TV Recap: Ugly Betty - In the Stars

It’s time for the wedding issue at Mode and you know what that means? Yup, love all around. Mostly anyway. There is also some weird Marc something that makes you shudder and it is performance review time but other than that, it’s pretty much straight up candy and flowers. Matt and Betty, Ignacio and his woman, Daniel and Molly, Claire and Matt’s dad. Wait. Did I say that last one out loud. That hasn’t happened yet.

Daniel and Molly, on the other hand, can’t deny they are completely and totally in love. When Molly walks into Mode and sees a paper spread out on a desk asking, “Will you marry me,” in several languages, she doesn’t give it a second thought. She turns to Daniel and immediately says yes without any hesitation. Maybe if she had hesitated she would have realized a second sooner that the page was just a layout for the magazine. At least now Daniel knows what her answer will be. It was the only reason he was holding off before: he was afraid of her reaction. With this new piece of information, he goes to Claire for her opinion and she gives him her engagement ring from her finger. I love Claire, sometimes she’s misguided but you never doubt her commitment to what she loves.

Daniel walks straight to Molly, who’s waiting for him on the balcony, and drops to one knee. Betty and Claire watch as Molly says yes, again, and he slips the ring on her finger. Naturally, they hire a wedding planner but there is one small problem: the wedding has to be in a month. Molly’s not getting better and if they wait longer than that, it might not happen. Molly describes the wedding she wants which is on the beach, under the stars, with tacos and party foods. Basically, she wants a happy party. When they start talking registry, though, she freaks at the mention of kids and says she can’t marry Daniel because it’s not fair to him. Even before she knows they can’t get the boardwalk or any caterers, the wedding’s off.

It’s a good thing Claire has had something to distract her or she might be nosing around to see what she can do to fix things. Instead, she’s been working on a project with Wilhelmina. Yes, you read right. Wilhelmina’s concept for the wedding issue is the “little black wedding dress.” Everything is shot and they are just finishing up the layouts when Cal decides to sit in on a meeting. No bueno. He hates the idea and makes that quite clear to Willie, who is hilariously agitated. When Claire walks into the conference room, which she has booked for a Hot Flash meeting, he asks her opinion. She mentions that brightly colored wedding dresses are big in Europe and Cal smiles. He wants happy wedding, not blasé black weddings. He has them work together to get a better concept going, not knowing what he’s actually asking of them.

Of course it doesn’t go smoothly. They end up ripping a dress in half and scaring the entire staff with their fighting. Finally, Wilhelmina takes the fight to Cal. She says she simply can’t work with Claire and the issue will never be finished. Claire reluctantly agrees and asks to be taken off the project for the good of the magazine. With a nod of his head, the new boss gives his okay but asks to speak to Claire alone. Don’t worry, if you really think about it, I’m pretty sure you can guess what happens there.

Not so easy to guess, but very easy to understand, is that Mode is on a hiring freeze. This is not good news for anyone, but especially not for Marc and Betty. Both of their reviews go smoothly (Betty is perfect and Willie actually says Marc is acceptable) and they both ask about moving up to editor. Then they hear about the hiring freeze, which was part of the agreement with Cal. They can’t go anywhere until one of the people who were just hired back quits. I told you it wasn’t good news. Worse, their final YETI project is due but because so many publishers are on a hiring freeze, only the winning team of three will even earn interviews for editor positions. Jodie breaks them up according to where they are sitting and it ends up being Marc, Betty and Matt. Betty picks two pieces of paper from a hat for their theme and they end up with music and physical science. Easy peasy, right? Sure.

It really doesn’t take them long to come up with an idea, though. Well, it doesn’t take Betty and Marc long. Matt just kind of hangs out and watches stupid videos on YouTube with Amanda. They decide to photograph a singer in the planetarium and Betty writes an accompanying article about how music moves us to unite together like a science. Sounds great but the person who says he can get the planetarium is Matt and he is somewhere else. When Betty and Marc finally confront him, after he flakes on actually getting the place, he confesses to Betty that he’s lost his passion for publishing and wants to be an artist. Okay? Whatever. Betty and Marc have the rest under control, they even scored Adele (the singer) to do the shoot.

Matt decides to make good on his promise, though, so Betty goes to meet with the planetarium people. Naturally, she runs into Matt’s mom, who is waiting for her. She tells Betty about her son’s lack of follow through and even has a slide show for visual purposes. He always gives up at the last second and she doesn’t want him to quit YETI. She blackmails Betty into talking to Matt and it works. Matt says he’ll finish out the final project. Everything is perfect. Betty, Matt and Marc are working flawlessly together and then, Matt’s mom stops by the shoot. He sees her mouth thank you to Betty and flies off the handle.

Right there, in the middle of the shoot, with everyone watching, he and Betty get in a huge fight. Adele’s manager calls them amateurs and leaves. The crew leaves. The shoot is over before it started. Even Marc walks off to call Jodie (who has been nonstop hitting on him) and see if he can get any pull there. Betty sits in defeat in the planetarium when Daniel shows up. Of course he needs to be cheered up since Molly called off the wedding so where else would he go. Yeah, yeah, and he’s upset about Betty’s shoot not going well. There is something that could make at least one of them happy, though.

Betty tells Daniel not to wait to marry Molly. They have the planetarium and their real friends would be there. He goes to get her while Betty sets up for a wedding instead of a photo shoot. Turns out, both are attainable because Matt returns with Adele at his side. Suddenly, there’s a wedding and a winning YETI project all at the same time. Plus, Matt finished something and his dad started something. Cal promoted Claire to Vice President of Meade, meaning she only reports to him and has a say in every magazine. Oh yeah, one of the pictures in the YETI project spread is of Wilhelmina destroying some planets. I guess Marc didn’t have to do whatever he did with Jodie after all.

You know things can’t all end happily, though, right? Matt and Betty are good but her dad’s short lived engagement is over. After finding out how much the job that prompted him to propose in the first place really means to Elena, he tells her to go follow her dreams. Damn, I hoped he would go with her to California and leave the show. Whatever. More importantly, though, Daniel and Molly are packing for their honeymoon when she collapses in the bathroom. That is one short marriage if that’s how it ends. I guess we’ll find out what all this build up leads to next week in the season finale. I can’t believe I’m actually excited about a two hour season finale. Who knew?