Ugly Betty: Dress for Success (Episode 225)

We begin the brand spankin' new episode of Ugly Betty with Betty being super excited about getting to meet the head of the YETI program. It's some woman she's been idolizing for, umm, forever. Betty fills in the fam on all the juicy details of her new idol while they decorate for the reopening of 'Hilda's Beautilities Plus," ghetto fabulous neon sign and all. I wish I was kidding about the name and neon sign but I'm not, it really is just that ridiculous.

At Mode things are getting ugly. Elle beat them bad last month so Daniel and Wilhemina are bribing staffers with bottles of wine (a bottle of wine? Clearly we are in a recession.) if they can brainstorm ways to make Elle eat their dust. Daniel pulls a bunny out of his hat, well actually it's more like a hideous dress that is decorated with fireworks exploding. Oh yeah, and he's conned Keira Knightley to pose in the dress on the cover. Supposedly she will only do the cover shoot if she can wear that dress. I say Keira Knightley can take her dress and go pose for Fugly magazine. Betty has a different reaction than me though, she's overly excited, so much so that she does a "go Daniel go" dance. He gives Betty the duty to set everything up but it all has to be in secret. She says she feels like a spy. Suarez, Betty Suarez.

After Betty and Daniel's meeting Wilhemina pulls Daniel aside and gives him the DVD of him and Molly, you know the one of him and her almost kissing. Marc can't believe she's being so nice, but later she fills Marc in on her evil plan. She figures if Daniel and Molly do end up together then that will leave Connor for her. Life is just that easy apparently.

Betty talks to Cristina who is in full on breakdown mode. She says it's just the pregnancy hormones. Is she about to pop or what? Seriously it seems like she's been preggers for years and years.

Betty goes to her first YETI class and gets scalded by her idol, Jodi, for missing the mixer the night before to instead help Hilda. She tells the group, while focusing on Betty, that they better be prepared to give up things or get out. After this she heads back to Mode where she and Connor take the elevator together. Turns out Connor is friends with Jodi. He says she's great but she can be tough. Betty says she was a bit unfairly tough on her today about missing the mixer. Connor tells her that networking is just one of those things you have to do in the biz. Betty's assignment is to get 40 new contacts by next class, Connor tells her to find someone that is really good at the superficial stuff and just do what they do. So, Betty goes to the poster boy for superficial, Marc. He reluctantly agrees to help her, but he can only do it tonight so Betty has to call and cancel helping Hilda with putting together some gift bags for the reopening.

Molly brings back the dress she borrowed and gives it to Daniel... who by the way is looking like a ghost, he's SO pale. Someone needs a sunny beach vaca! Things are a bit awkward between Molly and Daniel and just as they're about to discuss their 'almost kiss' Connor comes up and ruins the moment.

Marc and Amanda, aka M+A, take Betty out to network. Betty isn't much of a natural mixer, she spends 22 minutes talking to... a caterer. M+A remind her that the point of networking is to talk to people that will further your career, and make it brief. Marc says the main tip is to say who you are, where you work and one 'memorable' fact... even if the fact is fiction. After this M+A skip out on Betty leaving her to figure things out by herself. She ends up doing quite well for herself spewing countless fictional facts. When she gets to 39 contacts she starts looking for one more person to finish out her assignment. Just then a chick with a flashy pink stripe of hair named Teri, played by Nikki Blonsky (Hairspray), sits down next to Betty and says how sick of networking she is. This instantly pulls Betty in and before long they exchange business cards. Turns out Teri works for ELLE.. she's like Betty's clone at ELLE. They both laugh about how they should be pumping each other for information but instead they decide to just chit-chat. Several drinks later Betty leaves the table for a moment and happens to leave her cell phone on the table, Teri gives a sneaky look and then we cut to commercial. When we return it's the next day and Betty is at Mode excited because she managed to get a supposed scoop out of Teri. Daniel heard that ELLE moved next month's photo shoot to Venice, which is where MODE was planning to do theirs, but Betty heard from Teri that things didn't work out and now ELLE is doing their shoot in Paris. So, Daniel decides MODE will keep their shoot in the Venice canals. I'm thinking Teri just gave Betty a false scoop. Regardless Betty gets her 'generous' bottle of wine.

Later in the day Ignacio comes by MODE and Betty loads him up with a box full of beauty product samples from the MODE closet. They're going to use those samples for Hilda's gift bags. Ignacio tells Betty how important this all is to Hilda and that a newspaper is even coming to cover it, Betty promises she won't miss anything. Meanwhile, Christina goes to Hilda's salon just to relax more or less. Hilda confesses to Christina while she's there that she'd love to just have her little sister back sometimes. Then Christina has a pregnancy pain and grabs a seat, she asks Hilda how she'll know when she's in labor, Hilda tells her that if she has to ask she's not in labor.

Besides all the YETI, ELLE and Hilda drama Wilhemina is also throwing a par-tay and it is sure to be dramatic because she's planning to match Daniel and Molly up at her party.

Betty goes to pick up the hideous firework dress but when she arrives to pick it up she's told Betty Suarez already did and she left a card. The guy mentions she had a pink stripe in her hair... Betty realizes it was Teri! She goes and tells Daniel and Wilhemina who try not to freak out. They video conference with the ELLE editors and try to get the dress back. Teri and Betty exchange some words during the conference. In the end the ELLE editors won't give the dress back. Wilhemina tells Betty she's not cut out to work in this business, and Daniel isn't going to give Betty a shoulder to cry on either. She tries to brainstorm ways to fix this mess but Daniel tells her to just go home. So, Betty goes home and Ignacio tries to get her to just forget about things. Betty goes through her business cards to pull out Teri's and out of the blue she has an idea on how she can get the dress back. She calls Marc and they plan to meet. Betty goes to leave but Hilda catches her before she goes and she's pissed Betty is just going to leave her reopening party. Betty asks Ignacio to back her up but instead he lays into Betty for putting family second.

At Wilhemina's party everyone is looking amazing, Wilhemina especially! Her plan to pull Connor aside seems to go off without a hitch. As soon as he and Molly arrive she pulls him aside to go talk to someone and then Daniel swoops in to talk to Molly. He tells her that he hasn't been able to get her out of his head since they met and he knows how horrible that is and what he's jeopardizing but he can't change the way he feels. Molly tells Daniel that she doesn't want to hurt Connor, they have been through so much. Daniel says he knows that and if she walks out that door and doesn't want to speak to him again he'll respect that. Meanwhile, Wilhemina tries to swoop in on Connor too but just as they're talking Molly pulls Connor aside and tells him that she's not feeling well.

Betty making friends with that caterer the other night turns out to be a the best contact she's ever made. He's doing the catering for a party ELLE is throwing tonight and he sneaks Betty and Marc in. Since Marc used to work at ELLE he knows exactly where the fashion closet is so they go straight there. They find the dress, which is even uglier in person, in no time but just as Betty is trying to get the dress off the mannquin some girl and guy come to the closet. Marc and Betty disappear with the entire mannequin and take off running through the party. Teri spots them and chases after them. She and Betty get into a fight with a flower vase. I wonder if this is what the fight between Nikki Blonsky and Bianca Golden looked like at the Turks and Caicos airport? Hmm... Anyway, Betty and Marc escape into a nearby elevator with the mannequin and dress. SCORE!

After Connor and Molly leave Wilhemina's party Wilhemina and Daniel talk. Daniel lets Wilhemina know that he's onto her plan to try to get Connor. Soonafter this little chat Marc and Betty show up at the party with the dress. Wilhemina lets them into the exclusive party. They are in heaven. Betty gets a call from Hilda while at the party but she silents the call. She soon finds herself mingling with none other than Jodi from YETI. Jodi tells Betty this is a first that she has seen an assistant at a Wilhemina Slater function, Betty says she's just networking. She asks Jodi if she might consider being her mentor, Jodi tells her that they'll start with her not kicking Betty out of YETI and go from there. She says it smiling which gives you the impression that she will end up being Betty's mentor.

When Betty goes home for the night she expects to find Hilda, Ignacio and Justin cleaning up from the reopening extraganza but instead she finds no one home and things seem out of place, like a chair is flipped on its side. She looks at her phone and sees that Hilda tried calling her a dozen times or so throughout the night. Betty finally calls Hilda back. Hilda answers and tells Betty they're at the hospital, Betty immediately guesses that Christina went into labor, but that's not it. Hilda is crying and she tells Betty that Ignacio had a heart attack. Betty rushes to the hospital and finds Hilda and Justin around Ignacio's bed. He's laying there with tubes in his mouth and seems to be in a coma. Let's hope Ignacio makes a full recovery the show wouldn't be the same without him!

Daniel goes home and finds Molly sitting on his steps. She tells him that he's right she can't say she doesn't have feelings for him, she broke up with Connor, they kiss. And, Wilhemina's fantasy of Connor coming for her comes true. He comes to her door and they kiss. It's about damn time!