Ugly Betty - Pack It Up, Pack It In

Jump - Ep. 218 - Season Finale

Let Me Begin...

Betty and Gio are dating! Well, trial dating but whatev! Good enough for me!

Hilda is playing hard to get with the hard abs of Coach Diaz (Eddie Cibrian)!

Justin is fabulous as ever!

Oh, and The Lohan makes her first of 5 appearances on the show, and luckily it's kept to a minimum and it's actually quite funny. In fact, Lindsay Lohan actually reverts back to her Mean Girl days, and that's a good thing! Here's the clip in case you missed it.



Who would have thought The Lohan wasn't going to be the biggest mistake of this episode. (Nor Naomi Campbell's appearance later in the episode)

There's a possible Cousin Oliver situation/mistake when a french boy Danielle arrives claiming to be Daniel's son, and while Wily had nothing to do with it, she takes full advantage of the situation.

Wily uses the French boy to make Daniel look bad, and Alexis pulls rank again, giving the editor-in-chief job to Wily.

Meanwhile, Gio asks Betty to go to Rome and in a nice thematic set up, she learns to take some risks and says yes. Oddly touching since I had resounded to the same thing this week.

Then Henry returns and asks for her hand in marriage. Oy!

There's some nice tender and funny moments between Daniel and Betty, each dealing with their own futures while they attempt to help each other out, but really, let's get to the REALLY good stuff, when everything culminates in a work baseball game. Cleats with heals! The Mode way!

It's Mode magazine vs. Elle magazine!

Amanda and Marc are cheerleaders of course! Rhyming, pom poms and all! (And using Betty as a jumping pad).

Wily throws her balls hard and fast.

And Naomi Campbell plays for the opposing team. Loved that they could make fun of her phone throwing habit when everyone ducks in horror as she gets a call. She's a bitch but she sure knows how to milk her image!

Betty must decide between Gio (YES PICK HIM PICK HIM) or Henry.

Sadly, we see Betty packing up and saying goodbye to the Suarez clan but we don't see who is behind the door (GIO GIO GIO!??) as they pull another Veronica Mars cliffhanger. Is she off to Rome with Gio? (Uh, it better be YES and she better be eating Pasta by the Coliseum) or Tucson with Henry (uh, whatever, I'm sure it's lovely but it's dry and the city can't even spell itself the way it sounds).

Daniel accepts his new found responsibility as father, trying to connect with the boy and trying to improve on his own father's fatherly performance. There's been WAY too much of Daniel reverting back to being a boy, and then learning to be a grown up again, but on the other hand, Eric Mabius sure does pull off that befuddled face awfully well, and is awfully cute when he does it.

And meanwhile, Hilda finally realizes there's no time to waste and no more games to play, and goes to kiss a shirtless Coach Diaz in a scene I thought would be longer than it was, but that showed lots of goodies. If you need proof, here are more pictures:

On the negative side, other than the fact that the above scene didn't play out longer, was the complete disappearance of Christina who apparently is still locked up in Wily's apartment. Not enough of Marc and Amanda especially now that they were finally together again, and a less snappy first half of the episode.

There were some nice emotional moments, but for the finale, I was hoping for zippier (especially after last weeks terrific return to the full energy of what Ugly Betty should really be about) and not just in the final montage moments set to Madonna's "Jump", just as the show is about to jump coasts to start filming the show in New York next season (which I still think is a good thing. Yeah, so 300 jobs are lost in Hollywood, now 300 jobs are gained in New York, a much cooler city anyways, plus now they can load up their guest stars with more Broadway actors who would fit PERFECTLY into the gay and campy show).

So, see you next season, on the east coast, with Betty hopefully returning from Italia after feasting on pasta and gelato and Gio!