Friday, May 1, 2009

Ugly Betty and The Office - Rabbit Test and Casual Friday

Initially I thought Matt Hartley (Daniel Eric Gold) was a pretty awesome selection as Betty's new love interest. But between the skeevy sex addict past and the tedious poor little rich boy shtick is making me rethink all that.

BRING BACK GIO!!!!

Okay, now that I got that out of my system, let review:

Nice opening juxtaposing Willie and Daniel economizing by taking the subway and the bus to work while Betty arrives at Meade via a limo courtesy of her rich boyfriend. When she gets into work she finds the furnishings being repossessed. "I feel violated and not in a good way," says Amanda.

It looks like there might be an opportunity to save Mode when Betty gets an egg-vitation to Matt's father's exclusive Easter egg hunt. Betty gets the idea to use the event to set up a meeting between Daniel and Cal Hartley, but Matt nixes the idea.

So our poor heroine is torn between her sex addict boyfriend and her sex addict boss...

Okay, make that RECOVERING sex addict.

When pink slips start getting handed out at Mode and Amanda becomes a casualty, Betty decides to sneak Daniel into the egg hunt in order for him to get his meeting. Matt gets all hurt, but then tells Betty that part of his reason for preventing the meeting is that he knows his Dad is a control freak. Compared to his mother, Daniel says, "My Dad is Satan."

Cal Hartley's colors come out when he extorts Daniel into donning a bunny suit to hand out eggs at the party. But Daniel's humiliation wins him the funding he seeks but a what price down the road?

Meanwhile, questions arise as to whether Willie's baby is actually Willie's baby. After remarks by the photographer she hired to take baby pictures, Willie wonders if William is actually Christina's--so she directs Marc to discreetly find out if Christina had sex prior to the insemination procedure.

As if that can be done discreetly. Amanda joins him as he pretends to do a magazine sex quiz in an effort to get to know Christina better. "My sex I.Q. is crazy high--I'm like the Einstein of sex," Amanda boasts. Later, as she recounts a liaison with a U.N. page named Janos, she claims "I have a pornographic memory."

Christina catches on to the possibility that she and Stuart might be William's parents and she confronts Wilhelmina. It is decided that to find out the truth, a blood test will be done. Which begs the question--why not get the blood test to begin with rather than the inane attempt by Marc to figure out whether or not Christina had sex before the procedure?

Oh yeah--'cuz then we wouldn't have had any reason for the funniest lines of the night...

The test results come back saying Wilhelmina is the mother--but is that the truth?

After all, Wilhelmina extracted sperm from a corpse--I wouldn't put it past her to fake DNA results.

Michael's return to the office was not without some bumps. His former sales staff is more than a little miffed at the new additions to the sales team--and the fact that they "stole" their clients.

Michael, on the other hand, is waiting for them to apologize to him for not backing him up when he quit. And his special treatment of his former Michael Scott Paper Company crew irks the others enough to participate in a secret meeting called by Dwight.

Although no-one figures out how to reveal the message written in "invisible ink" on the message handed out by Dwight, so Dwight has to call Andy from the warehouse to get him to round up the sales staff--minus Pam and Ryan. "Oh it is on like a prawn that yawns at dawn," says the Nard-dog.

Dwight's plan: "I’m thinking a coup or we take Ryan hostage."

Jim warns Michael that there's "a mutiny forming in the warehouse right now." Michael responds, "They are in for a bitter surprise…I am not to be truffled with!" When the mutineers return to the office, Michael queries them as to their whereabouts. They lie and tell him they were at lunch.

"Since you guys already ate you won’t be eating the stuff you brought with you for lunch..." Michael parries and goes to the refrigerator to start eating their lunches.

But the situation is turned around on Michael when the group tell him HE should apologize. Michael decides that they are right (although I didn't agree with him...) and has Dwight call a secret meeting in the warehouse. He apologizes but what they really want is there clients back. So Michael rescinds his apology, but returns their clients.

Then Daryl lifts out stacks of paper and tells Michael, "What’d I tell you about building forts in my warehouse?"

This leaves Michael in a quandry: he doesn't have enough clients to justify keeping both Pam and Ryan on as salespeople. He goes over the pros and cons and comes to the conclusion that it should be Ryan. So he calls Pam into his office and says, "There’s no easy way of saying this…so I will just drag it out." But like an earlier episode of The Office, it's one of Michael's famous fake outs and Pam gets the job.

Tickled over the reaction he got from Pam, Michael decides to fake fire new receptionist Erin.

3 comments:

  1. Gosh! Can't agree with you more. I was warming up to the idea of Matt compared to, let's say, Henry or Jesse. But really all I can think/write/post these days is: BRING BACK GIO!!!
    We need him desperately.

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  2. Hooray for the return of Ugly Betty. I thought “Rabbit Test” was a great episode, and I’m curious as to whether this sets up Christina’s exit, or perhaps some more future drama between Christina and Willi. Either way, it was quite entertaining and im excited for next week. I also loved that they used the song “Before It Gets Better” by Earlimart during the ending montage…great song that fit the mood and really makes you empathize with Christina. Skip ahead to the clip of this scene at : http://modestcomplexity.blogspot.com/2009/04/song-of-week.html

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  3. Matt's gone off the rail into skeevy territory.

    As for Christina, I think we're going to find out that William is actually her baby and that Willie faked the test results.

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