Ugly Betty: Marc's Very Own Episode

Okay, so you remember how in the Thanksgiving episode, Marc was going home to tell his family about his girlfriend who lives in Canada? Apparently, the role of Alberta was played, for three years, by Amanda, and Marc had to break up with her to avoid all the talk about marriage. This week, with his mom in town, Marc has to find a new pretend girlfriend, and Amanda, still miffed about getting dumped, foists Betty on him. And has Mama Weiner met Marc? On a flaming scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the gentle smolder of a George Takei and 10 being the towering inferno of a Carson Kressley, Marc is maybe a 9. Maybe Mama Weiner is from Ohio, where, according to Studio 60, all the clueless, culturally illiterate, closeminded parents hang out. So, as you'd expect, Marc and Betty get to know each other, strike up an alliance of sorts, have the world's second most awkward dinner (after this one), and Marc finally comes out to his mom. Who is mean, and can't deal with it. And sure, this subplot is as old as dirt, but it's both hysterical and heartbreaking, because all the assistants are in rare form - especially Marc. This is his episode, and he's already putting up curtains and rearranging the furniture, because he owns it. Don't worry about your mom, Marc – I'm sure my mom would love to adopt you.

In the ostensible main plot, there is yet another power struggle between Daniel, Alexis, and Wilhelmina, and Judith Light, handcuffed to a hospital bed, runs circles around all of them. She tries to force Daniel and Alexis to work together, and then delivers a forceful, albeit verbal, bitchslap to Wilhelmina. Because even when Claire is physically restrained, you don't mess with her. But Wil has not mastered this simple rule. After Claire says that no one but a Meade will run Mode, Wil sets out to seduce Bradford. You know this isn't going to end well, right, Wilhelmina? Claire will destroy you. Finally, Daniel closes the episode with a voiceover/montage about family, which is at least less vague than the summation you get in any given episode of Grey's Anatomy or Desperate Housewives, but that doesn't really help when I'm already so tired of the episode-ending voiceover summation. Hey, Ugly Betty, if Grey's Anatomy jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too?

Meanwhile, I think I'm going to order one of those "Free Claire" shirts from Justin.