How Betty Got Her Grieve Back

"How Betty Got Her Grieve Back" is the season two premiere of dramedy series Ugly Betty. It aired on September 27, 2007.^[1][2] It is the 24th episode in the series, which was written by Silvio Horta & Marco Pennette and directed by James Hayman. The episode's title is a play on the book and film How Stella Got Her Groove Back.

Plot

It has been three weeks since the tragic and surprising turn of events for everyone involved. Betty finds her life is in chaos after a series of very unfortunate events, which begins with a dream telenovela called La Pasiones de Betty, where Betty, dressed as a maid, is crying over losing Henry, who walks in and tells her that he loves her, but is stopped by his fiance Charlie, who has a gun pointed at the two, only to have Henry dump Betty and run to Charlie. Justin then wakes up Betty from her dream, and as she scrambles to get ready for work Justin tells Betty that he hopes Ignacio will come home soon. She wonders if Hilda will be joining them for breakfast and Justin says back, "Like she would ever leave that room." It appears that Hilda has not left it for those past three weeks.

Despite all that's happened, Betty is still in denial about one thing - how much Henry's departure has affected her, even as she tries to figure out why the pregnant Charlie would trick him into thinking that he was the father of her unborn child. This would cause Betty to start stressing throughout the entire day, which in turn would result in Betty bumping into a MODE glass cover and receiving a bruised eye, which required an eye-patch.

The past three weeks have been also been hard on Daniel and Alexis in the wake of the car crash. For Daniel, he feels like his ego has been bruised more than his injured bruised legs, even as he tries to keep the paparazzi from photographing the comatose Alexis. Daniel also notices Betty trying to deal with her problems over losing Henry and suggests that she "bury them" in Central Park. While there Daniel tells her to give a eulogy by placing all the things that symbolizes her feelings for Henry. As she does, Daniel decides to bury his drug addiction, which he tells Betty contributed to the car crash and that he blames himself for what happened. The two resolve to make changes and move on after their "funeral."

As Daniel returned to the hospital, he sees Alexis coming out of her coma, who appears to have suffered memory loss and still believes herself to be Alex.

It has also been difficult for Ignacio as well back in Mexico, as Betty calls to tell him the lawyer is making sure that he will be able to help him return to the United States.

Meanwhile, Amanda turns to junk food and to Marc in dealing with the revelation that Fey Sommers was her real mother. As Marc walks in and sees a fat Amanda and opens a drawer full of what Marc call Amanda's "friends with the creamy center" (even Wilhelmina calls her "Betty") he suggests that they pay a visit to Scarsdale, as they try to get the real answer about how close her parents were to the late editor. When they arrive, Amanda is shocked to see her "parents" in their pajamas in the daytime...and having company, another couple also in their pajamas, coming from the bedroom! It turns out that the Tanens are swingers, even after telling Amanda that they don't keep secrets from her. But before Amanda decides to give up, Marc steps up and tells them that Amanda knows about Fey being Amanda's mother. The Tanens tell Amanda that she was adopted because Fey didn't want to damage her career and felt that Amanda would have a better life with another family, plus the Tanens couldn't have children (Mr. Tanen has lethargic sperm). Having learned this, Amanda and Marc decide to look for the other piece of the puzzle...Amanda's father. As they arrive back to the Meade Building, the two are joined in the elevator by Bradford, and as Marc observes closely he sees both Amanda and Bradford making the same movements and mannerisms, leading to speculations that Bradford could be Amanda's father. Marc tells Amanda that the only way to get proof is "Three words...DNA!" After two failed attempts by Amanda, Marc succeeds by telling Bradford about Wilhelmina not liking his ear hairs and clips them. Marc later hands the evidence to a pleased and disgusted Amanda.

With Daniel and Alexis out of the way temporarily, Wilhelmina takes advantage of being temporary editor-in-chief by scrapping Daniel's approved spread in favor of one featuring Victoria's Secret, with help from assistant editor Sheila, who can't resist wearing one of their push-up bras. Later on that day Justin, who was supposed to be at day camp, sneaks in to the 28th floor and sees Wilhelmina having a nervous breakdown over fashion concepts. After she overhears him telling a model to lose the belt and quotes Coco Chanel, ("When accesorizing, always take off the last thing you put on") Wilhelmina spots him and likes his idea, calling Justin her little fashion elf. Justin would later learn from Betty that MODE has offered him an internship, thanks to Daniel.

And as Wilhelmina schemes to turn the tragic Meade family events to her advantage, Claire and Yoga prepare to make their hideaway plans as Claire tries to stop the wedding plans. While hiding out in a beach house in Long Island, Claire tells Yoga that she needs to find a way to get to Bradford, so Claire decides to call Wilhelmina and tells her that she will sell MODE to her by meeting at Central Park, with Claire showing up as a nun. But their plans to double-cross each other take a surprising turn: At Central Park, it is Marc who shows up in Wilhelmina's dress...but he gets beaten up by Yoga in the nun's outfit, while at Bradford's office, Claire is shocked to see Wilhelmina there, but after Wilhelmina offers Claire a scotch and tells her the police will be arriving in three minutes, Claire punched her out, drinks her scotch and says she'll be gone in one. After licking their wounds, Wilhelmina suspects Claire has friends helping her, prompting Wilhelmina to hire a bodyguard.

Finally, as mentioned earlier by Betty and Justin, Hilda and Santos are spending their day in bed, talking about their wedding plans and their future together as a couple. Hilda refuses to let him leave, for his own safety, because she came so close to losing him. They make plans to set another date for their wedding and open up the wedding gifts that they have already received. Hilda tries on her wedding dress for Santos and asks him to read his wedding vows. Santos reads a letter saying that he will always love Hilda and he was sorry it took him many years for this to come out. When Santos tells Hilda that it was time for him to leave, Hilda cries and says she doesn't want him to go and begs him to stay in bed a while longer; he needs to heal from his gunshot wound and he looks at her while heading to the bathroom. Betty opens the door to a dark room to ask Hilda if she would like to join them for dinner and we find Hilda, sitting alone in her bathrobe, holding a pillow and staring at the bathroom door with the light on; it appears that for the past three weeks she hasn't gotten over the fact that Santos has indeed died in the robbery. She finally brings herself to admit that "he's gone" and cries to Betty that she hasn't said this out loud yet. Betty then comforts her sister and tells her everything will be fine.

Later that night in Times Square, a bus stops to drop off a passenger: Henry.

Casting

There were changes in the show's starring lineup with this episode. Judith Light, who plays Claire Meade, and Christopher Gorham who plays Henry Grubstick, became series regulars after being recurring in the first season. In addition, this episode introduced the recurring characters of Sheila, played by Illeana Douglas and reporter Suzuki St. Pierre, played by Alec Mapa. Kevin Alejandro's Santos, who was a recurring character in the first season, would make his final appearance in this episode.

Reception

The episode received positive remarks from critics and fans. In a review from Entertainment Weekly, writer Tanner Stransky notes "My biggest concern going into last night? That this episode would go the way of so many sophomore-season premieres — the way of we got too big for our britches, i.e., we got cocky and tried to one-up ourselves but fell flat on our faces. I'm all about one-upping, but in the case of Betty, why change something that was working so delightfully well? I'm happy to report that the show didn't go off the rails. I was impressed: From Amanda's sudden weight gain (genius!) to Justin scoring an internship (as the correspondent from Fashion TV would say, ah-maaaz-ing!), the whole thing felt very core Betty."^[3]

Ratings

The episode scored a 7.4 rating and placed 28th in the September 24–30, 2007 Nielsen ratings,^[4] down from its 16.9 debut in 2006. It pulled in 11.16 millions viewers, an improvement from the first season finale, but was off by 5 million from the debut episode.^[5] This episode held 6.4 million viewers when it aired on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom on October 5, 2007.

Notes

Victoria's Secret got promotional consideration credits in this episode, as most of the scenes featured the company's line of products and the use of its "What Is Sexy?" trademarked tagline.

References

Also starring

• Kevin Alejandro - Santos
• Jayma Mays - Charlie
• Lorraine Toussaint - Yoga

Guest stars

• Kurt Fuller - Mr. Tanen
• Stephanie Faracy - Rosemary Tanen
• Matt Riedy - Mr. Klein
• Kat Sawyer - Mrs. Klein
• Alec Mapa - Suzuki St. Pierre