"Ugly Betty" rambling...

[frameofmind6]

I am in love with Gio. Henry was fine, Henry was adorable at first—but I don’t know, somewhere in there it felt like they sorta skipped a step in that relationship, and I started loosing interest. I feel like there was a bit of a gap between the point where they were awkwardly attracted to each other, but never really spoke more than four words, and where they were suddenly best friends and knew everything about each other, but the obstacle between them was Henry’s girlfriend from back home. I missed the part where they spent enough time together to get to know each other, but without ever actually dating. Anyway, I was totally rooting for him, even a ways into the “baby-mama” thing—but once it turned out that the baby really was his, and it was clear that he was going to move back with Charlie and be a dad eventually, I just kinda got over him. Besides, by that time Gio was coming into the picture, and I think Gio is adorable. He’s hot, he’s funny (in like this weird, laid-back, understatedly snarky way), and he’s quirky without being over-the-top. Henry’s nerdiness was adorable at first, at a distance, but I was a little bored by him once they really got closer. And, I don’t know…there was something else missing. Some kind of indefinable chemistry thing. Like, it was on the page—they both acted as if it was there—but somehow I just couldn’t feel it.

 

But I love Gio. And it’s weird, because I feel like I could find him really obnoxious (his way of teasing people seems almost mean in the abstract, but somehow he makes it not so), but I totally don’t. Any scene is better with him in it. He has that sort of “not-so-bad-boy” vibe that I really like—almost a “bad boy” at first glance, until you realize how sweet and nice and genuine he is. You know—like Inuyasha in most good AU fanfics… (*grin*)

 

Mark is my favorite character though—hands down. I swear, he’s like a compilation of about five or ten guys I know—plus a little bit of caricature… (*grin*) Anyway, I just think he’s hilarious and adorable, and manages to be a totally sympathetic character even though he’s sorta bitchy and happens to be Willhelmina’s faithful minion. But it’s like there’s “Minion Mark” and “Marky Mark”—there’s sort of a separation between when he’s playing lapdog and running around doing her bidding, and when he’s actually living his own life (like the thing with his Seth Rogan-ish photographer boyfriend, which I think is so adorable—one of my favorite little arcs of the second season. I was basically over the Henry thing by that point, so Mark’s relationship became the thing I was rooting for. And I think it shows such growth in him that he actually chose someone he had a rapport with who was a really smart, nice guy over the hot but dumb male underwear model. Yay for Marky!! I adore him…I knew he had hidden depths… *grin*).

 

You know, it’s weird, but I keep being struck by how much this show reminds me of “Alias.” Not really in tone or content specifically—I mean, “Alias” was hugely action-driven and definitely not a comedy—but all the different twisting, intertwining plotlines about people scheming against each other and keeping secrets and switching sides, and the romantic melodrama, and the fact that each episode leaves you dying to see the next one, and yet when you come back to it after even a few hours away it’s nearly impossible to remember what was happening the last time you watched. The experience of watching it is just the same in a lot of ways—although probably less stressful (“Alias” drove me insane. I would sit up nights with my eyes glued to the TV watching episode after episode, my blood pressure through the roof, freaking out about the latest Rimbaldi artifact, and whose side Sloan was really on at this particular moment…seriously, it was like a drug. So not going back there…). It’s almost like “Ugly Betty” is a spoof of “Alias” (*grin*). Oh—and all that being said, when Victor Garber showed up as Betty’s mean writing professor, I nearly fell out of my chair. It’s Jack Bristow!!! (*grin*) He was my favorite character on “Alias.” Scary as hell, but definitely my favorite—and I adore Victor Garber in his own right. I’m always on the lookout for instances of him playing smiley, happy people though—he always seems to play either scary/mean people, or funny people, but in a totally deadpan way. The best examples I’ve found of him (as a smiley person) are Daddy Warbucks in the recent version of Annie (he smiles more as the movie goes on) and that scene in Sleepless in Seattle with Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson—but that one’s pretty short. I have the same thing going with Jason Isaacs. I swear, he scarred me for life when I was about thirteen as Colonel Tavington in The Patriot (not a great movie, but I maintain to this day that Tavington is the scariest son of a bitch in all of film history… *grin*), and of course he then went on to play Lucius Malfoy—who isn’t nearly as scary as Tavington, but he’s definitely still in the same vein. Anyway, the best example I’ve found of him playing against type is when he played the dad in that Peter Pan movie that came out in 2003 or so—but that was a small part, and he played Captain Hook in the same movie, so that sorta trumps it (*grin*). And then there was The Tuxedo, where he played a nice enough guy, but still quite reserved and deadpan—and he wasn’t in it for long.

 

So, yeah—the search continues…

 

Okay, enough. I’ve got one episode left in this season, and then I’m going to bed. I’ll figure out all the stuff on my to-do list before class tomorrow…