Dancing With Your Eyes Closed
After last week’s rather happy episode, I don’t know whether to leap with joy in front of the TV or to fear for what will happen in this week’s story line to make amends for last week’s relative frivolity.
Matt and Betty are getting on better; Willie is being honored at a charity event for Tibetan orphans and Daniel is hugging everyone thanks to Natalie, his self-help group friend, whom he is thinking of hiring as a new assistant. Planning to ask Matt to go to the party with her, Betty is made to feel like a fool again when Matt beats her to it by asking her if she minds if he brings a date- guess who? Amanda. We know who, but Betty doesn’t- makes for good tension in TV.
As Willie is giving an interview about her non-existent interest in Tibet, and everyone is abuzz with party talk, W. gets a call about the bloody fingerprint. A BLACKMAILER IS THE ONE WHO HAS FOUND IT AND PUT TWO AND TWO TOGETHER, but our Willie stays cool and calls him at his own bluff, while her daughter Niko flips out. Daniel, brains in woo-woo land, heart wearing a vulnerable sign, is so excited about his new assistant, Natalie, he brings her his special lunch with Betty- he is even taking her to W’s party- it is just not Betty’s day- OMG- she even asks Amanda to get her a date for the party, inspiring Amanda to run an ad for Betty which humiliates her.
Plot sickens: Daniel sees his mother kissing Matt’s Dad, Mr. Mega-bucks and is furious. When his mom, Claire calls Betty for help, she goes to Daniel, whose new assistant tells Betty she is the craziness cluttering up Daniel’s ‘clarity’, and Daniel AGREES- after all Betty has done for him!!!! Natalie seems to be brainwashing Daniel that all the stress in his life comes from Mode. Hello- it is called having a career.
It gets even worse than all that… The private detective trying to blackmail Willie, for whom Willie has been looking, turns out to be none other than Niko’s boyfriend- it is Niko who is blackmailing her mother with him! Well, it is, I have to say, just a pinch mollifying to see someone bamboozling Willie for a change.
At the party, Amanda turns out to be just one of the many people Matt invited, is she miffed- oh yes indeed? While he is all over some pretty girl named Heather, I do not buy it for a minute; methinks he is posing for Betty’s benefit. Willie gives a speech about what a mother would do to save her child, as Nikko beams victoriously- she thinks she will get her blackmail money.
Claire takes off to find the child she gave up years ago from an affair WITH Matt’s father, by calling the adoption agency, for a start- we know Claire will leave know stone unturned. When Matt asks Betty to dance, Betty says no, and, with her great flair for saying too much, tells him how glad she is they are now ‘friends’- oh sure. If I am right, she has just deflated his balloon, and failed his test to see if she still cares as much as he does. Speaking of friends, she tells NATALIE, she hopes they can be friends- yuk- and Daniel is blind to what is happening. As Natalie plots on her cell phone with someone about Daniel, it begins to dawn on viewers that someone, my guess is Willie or Connor, has hired her to get Daniel out of Meade Publications.
Confession time from your reviewer; I feared that Pat Field was making an error by dressing Betty like a humanoid this season- HA!- am I ever wrong; with this script, neither time change, nor wardrobre teak and braces removal will unglue the fans from our UB.
As the episode ends, Betty goes off and dances by herself- happy, looking good, alone and better than all of them.
