Nothing like having the gays throw you down the stairs, it makes the homewrecking smell fresh. Directed by Victor Nelli Jr, this is the first of Nelli’s run with Ugly Betty, but the show won’t be his last time working with America Ferrera, as he goes on to direct Superstore with her, as well as The Office and The Wonder Years reboot. While writing comes from Supervising Producer, and previously a writer for a small show called Charmed, Henry Alonso Myers. Myers most recently wrote for shows like Chuck, The Magicians, and showrunnig an obscure little show called Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

So, with practically the whole season wrapped up by this point and the US having a penchant for stupidly long seasons, we get a filler episode about how the job market in the US is terrible. There really is a day for everything: Breast cancer, the gays being loud and proud, and, of course, the most important, a day to highlight just how wonderful underpaid desk work is with a day for secretaries. Otherwise known as assistants. That’s it, buy the assistant a tiny little gift once a year to make up for paying slave labor wages for doing all the actual work you don’t do, bosses.

Indeed, I’d be suspect 1 through 5 for office violence if I were subjected to such horrors as co-workers. So as Betty plans out a work night-out for the assistants (and Amanda), the man-whore has to come to face his man-whoreness with a therapist. Meanwhile, mother-dearest gets a visit in prison by Bradford’s new mistress, who flaunts it in Claire’s face. If we don’t already have a mess of storylines to contend with, Ignacio’s legal status can only be cleared up back in Guadalajara; Henry will defend Betty’s honor at Medieval Relationship Crimes— I mean, Times. As well as Alexis’ Brazilian spy/boyfriend.

As much as I’d love to say something completely new, the reality is I need to repeat myself. I love Ugly Betty as is, but writing up reviews about it is made difficult by the fact we’re tracking seven different stories at one time in a pacing known as somewhere between F1 and mach Jésus. Just watching, I love it because nothing naff settles too long to care about it. Reviewing, or attempting to review, makes talking about plot points or details involved in the episode difficult without writing a thesis paper every week.

Part of the Bradford-Wilhelmina-Claire storyline is what I say at the start: Wilhelmina forces Marc to punch her and knock her down the stairwell at the Meade building. Why? To make it look like Claire sent around some heavies to rough her up for sleeping with Bradford, forcing him to divorce Claire, of course. The only thing more Telanovela than Ugly Betty at times is wrestling, and that’s a compliment to all three.

So as Betty struggles with trying to get enough money to help Papi, she’s also trying to figure out this Henry business now that Charlie is in town. I get it, she likes him, and he likes her, but the grown-up thing to do here, Betty, would be to just tell him to go away if you can’t say no to those feelings. I know! I am asking for grown-ups in a show that’s hyper drama to the nth degree, how silly of me, but it would solve their problems.

Just as therapy would help a lot of men, including Daniel, and his desire to put his little D in everything with a functioning heartbeat, and the thought of breasts on the chest of young women. Sorry, the latter bit might just be what politicians and these grifting influencers seem to desire, rather than someone age-appropriate. Nonetheless, Betty forces him to go see David Norona’s Tyler Blake, a psychoanalyst from one of Mode’s sister magazines. Or rather brings Blake to him with the two talking, and Daniel finally getting an anti-erection pill. Here I thought that was just thinking about your dad taking a tricky poo.

Now that you’re all a lot less horny, we can talk about gay He-Man and his sad beard, who didn’t get anything for Secretaries’ Day. Only made extra sad by Betty’s choice of medieval-themed last resorts for crap actors and worse wait staff. Turns out that despite Marc’s delight at making fun of others, Amanda was the big-breasted wench who’d greet you as you walked into the house of red meat and cheap beer by the gallon. She even shows him her acting real before she was a Mode-y, where she was also the face of a Babe Station knock-off. There are the erections back.

The whole culmination of the episode, much like “Icing on the Cake,” is one image towards the end where Betty has gotten the idea that she can stay on the mechanical bull at this Medieval Times knock-off to get the money for Papi. Which, as you might have guessed, given the show’s antics thus far, goes sideways, and she fails. Only for Henry to come to her rescue after Unbreakable Max Greenfield does that usual failed finance bro thing, being horrible, so Henry challenges him to a fight with giant versions of those things weirdos tell you not to stick in your ears.

Shut up, I know they’re called pugil sticks. But it is that image of those two on the wooden log, smacking each other, and the scene where Charlie “catches” Betty coming to Henry’s rescue. Indeed, including the jazz hands and the put-upon voice, it is just shouting “hyper drama” for the sake of it again. I’ve said my piece on Henry at this point, I don’t think I need to repeat myself too much (though I will next week again – spoiler).

“Secretaries’ Day” is doing three things: Setting up the next episode with Betty, Hilda, and Papi going to Guadalajara, hammering home the Henry stuff for those in the back who are dead, and setting up the fall of Bradford with Alexis’ lover being a hired boyfriend to whisk her away to Brazil. Not that Brazil is all that much better for trans folks either, this is just the first time since transitioning she felt like she’d connected with someone, like she’s being appreciated sexually for who she really is rather than what she was forced to be.

Ultimately, “Secretaries’ Day” doesn’t do a lot wrong, but all the same, it isn’t doing too much that’s exciting either. As I say, it feels more like a filler episode that connects the dots between two major episodes alone rather than jumping from “Petra-gate” to an episode set in Mexico next week. Like other episodes that fill in gaps, it has its moments that are memorable and stand out, but nothing that changes or holds up the series for what or why you end up loving it.

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Ugly Betty “Secretaries’ Day”

6

Score

6.0/10

Pros

• Some memorable moments, but nothing long-lasting.
• Amanda's little storyline shows her more vulnerable side once again.
• Throwing Wilhelmina down the stairs.

Cons

• Act like grown-ups and walk away, please.