Last week [1], Betty let her good and decent self help out an old enemy in need by showing her the ropes at Mode. In doing so, she made a monster out of Kimmie, who nabbed a promotion and declared ominously that she felt like her old self again.

So when Ugly Betty [2] opens this week, Kimmie is empowered and all the rage in the office. She rubs Betty's nose in her success, which makes Betty morph into a green-eyed monster ("She brings out this side of me where I want to scratch her eyes out"). Betty's biggest complaint to Daniel is that Kimmie refuses to play by the rules — but she soon learns that working with people you dislike is par for the course in grown-up world. That, though, is a world in which Marc and Amanda do not live, and they decide Kimmie must go, which means luring Betty over to the dark side and joining forces against a common enemy. Ready to talk about it? Just .

• Hilda's opening sass with Betty chatting about Kimmie was fabulous: "I always knew she was the same old rhymes-with-ba-zich."
• I know there have been rumors swirling [3] about Lohan's time at Ugly Betty, and I don't mean to pile on, but did you think her evil girl acting job was good? She has a big meltdown scene in the end where she's supposed to totally lose it and . . . well? Not very persuasively unstable, in my opinion — but I'm getting ahead of myself.
• Kimmie kicks Betty where she knows it hurts: right in Betty's ambitious spot. ("In just two weeks I’ve gotten higher than you have in two years.")
• Don't get me wrong, I like Wilhelmina evil, but I'm finding her co-editorship with Daniel fun. It's nice having her biting humor around in general, like in the scene where Claire is briefing them both on the accounting and telling them to take this seriously: "Dear Claire, setting us straight like a poor man’s Sally Field."
• So, yay! We spend a good chunk of time with Jesse the hot neighbor this week, and he even sings Betty a song, "Go for it, Betty!"
• Oh and it's cute that he's already taken to calling her "Super B."



• So Betty comes up with the hot fruit idea, which lands an elusive supermodel for the cover, which bumps Kimmie's big story. That's "game on," as far as Kimmie is concerned.
• Watching Betty (somewhat literally) melting down on-camera broke my heart, and the way Kimmie slides in is just lame. I feel like they could have thought of something slightly more underhanded for Kimmie to do besides make Betty sweaty.
• Hilda dressing up Justin to make some money on election day is hilarious. He looks so miserable.
• And guess who shows up for a haircut in Hilda's salon? The karate kid! Well, OK, it was Ralph Macchio, guest-starring as a councilman who who scolds Hilda on her business papers or something. She was so furious! Which means they're totally going to fall in love, right?
• Best part of the night? Amanda and Marc focusing on getting Kimmie fired, of course. I love when Amanda tries to convince Betty she's awful: "Betty, she threatened your family!" (She didn't).
• So this Conor Owens fella looks a lot like Daniel Craig to me, which is good. And turns out he's in cahoots with Daniel. Good to see Daniel's learning to get ahead of the Wilhelmina-psycho-plot curve.

Are you glad Kimmie's gone? Do you like Jesse as a love interest? Let's discuss!

Photos copyright 2008 ABC, Inc. [4]