Daniel, some of them do. The first episode to be written by this season’s story editor, Dailyn Rodriguez, makes one of two appearances as a writer for Ugly Betty before moving on to other projects. Including an adaptation of Meg Medina’s 2013 book, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, which, at the time of writing, is banned in America because that place is a fantasy land that I refuse to believe is real at this point. While director James Hayman makes a return after previously doing work on “Queens for a Day,” with “After Hours” coming weeks after he directed the fantastic Robert Vaughn in Law & Order: SVU.

So while Wilhelmina is asked to all but lap dance for a Lasso(hole) from El Paso by “Mr Meade” (Bradford), Hilda is making me feel like a Lasshole after what I said last time out in “Trust, Lust and Must.” As Hilda suggests to Papi that she can get the money for lawyer Leah from Santos, and I think you can guess where that’s going. While Betty is fawning over Sofia, even getting wet while she gets her copy of “Girls like it on Top” signed, a book and book title that I think Daniel feels is a bit abrasive towards men and the patriarchy.

However, Sofia has an ulterior motive for asking Daniel’s simple, average, frumpy little assistant to read copy on an upcoming feature for MYW; maybe to make her jump ship, maybe to annoy Daniel, but probably both. The article in question is called “Sexaholics,” something certainly to ruffle himbo Daniel, perhaps? Being a twinge jealous, the bimbo from the land of himbo is down a freelance writer for a hotel review for Mode, so he deputizes Betty. The same Betty who, this same weekend, was set to go to Atlantic City with Walter.

Oh, tough decisions! Go to this nice, swanky hotel in Soho with a 3-star restaurant, where Daniel practically lives and lives like a prince, or get on a shuttle and go to Atlantic City with Walter? Yeah, I’m sorry, Walter, son, it is a no from me, and you can disappear like Daniel’s dead brother. Also, while writing this up, I double checked where we’re talking about, with the hotel and Soho (forgetting filming was done in LA), and I just so happened to jump into street view outside Rails Soho and the Isabel Marant shops on Greene Street and Broome, i.e, where Daniel lives in “Pilot.” That’s fun… I know this show too well.

As I said last week, I’ve given you six episodes to get into the show without spoilers, now I’m allowing myself to say things a little more freely with Ugly Betty. However, I’ll keep some major stuff a little locked away or only teased. One thing we need to talk about, though, especially after the other week with “Fey’s Sleigh Ride,” is Santos and Hilda’s relationship as it stands. Where it is standing is about three feet off the cliff, with a sad-looking brown coyote holding a sign asking for help.

With Papi admitting to being a Cypress Hill fan, saying how he could just kill a man, and why his immigration status is a bit nonexistent, Hilda needs $5,000 to pay for Leah after Betty turned down Wilhelmina’s blood money. The only way to get that money in Hilda’s mind is to ask Justin’s dad, Santos, who Ignacio could go for round 2 on the murder charges over. When you get a man’s teenage daughter pregnant, don’t annoy him; he’s killed before (and fled Mexico), and he’ll do it again.

Speaking of teenage daughters, Wilhelmina is worried about how she left things with Nico last time out, after she called out her mother and the fashion industry over its use of fur. Now, only an episode later, little Willie has to please Tex with his provocative style of teasing her, and his budget business power suits made of material that cuts the hands of the sweatshop children who make them. At least be nice to the kids while they work for $0.10 an hour in the subcontinent, let them make things with silk and cashmere, the poor things.

With Willie lying and saying that Marc played some sort of sports ball in Texas, I think the only ball Marc was fumbling around with in college was in someone’s jockstrap. Yes, while Betty is dressed for her Quinceañera to go to the restaurant in the hotel, Wilhelmina is dragged to Yeeha’s Rodeo, Line Dancing, and Hooters while wearing something as tasteful as a crushed velvet suit to a funeral. The only thing that could make it worse would be if Walter were at the restaurant and Marc was asked to do body shots off of a half-naked woman’s stomach.

This, more or less, is what I meant by Hilda sometimes being too much for Ugly Betty, where sometimes, when she’s toned down and serious, she’s fitting in better with these more out there stories. “After Hours” is no better example, as she deals with Ignacio and Santos in some heavy, grounded storytelling, as Betty has to deal with Walter being terrible, Wilhelmina showing “Y’all” how to panhandle for pennies, and Daniel makes fun of two women cupping each other’s breasts for a spread on women recovering from breast cancer. You know, light and fun stuff.

“After Hours” isn’t one of those episodes you remember much from years after watching the show multiple times, and take that for the backhanded compliment it is. I’m not bemoaning Rodriguez’s writing or anything going on, simply the fact that, for the most part, it fills out the rest of the characters for the coming episodes. It isn’t a bottle episode, it isn’t a filler episode, so much as it is doing the grunt work of the show as it expands and introduces characters we’ll see in a couple of arcs throughout the season.

One arc that I wish would end so I could shove a double-barreled shotgun under his chin and send him back to his beige, simple, horribly “me, me, me” little life is Walter and Betty’s relationship. So, of course, he says he’s going to Atlantic City, but he doesn’t. He shows up while Betty is getting rubbed down by the super chiseled and sexy Rib Hillis, only to culminate (once again) in the dining room of a restaurant. That scene in the restaurant is exactly what makes me hate Walter so much.

Betty isn’t much better here; she’s caught up in doing this review by trying to overachieve, which everyone does, but she lets it get in the way of enjoying the experience and letting it happen. Despite that, Walter doesn’t want to let her experience this strange and not-so-common thing for her, as he wants his beige little life to continue to be beige and uninteresting. A bit like that Eiffel 65 song, but beige instead of blue. He is actively holding Betty back from doing things she wants to do and experience simply because he’s jealous, controlling, manipulative, and creepy – mediocre, crypto boy stuff.

His whole thing is that she doesn’t belong in the swanky hotel or at Mode because of who she is; she should settle and get rid of her ambition because he’s comfortable in Queens and doesn’t want anything else. The reality of this storyline and indeed Ugly Betty is that you can be from Queens, you can be la fea, you can be from Texas and run a budget Walmart knock-off, or you can be a single mother trying to do the best you can, but it doesn’t mean you can’t want more while also being you.

Betty’s story is about being her in a world that typically doesn’t accept or accommodate women like her racially, aesthetically, or anything. Nonetheless, she pushes on despite the bullying from Marc and Amanda, despite what Daniel did in “Pilot,” and everything else to come. Walter does nothing but hold Betty back because he’s scared she’ll leave him, because he knows she’s got bigger, better, more realized dreams. I love Kevin Sussman to bits because he’s great here, but much like Ana Ortiz and Hilda, I hate Walter with a burning passion. As a character, he is just such a horrible person.

Ugly Betty has a lot of horrible people doing horrible things to each other, as we’ve yet to see. With the introduction of Santos, we’ve got some of the hardest parts of Justin’s early story coming up, we didn’t get much of the Fey mystery or the mystery woman storyline, and there is plenty to come from those we already know. However, with episodes like “After Hours,” it is difficult not to like Wilhelmina just a little, or “Fey’s Sleigh Ride” and liking Marc more, or “The Lyin’, the Watch and the Wardrobe” and feeling for Amanda.

Ultimately, “After Hours” lets us explore our main cast a little more, get a little bit of the magazine at work again, and introduces even more characters to expand on our story so far. Aside from remembering how horrible Walter is and how soft/warm Wilhelmina can be sometimes, I also remember that shirt Justin wears towards the end because I had one of those (in blue and white), and they are great. They are weird and sometimes too much, but much like that final scene with Betty and Sofia in the bathroom, those shirts feel good and comforting.

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Ugly Betty “After Hours”

6

Score

6.0/10

Pros

• Ana Ortiz is great here.
• That scene with Betty and Sofia in the bathroom.
• The Santos storyline begins.

Cons

• I'd kick Walter to death in a dark alley.