“Sex, five times,” yeah me too, but that’s with Pam’s five sisters. Returning from “I’m Coming Out,” Wendey Stanzler is in only her second episode of her 4-episode run, and, oh boy! Of Ugly Betty episodes, it is certainly one of them. While writing comes from Desperate Housewives and Devious Maids writer, the returning Sheila Lawrence from “Fey’s Sleigh Ride” and “Brothers.” Much like Stazler, Lawrence will return later this season as well as in seasons 3 and 4. Depending on your opinion of “A League of Their Own,” that’s either a good thing or a bad thing.

I’ll be with you in two shakes of Henry’s baby, because I just want rid of him. Agreeing to never see each other again while on the phone, Betty and Henry take the same inner-city bus to work. Wow, such a hilarious joke stolen from the year 3000 AD. Meanwhile, Justin is out here looking like Glee called and wants its “rebellious” teenager look back, the magazine is hemorrhaging money because advertisers are pulling money, dumb-dumb Marc is falling for a dumb-dumb, Hilda is becoming grandma Suarez, again, Claire is back on the day drinking, and Betty is on eHarmony.

Do you think enough storylines are going on? Yeah, me neither. Let’s have a “family” photo… shoot (it’ll make sense soon) for Christmas, where Alexis finally goes back to the family townhouse for the first time since the car crash. It is also the first time Alexis has been in front of the fireplace since Bradford disowned her for announcing her intentions to transition. I swear, I’ll get a break from it when either Bradford is dead or I am.

Let’s just deal with the Henry thing straight away – it is awful, and I hate it. As I said last time, what does it do for Betty that we’ve got Henry constantly showing his interest in her, but knowing he has to look after the baby that is supposedly confirmed as his? There is nothing that I am getting out of this other than my desire to stab him.

Speaking of stories that I’ve been actively skipping over. Justin gets Hilda to sign a letter excusing him from going on the school field trip, and he plays hooky from school with the poster child for teen pregnancy and the average male teenager. It is like Harry Potter, but for Queens and with less transphobia, somehow. Much like I’ve said about other stories, this is one where I feel the writing is hampered by a lack of something, and in this case, it feels like the chapter where Justin gets the attitude and leather jacket.

As Christina measures the boxers of Marc’s dumb-dumb model, Betty bemoans the fact that she’s single and has to see Henry so much. Again, she feels passive in a story that’s about her. Why? This is what I don’t get about some writers: You need to give me a reason for the character being passive, or I just don’t care because the character isn’t showing a desire for that goal. If you want me as the viewer to want Betty to have a relationship, or whatever the goal is, you need to show me her active interest in that and why that can be difficult to achieve.

It only takes a little bit of shoving from Christina to force Betty’s hand into joining these online dating sites, because this was before everyone had smartphones. As you might guess, this is where the “sex, five times” line comes from. Christina has my favorite interests at heart. With a date set rather quickly, because men are like sniffer hounds on those sites/apps, Betty is going bowling with a man who wants only one thing. Sadly, it isn’t a Bagger 288; like the rest of us, it is sex. However, he is so beige and bland he might as well be gray wallpaper.

Shock among shocks, Betty is very talky while Captain Beige of the USS Boring is saying to himself, “I could pay an 87-year-old hooker $200 and get more satisfying gum action than this.” Given Betty’s sense of style, he’d still have the same amount of wool to undress. He pulls the “I’m going to the bathroom” then leave trick, and wouldn’t you know, Henry has gone bowling because he found out about this sad little date, and we get Betty and Henry again in a date setting. I swear to the baby Jesus, I’ll go on a mass murdering rampage if these two don’t grow up.

It is also couples bowling night at the bowling alley, so they escape together to Betty’s other date location, a restaurant. Sorry, weren’t we saying 30 minutes before this, “we should be avoiding each other?” This is not avoiding each other; you aren’t going to date right now, there is no active romantic intention between the two of you, and you are both being passive for a situational comedy bit. As a viewer without the baby-talk “aww itsss w(l)uv” thing, it is just terrible to watch this.

Either have Betty and Henry show intentions that they both want to be together, but there is something actively keeping them apart, or don’t do this. “Oh, but the baby” is not born, and it seems Henry has no intention to actively be in a romantic relationship with Charlie. He can be an active parent without dating the mother. This entire Will They/Won’t They, they can’t be together thing is just ponderous. Get out of your own way and do something else. Cue Henry dropping a fork and Betty getting up to leave, and thus the whole restaurant assumes it is a proposal.

Let’s find something less annoying. Grandma Suarez is spending a lot of time at Santos’ grave, and she’s picked up widowed friends. Don’t get too attached, Hilda – they don’t look too far away from their boxes either. It is basically just a storyline to say that Hilda is distracted from being an active parent, which is why Justin is in his Happy Days cosplay, and consequently, Justin steals the car and then totals it. As I said above, there is a chapter missing between singing “Whatever, Wherever we’re meant to be together” as he goes into that store and the Henry Winkler (covered in bees) get-up.

Yoga and Fish are busy plotting their long-term escape plan after Claire’s attempts to get Bradford back failed last time out. Fish has a crazy idea, though, to turn herself in. Woman, do you think Yoga has friends in the south of France with villas she can squat in? I think not. So when the Brad-elmina(?) wedding invite comes into the summer home these two are in now, Claire gets a funny gun-shaped light bulb above her head. Six to be exact, but she takes the one with the scope to be sure anyway.

We’ll return to that. Wilhelmina sends the more sensibly dressed Marc this week to supervise the men’s underwear model photoshoot. It is like gay Christmas! I am also surprised I don’t get canceled either, but we power on and talk with the photographer in a very 2000s outfit, the two fawn over the pretty, hot dumb-dumb model who put his underwear on backwards. The second saint of the episode, David Blue, makes his first appearance as Cliff St. Paul – Blue previously played Eli Wallace in Stargate Universe, i.e., the crap one.

I was going to let it go, but I just can’t. They put this man in a sort of mink/gray-colored long-sleeved tee, a purple-ish brown graphic t-shirt on top, and a tar/black waistcoat while wearing denim jeans. The saying goes “dress for the job you want,” but I think they stopped hiring vagrants and just show videos of old politicians when they want to show crazy people who can’t find a home. I remember when the not-so-skinny gay men had at least some sense of style, and I can say that I’m a not-so-skinny person myself.

As you might guess, one of the two gay men got that it was flirting, the other was Elder Scrolls… i.e., Oblivious. The two set up drinks and a movie that Marc was about to pie off because he got dumb-dumb to agree to a date too. For an episode that I have a lot to complain about, this is one of the few things I like. Cliff shows up at Mode while Marc is about to leave for the date with dumb-dumb, only for Cliff to confront Marc about booking two dates, assuming he and Cliff were going out, while he and dumb-dumb are GOING OUT.

“The only reason you didn’t think so is ’cause it was me. We both know that I don’t have ‘muscle tone’ or-or use ‘products,’ […] you’re such a cliché. You and Gus, what is that? That’s Beauty and Beauty.” To be a teenager about it. Marc is getting a boyfriend, and I might have known that when I said he needed one last time. Again, as I said about Amanda breaking down who she is in front of Wilhelmina to find herself, we have Marc being broken down to deconstruct this cliché of a bitchy gay in the fashion world.

What I do love about this is that Marc chases after him. Maybe not there and then, but he goes to Cliff, and they have the date of watching Psycho, because of course, a photographer is a cinephile. What I also like, and it is “subtle” in comparison to a lot of Ugly Betty’s other metaphors, the two put their shoes up on the coffee table and gently knock at each other. Indeed, I think later that night they are knocking boots.

James Van Der Beek was just so affable last time out with Luke Carnes, showing an active desire to just use every slur possible after being transphobic: Advertising at Mode is in the toilet. All part of Wilhelmina’s evil little scheme. While she was shopping around for other magazines to run within Meade Publications last time, she came up with the best idea: Destroy Mode from within and build a new magazine from its ashes. Destroy what is owned by Claire and make yourself the Editor-in-Chief. How very Reichstag Fire of you.

I can bet money you didn’t think I’d be making reference to Van der Lubbe’s arson charges at the start of this, but here we are. With that, we get more than just Carnes pulling advertising. Less so for advertisers being transphobic this time, but rather rumors that the magazine is failing – maybe spread by someone called Wanda. I said it last time, you can still have this cascading effect of advertisers pulling funding, but Carnes seeing consequences wouldn’t have gone amiss either.

At the family dinner, Bradford doesn’t know about the advertisers, where the siblings are bickering about who should be taking the blame, both actively claiming it. All three in Daniel, Wilhelmina (as the traitor – I hear that’s popular), and Alexis are working on ideas for cost-cutting measures, including cheap printer ink that bleeds, paper that’s see-through, and countless other things. So, I guess it’s time to go face the music and ask Daddy for money to support the magazine for a while.

“This Golden Boy’s gotta go wash ink off his boobs” is about the only line that’s punching sideways that I like out of this whole “hey, did you know Alexis is trans yet?” It is just the confidence of it, but we get Daniel and Alexis at the townhouse, where apparently Wilhelmina has been acting like the doting housewife. We saw that woman look up a turkey with disgust. Don’t gaslight me! Though with that we also get a family Christmas card photoshoot, or as Claire is planning photo… shoot.

It is whiskey business (pun very much intended) holding a sniper rifle while as drunk as the homeless guy sleeping off his 40.oz and trying to get a good sight picture on your husband’s new bit on the side. Thankfully, Yoga gets there and convinces Fish that it is time to go. Don’t let this scheming witch get in your head.

Now, normally, this is where things would end, but we’ve got Bradford and “his tranmnesiac daughter” interacting in the same spots they stood when he disowned Alexis. Indeed, the amnesia is wearing off, and we’re getting flashbacks of the night, while Alexis remembers that she wasn’t entirely Daddy’s Golden Boy; she was only his Golden Boy when she didn’t have boobs. Uh oh! Fish, you wanna come back and kill the old man so your daughter doesn’t go to prison? Ok, I’ll let you sleep that off.

While the advertisers are cascading away, Alexis’ memories are cascading back into sight as she remembers everything. Even telling Daniel that she ordered a hitman to kill Bradford, the hitman must have cut the brakes, and that’s why Alexis and Daniel were in the car crash. Time for another regression of Daniel, the siblings biting at each other, and a partridge (wahey!) in a pear tree.

As an episode, the biggest crime is that we’ve had this Will They/Won’t They storyline for 24 episodes by now. With at least one of them being passive while the other actively wants it, then, when the original one wants it, the other is now passive to that goal. It is not pleasant to watch, and quite frankly, it makes me hate Henry with every passing “I want you, but I have to go back to Tuc-son to look after the baby.” Either grow up and avoid each other or commit to each other. Anything else is just aggravating.

It is also no surprise that the thing I am actually most invested in, relationship-wise, is Marc and Cliff being G-A-Y in a tree. Yeah, even I thought better of putting the ING of K-I-S-S-I-N-G after G-A-Y there. Given the fact that Wilhelmina is constantly treating him like dirt, and we had “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” I like that we’re softening what I have been calling the catty parade (Marc and Amanda). It is all fine and well, looking at them as the villains early on, but now is the time to be softening them up and making them more well-rounded people in this colorful and often cartoonish world.

Ultimately, there is very little to be positive about when it comes to “A League of Their Own,” but Marc and Cliff might be in a league of their own as the only good thing about a sub-par episode of Ugly Betty. I like Claire being a drunk and going off to shoot Wilhelmina, but we know that’s not going to happen… yet. Alexis getting her memory back is also a step in the right direction, but I’ve got a feeling we’re not entirely going to drop the “hey, she’s trans, by the way” storyline. It is a rough one, but one you’ll get through.

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Ugly Betty "A League of Their Own"

6.5

Score

6.5/10

Pros

• Cliff St. Weiner?
• Knocking boots.
• “This Golden Boy’s gotta go wash ink off his boobs.”

Cons

• Will They/Won't They
• There is a chapter missing with Justin, I feel.