Filing for the Enemy
| "Filing for the Enemy" | |
|---|---|
| Ugly Betty episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 3 Episode 2 |
| Directed by | Michael Spiller |
| Written by | Joel Fields |
| Production code | 302 |
| Original air date | October 2, 2008 |
"Filing for the Enemy" is the second episode in the third season, the 43rd episode overall, of the American dramedy series Ugly Betty, which aired on October 2, 2008. The episode was written by Joel Fields and directed by Michael Spiller.
At a shoot for Player involving "sexy lawyers and judges," Betty discovers Daniel (who took Betty's "idea" for the aforementioned shoot) working on a "Mode" mock-up sent to him by mistake. When Betty takes the mock-up to Alexis, Alexis is impressed with how it turned out... in fact, so impressed she tells Wilhelmina that Daniel's ideas were better than hers. Wilhelmina, as "Mode" Editor-in-Chief, finds a way to ensure her future at Meade Publications—by manipulating Betty, who Wilhelmina feels can help her succeed, into joining her team.
Seeing Betty's potential, Wilhelmina invites her to lunch at a chic restaurant. Betty, however, has serious doubts (no surprise, considering Wilhelmina has interfered in Betty's career so often), but Wilhelmina says she wants to bury the hatchet and tells Betty if she wants to move up in the world of magazine publishing, to rejoin the "Mode" staff and work for her. Unfortunately, as Betty tells her family about the offer, Wilhelmina jumps the gun by rubbing it in Daniel's face at work, leading to Daniel forcing Betty to decide... which she does by accepting Wilhelmina's offer.
As Betty resumes her work at Mode under Marc, it appears that Betty is winning Wilhelmina over, with "winning over" being the operative phrase. At a meeting with a cosmetics mogul to negotiate an advertising deal, Betty offers suggestions that impress the mogul and are accepted (grudgingly) by Wilhelmina. Betty is then sent by Wilhelmina on a seemingly impossible errand... to fetch a historic tiara under guard in a museum, for Wilhelmina to wear at the "Mode" re-launch gala. When Betty returns with two museum guards and the tiara, Wilhelmina admits she was only testing Betty the same way Fey Sommers once tested Wilhelmina, and says she wants to make Betty her protégé and personal assistant, which shocks Marc. Wilhelmina then hands the re-launch party planning (which was Marc's assignment) to Betty, causing a major rift between Betty and the deeply offended Marc.
The abrupt changes left Betty with more questions than answers, which is made worse when she falls asleep and dreams that she became a "Betty-mina", where Betty looked exactly like Wilhemina but with braces and glasses, shouting and firing all the staff, getting botox from Marc, chucking Daniel out of her office and then proceeding to kick Halston, Amanda's dog, but then woke up before she saw it, which gave her a horrible shock. Marc and Amanda gives Betty bags full of "old mail" to shred. Luckily, before she began her task, Betty discovered the bags were full of supportive letters to Daniel from "Mode" readers that Wilhelmina had kept hidden. As she showed Daniel the letters, Betty encouraged him to fight for his old job.
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