Fall TV

The season premiere of Ugly Betty did what the show does best: cliffhangers! The time I normally spend laughing during the show was replaced by gasps of "what?" and "no way!"

First, Amanda (Becki Newton) got fat. Yes, it looked ridiculous and I'm sure that by next week she'll have lost it all on some chili powder and water diet, but it was nice to hear her get a taste of her own medicine. When Wilhemina (Vanessa Williams) greeted her with, "Hello, Betty," the look on Amanda's face was priceless. Plus, more Amanda equals more Marc (Michael Urie). I love those two together.

And who didn't love it when Marc came face to face with Claire Mead's (Judith Light - LOVE her) jailbird friend, "Sister Mary Gangmember"? Marc always gets the best one-liners.

Another shocker came when Alexis (Rebecca Romijn) woke up from her coma. I was glad to see that the results of the terrible car crash involving Alexis and Daniel seemed real. Daniel (Eric Mabius) with a broken leg, getting around in a wheelchair, and his sister hanging out in a hospital bed. There was real grief in Daniel's face, and I hope that his character FINALLY gets the help he needs and grows up. But I stopped caring about Daniel's depth when Alexis woke up and asked Daniel, "Why did you call me 'Alexis'? I'm Alex." Uh-oh!! Won't he/she get a surprise later?

Perhaps the best trick of all in this episode was that of Santos (Kevin Alejandro) and Hilda (Ana Ortiz). I'll admit it: I felt let down when I saw the two of them in bed together. I thought, "Really? He lived. Oh." Their scenes were sweet, but for the life of me, I couldn't really figure out why the heck we needed to see so much of them. They were hanging out in bed, trying on Hilda's wedding dress... save some room for the REAL stories, right?

But when Betty (America Ferrera) opened the door to Hilda's room and instead of the brightly lit, soon-to-be-married-but-enjoying-the-honeymoon-now suite, we see a lonely little girl in a dark bedroom clutching a pillow. For a second there, I thought we had changed scenes. It wasn't until Hilda turned around to face the camera and said, "He's gone" that I realized what all the previous scenes of the happy couple had been building up to. Hilda's character is a mess. Her fiancée is dead, and all she can do is sit in her room and make up fantasies about how it should have been.

Instead of feeling relief that the storyline went where I had initially wanted it to go, I just felt sad. You always like to see good things happening to people, especially people like Hilda, who had waited so long for a break. Now, it seems like no one on this show can catch a break! Ignacio (Tony Plano) is stuck in Mexico with no air-conditioning. Betty is busy as a bee and the guy she loves is (or isn't he, according to the last scene?) taking care of his pregnant girlfriend in Arizona. Thankfully, Justin (the amazing Mark Indelicato), found a way out of making macaroni necklaces at camp. Would Coco Chanel wear that? I think not.