(S01E24) I can't stop crying.

(S01E22) Before we get started, I need to get something out of the way.

"A boy like that. He'll kill your brother."

Who wants to live in America? Rita Moreno does! I'm just one big fag haggis experiencing her inner theater queen. We all know that there's a Betty musical episode in the works, but I think we might be in for a preview next week. The episode is called "East Side Story," guest stars Kristin Chenoweth and is timed perfectly for Justin to save the day for middle school-aged thespians everywhere. Until then, let us reflect on tonight's mystical Mexico tour.

(S01E21) I wish Ugly Betty's Christina could sit down with The Office's Pam and tell her the same thing she told Betty - "You can take care of yourself, princess." How original. How wonderful. How like real life.

(S01E20) Betty is back and in fine form. The writers have officially ditched all the weak links - Constance, Nico, the warm-hearted version of Wilhelmina. The bitches are out in full force, and the camp is in overdrive. And, oh my god, I think we have a new word in the pop culture vernacular - "faux-mo!" This week was great, but we're clearly just setting up for next week's Medieval meltdown. Who doesn't want to see a bunch of fashionistas plopped down at a RenFaire to dissect the tragedy? But, that's next week, let us focus our attention on Betty as Carrie, hairapy and little orphan tranny.

(S01E19) This episode we found Daniel Meade reverting back to his old womanizing, irresponsible ways, but did he really ever change? Last thing I remember, he was bedding [fill-in-the-blank-random-model]. Oh, but this time he bedded the wrong random model, didn't he? Eh, I guess that counts as personal change.

While Daniel worked on spreading his genes, Betty, as usual, worked on keeping Mode together and chasing down her boss. Is it just me or is Betty's true secret love really Daniel? She's constantly stalking him, keeping tabs on who he's sleeping with (or not), and treats him like he can't pee without her holding his goods.

(S01E18) I would have written this review sooner, but I couldn't stop crying like a big baby. Not every storyline was a home run this week, but the most important one was. It could have gotten all "Lifetime Original," but it didn't. This show is many things - funny, moving, campy - but it is never saccharine.

(S01E17) Here's the formula for a great Ugly Betty episode - let Wilhelmina be bitchy, let Marc and Amanda be campy and send one of the Manhattanites to Queens to have a fish-out-of-water bonding experience with Betty. Throw in a little geek chemistry, and you've got yourself one shiny Betty episode.

(S01E16) To quote Lucy Liu as O-Ren Ishii in Kill Bill and as The Chin on Ugly Betty, "You didn't think it was going to be that easy, did you?" Tonight's theme - "it's complicated." I ended my review last week by saying this, but I think it bears repeating. Watching good TV can be an emotionally masochistic endeavor. One of the first lessons you learn in "how to be a TV writer" class is to put the screws to your characters. This lesson is often phrased as, "Give the audience what they want, and then take it away." This week's episode was all about giving us what we wanted and taking it away. Betty opens up to Henry about her feelings for him. Done. Christina catches a break. Done. Alexis gets to feel a little human connection post-op. Done. Justin gets to see Hairspray. Done. Hope you enjoyed it because now those cruel, cruel writers are going to make us regret that we ever wanted those things to happen in the first place.

(S01E15) This show wows me on so many levels - the humor, the subversion, the eye candy, the emotional pay-offs, but damn, the writing - on a structural level - is so freaking good. This may have been the best episode of Ugly Betty yet. They took what is a soap opera mainstay and typically written off as a joke - a man becoming a woman - and turned it into something real. Honestly, it was just plain artful how the writers thematically connected Justin's story of playground bullying and his father's concern about his sexuality to Alexis' story of her own father's disapproval and eventual sex change. In the Suarez home, being accepted for who you are and seeing beauty in the people around you wins the day. In the Meade home, your father would rather see you dead than happy. That wasn't the only structural parallel at work in this episode either - Betty and Daniel were, as always, playing out the same stories in different universes. Betty forced Daniel's hand in confronting Alexis, but Daniel didn't let Betty out of confronting Walter. "It's a lot harder avoiding people than facing them."

(S01E14) Next week's episode is called "Brothers," but we'll go ahead and call this one the unofficial sibling episode. Anyone who's had to live in the shadow of a brother, sister or post-op transsexual knows Betty and Daniel's pain. Ugly Betty is proof positive that if you can keep the emotions real, even in the midst of over-the-top farce, then you're liable to have a hit on your hands. As a matter of fact it's because we buy Daniel's emotional reaction to finding out Alex is still alive and a woman that keeps the show from becoming a outright cartoon that we can't invest in beyond the laughs. But, yes, there were laughs, and everyone was on hand.

(S01E13) Move over, Zarf! Alexis is here. I think I may need to go back to Soap Opera 101 because I was not expecting that little bombshell. And, was it just me, or did Christina's hair get higher when she decided to sell out? What a seriously sudsy week on our favorite Golden Globe-winning comedy and/or musical.

Let's start with the drama. Lines are being drawn at Mode care of Ms. Wilhelmina Slater and the woman who we now know to be her accomplice - Daniel's brother Alex, who apparently didn't die jumping out of a helicopter on a pair of skis. He just fell on his penis and decided to have it removed. (Do you think if men knew they could have a sex change operation and come out looking like Mystique that they'd do it just to fondle their own breasts?)

(S01E12) And, so, Salma Hayek's arc comes to an end. We'll miss you, Salma. We'll miss you and your ripe, luscious... acting ability. Sofia broke Daniel's heart, and he's gone off the sadness end. Ted broke Wilhelmina's heart, and she's gone off the bitchy end. It's not going to be pretty at Mode, and will Betty even be back? She quit MYW, but doesn't Amanda have her old job at Mode? With Daniel gone, who is going to take Betty back? All this heartbreak, and I'm worried about Betty's paycheck. Just goes to show you where my sympathies lie.

(S01E11... or, is it 04?) Why? Why do networks do this? "Swag" was originally supposed to air as the fourth episode of Ugly Betty. Instead, ABC pushed it into the number eleven position. Brilliant strategy. Take a show that's part telenovela and air it out of sequence. The result was a poorly edited version of an otherwise entertaining episode. The tags that were filmed later with Betty, Christina and the janitor, along with the occasional "remember when such and such was happening" voice-overs, were clumsy and unnecessary.

It's official and, perhaps, a bit ironic. The show with the hottest cast on television is Ugly Betty. Gentlemen, there will be no need to despair when Salma Hayek's character arc has come and gone. Rebecca Romijn will be holding the va-va-va-voom quotient steady at the Mode offices.

Romijn has been cast to play the "mystery woman" that Wilhelmina has been conspiring with to take over the magazine. We have no reason to think that this "mystery woman" is anyone other than Mode's back-from-the-dead editor Fey, but it's a soap opera. If the show's own press releases insist on referring to her only as the "mystery woman," than we'll humor them. We've already seen the character Romijn will be playing on the show, but she's been covered in surgical gauze and shot in silhouette. A different actress has been providing the character's voice. My assumption has always been that Wilhelmina's conspirator was much older than Romijn, which just goes to show the wonders of reconstructive surgery.