Desperate Housewives: Fountain of Ugh

See, now THIS is how you successfully incorporate new characters into an already-large cast!

I don't want to mention which show I'm calling out — I'll just say that it rhymes with "Schmeroes."

Anyway, last night on "Desperate Housewives," the new additions to the cast — Bob and Lee, Katherine Mayfair — continued to tangle with our old friends from Wisteria Lane in entertaining ways.

The show began with Bob and Lee unleashing a truly heinous sculpture/fountain on the rest of the neighborhood and Bree saying what all of us were thinking, "All the gay men in the world, why'd we have to get the ones with bad taste." In addition to being ugly, the monstrosity was also noisy, giving newly jerky Mike something else to complain about and prompting Susan to ask Bob and Lee to take it down. Unfortunately, the two drama queens kicked up a bigger fuss than the issue deserved (babbling about the nature of art, and drawing parallels to the Nazis), leading to the second most entertaining storyline of the evening...

...Katherine restarting and running for president of the homeowner's association. That would've been boring on its own, except that Bob and Lee convinced Lynette that if Katherine could take down their (terrible) fountain, she could take down Lynette's kids' tree house, which has served as a haven from their mom's disease. The show hasn't been back a month and Katherine has already tangled with Bree, Gabby and now Lynette, which was particularly entertaining because Felicity Huffman is such a strong actress.

In the end, Susan's tiebreaker vote went to Katherine, giving Teri Hatcher and Huffman a nice little scene in which the two friends made up. I love the silliness on this show, but this cast is very strong and they can handle the serious/emotional moments just as well.

Gabby and Carlos handled most of the silliness as they tried to get away for a romantic weekend. I liked Gabby sneaking out with her teenaged gardeners (can't she get any other kind?) Who knew Eva Longoria-Parker made such a convincing teenage boy. Unfortunately, she ran into old flame John, the Gardener with a capital "G" (pictured, right), who was now more than ready to cheat on his pregnant (horrible) wife after shooting down Gabby last year. This led to another one of the episode's most entertaining scenes as Gabby thought she was getting her chili fries, but instead ended up having to get John out of the room before Carlos (who was hiding in the closet, closet, closet) could kill him.

Again, the silliness was balanced by a more serious scene as Carlos and Gabby maturely decided to end their respective relationships so they can be with each other. Of course, the maturity was overridden by stupidity as they made out right in front of a huge open window, in plain sight of the private investigator Edie (not Victor!) had hired.

Meanwhile, Bree got stuck with the least good (I don't want to say "worst" because it wasn't bad) storyline, trying to convince Danielle to let her have the baby. For some reason, Bree and Orson needed Andrew to point out to them how easy it should be to convince Danielle that she probably didn't want to spend the rest of her life living in a retirement community and raising a baby she doesn't really want.

In the end, they bribed her with a convertible and college in a Florida party school (I wonder which one), and Bree even extended an olive branch to her lonely ex-mother-in-law Phyllis, but not before smacking her down a bit (in classic Bree-like fashion) by saying she'd just tell people Phyllis needed the babysitting money. Also, I don't think I've ever enjoyed Danielle (using big words like "emasculated") as much as I did in this episode.

So what'd you think of this episode? What's up with the homophobic old woman? (she was great, by the way) What do you think it was Katherine's husband Adam did in Chicago that was so bad that it made her completely back off the fountain issue? Any chance we'll see John the Gardener on a more regular basis (since he apparently lives in the same town)? Finally, whatever happened to the guy Carlos hired to deal with Edie?