First off, sorry that this recap is a day late.I've been RIDICULOUSLY sick the past two days (whereas I'm currently just "sick"), and I feel it would've been tough for me to write my recap while trying to see through a snot-covered monitor.
Now that I've grossed you out and probably discouraged you from reading anything I ever write again, let's jump into Sunday's season premiere of "Desperate Housewives" which, you may have heard, picks up five years in the future.
Coming into this episode, I was still debating whether the leap forward was a legit creative jolt for the show at a time (five seasons in) when programs start running out of new ideas or whether it was just, well, desperate. I mean, what's to stop ANY show from drumming up buzz by just shifting its narrative forward (or backward) and then filling in the gaps in the timeline later.
Based on the first episode of "Desperate Housewives" this season, I'm liking the move. It really seems like the show's writers thought about the decision and how it could rejuvenate some characters and introduce new storyline possibilities for the show.
I'm particularly liking what the writers have done with Gabby, giving Eva Longoria Parker something else to play besides the shallow vamp who occasionally showed some heart. Gabby is now a frumpy (for TV) mom, whose four-year-old daughter is a bit overweight. I believe the technical term is "porker." (As a former porker myself, I kid and actress Madison Lovato is very cute and looks to be a strong performer.) Gabby tried to convince Juanita that exercising might be fun, but, when that didn't work, decided that making her daughter chase a car for a few miles was the best solution (this was almost as bad of an idea as Lynette leaving her kids on the side of the road in the first season).
The car incident aside, Gabby seems to be a decent, caring mother. But what was more interesting was how far she's fallen from Glam Gabby to Mama Solis. She seemed to be ok with the transition until Edie made her dramatic return to Wisteria Lane and called Gabby out for letting herself go (Gabby: "I had two kids" Edie: "For breakfast?") Sure, Carlos is supportive, as usual, but I'm interested to see where Gabby goes from here, especially if she engages in another feud with Edie.
Edie's return was no surprise for anyone who'd seen the previews for the show, but I still like how they pulled it off. We were first introduced to her character in the pilot as she was washing her car to try to entice Mike, so having her in a typically-look-at-me leopard print bikini was a nice callback. I also liked her interactions with her former friends (Edie: "I have a husband now." Susan: "Whose?"). As someone who didn't particularly care for how her character was exiled (I didn't think Edie had behaved more awfully than usual), I was glad to see her brought back.
However, I was doubly impressed that the show found a way to bring Edie back AND introduce what looks to be the season's overarching mystery. The show introduced Neal McDonough as Dave, Edie's new husband and he proved to be compelling right from his very first scene when he bullied his neighbor into selling. It's obvious that apparent rage-a-holic Dave is after something in Wisteria Lane and, thanks to McDonough's talent for playing scary and charming, I'm interested in finding out what that is.
Of course, last night's episode wasn't perfect — I know that five years isn't a very long time, but I would've liked to have seen a couple of the characters (besides Gabby and Lynette's twins) look a little older/different. And no, Andrew putting on a suit does NOT automatically make me believe he's older. Maybe they should've tossed in a beard too.
In fact, while I liked the idea that Bree had become some sort of Martha Stewart-level celebrity homemaker, I didn't care for the fact that they've made her character so awful. I get that was hurt by her daughter Danielle showing up and taking her grandson Benjamin away, and that she was lonely during Orson's apparent prison sentence (more on that next week, it looks like), but I still don't see how that adds up to stealing Katherine's recipe without giving her credit for a cookbook. Since Marcia Cross and Dana Delaney are very good, they made this storyline work (especially Bree's disastrous TV segment), but I'm hoping there are better things ahead for these two, especially Katherine, who was too much of a non-factor. I'd also like to see a little more Orson than a few lines of dialogue and a portion of a karaoke performance of the Doors (Kyle McLachlan was in "The Doors".)
Meanwhile, things are pretty much the same in the Scavo household. The twins have graduated from promiscuous kids to borderline juvenile delinquents, while Tom acts more like a kid than a parent. The only difference is that Lynette finally called him out for that. While Tom destroying (the already scratched) mirror on his convertible to prove to the boys that he cared more about them than the car was funny, the storyline was really nothing new between Tom and Lynette. Tom acts like a jackass, Lynette becomes exasperated, and Tom, eventually, kinda comes around. I was hoping they'd throw in a twist. For example, from the weird, disconnected way Tom and Lynette were speaking in their first scene, I thought the couple had gotten a divorce — it just turned out that Tom's just REALLY into cleaning his car.
Finally, there's Susan. The episode seemed to want us to care about her plight the most. The episode opened with a sequence showing how Mike and Susan had been in a car accident that had killed a mother and her young child, while also implying that Mike had been killed in the accident too.
If you've read this recap, you probably know that I'm not the biggest fan in the world of James Denton's acting, so when the show tried to get us to believe that Mike was dead, I knew it wasn't that lucky. Apparently, Mike left because Susan couldn't forgive him for killing the other driver. I get that Susan feels some guilt over an accident that killed someone who was just like her, but this was just plain stupid. That "Stop" sign was down, and that accident was no one's fault. She scolded Mike for not showing enough remorse about the accident, but she didn't realize that lack of remorse was more the usual lack of expressiveness from Denton.
Still, Susan seems to be on her way to starting a new relationship with Jackson, the world's slowest housepainter, played by "Queer as Folk"s Gale Harrold. Sure, it's a little weird seeing him in love scenes with a woman, but I was mostly struck by how uninteresting his character was. Jackson seemed to really like Susan, and wanted to have a relationship with her, but it just didn't register with me. I was mostly distracted by his girly hairstyle, and I've never been less interested in a "declare your love through karaoke" scene than I was last night. I'm usually a sucker for those.
Susan eventually seemed to cave in a bit, but the best Jackson-related moment was clearly him walking through Susan's bushes in his underwear (another callback to season 1 with naked Susan in the bushes) and Bob and Lee taking a picture with their cell phone.
So what'd you think of this episode? Which missing or underused character are you looking forward to seeing more of this season? (I vote Bob and Lee, who scored a laugh without any dialogue last night.) Finally, what do you think Dave is after?
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