Zero Worship

"Zero Worship" is the 11th episode in the second season, and the 34th episode overall, of the American dramedy series Ugly Betty, which aired on January 10, 2008. The episode was written by Dawn DeKeyser and directed by Ron Underwood.

Plot

The story begins with Betty dealing with trying to get into an elevator full of models only to exceed the elevator limits. As Betty prepares to help Daniel to manage his first solo Fashion Week, she has to give Justin's class a tour of MODE. Justin's classmates only seem interested in celebrities, high fashion, and being thin, so they're naturally attracted to Amanda after they see her. When Betty sees the young schoolgirls throwing their lunches in the trash, including a bewildered Hilary, who seems to pressured by a pair of classmates and gives in, she tells Daniel that they have to change MODE and suggests that they use healthy normal looking models for their Fashion Week show, but Daniel isn't so sure about doing this because of one person that would have to agree on changing it, and that would be Alexis, who just gave Daniel a new chair as a gesture to bury the hatchet.

That same day, Wilhelmina's hormone treatments have her behaving more lovingly than usual, with assistance from Marc, who has to inject the shots while she binges on ice cream. But hours later, Wilhelmina's doctor tells her that she can't carry a child because she has a hostile womb and she'll have to find a surrogate, so she asks her manicurist, Brandy, who already has five children. Brandy agrees to it and Wilhelmina offers her one of her fur coats as a done deal.

In her first staff meeting with all Editors-in-Chief since she became President/CEO of Meade Publications, Alexis not only nixes Daniel's proposal about using healthy models, but when he tried to find a chair, he is stunned that has to sit on a small stool.

Later that morning Marc visits Amanda and arranges her to meet with a psychic named Linda to try to find out who her father is. As Linda visits the Love Dungeon for their first meeting it becomes apparent that Linda's "visions" makes Miss Cleo look tame, but the only thing that Linda tells Amanda is that she's going to be rescuing a black dog. As Betty gets trapped in an elevator with rapper Bow Wow and after Amanda gets them out of there she says his name to herself and then thinks that he's the "dog" that Linda referred to, so she starts to believe in the woman's powers. Linda tells Amanda to follow the letter "B" and that the "B" would lead her to a kiss and the kiss would lead her to her real father. Amanda sees Betty's "B" necklace after Halston barks at it and gets the idea that Betty is the "B" who she's supposed to follow, of which Betty dismisses.

At The Closet, Marc is stunned to find Stuart there as he waited to see Christina and when she arrives the two talked about the money for the operation, but hours later Henry has the sad responsibility of having to tell Christina that her insurance won't cover Stuart's treatments. When Marc overhears this, he comes by to comfort her, not knowing of what lies ahead for the Scottish seamstress.

At a press conference, Alexis announces the change to allow normal women to be included in the MODE fashion show. As they weigh in, Justin notices the scales are really off and when Betty tests it she learns that Alexis rigged the scale to show emaciated models as being 20 pounds heavier than they really are, and when Betty confronts her about it, Alexis tells Betty that fixing the scale was Daniel's idea. Feeling guilty about giving in to Alexis's demands and thereby disappointing Betty because he feels powerless against his sister, this after seeing a vision of a devastated 12-year-old Betty, Daniel decides to go against Alexis' orders and arranges to have actual normal women as models.

Later that evening, Marc and Cliff can't find anything at the video store that they both want to watch, so they go into the store's naughty back room where Marc discovers a movie with a picture of Wilhelmina's chosen surrogate, Brandy, on the cover. Brandy would later be dismissed by Wilhelmina, resulting in Wilhelmina going back to square one. As she watches Fashion Buzz she sees Christina giving an interview, and Marc lets Wilhelmina know that Christina needs a lot of money to help her husband pay for his operation, so Wilhelmina gets the idea to offer Christina the money if she'll carry her little Meade heir for nine months, calling her their "Scotch On The Rocks."

As Amanda catches up with Betty and takes her to the Love Dungeon, they have a tender moment together as Amanda finally learns a few details about Betty's life, especially how Betty's mother died six years ago from cancer, even though Betty believes that Amanda needs to do a little more homework on her life, like her last name and which parent is still living. Betty assured Amanda that it doesn't take a psychic or a good luck charm to find what you're looking for. Before walking away from Amanda, Betty picks up a photo of Gene Simmons, of KISS fame, and hands it to Amanda, leaving her to believe that the long-tongued rocker is her father.

At Fashion Week, Daniel finally unveil the alternative fashion show featuring real, normal women, and it proves to be a hit among the crowd and the press, especially after Betty gets Bow Wow to show up with fellow recording artist Omarion as Betty works the runway as one of the models. When Alexis sees this non-sanctioned show, she is upset at first when she sees Daniel's "models" coming out, but then she takes credit for the whole thing in the end, once again topping her brother. As the show gets tons of attention, one of Justin's alpha-girl friends complains about the "fat" models and thought it suck and as she sees a confused Hilary, she gives in to the girls. Betty gets gratification, however, when one of the other girls, Taylor comes up to her afterwards to tell her that the show didn't totally suck, and then asks about some of the clothes that she saw on the runway. As the event comes to an end, Betty and Daniel finally walk away into the runway sunset with high fives on a job well done.

Production

"Zero Worship" can be considered the first episode to address the issue of body imaging and its effect on young girls, which was the central theme in the "Be Ugly" campaign back in the series' first season.

The single Bow Wow and Omarion performed in this episode, "Hey Baby (Jump Off)", is the second single release from their collaboration set Face Off.

This episode was supposed to make its airing debut on January 3, 2008, but last minute schedule changes pushed its airing back a week.^[1]

This also marks the first episode to filmed without former series regular Alan Dale, while current regular Judith Light is absent from this one.

Casting

Off-camera, guest star Annie Potts is married to one of the show's former executive producers, James Hayman.

Reception

In TV Guide's "Ask Matt" column, Matt Roush touted this episode as one of his favorites.^[2]

Ratings

The episode would go on to win its timeslot with a 6.7/11 share^[3] and more than 10 million viewers tuning in.^[4] However in the January 7th-13th 2008 Nielsen weekly ratings it came in 27th, with Fox's Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, which aired opposite Betty, edging the episode out by nearly 100,000 viewers.^[5]

References

Also starring

• Alec Mapa as Suzuki St. Pierre
• Wendy Benson as Veronica
• Juliette Goglia as Hilary
• Derek Riddell as Stuart McKinney

Guest stars

• Annie Potts as Linda,
• Rob Brownstein as Dr. Weiss
• Omarion as Himself
• Bow Wow as Himself
• Elizabeth McLaughlin as Lindsay
• Hannah Marks as Taylor
• Carol Ann Susi as Mrs. Galeano
• Jennifer Norkin as Brandy
• Jonathan Kehoe as "Player" Editor
• Robyn Moran as "Cucina" Editor
• Ashley Estrella as 12-year-old Betty