It looks like Ignacio somehow makes it back, and Amanda has lost all that excess weight.  Is Henry proposing?  I guess we’ll have to wait. 

Source: SpoilerTV

Post from: Crushable

Ugly Betty Episode 2.05 Promo Pics (Spoilers)

A soapy, feelgood comedy, [America] Ferrera concedes, is not going to change the world. But with viewers in more than 130 countries, including Pakistan and Zimbabwe, Ugly Betty certainly seems to be uniting it.

[...and...]

The UK transmission of the second series, which begins on Channel 4 this week, has been brought forward in response to exceptional viewer demand.

The wide appeal of the show has always been a pleasant mystery to me, but the Telegraph’s Benji Wilson explains it succinctly:

So what’s the appeal? In part, it is the old-fashioned charm of its ugly duckling set-up, taken wholesale from the wildly popular Colombian telenovela (a sort of extended soap opera) on which the show is based.

…

Yet for those viewers instinctively put off by such an apparently saccharine plot, Ugly Betty also delivers a rather delicious line in nastiness. Betty’s colleagues at Mode are a catty bunch – beautiful, boo-hiss villains we love to hate and whose acerbic put-downs are among the wittiest lines in the show. Their presence on screen enables us to sympathise with Betty while still vicariously enjoying the superficial, bitchy world of high fashion.

Bingo!

Then, Wilson gets to the heart of things:

In Silvio Horta, they found a screenwriter who was able to preserve the soapy heart of the telenovela and also lace it with the kind of cutting comedy familiar from Desperate Housewives.

And, here’s a take I had never thought of before:

Notably, Channel 4’s marketing campaign now gives Betty equal billing with gay assistant Marc (Michael Urie) and the magazine’s receptionist Amanda (Becki Newton), who provide a chorus-like commentary on the action, frequently popping out to the dressing cupboard to exchange one-liners, their repartee not too far away from some of the best of Absolutely Fabulous. In these two underlings, who sit about in a backroom all day pouring scorn on those around them, we seem to have found two peculiarly British heroes.

Y’know, I’d never considered the Absolutely Fabulous angle, but it’s true: at starting with the last few episodes last season, and continuing into this season, Marc and Amanda provide the narrative for the show, while at the same delivering the best one-liners on television.  I’ll leave it to my UK friends to decide if these characters are, in fact, “British-like”.  Something tells me they are.

Wilson sums it up with a beautiful statement about Ugly Betty’s appeal:

At a time when American drama seems to be straying towards ever more complex high-concept dramas such the baffling Lost, the unwieldy 24, or quasi-Shakespearean epics such as The Sopranos or The Wire, Ugly Betty is comfort food – a simple story blessed with a script that has crackled from the start.

Source: Telegraph

Post from: Crushable

Telegraph: How Ugly Betty Turned Into A Swan

Born: April 18, 1984

Family: The youngest of six siblings.  One brother and four sisters.  Her parents are Honduran.

School: Went to Calabash Elementary School in the San Fernando Valley from 1994-1995 where she played one of the lead characters in her 5th grade graduation play called “Oliver.” She played the “Artful Dodger” in the production.  Went to El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills.  ECR is renowned for his its drama program, cited as one of LAUSD’s finest theatre programs.  Other famous alums: Keith Green (gospel singer),  Brad Garrett, MadTV’s Lisa Arch, Christopher Knight of the Brady Bunch, Jamal Anderson (NFL player).

Given Name: America Georgine Ferrera

Height: 5′ 1″ . Weight: None of your business. :)

Cool Quote: “I think it’s hilarious when people call Jessica Alba or Eva Longoria curvy. Come on. They’re not curvy. They’re small. I’m curvy.”

Breakout Performance: Real Women Have Curves.

Awards:

(Not to mention the Emmy she’s up for in a week or so)

Reason she kicks Peyton Manning’s butt: She’s not overexposed.

Quick Facts about Betty Suarez:

Residence: Jackson Heights, NY.

Employment: Assistant to Daniel Meade, Editor in Chief, Mode Magazine.

Education: Queenstown North HS, Queenstown, NY.  Salutatorian, Yearbook editor. Graduated 2001.  Won Music Association Award for Cymbals and Triangle.  Mid-Town College, Flushing, NY.  Graduated Cum Laude, BFA in Media 2005.  Treasurer of Latina Women’s League.

Family: Lives with father (Ignacio), sister (Hilda), and nephew (Justin).  Her mother (Rosa) is deceased.  Her grandmother (Yolanda Salazar) lives in Guadalajara, Mexico.  As of this writing, her father Ignacio was trapped in Guadalajara due to an immigration problem (he was in the US illegally, and, oh… he killed a man), and he has a hit man chasing him.

Interesting Physical Fact: Betty has “Thighs of Steel”.

Number of times she’s quit Mode (so far): 2.

Interesting  childhood fact: She was a New York Mets bat boy.

Sources: Wikipedia, IMDB, BettySuarez.Com

Post from: Crushable

Not Ugly At All: America Ferrera as Betty Suarez

According to TV Squad:

Henry is rumored to be only in the first eight episodes but no official sources confirmed this yet. Henry will become friends with Kenny, another accountant at Mode.

Charlie will be back in the premiere and we will find out who the father of her baby is.

Betty will get a new love interest in the person of sandwich boy Giovanni. Some sources say he’ll be recurring while others say he is practically a regular and may appear in every episode except the premiere.

Daniel will try to charm one of Mode’s largest advertisers, Elaine Winthrop. The woman, aged between 40 and 59 years old, is the CEO of a jewelry company.

Wilhelmina gets a bodyguard named Dwayne and her plans to marry Bradford move forward. She and Justin will share the screen when he drops by at Mode.

After learning that Fey is her real mother, Amanda indulges in food and gets a pet.

The fact that Alexis is a transsexual will have at least one business owner rethink his plans to do business with Mode.

We may see Christina’s Scottish husband this season.

Ignacio will be staying in Mexico for a while because his immigration problems have not been settled.

Betty causes chaos during a performance of Wicked: The Musical.

Santos will be back in the premiere. It is unknown if it’ll be in a dream sequence, a flashback or something else.

Someone will stalk Marc.

There will be a new female editor working at Mode.

Just the thought that Henry might not be permanent is sending millions of geek-loving women into swoons of despair.  Heck, what am I talking about, I like Henry, too.  THey’ll have to make him do something dastardly for me to turn on him, or maybe (gasp!) kill him off.  But hopefully, he’ll be there the entire season. (As well as the entire run of the show).

The Giovanni character intrigues me.  A very wise person I know suggested that this will cause an interesting love triangle between a man (Giovanni) who pushes Betty to reach for her dreams, and a man (Henry) who loves Betty just the way she is.  If this is the case, it’s absolutely brilliant.

I absolutely LOVE the idea of Marc playing gigolo to an older woman.  The comic possibilities are endless, and my female friends get to see Eric Mabius sans shirt (again).

The Justin / Wilhelmina rumour I’ve heard is a little different: that Justin will actually intern at Mode and be assigned to Wilhelmina.  I certainly hope this happens.  Justin needs more screen time – the camera just loves him.

Amanda gets a pet?

I figured Ignacio would stay in Mexico a while.  Hopefully not too long, I love Tony Plana and his grounded fathering persona.  At least it will give Hilda time to grow up.

The last two are interesting: someone will stalk Marc?  I wonder if it’s his new love interest we’ve talked about here? (Played by David Blue).  And a new female editor at Mode, hmmmm?  Something tells me Daniel won’t be proposing to that one…

 Source

Post from: Crushable

Good Roundup Of Ugly Betty Season 2 Spoilers

America Ferrera is quite the beautiful young lady, and if the producers wanted to pull it off, they’d have no problem at all.  Considering the whole plot of the show revolves around a, shall we say, “plain” girl trying to make it in the world of high fashion, the question has to be asked: is it such a good idea to make Betty over?

Before reading my thoughts on the subject, why don’t you participate in the poll (it’s in the sidebar) ?

Now, if you’ll remember the episode”Queens For a Day” from Season 1, Betty DID get a makeover, but she ended up looking trampy and silly (although I thought “not bad…”).  The writers of that episode scared me a little bit: I thought they were going to be blowing the plot vehicle in the third episode.  I should have known they were smarter than that.  They turned the episode into a hilarious farce.

There seem to be four schools of thought concerning Betty becoming beautiful:

1. Betty should become beautiful immediately.  The thinking here is that she works in the fashion industry, so isn’t it a little silly to have her surrounded by all these beauty experts who do not give her “help”?  Of course, I feel that people who think like this don’t watch the show very often, and haven’t quite got the spirit of Ugly Betty yet.
2. Betty should become beautiful gradually.  This one makes more sense.  As she works at a fashion magazine, the thinking goes, she’ll pick up pointers and slowly become less and less “ugly”.  It wouldn’t be so much a makeover, except by osmosis.
3. Betty should become beautiful, but only in the season finale.  OK, I’ve flirted with falling into this camp.  It makes sense, it completes the story, and it gives Betty a sense of “victory”.  Or, does it?  To me, such a finale would be far too predictable, following the plot lines of oh-so many teen ugly duckling movies.  If we’ve learned anything about Betty from the first season, isn’t it that she meets the world on her own terms?
4. Betty doesn’t need to change at all, she is already beautiful.  Yes, this is the sentimental favorite.  Most of us who see a little bit of ourselves in Betty want her to be loved for who she is. Loved by Daniel, Henry, the staff at Mode, everyone.  This line of thinking says that it is the “beautiful people” that should think about changing, not Betty.

Now, you can probably tell, I fall into the last group.  As Don Quixote loved Dulcinea, when I first saw Betty, I saw a young, headstrong, idealistic young woman who dreams big dreams, and that made her beautiful to me.  In this writer’s humble opinion, Betty is already more beautiful than scores of models.  No, Betty doesn’t need to change a thing.

Post from: Crushable

New Poll: Should 'Ugly' Betty Become 'Beautiful'?