Desperate Housewives: The C Word

No, not THAT c-word, you pervs!

I'm talking about another c-word — the term that takes its name from a feline and describes an older woman who carries on an affair with a man (boy!) who is old (young!) enough to be her son. Over the past year and a half, it's come to prominence and become totally overused, like "MILF" before it. As a result, I'm going to do my best to not even mention said word, so if I slip up I apologize.

The reason I bring it up is because last night's episode, which focused on and flirted with themes of infidelity, introduced the mother of all c-words to Wisteria Lane. Actually, she's the mother of Kirby, a friend of Porter's. She's also Porter's secret lover.

To be honest, I never really believed that Tom was having an affair with Anne Schilling (pictured, right). We've been faked out before on the whole "Tom being an adulterer scenario" back when we discovered he actually had an illegitimate daughter. Tom is an idiot, but he's not stupid, although the scene with the condom wrapper on the floor almost made me crack. Anne, played VERY well by Gail O'Grady ("NYPD Blue", "Boston Legal", "American Dreams"), is a real estate agent who'd rented Tom a space so his band — Blue Odyssey (blech) — could practice. Lynette sensed trouble ("What the hell?") from the moment she first saw Tom and Anne talking.

At different times this season, both Tom and Lynette have been thoroughly infuriating characters, but last night, their flaws worked terrifically for each character. For example, I can understand how Lynette being an overly harsh shrew would compel Tom to lie about rehearsing late, so he can hang out in his warehouse and play videogames. On the other hand, I can understand how Tom's pattern of immature and irresponsible behavior would lead Lynette to think the natural next step in his midlife crisis would be an extramarital affair (though when men do this it's usually with a younger woman, right?)

In the end, we saw Lynette packing her bags, but I've got to believe she'll find out what's really going on very soon, and I can't wait to see what happens. Because we all know flirting with your son online is TOTALLY ok, but actually having sex with a minor is not cool.

My other favorite part of the episode was set up from the opening scene, when Carlos found that one of his clients found his massages especially stimulating. Although I didn't recognize her at first because her face totally concealed, I was thrilled to see that Mrs. Hildebrand is played by Frances Conroy ("Six Feet Under"). My bias toward anything involving the cast of "Six Feet Under" is even greater than my bias toward anything involving the cast of "The Office."

Eventually, Gabby found out what Carlos was doing and went to confront Mrs. Hildebrand. At first, I thought the calm way Mrs. Hildebrand reacted to Gabby sneaking into her house was odd, but I found Gabby's reaction to being invited to Europe to shop for dresses completely hysterical. She looked like she was going to have a heart attack. Of course, I also quickly realized Mrs. Hildebrand is up to something. She's obviously willing to pay top dollar to have Carlos around, and she knows how to manipulate, I mean sway, Gabby. Something tells me she's going to want more than a massage eventually. She should be a great mini-nemesis for Gabby, which is exactly what she needed.

Speaking of getting exactly what they needed, we have Katherine, who got a real-live storyline last night. It'd been so long since she'd been involved in something substantial that she threatened to move to Maryland in search of something to do. I'm even willing to overlook that she's still sorta-kinda piggybacking off of Bree's storyline.

Last night, Katherine revealed to her friend that she hadn't had sex in two years (is that a lot?). Being a good friend, Bree set her up with Orson's "college buddy" Peter, whom we knew wasn't a "college buddy" from the weird way he reacted when Bree brought that up. It turned out Peter was a surgeon/felon who had been in jail for selling organs on the black market. After a funny "stealing my heart" line from Katherine (who was still intact), the two had a heart-to-heart where Bree convinced Katherine to stay. Personally, I didn't see what the big deal was. I think it's just as scary to be married to a guy who was in jail for hitting someone with his car (hi Orson). Still, the most interesting development was Mike and Katherine going to get that lemonade together at the end. Hmm.

Looks like James Denton is going to be busy the next couple of weeks, since he's all been confirmed as Dave Williams' target. When he revealed to Edie the origin of his band's name — Blue Odyssey (blech) — he told her it was his brother's band. Unfortunately, his brother had been killed in prison by a fellow inmate. And what do you know? We were just reminded this week during band practice that Mike had been in jail for a bit.

Still, my feeling is that Dave's revenge will be thwarted by the unstoppable force that is — two sassy old ladies (needle scratching on record sound). Seriously though, if that were to happen, it'd be almost as perfect as the casting of Lily Tomlin as Mrs. McCluskey's boozy sister.

Finally, there was the Mike and Jackson saga, which continues to be the one glaring misstep this season. In a surprise to no one, Susan flip-flopped on dumping Jackson and went to make up with him, which led to a funny, reverse "Psycho" shower scene where the "slutty" Darcy actually fought back and sprayed soap in Susan's eyes.

Unfortunately, that was pretty much the only part of this storyline that was mildly amusing. And no, the part where Susan and Jackson got off to a fresh start by pretending to just be meeting doesn't count. It wasn't cute — it was stupid. I think the problem is Jackson. He's just not very interesting at all. I know Gale Harold is a talented character, but Jackson is so boring and bland that he makes Mike look dynamic. Yikes!

So what'd you think of this episode? Is the fact that Anne is sleeping with her son (who is a minor) and NOT her husband better or worse for Lynette? How far will Mrs. Hildebrand go to break up Carlos and Gabby? How do you screw up the tambourine, Carlos? Finally, this question is addressed to Anne: Why Porter instead of Preston?