Desperate Housewives: Hot For Teacher('s Assistant)

Other than Susan’s storyline — which made her character likable for an amazing two weeks in a row (let’s keep this streak going!) — this episode mostly felt like a placeholder before a more interesting episode arrives next week.

A big part of that is the continued slow crawl of the Dave Williams mystery and the (not-at-all-secret) news that Nicolette Sheridan is leaving the show.

It’s been literally well over a month since we, the audience, have had ANY forward movement or learned anything new about Dave and his plans to get revenge on Mike by killing someone near and dear to him. (How long has this supposed camping trip been scheduled?) I realize the rest of the characters (Edie) have to catch up to what the audience knows (especially when they have to deal with cantankerous small-town newspaper editors like the one from last night), but it’s still been kind of painful for us viewers. The scene in which Dave charmed Katherine into coming along on the camping trip was Neal McDonough’s best scene since VERY early in the season, and reminded me why I was digging the creepy/charming character early in the season before he just became creepy/creepy.

Then there’s the Nicolette Sheridan thing. If you’re reading this recap, it means you’re online, and if you found this particular recap it means you had to dig DEEP into the Internet, so I’m assuming you’re online quite often. Even if that’s not true, you’ve probably still heard that Edie’s character is being killed off. As a result, a certain sense of “is this the episode where she bites the dust?” kicks in and overwhelms everything else the character does. Well, last night wasn’t the episode where she dies, so let’s move on.

And we’ll be moving on and through the Orson kleptomaniac storyline quickly. I’ve made my thoughts on the storyline clear (a blatant, “we HAVE to give Kyle McClachlan something to do, right?” move, no?) and last night we learned stealing was his way of rattling Bree because it was the one thing she couldn’t control.

The fact that he’s stealing useless crap is really weird, but I understand the point that he’s not stealing because he’s poor or needs valuable stuff — he’s doing it for attention. Still, the storyline was so clumsily and inadequately established that whenever Orson and Bree are on screen, they give off an unshakable “why the hell is this even happening?” stench. In fact, the best part didn’t involve Orson at all. I loved Bree’s mild racism in assuming the tacky sleeping Mexican figurine belonged to Gabby. (For the record, it was Mrs. McCluskey’s.)

Speaking of Gabby, I have to give the writers credit here. Last week I asked what the point of Carlos’ boss’ wife’s (that’s a lot of possessive apostrophes) murder storyline was. It turns out Brad’s death allowed Carlos to get his job and make Gabby even more snooty and entitled (which is kinda how we like her, right?)

She didn’t waste anytime looking down her nose at people. Lynette — who’d been battling serious ageism in her very current “it’s a tough job market” storyline — asked Gabby to put in a good word for her with Carlos, who was looking for a director of marketing. Gabby said marketing wasn’t the same as advertising (Lynette’s expertise) and generally seemed cold to the idea, until she needed someone to spy on Carlos’ new right-hand woman/old flame Lucy. I get that Lynette has been running a pizza place for the better part of the last five years, but Gabby’s attitude was still weirdly hesitant. It wasn’t like Lynette flat-out asked for the job — she just asked for a good word, which Gabby seemed totally unwilling to do until she needed something.

It didn’t take long for Lynette to figure out what was happening (that’s why she now makes $100,000/year, instead of $80,000) and both agreed that they were using the other. I was glad to see this resolved relatively quickly because I think it’s clearly a win-win situation and perfectly reasonable for Gabby to agree to overpay Lynette an extra $20,000 to be her spy. What I liked even more was the idea that Gabby quickly got insecure and jealous after initially dismissing unmodel-esque Lucy as a threat. I think these two could have a pretty solid showdown eventually.

Finally, there was Susan who switched from crayons to making vases in her lesson plan after finding out she was being evaluated by her harsh boss Jessie (guest star Swoosie Kurtz). She decided to invite Jessie over for dinner, where Jessie revealed a surprisingly slinky dress (Swoosie Kurtz still getting it done at 64! And yes, I just looked her age up) and checked out Susan’s butt when she bent over. I loved watching Susan cluelessly/innocently “flirt” with Jessie (grabbing her leg, saying she was “through with men”) because clueless/innocent Susan is the one we love (as opposed to clueless/idiotic Susan).

The evening ended with Jessie kissing Susan on the lips (pictured, left) and, even more magnificently, Susan NOT completely flipping out about it. Instead we got a funny scene where Susan asked Lynette, Lee, and Gabby (who kissed Susan to find out what kind of kiss it was) for advice. Instead they busted her chops (you know, like friends do in real life).

This led to an amusing scene in the classroom after Susan told Jessie she wasn’t gay (despite Susan’s boots) and an uncomfortable exchange involving rhinos (men) and gazelles (women). The best line was Jessie saying she wasn’t surprised one of the boys in class liked rhinos because she’d seen him play hopscotch. Though it’s unbelievable that the super-inappropriate Jessie still has a job — why would she badger Susan in front of all those kids, and what’s she doing going after a co-worker so hard (is this why that other assistant is no longer around?) — I thoroughly enjoyed this storyline. I was afraid they were going for “Jessie is Susan in 20 years”, but instead used it to reaffirm that Susan, the most desperate housewife of all, is actually doing ok without a man for the time being because she has her friends.

So what’d you think of this episode? Since Lee is CLEARLY the more interesting gay, does the show even need Bob? How old would you have guessed Lynette was? (I had 45) Is Swoosie Kurtz the year’s best guest star? (I say YES!) Finally, will you miss Edie when she’s gone? (I wish she would become the new dead narrator, but the show seems committed to Mary Alice and it seems like Sheridan will be gone for good.)