’t up to par.  I don’t totally agree (it beat some of the season 2 episodes, IMHO), but there were times when they got a little too cute.

The ending was a total surprise.  They took us down one road, then took a sudden turn at the end.

This was the episode where they finally started to reveal that Marc has a heart.  It was just a peek, but nice to see.  The mannequin was at once silly, creepy, and hilarious.

I really liked the flashbacks.  They did it like “Vantage Point” – they showed one person’s point of view, then segued to another, with a slightly different view of the same event, revealing a little more each time.  That was pretty cool.

Writers: can we please have a beautiful woman cross Daniel’s path that he DOESN’T sleep with?  Just once?

Regardless of the writing (I liked it more than some), this was a well acted episode.  Tony Plana was, I thought, exceptional.  As has been the case throughout season 3, Becki Newton made the most of the material she’s been given.  She’s the absolute funniest character on the show even with fewer lines.

Wilhelmina’s moment of hysterics was hilarious.

All in all, I’d give it a 3 (on a scale of 5).  Most importantly, it looks like all the changes they wanted to make this year have been put into place.  There’s one more loose end to be wrapped up next week (Gio).

Full recap after the jump.

Retro 70’s look.  Betty is under an interrogation light.  She asks if it’s necessary, and the detective moves it out of the way (they are in the Mode offices).  Betty is answering questions about Christina’s attack.  The detective asks about Daniel, and Betty tries to evade the question. 

Flash back to six hours earlier.

Betty talks to her dad on the phone while eating cereal for breakfast.  He worries about her, and thinks she doesn’t have enough locks on the door.  Someone stole Betty’s umbrella from outside her apartment, and, of course, it rains.  Betty shows up to work soaking wet.  Amanda says she looks better.

Betty runs into “The Daniels”.  DJ says, “What’s popping, shorty?  Super tight.  I am outtie five ‘k?”  in his broken English.  He’s learned hip hop talk at school.  Betty tries to get Daniel settle back in at Mode.  She offers to do his dry cleaning, and he asks her to add his jacket (which is covered in dust).  He also gives Betty a story to tell if anyone asks where he as the previous night. (Hey says to say they were at Player)  Betty would rather just tell the truth, but Daniel insists for some unknown reason.

Marc, in the other room, stands on Amanda’s desk and screams an announcement.  He announces that Wilhelmina is at the hospital, because Christina fell down the stairs and was unconscious.  He says that the baby and Wilhelmina are fine.  Betty asks, “What about Christina?”  Mark says that he didn’t ask.

Betty visits Christina in the hospital.  Christina reveals that she was pushed down the stairs. 

Suzuki St Pierre reports that many, many people (who hate Wilhelmina) are suspects.   Of course, Wilhelmina holds a press conference (and offers a reward of $100K)

Marc keeps trying to remind Wilhelmina that the situation is dire for Christina and the baby, but Willy keeps making it all about her.  She wants to keep attention off the poor sales of Mode.

Detective Averaimo comes into the offices with, and Amanda asks him to arrest her!  She is in full-force flirt mode.  Betty comes in and “saves” Averaimo, who is taken aback by Amanda’s strange (but not to us) behavior.  Betty reveals that Christina is her best friend.

Now, we’re back where the episode started.  Betty at first avoids the question of Daniel’s whereabouts the previous night, but then reveals that Daniel had asked her to lie.  Averaimo finds this interesting, and circles Daniel’s name in his note pad.

Betty tells her family over dinner.  Ignacio says that if Daniel is innocent, he has nothing to worry about.  On Betty’s way out, Hilda stops her and asks if she can use Betty’s apartment to talk to Tony.  Betty figures they’re going to do more than “talk”, but she acquiesces and gives Hilda the keys.

Betty comes into work – Amanda is flirting with Averaimo again, and mentions that he’s there to see Daniel.  Betty rushes through a back way to Daniel’s office to warn him.  She tells him that she didn’t lie for him.  He, of course gets angry and a little panicky.  Averaimo comes into the office, and notices Daniel’s sneakers that are lying around.  Daniel says they are one of a kind Bapes, size 11.  Averaimo puts Daniel under arrest, because the soles of the shoes match footprints at the crime scene.

Alexis and Claire bail Daniel out of jail.  Alexis mentions that she thinks someone might be framing Daniel.

At the hospital, Wilhelmina stands over Christina with a look of concern on her face.  We then see that she’s actually preening for the press.  She then hysterically roams the hallway, screaming for a drink of water for her poor surrogate.  She makes quite a scene.

Betty is riding in the back of a car with Daniel.  She tries to clear things up with him, but he won’t explain why he asked her to lie – he says it’s complicated.

At Betty’s apartment, Hilda and Tony are having a romantic dinner.  He mentions that he feels “dirty”, literally.  The water is out at work; he needs a shower.  Hilda offers to go get ice cream while Tony takes a shower.  Tony takes his shower, and hears someone opening the door. He thinks it’s Hilda, so he jumps out of the shower.  Unfortunately, it’s Ignacio.  Hilda then arrives.  Ignacio mentions that he brought some new locks for Betty’s door.  After some small talk with Tony about lock brands, Tony then reaches for his shorts. As he does, his wedding band falls from the pocket, and Ignacio sees it.  Ignacio then leaves, obviously angry.

Betty is in Christina’s hospital room, and she decides that she’s going to try to help solve the case herself to exonerate Daniel.  She asks Christina to think if there’s something she had forgotten that she didn’t tell the police.  Christina then tells Betty about her argument with Stuart, where she accused him of abusing drugs, and he left violently.  Both of them wonder if Stuart could have done it.  As Betty is leaving, Stuart approaches.

Betty tries to stall him.  Stuart figures out that Christina had told Betty about the fight.  He then reveals to Betty that Christina had been wrong – his experimental treatment did not work, and he is dying.  The drugs are for pain.  He doesn’t want to tell Christina, but Betty insists.  He goes in to talk to Christina.

Hilda sneaks into the house, but Papi catches her.  They argue about Tony.  The argument switches from English to Spanish, then morphs into a telenovela, which is on a Mode security guard’s TV.  Betty asks the guard for the security tapes from the night of the attack.  The guard says “a little blonde” already got them.

Late, Amanda admits that she got the tapes, because she wanted to win Willy’s $100K reward.  Apparently, Amanda is in some financial trouble (she’s maxed out 15 credit cards).  Betty asks her to tell what she remembered from the night of the attack.

Amanda remembered calling the Indian service center of one of the credit cards she mazed out, and in her memory, Betty walks in with a HUGE sandwich.  Back in real life, Betty says that didn’t really happen, so Amanda gets back to her “real” memory.  While talking to the call center, she heard a scream.  She then saw Marc slapping Wilhelmina, who was sitting in a hair with her back to Amanda.

They then talk to Marc.  he admits pushing Christina – but not down the stairs.  Marc then reveals a strange secret: he keeps a life-sized mannequin that looks just like Wilhelmina, so he can yell at it to let out his frustrations from time to time.  This is what Amanda had seen.  He reveals that he had been angry because Wilhelmina had promoted Betty above him.  He told her that he had dreams, too.  Marc then remembered that he had pushed Christina out of the way and stole her elevator (this is why she had to take the stairs).  We then see Claire, and segue to her flashback.

Claire admits to Betty, Amanda and Marc that she had gotten drunk that night. (She also reveals that in ail she learned “Do your own time, and don’t trust the popo” – heh).  In her drunken stupor she ran into Christina.  Literally.  She was almost too drunk to stand, and Christina was nice enough to take her to the ladies’ room.  Alexis just happened to be there, so Christina turned Claire over to her.

The trio then speak to Alexis.  She reveals that she was upset because she found facial hair on herself.  She had forgotten to take her estrogen.  In her memory, Christina then walked in with a drunk Claire, and left.

At this point, they decide to reenact the crime, using the Wilhel-mannequin.  They throw the mannequin down the stairs, but aren’t impressed.  Marc and Amanda decide they need someone heavier for a more realistic reenactment.  They try (teasingly) to get Betty to do it.  At this point, they all three accidentally fall down the stairs.  At the bottom of the stars, they see a lot of construction dust which matches the dust on Daniel’s coat.

Christina tells Wilhelmina that Stuart’s treatment didn’t work, and that he’s dying.  She asks to be left alone.

Betty sits at Daniel’s desk, and sees that he has the missing security tape in his briefcase.  She takes it, and he walks in.  Daniel tells betty he’s appreciative of her faith (as she backs out of the room, hiding the tape).  Betty hurries home, and Ignacio is there, fretting about Hilda.  Betty then tells her father that she thinks Daniel pushed Christina.  She shows him, the tape, and they watch it together.  But, it doesn’t reveal what they think it will: it shows Daniel having sex with a woman on the copy machine.

She confronts Daniel, who tells her that the woman was Holly, the state department liaison who was helping with DJ’s case.  Daniel had been afraid that if anyone found out about their dalliance, it would be grounds to take DJ from him.  Betty then realizes that he didn’t do the crime, and hugs (a LONG hug) him in relief.  As he leaves, he asks Betty to give his newly dry-cleaned coat back to Alexis.  He says she borrowed it the other day.

Betty then outs it all together.  She tells Alexis that she knows SHE did it.  She accuses Alexis of framing her own brother.  Then Alexis has HER flashback, showing a fight with Wilhelmina in which Willy threatened to reveal all of Alexis’ secrets.  Alexis then broke a heel on her expensive shoes, took Daniel’s sneakers, and went to the restroom where she saw the facial hair.  At this time, Christina came in with Claire.  When Alexis saw Christina, she saw Wilhelmina’s face, and lost her mind.  She the pushed Christina down the stairs.

Alexis immediately felt guilty.  She ran down the stairs to make sure Christina was still alive, then she called 911.  Betty tells her that now, she must do the right thing.

A musical montage follows.  Christina wakes up to find her room filled with flowers, and Wilhelmina reading “What to expect when you’re expecting”.  When the press starts snapping pictures, Wilhelmina closes the blinds.  She has a heart after all!  Alexis tells her family, Papi hugs Hilda. DJ hugs Daniel.  Betty finds her umbrella with an apologetic note from Jesse for “borrowing” it.

Averaimo arrests Alexis.  As Alexis is getting ready to go, she reveals that she accidentally had opened a piece of Daniel’s mail.  It was the paternity test.  Daniel is not the father of DJ. …

Alexis is.