Although Betty got a whole new look for season four of Ugly Betty, her braces were not removed until the 17th episode.
Ugly Betty may have been unexpectedly cancelled after its fourth season, but the show series quickly established as a cult-favorite.
And in another unexpected turn of events, Betty’s braces were removed just before the end of the show, in the “Million Dollar Smile” episode.
About Ugly Betty’s final season
When Ugly Betty first started airing on ABC in 2006, the show was an instantaneous hit. Ugly Betty’s premiere episode amassed over 16 million viewers in the United States and audiences quickly grew to love the show’s unconventional lead character.
However, by the time the fourth season started airing in 2010, Ugly Betty had seen a significant drop in viewership and ratings, and had already been moved around to quite a few different timeslots.
This led to ABC ultimately announcing on January 27, 2010 (midway through the fourth season) that Ugly Betty would not be returning for a fifth season, after all.
When Betty finally got her braces removed on Ugly Betty
Ugly Betty had built up quite the cult following over the course of its four-season run, and many fans were devastated to hear that it would not be continuing beyond its fourth season.
Fortunately, America Ferrera (who had played Betty’s character on the show for all four seasons) and the Ugly Betty creators did promise fans that Ugly Betty still had a lot in store for this final season.
And it was finally revealed in the 17th episode of this fourth and final season exactly what this meant.
This “Million Dollar Smile” episode, which first aired on March 24, 2010, marked the beginning of Betty’s journey to becoming an international fashionista, and was also the episode in which her braces were finally removed.
In classic Ugly Betty fashion, the process of getting Betty’s braces removed becomes much more complicated than she initially imagined.
First, her dentist consultation is interrupted by a fire alarm and then her braces set off the metal detector at the Guggenheim Museum where she is trying to negotiate a deal for the ‘Million Dollar Bra’.
This ultimately results in an altercation in which Betty is tackled to the ground and hits her head so hard, that she enters a dream sequence.
In this dream sequence, she imagines herself as the “pretty” sister without braces, while she is knocked out.
Fortunately, Betty eventually wakes up from this dream. But after yet another altercation with Wilhelmina, Dr. Frankel (Betty’s dentist) has to rush to set to remove Betty’s braces in order to save the photo shoot and the ‘Million Dollar Bra’, before the episode is over.
How Betty celebrated her braces being removed
Fortunately, even though Betty’s braces were indeed removed in the “Million Dollar Smile” episode, she did not change into a mean and conniving person, like she had in her dream sequence.
Instead, Betty and her family celebrated the removal of her braces with a small party, where they enjoyed all of the food that Betty was not allowed to eat when she still had her braces installed.
The rest of Betty’s season four makeover
Although the braces were not the only thing that gave Betty her quirky look, their removal did mark the beginning of an entirely new era and new look for her character.
Not only was Betty sporting a new and updated look for the second part of season four, complete with a new, sleek hairdo and more fashionable red glasses, but she had also been slowly climbing the corporate ladder at Mode, which ultimately resulted in her accepting a new position in London, right before the show came to an end.
Will Ugly Betty ever come back for another season?
The very last episode of Ugly Betty, titled “Hello Goodbye” first aired on April 14, 2010.
But, even though the show has now officially been off the air for more than a decade, Ugly Betty’s stars are still frequently asked whether they think it will be revived at some point.
And while stars like America Ferrera (who played the role of Betty), Eric Mabius (who played Daniel), Michael Urie (who played Marc) and many more, have all expressed their support for an Ugly Betty sequel, one stars has explained why this is unlikely to happen.
Vanessa Williams (who portrayed Wilhelmina on the show) explained in a 2021 interview with Entertainment Weekly, that there were issues with getting the rights to the series (and by extension, any possible sequels) after the creator and executive producer of Ugly Betty, Silvio Horta, passed away in 2020.
