Feb 8, 2007: How Claire keeps busy

Justin gets home early, accompanied by his father Santos. He was sent home from school for fighting, which was supposedly provoked by him waving a flag around, I assume with the school band or something. Santos thinks its all Hilda's fault for raising him wrong. Hilda points out that Santos hasn't been involved in his upbringing at all. She is also annoyed that Justin called his father instead of her.

The situation is compounded later when Hilda meets Justin's opponent and his mother. The boy's mother also says Hilda hasn't been raising Justin right, and ridicules the trampy way Hilda dresses.

When Hilda prepares to take Justin back to school, she is wearing a very baggy, drab-colored shirt. Justin complains and says that although she tends to over-accessorize, she has her own style and he loves it. She is relieved and whips off the ugly shirt, revealing a brightly colored, ruffled, and revealing blouse underneath.

At Mode, Henry the Hotty invites Betty to a show: Wicked. (I don't know how the show is, but I recommend the book highly.) Betty eagerly accepts, but says they can only go as "friends," because of Walter. "Great, another friend" Hotty mutters sarcastically as he walks away.

Meanwhile, Walter (who I'll lay off calling Turd Sandwich) is offered a promotion to assistant manager at a new store... in Maryland. He's considering turning it down to be close to Betty. Dad urges Betty to make a decision about Walter. If she doesn't love him, she should cut him loose so they can get on with their lives.

Alexis puts Wil in charge of Mode and fires Daniel and Betty. Wil goes around firing other people she doesn't like. Alexis says she has an old (never updated) document from Bradford that says in the event he's unable to run Meade publications, control of the company will go to his oldest son. Daniel gets the lawyers to halt Alexis's takeover on the logic that Alexis is not a son.

In light of this legal maneuver, Alexis sends Wil home. Wil watches telenovelas and other fine Spanish programming at home with her cleaning lady. She also reveals to Fido that there's a small camera at the office, hidden in some flowers. She asks him to direct the camera towards Daniel's office so she can keep an eye on things.

Daniel's mother Claire shows up at the office. She is euphoric, having bought some awesome dresses for Alexis. She wants to hang out with Daniel for a while. This worries Daniel; she always gets this way under stress, and then she crashes. Not good. He feels that she needs supervision. Betty sees Walter arrive and suddenly, desperately wants to leave, so she agrees to go out with Claire instead. Walter is disappointed, but still wants to use his 2-for-1 lunch coupon. He tries to tempt Daniel with baked potatoes, but Daniel politely declines, saying he had a potato for breakfast.

Betty and Claire go to the spa and Betty endures a number of uncomfortable beauty treatments. They take baths - Claire in rose petals, Betty in mud. (Ha!) Walter calls repeatedly. Betty won't take the calls. She explains her confusion to Claire: her mother always told her to find a man who loves her, and never let him go. Claire sees it differently: Betty's mother wanted Betty to be happy, and Betty's not happy with Walter.

They talk about old times with the Meade family, too; they used to go to Coney Island.

Some time later, Betty rushes back to the offices and tells Daniel and Alexis that Claire gave her the slip. They wonder where she might have run off to. After a LOT of prodding, Betty finally gets these two geniuses to figure out that she went to Coney Island to relive happier times. They go to Coney Island, and sure enough, there's Claire, waiting for them, at the bumper cars. Daniel and Alexis ram one another repeatedly and air their grievances to one another; it turns out that, contrary to Daniel's belief, Alex(is) was not the favorite. Bradford knew that Alex was "different," and all of the special attention was not because he preferred Alex, but because he desperately hoped to change Alex.

When Betty gets home, she finds Walter waiting for her. She is about to break up with him, when he breaks up with her. (This was no surprise to me, since Verizon had recently started re-airing the ads with that actor.) They bid one another sad farewells, and Betty is free to pursue a relationship with Henry.

Back in the office that evening, Daniel and Alexis make nice and agree to run the magazine together. Wil sees this on her spy-cam and suspects that she's about to get screwed.

Next day, Henry informs Betty that he can't go to Wicked after all; his old girlfriend came to town, and they wants to give it another shot. Since she's got Walter, he figures it's for the best. He offers her the Wicked tickets, but she gives them back and says he and his girlfriend should enjoy the show.

Daniel sends Betty on an errand to bring a credit card to his mother. Claire is drunk in a hotel room; she didn't want to be alone in that big house. She confides to Betty that Bradford won't be in jail for very long; he's not the one who killed Fey. How does she know that? Easy - she killed Fey.