Ugly Betty is a television series my wife and I started not too long ago. It was originally an ABC program, and we have access to it through Disney+ since it is part of the Hulu catalog. It took us quite a while to get through Season 1 because it has a lot of episodes, but it felt like we breezed through Season 2.
Not much has really changed for Betty Suarez after working for Mode, except for the fact that she has a new boyfriend named Henry. However, he is still rather entangled with his ex. Which is really ironic, considering that he only started dating Betty again because she was still lingering over Walter, and the timing literally could not have been worse.
The big reveal of Season 1 was that the mysterious person on the phone conspiring against Bradford Meade turned out to be his thought-to-be-dead son, Alexander, who had faked his death so he could undergo gender-affirming surgery and become a woman named Alexis. I will say that Rebecca Romijn really does hit it out of the park as Alexis, and this kind of storyline was a lot more hard-hitting back in 2006 than it would be today. It also makes sense to have one of the most legendary models of all time play the character, as it takes some of the edge off the controversy.
Probably the most interesting character arc of the whole season belonged to Claire Meade. She spent most of Season 1 as an alcoholic wife and mother, but she was technically the one who killed her husband’s ex-mistress, Faye. As a result, there is a lot of criminal fallout from that revelation.
Wilhelmina Slater goes from frenemy to the outright villain of the entire series, at least based on where things appear to be headed. Once again, Vanessa Williams delivers a great performance. Her portrayal of an antagonist is really underrated.
I would say my biggest complaint about the second season was the obvious signs that Betty’s love life was not going to get any better, only more and more complicated. Henry has his own drama involving his ex-girlfriend, the redheaded Charlie, and to make things even crazier, a guy named Gio starts developing feelings for Betty. It creates the strange situation of two love triangles colliding into one.
Overall, though, my wife and I really enjoyed the second season of Ugly Betty. It could have been better, and I liked it slightly less than the first season. Still, the fact that we binge-watched most of it says something about the quality of the show. It also means we are now halfway through the series, and hopefully the final two seasons will not disappoint us.