Then, after watching her break down, he makes up his mind to "lie" about loving her and go through with it. The first time before Betty and Armando have sex, Armando is initially determined not to do this to Betty - not because he doesn't care about her, but the opposite: He doesn't want to hurt her.That's the face of a man who was really close to putting two and two together. He knows where Catalina was just recently, he remembers the night of the show, and he knows who was missing around that time-frame. Notice how Armando reacts in contrast to most everyone present, then think about why. Cata defends her idea from Hugo Lombardi by saying Betty's appearance change was at large caused by her. Fast-forward to when Beatriz becomes president and wants to help other women get real help in accordance with their body instead of super-model standards, and Catalina comes to visit.
Of course, guilt-ridden and heartbroken, he expresses that he's probably hallucinating, but there's no way they idea of it being real didn't cross his mind. While Beatriz is away in Cartagéna, Armando is actually the only one to catch Betty on television by mere accident.They exist to serve the narrative purpose of being the devils on their shoulder pushing them to do bad things, which is especially true for Armando, although Patricia also leads Marcela into some crazy stuff: How much they are able to push them aside, or are able to ignore them tells you what you need to know about their mental states and their growth as people. Unfortunately, when they became friends they were probably a lot more alike, and them not being able to cut ties with them basically means they're still unable to leave who they used to be. Seen this way, it's pretty insane Marcela is able to tolerate Patricia, and it's crazy Armando doesn't punch Calderón into oblivion more than once in the series.Patricia is even more clingy and takes things a step further than Marcela, and Calderón straight up doesn't seem to care about people's feelings at all so long as he gets what he wants and a healthy dosage of beautiful women he can take to bed. They contain a lot of the negative aspects Marcela and Armando start out with, just that without any of the good. Armando's and Marcela's best friends are marginally worse than they are.