Desperate Housewives: Desperate Houseguys

You know, sometimes the guys have it just as hard as the women.

Take Mike for example. His life is practically hell. He's got to unclog sinks day and night while living in the suburbs (such hardship!) to support his new baby (which'll bring the number of kids Mike has to 1), buy patio furniture (don't laugh, that stuff is super expensive!) and pay for Julie's class trip (why can't HER dad pay for that?) That reminds me, this show could use a little Karl right about now.

Remember how entertaining he and Susan were together — certainly more entertaining than Mike and Susan. Mike was always boring, but he was obviously a lot better for Susan since he didn't cheat on her. Now that Mike is lying, sneaking around and seems to have contempt toward Susan, remind me why we're rooting for these two to stay together. I don't get why it should be so expensive for him either. Susan has a job illustrating children's books, right? Why is everything on him all of a sudden?

At least Teri Hatcher salvaged this storyline. Susan disapproved of daughter Julie dating a skeezy guy with a tongue piercing (and a webpage describing his piercings) and unwittingly set her daughter up with a drug-dealing pre-med college student. Although, these scenes were funny, it made little sense that Susan would set Julie up with someone so much older than Julie (is she even 18 yet?), but Teri Hatcher was at her bumbling best, telling Barrett to call her "mom", because that's what all the kids do.

Orson was a little desperate for attention himself since Bree was paying more attention to (and insisting on a family bed with) baby Benjamin than him. Their morning-after breakfast discussion about the subject was funny, but creepy in how openly they discussed their sex life in front of Andrew.

Ah yes, Andrew (pictured, right). He was definitely my favorite part of the episode. Two years ago, when he was absolutely terrorizing Bree, it would've been impossible for me to foresee the day where I would type that he was my favorite part of anything. But there he was with Bree, expressing how disappointed he was that Bree hadn't noticed how he'd turned his life around and thanking her for abandoning him by the side of the road. Old Andrew would've probably tried to sleep with Orson to get back at Bree, so this mature response tells me he's for real. The scene at his disgusting apartment was nicely capped off by him asking his mom to use a coaster.

My second favorite part was, after blunt advice from Tom, Bree's visiting Orson's office to have her cavity filled. Enough said. I'm just glad they resolved that mini-tiff in one episode.

Meanwhile, Carlos was freaking out about Victor's murder and wanted to confess to the police while Gabriel insisted they play it cool. Whether it's shouting about a murder in church with a cleaning lady 10 feet away or trying to sidestep the police's question, these two have to be the most inept couple ever to have an affair and murder the husband.

After drugging Carlos to stop him from confessing, Gaby was taken to the hospital, where it looked like she was off the hook since Victor couldn't remember anything. However, I rightly guessed that he was pretending (go me!) as he and his severely chapped lips told her that he remembered everything. It's not clear why he's pretending, but I'm guessing it's something to do with blackmailing Gaby into staying with him because who wouldn't want a wife around that has almost killed you (twice) and clearly doesn't want to be with you.

There WAS one desperate housewife in the block as Lynette frantically searched Fairview's bars and morgues for her mother Stella. Eventually her stepfather turned up and announced that he was meeting Stella to give her money and brought Lynette along. Although this is the first we've ever seen (or even heard) of Lynette's having a stepfather, Felicity Huffman's scenes with a silky smooth Richard Chamberlain conveyed genuine warmth between the two characters.

And when it was revealed that the reason his marriage to Stella failed was because he was gay, I didn't immediately understand how that would change anything. Fortunately, Lynette and the writers cleared that one up for me (for those of you scoring at home, it was because Stella wasn't at fault for the failure of her marriage to the one decent guy Lynette knew)

So what'd you think of this episode? When do you think Susan will actually start to appear pregnant? Do you think we'll ever see Barrett again? How is Katherine going to react once she runs into Adam's stalky female friend from Chicago (where the hell WAS Katherine in this episode)? When is Edie going to get a life? Finally, what's up with that death scream from Lynette in the previews for next week's tornado-tastic episode? You think they're going to kill one of the regular characters?