Betty soon finds an apartment in the city, but things are never as they appear and it's quite a while and much elbow grease before it turns into something livable. Then tragedy strikes and her father has a heart attack. While Ignacio (Tony Plana) pulls through, Betty decides she needs to move back home to help care for him, despite the fact that the girls have hired a nurse to help out. Elena (Lauren Velez) turns out to nurse more than Ignacio's health as the two fall in love, much to Hilda's (Ana Ortiz) chagrin. But Hilda's hands are full on her own, because she never got a permit for her salon and leave it to a handsome young politician, Archie Rodriguez (Ralph Macchio), to make her aware of this. Before long, the two are dating.
Meanwhile, at Meade Publications, all is not well. Daniel (Eric Mabius) has been busted down to a different publication, Player, and Betty is none too happy to be working at this degrading men's magazine. Wilhelmina Slater (Vanessa Williams) has partnered up with Alexis Meade (Rebecca Romijn) to push Daniel out and Willie is busy preparing for the birth of her child via Christina McKinney's (Ashley Jensen) body. When Christina gets pushed down a flight of stairs and the baby's life is threatened, Daniel gets arrested for the crime, only to have it come to light that a fit of jealousy and rage made Alexis strike out at her unborn baby half-brother. She leaves the country to ride out the editorial fallout.
Although Daniel is eventually reinstated at Mode, as Co-Editor in Chief with Willie, times are tough for him. For starters, he is embroiled in a bitter custody battle with his French son's grandparents, which he eventually loses. Secondly, true love has eluded him for quite some time. To gain an edge at Mode, he tricks Willie into thinking that he is against hiring Connor Owens (Grant Bowler), a financial whiz, to run the company when in actuality, they are old college buddies. The tables quickly turn when his scheme goes according to plan, only to have Connor play both sides of the field. Things really get hot when Daniel meets Connor's fiancee, Molly (Sarah Lafleur) and he is smitten. Soon, Molly and Daniel are in love and Connor and Willie become an item. Trouble is a brewin', though, because Willie soon finds out Connor has cleaned out Mode's accounts and set up Daniel and Betty to take the fall, but he asks her to run away with him, throwing her career away. What would Willie do? She's always been a career woman, at heart.
With Meade Publications penniless, cutbacks must be made. In the meantime, Marc (Michael Urie) and Betty are vying to get into Y.E.T.I. to become the next hot young editors. With a little help from Daniel, they both get in and Betty goes full steam ahead to try and land a prized position at the New York Review. What she actually lands is a boyfriend in the form of Matt Hartley (Daniel Eric Gold), a sports writer who has a thing for her. As it turns out, Matt is incredibly rich and his father has a way of buying out troubled magazines. So Betty sets a plan in motion to save Meade, even at the cost of her budding relationship with Matt. Things work out and Hartley steps in to rescue Meade Publications, but not without a cost. By the end of the season, he and Claire Meade (Judith Light), who are old buddies, have Willie running in circles and Betty not only loses her dream job, but also her best friend, Christina, who moves back to Scotland. She may even lose Matt as well because of an ill-timed goodbye kiss with Henry that Matt sees, but she doesn't reveal. Plenty more happens, including a few episodes with a crazy, bitchy Lindsey Lohan as Betty's scheming rival (pretty funny stuff), but you'll have to watch for yourself to catch every juicy tidbit.
There were some really good special features this time around, including Deleted Scenes, Bloopers, a Pop-Up Video Commentary with Marc (Michael Urie) and Amanda (Becki Newton) on a particular episode, Audio Commentary, plus a featurette on moving the show from Los Angeles back to New York City. However, my hands-down favorite special feature was called Mode After Hours. These webisodes give us "glimpses" into what goes on at Mode after the lights are turned off. Apparently Marc and Amanda hang out there a lot and do really funny things. There was a nice selection of these and they are hysterical.
Overall, Ugly Betty: The Complete Third Season was a good one. It had some ups and definitely some downs what with select cast leaving and even someone special in Daniel's life dying, but it was still a fun season to watch. All of the characters are so over the top that I just really giggle every time I see this show. Even if you are just coming into the series, it's a great show, although I highly recommend you watch Seasons 1 and 2 to get the real story on all the happenings at Mode Magazine.
