Ugly Betty - And Curtains

East Side Story - Season 1 Finale

Wait, did people not like this episode? Or did I just misread something as I tried to avoid spoilers about the finale while also wanting to know what people thought about it. I know, I'm sort of a whore for knowing things even as I try to keep it away from myself. You should see me at the dessert table.

Anyways, I finally had time to watch this so maybe I was still in an ABC high (after the Lost season 3 finale), but I really enjoyed the Ugly Betty finale.

Betty in heat with Henry,

Christina discovering Faye's Love Lair and getting drunk with Amanda in it, discovering Amanda is the daughter of Faye,

Claire escaping from prison (with so much more ease than Michael Scofield) with help from Yoga (Lorraine Toussaint no less, who strangely plays against what I'm used to seeing her as a sensible moderate woman on Any Day Now (which yes, I kinda liked for some reason)),

Betty confronting Daniel's new drug addiction (which was surrogate for his sex addiction),

Marc being sent to work for Fabia, then Wilhelmina making a trade for him back,

Justin doing ANYTHING but this time doing the school musical "West Side Story" which is all a gay boy could ask for (and if you must insist, a guest starring role for Kristin Chenowith.

Oh look. There is one! AS the dental hygienists' assistant),

just as Santos becomes part of the family (and just as we start liking him, man, poor actor guy, probably thought leaving Ugly Betty for Drive was a better career move. Oops), he gets shot.

Charlie comes back pregnant and steals back Henry. Plenty of strings all left hanging for season 2!

Other than Alex jumping back and forth between loving Daniel and being his enemy (I think this week, she went from enemy to friend again? I can't keep it straight anymore (no pun intended). Oh yeah, they crash in the car intended for Bradford.). I actually do like Rebecca Romijn as Alex but I don't think the writers know what to do with her now that she's out. Course, they could just car crash their way out... hmm...

And Bradford divorcing Claire to give Wilhelmina a giant flower ring? The rest of the finale was great and ended a great first season for Ugly Betty. Not perfect (that would be Friday Night Lights' first season), but pretty great which is rare enough for any show (even Seinfeld, Friends, Sex and the City and Entourage all had uneven first seasons).

While it had some lulls and misdirections (Ignacio anyone?), Ugly Betty was usually quicker in re-correcting its misdirection to land back onto it's narrow teetering path between campy soap and comedic drama, in part to some great snappy one liners delivered by a fabulous cast.

Bonus points for having sveltey voiced Vanessa Williams sing a song over a scene where Wilhelmina flashbacks to good memories of Marc, all in some weird satirical yet heartwarming scene.