After four seasons, Ugly Betty ended with Betty accepting a new job in London, among many other changes happening at Mode and in the Suarez household.
Ugly Betty has always been a fairly popular series, but ABC ultimately decided not to renew the show after its fourth season, since its ratings had started declining.
The Ugly Betty finale episode “Hello Goodbye” ended with most of the characters deciding to do what was best for them.
Ugly Betty’s four-season run
It did not take long for ABC’s satirical dramedy, Ugly Betty to build a cult-following once it started airing on the channel in 2006.
And soon, millions of people were tuning in to watch Betty Suarez, a naïve girl from Queens, as she worked to find a place among New York’s fashion elite.
But by the time the show’s third season rolled around in 2008 and 2009, Ugly Betty’s ratings had started declining.
When the show’s fourth season started airing in late 2009, the network had started moving the show to different timeslots, and then reducing the total number of episodes for the season and finally, it announced the show’s eventual cancellation in January of 2010.
Ugly Betty’s ending explained
Fortunately, the announcement that Ugly Betty would not be renewed beyond its fourth season came about hallway through this last season’s run.
Thus, the writers and producers of the series did have some time to try and wrap up the narrative in the remaining ten episodes.
Ugly Betty’s final episode, aptly titled, “Hello Goodbye” first aired April 14, 2010. The episode was written by the series’s creator, Silvio Horta, and directed by Victor Nelli, Jr. and it certainly had a lot of ground to cover.
The episode opens with Marc and Amanda attending a funeral for her beloved dog, Halston; Connor getting a special brief release from prison to proclaim his love to Wilhelmina (who is still in a coma); Ignacio expressing his concerns about Betty moving away and the newlyweds Hilda and Bobby searching for an apartment of their own.
Betty spends most of the episode trying to find a way to tell Daniel that she is leaving, and when he finally finds out, he reacts in the most Daniel way possible – by burning her contract release form and not showing up to her farewell party.
Elsewhere, Wilhelmina wakes up from her coma and makes the surprising decision to lie about who shot her.
And so, Ugly Betty ended, with Marc telling Amanda about her father, Wilhelmina in charge and determined to get Connor’s prison sentence reduced, Ignacio giving his daughters his blessing to leave him on his own, Daniel deciding to start afresh with his life and Betty moving on to bigger and better things in London.
Betty’s new job in London
The “Hello Goodbye” series finale episode certainly had many storylines to wrap up in just under 40 minutes, but the Ugly Betty creators still managed to give Betty a happy ending.
Betty ended up accepting the editor position at Mr. Dunne’s magazine, and this final episode even included a montage sequence, with the newly-made-over Betty living her new, stylish life in London.
Wilhelmina finally got her dream job at Mode
Ugly Betty’s love-to-hate-her antagonist, Wilhelmina, spent pretty much the entirety of the series with a singular goal in mind: taking the Mode editor-in-chief position from anyone who dares stand in her way.
And although she did end up becoming co-editor alongside golden-boy, Daniel, just before the show’s final season, everyone knew that sharing the position was not Wilhelmina’s idea of success.
Fortunately though, Wilhelmina did wake up from her gunshot-induced coma in this final episode, just in time for Daniel to tell her that he was stepping down from his co-editor position and that he was finally leaving Mode completely in her hands.
Did Daniel and Betty end up together?
One of the saddest parts about Ugly Betty coming to end was the fact that fans never got to see the longtime will-they-won’t-they relationship between Betty and Daniel play out.
But with the way Daniel acted at the beginning of this final episode, it seemed like the series’s fan-favorite almost-couple would not even get to say a final goodbye to each other.
That is, however, until everything seemingly clicks into place for Daniel, and he rushes to London just before the episode ends.
In the very last few second before the credits roll, Betty and Daniel “run into” each other in Trafalgar Square, where Daniel, among other things, asks Betty to dinner.
Whether that dinner ever led to anything romantic or not, well, that is left up to the audience to decide.
