A League of Their Own (Ugly Betty)

"A League of Their Own (Ugly Betty)"

"A League of Their Own" is the fifth episode of the second season of Ugly Betty, and the 28th episode of the series overall. The episode is written by Sheila Lawrence and directed by Wendey Stanzler. The title "A League of Their Own" refers to the 1992 movie with the same name starring Tom Hanks, Geena Davis and Madonna.

Plot

Betty is on the bus, speaking on her cell phone to Henry, who is on another bus. She is insisting that the two of them arrange their schedules so that they do not run into one another. They swap schedules, and agree that “maybe the whole avoidance thing will work after all”. They then realise that they were on the same bus when they run into each other.

At home, Ignacio is making breakfast. Hilda says she cannot stay, she has to go to the cemetery to do scratch-off lottery tickets with Santos. Justin says he is going to be with his friends, and explains that he is no longer part of the drama club. Justin then presents something for Hilda to sign, which she does without question. After he leaves, Ignacio asks Hilda what it was, she didn’t know. As Justin walks out of the house, his friends (including “the girlfriend”) are there and tells him his mother just gave him an excuse note to miss the field trip tomorrow, so they decide to take Hilda’s car. The girl is impressed.

At work, Betty tells Daniel that Bradford wants to have dinner with Wilhelmina, Alexis, and him. They then walk into a staff meeting and Henry is there to discuss the "advertising" situation. Betty is trying to get everyone to swap chairs so she doesn’t have to sit next to Henry, but is not successful in that effort. Wilhelmina tells the group that 52% of their advertisers have pulled out. Henry says MODE will be out of business in 90 days.

Over in Long Island, Claire is drinking as she tells Yoga that she doesn’t want to go overseas and that she’ll turn herself in.

Christina is doing “measurements” on an underwear model, while discussing the Henry situation with Betty. She convinces Betty to try online dating. Christina is going to put Betty’s profile on bachelocity.com. Betty says, “I’m not that desperate,” but when she hears Henry’s voice saying, “You’re a little desperate…,” Betty looks up, and Henry’s head is on the model’s body.

Betty fills out her profile while Christina attempts to take her picture. Her photos keep turning out bad. Amanda barges in, gives her advice on how to look better, including getting rid of the glasses. She returns a shoe box to Christina, which has a sandwich in it. Amanda had hoped that Christina wouldn’t notice, so she leaves to get the shoes. As Christina takes Betty’s picture again, Betty is so pleased with the sandwich. At this time, Christina takes her picture, and it turns out great.

Wilhelmina tells Marc that her plan to ruin the company is going well, and tells him he can supervise the Valentino shoot. Marc wonders if that is part of her plan to ruin MODE, but he goes anyway, where he walks onto the shoot and meets photographer Cliff St. Paul, who is kind of portly and a slog, mistaking him for a model. Marc then shows his modeling prowess by slapping his own butt too hard, making Cliff giggle. The REAL model, who is not the brightest bulb, put the underwear on backwards. Marc then goes to “help” him. The photo shoot was based on Rear Window, which Marc had never seen, nor had he seen Psycho, which Cliff invited him to come over and see, after getting drinks. Amanda barges in and tells Marc that Betty is internet dating, and that they must go “Mock” but Marc says it will have to wait, he is going to ask out the underwear guy, instead of Cliff.

Around the same time at home, Ignacio comes back to the house, and three old ladies are there: Hilda’s new friends from the cemetery. They are making a quilt from their dead husband’s shirts, as well as separating pills and ironing money. While they are talking about things they want to write angry letters about, Justin sneaks in and takes Hilda’s car keys. Ignacio finally tells Hilda that she has to stop hanging out with the old ladies, but she explains that the women know what she’s going through. Ignacio says he does, too, but life has to go on.

Wilhelmina makes crazy suggestions to save money now that the magazine is losing money. She suggests printing on rice paper and using soy ink. She also suggests giving out free detergent samples. Hours later Alexis walks up to Daniel and shows him how the soy ink will not work – she gets it all over her Dolce top. She insists they ask their father for money, so they decide that she is the best one to do this, since she was the “golden boy”.

Kenny comes to get Daniel’s signature, and talks to Betty. Betty gives Kenny her time card, because she doesn’t want to go to the accounting department. He speaks a bunch of gibberish. Betty tells him, “Kenny, you’re from Greenwich. Stop frontin’ ” He replies, “South side, yo!” He tells Christina (about Betty), “Tell your girl to throw my man a Betty Biscuit!”. Back at her desk, Betty’s gotten 15 replies to her dating profile, all but one were jokes form Amanda, but one guy asks her out bowling. She replies, accidentally, “Yes, I love blowing”.

Daniel then shows Betty a prototype of the “new” MODE, but she tells him it’s not very good and says that he should keep MODE the way it is, and ask his father for money but Daniel doesn’t want to do this. He notices Betty is wearing her lucky sweater, and Betty replies by telling him about her bowling date.

Back on Long Island, Claire is going through her friend’s mail, and sees an invitation to Bradford’s wedding. Later, she is gone, and Yoga notices one of the display guns is missing from the rack, leading Yoga to suspect that she is going to shoot Wilhelmina at the Meade Mansion.

As Henry is working, Kenny comes in and gossips, telling him about Betty’s internet date, which is taking place at the bowling alley. Betty is checking her teeth in a bowling trophy when her dates walks up. He is obviously disappointed in her looks, but still polite. She is blathering on nervously, while he is trying to “hurry up” the date. As she gets a call, he excuses himself and goes to the bathroom. Christina is on the phone, but she has to leave to get a new message on the dating website. It turns out to be Christina's husband, who has found her. In the meantime, Betty is drying her underarms on the bowling hand dryers. When the date sees this, he decides to leave without telling Betty. As he’s leaving, Henry, who had been crouching down, watching everything. Betty turns to see Henry there, he pretends to have been there for League night. Henry lies about why the guy left (his bird got the bird flu). Henry wants to bowl in the next lane, but then the alley announcing “couples bowl”. Everyone starts making out. Betty says, “Bowling sucks”, and they leave.

Marc tells Amanda he’s got a date with the underwear model but Amanda doesn’t believe him. Cliff walks in, and asks Marc if he wants to go to the Village after the movie. Marc tells him he can’t go, he asked out Gus the model. Cliff is disappointed, but Marc doesn’t get that Cliff thought they were going on a date. Then, he suddenly understands, but as Marc tries to apologize, Cliff at first blows it off, then tells Marc how upset he is that he didn’t think they had a “date” because of the way he looked. He says, “I thought there was more to you…” Later that evening, Marc is in Cliff’s apartment, where they start seeing a movie. Marc asks, “What if I get scared?” Cliff tells him he’ll be there to hold his hand, which he does. Thus implying that their relationship is started and getting closer.

Alexis and Daniel come over for dinner with Bradford and Wilhelmina. As Alexis starts to have flashbacks, she start telling Bradford about the lost advertisers, but Daniel interrupts her and tells him, only to have Bradford start yelling at Daniel. At this time, Alexis finally remembers everything, including when her father disowned her. She confesses to Daniel that she had tried to kill her father. Daniel is very upset about this, and leaves.

Outside, Claire is aiming a gun into the window at Wilhelmina, who gets all the Meades together to take their holiday photo. As Yoga finally reached her to stop this, Claire decides not to shoot Wilhelmina and realizes that Wilhelmina has brought her family back together – everything’s OK now. She tells Yoga she wants to go to Italy now.

Back at the Suarez house, Hilda is knitting while the cemetery girls are sleeping. As she’s checking one of them to see if she’s breathing, the police pull up. “Who died?” one of them asks. It turns out it’s a policewoman who knows Hilda, and she has brought Justin home. He had wrecked their car into a tree. Hilda finally snaps out of it and tells "the girls" they have to leave, then has a heart-to-heart with Justin. First, she lays down the law, then tells him it’s OK to grieve. He tells her he just wanted his dad to be proud of him. They embrace and cry.

Betty and Henry go to a restaurant but it turns out to be a romantic one. A strolling violinist comes by, they try to tell him they are just friends. “He got another girl pregnant”, Betty says. A woman walks up with roses “for the pretty lady” – the violinist tells her “he got another girl pregnant”. As Betty starts to leave, Henry had dropped his fork, he was on his knees as he grabbed her hand and asked her to wait. The other patrons mistakenly thought this meant he was proposing. Betty says, “I can’t do this”, then walks away. As Betty is walking home, she gets a cell call from Henry, who's actually right behind her, prompting the two to argue. When Henry asks her if she wants him to leave MODE, Betty says yes, and he’ll give his notice on Monday. She goes inside, but comes back out and says, “There is another option”, then kisses him, as “As Time Goes By” plays in the background. She says she knows her heart will break, but maybe it’s worth it.

Production

The website bachelocity.com does not exist, though the domain name is owned by Disney. This is the third time that the producers have added a fictional website in this series.

The scene in which Betty thought she saw Henry dressed as a model was actually actor Christopher Gorham's real body, no superimposing used – according to an interview in November 14, 2007's People magazine, which named him as one of the top 25 sexiest men of 2007 in that week's edition.

Casting

The episode added another recurring cast member, as actor David Blue joined the series as Marc's new love interest Cliff St. Paul.

Ratings

The episode was watched by 9.98 million viewers in the United States, and ranked thirty-fourth in the weekly listings for October 22 to October 28, 2007. 5.2 million viewers watched this episode in the UK, with a 22% audience share, coming second in its timeslot behind a Queen Victoria documentary on ITV which had 8 million viewers.

Also starring

• John Cho as Kenny
• Lorraine Toussaint as Yoga
• David Blue as Cliff St. Paul

Guest starring

• Ashley Rickards as Sharra
• Larry Dorf as Steve
• Dustin Moss as Gus
• Lillian Adams as Esther
• Bunny Levine as Mable
• Hilda Devoine as Lucille
• Chancellor Miller as Derek
• Artemis Pebdani as the cop