Category: Desperate Housewives (Page 6 of 6)

Who would have thought a simple black umbrella could make a grown woman cry?

Adding to Lynette’s already crushing sense of guilt about returning to work full-time, Parker invents an imaginary friend: beloved British nanny Mrs. Mulberry, represented by the aforementioned umbrella. In the spirit of her forerunner, Disney creation Mary Poppins (not to mention Simpsons homage Sherry Bobbins), Mrs. Mulberry is fun-loving, strong-willed, and deeply reliable. Unlike her Disney inspiration, however, Mrs. Mulberry is also promptly run over by a garbage truck, in full view of her young charge.

Years from now, Parker will undoubtedly relive that trauma many times, flat on his back on a therapist’s couch, tearfully describing irreparably-mangled umbrella spokes…and Lynette will gladly cover the cost of each session…since she was the one who threw nanny under the bus (so to speak). On the bright side, Mrs. Mulberry is now free to engage in a torrid romance with Drop Dead Fred.

Elsewhere in Happy Town, Gabrielle ditches lawyer Michael “Best In Show” Hitchcock for Adrian “Profit” Pasdar, after inciting a disturbingly touching prison riot. Profit succeeds where Dog Boy failed, and gets Gabby the conjugal trailer tumble she demands…but we’re left wondering how long it will take for her to succumb to Pasdar’s rakish charms.

Clearly overestimating viewers’ patience with Susan’s general incompetence as a human being, the writers choose to have her lie to Mike about having seen Zach, and then fund Zach’s escape to Utah. In other words, she will happily let her lover continue to worry about the welfare of his RUNAWAY TEENAGE SON, because that is more convenient for her than having Zach reunite with the man who gave him half his DNA. Susan is a dipshit. We’re done writing about her until Marc Cherry apologizes for treating his audience like a bunch of inbred baboons.

Last but never least, Andrew and George circle one another like snarling tomcats, each protecting his own interests. Andrew baits George with a delightful imitation of Bree’s orgasm noises (uncannily similar to her dessert-enjoyment noises), but in the end it is George who wears the victor’s smirk. He taunts Andrew with a poolside kiss of Mommy Dearest, earning himself a bloody nose and–more importantly–a return trip to Correctional Camp for Andrew.

The nerdy pharmacist wins this round…but never count out the aggressive, moody teenager: they don’t tend to take defeat very well.

I’m not saying Joely Fisher’s character is likable, and I’m not saying I didn’t thoroughly enjoy Lynette’s multitasking, agency-future-strategizing, baby-diaper-changing Supermom scene a few weeks back. All I’m saying is, Bitter Single Gal’s got a point: Why should the childless people of the world have to shoulder extra workload to cover for those who choose to have kids?

It’s patently unfair, yet it happens all the time–and people with children tend to take it for granted. Lynette’s boss is served up as a villain for pointing this out–and, granted, perhaps she could have peppered her delivery with a tad more tact–but she is absolutely justified in protecting her own “work-life balance.” So what if she doesn’t have kids? So what if her only plans for the evening are to see how many shots of tequila she can down before her vision starts to go fuzzy? It is her absolute right to do just that. Her down time is her own, to spend however she sees fit, and she shouldn’t be obligated to pick up anyone else’s slack unless she wants to–which, clearly, she doesn’t.

It’s a shame they’ve made her character into a borderline Cruella DeVille caricature, because this issue is a hot button for twenty- and thirty-something adults all over the country (including, most likely, some of the writers on staff behind those cheery Wisteria Lane facades), and some real give-and-take debate on the topic would be relevant, timely, and fun to watch. Instead, we get Bitter Single Gal: selfish, intolerant, and pathetic: a missed opportunity.

Elsewhere on the lane, Gabrielle’s ego takes a hit when she witnesses sweet, pure, loving statutory rape victim John having a go at another older woman’s…um…hedges. Worse yet, John tells Gabby he thinks he may be in love with his latest Mrs. Robinson. Chalk one up for Carlos, who called it from the get-go: Lawnmower Man ain’t as sweet as he looks (and he ain’t none too smart much, neither).

Over in Susanville, where every day brings some new form of humiliation–the more public, the better–Susan butts in on Julie and Edie’s daughter/potential stepmother bonding, and this time Julie is the one to suffer. Yawn. Susan’s neighbor Alfre Woodard briefly has an enraged black man rampaging in her kitchen, but he is immediately subdued. Double yawn.

And then, before the yawning gets too entrenched, Bree takes a lie detector test to prove her innocence…and it spikes when they ask whether she loves George. George, meanwhile, apparently puts his pharmaceutical knowledge to good use, and passes his own polygraph with flying colors.

Will Bree question her true feelings for George? When will the police going to make the connection between George and Rex? What ever happened to Andrew’s plot to take revenge on Bree? And how many tequila shots does it take before Bitter Single Gal’s vision goes fuzzy?

These questions and more will be answered…eventually. Maybe. We hope. Or we might start to yawn again.

Huge props to Nicolette Sheridan for keeping a straight face while parading around Wisteria Lane in those ridiculous, (inappropriately) cherry-red short-shorts and tank top, old-school roller skates, and naughty-schoolgirl pigtails. Did she do something to piss off the wardrobe lady, or was Edie just getting ready to audition for that decades-overdue sequel to “Xanadu”? Either way, Susan did Edie a favor by backing the car into her — thus getting her off the street and into a nice, demure hospital gown.

Of course, you can’t blame Susan for being frazzled. No one likes to learn that someone of questionable moral fiber has been (as Edie put it) “snacking on your leftovers”–or that that same fiber-deficient person has nonetheless provided your ex with the best sex he or she has ever had, “bar none.” Yourself very much included. Included, underlined, italicized and bolded, in fact. So, what’s a little broken leg between friends?

Or a smack in the face, for that matter? Bree provides grieving mother-in-law Phyllis with just that, after repeated efforts to get the old goat to tone down her spotlight-stealing theatrics meet with abject failure. “People wouldn’t forget to console you if you didn’t suppress your emotions,” Phyllis points out — a reminder that is more disingenuous than true, for the “forgetting” in question has as much to do with Phyllis’s behavior as it does with Bree’s. Just the same, though, Bree will end up wishing she had suppressed that face-slapping emotion along with all of the others once Rex’s falsely incriminating note of forgiveness is found. That Van De Kamp pressure cooker is going to be dialed up to eleven in the weeks to come — and the fallout should be delicious fun to watch.

Speaking of fallout, Lynette’s plan to reinvent husband Tom’s housecleaning “system” (read: avoidance mechanism) has unintended consequences when the cute little rat she sneaks home from the pet shop gets smashed with a frying pan. No animals were harmed in the filming of this episode. We think. And anyway, little Rat In Me Kitchen did (fictitiously) die for a good cause. “Being too lazy to change the sheets is not a principle,” Lynette says–and, clearly, this is a lesson Tom needed to learn.

We still don’t know what lessons are being learned by the chained, noisy prisoner in Alfre Woodard’s basement, though. She hints (via a session with a psychiatrist) that the man is her husband, and that he was responsible for killing one of their children… but that’s a sucker bet. This was episode two, of a twenty-two episode season; the writers aren’t going to unravel that mystery nearly so quickly.

No, there are more secrets in that basement. They are dark, and they remain hidden for now…but eventually we’ll find out just how desperate Wisteria Lane’s newest housewife might be.

Truer words were never spoken, but Andrew Van De Kamp speaks them about his paternal grandmother–not, surprisingly, his mother Bree. Grandma Phyllis (played by Shirley Knight, in what will hopefully be a frequently-recurring role) shows up Chez Van De Kamp just bursting with messy, melodramatic, uncontrollable grief over the loss of her son–and gets in a few sharp digs at Bree while she’s at it.

Already straining to keep her own untidy emotions in check (and to refrain from calling her friends with the unfortunate news before the etiquette-appropriate hour of 9 A.M.), Bree manages to hold her tongue at Grandma’s disparaging remark about Bree’s less-than-buxom chest. That orange prep-school tie, however, she just cannot abide. Its color offends Bree’s exquisite taste, and its symbolism–representing “the happiest time of Rex’s life”–is an attack on her performance as wife and mother (and therefore, her very existence) for the better part of two decades. Grandma is nearly sent packing over the issue, until the two hyper-controlling women in Rex’s life reach a détente–which is then broken when the tie shows up around Rex’s neck at the funeral.

Elsewhere on the street, Tom Scavo throws his back out on Day Two of Mr. Mom duty, forcing Lynette to bring her infant daughter along on a second-round job interview. Lynette wows her time-starved prospective boss with a multi-tasking extravaganza, changing the baby’s diaper and outlining a new strategic direction for the company in under sixty seconds. Meanwhile, Gabby spurns Hot Lovesick Gardener’s advances, and seeks a paternity test–preferably faked–to appease Carlos.

Since Susan and Mike are not allowed to be happy together for any length of time whatsoever, Susan freaks out about Mike being Zach’s father, and breaks up with Mike. Of course, the fact that Zach held Susan prisoner at gunpoint probably had something to do with that. Also the obsessive shouting match he started when Susan refused to let him see Julie. And, gosh, that breaking-and-Christmas-decorating incident last December may not have helped, either. If only that dead body Mike and Susan had to identify had actually turned out to be Zach (instead of a youth who looked remarkably like American Non-Threatening Purveyor of Mush Clay Aiken), all their problems would be solved.

And, speaking of problems, Wisteria Lane newcomer Alfre Woodard seems to have hers under control at the moment. Or, more specifically, under physical restraints. In a locked basement dungeon. With a gun held on it, for added security. Can’t wait to find out what that’s all about… but, of course, we’ll have to wait, anyway.

Might as well stock up on popcorn in the meantime: Looks like another great season.