Category: TV Dramas (Page 233 of 235)

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.