After what seemed like an interminable layoff due to the writers' strike, "Desperate Housewives" came back last night.Unfortunately, what the show served up was one of the weaker episodes this season.
The theme of the week was faith, which not only tied all the women's storylines together last night, but also served as a not so subtle nudge to watch "Eli Stone", which aired after "Housewives" last night, and heavily uses George Michael's "Faith" in its promos.
Lynette's decision to start going to church was greeted with minimal enthusiasm by Tom, but after one of their kids identified Jesus as Santa's assistant, Tom conceded that a trip to church was needed.
After seeking advice from Bree, Lynette accompanied her to her Presbyterian service and promptly embarrassed her by asking a lot of questions, when we all know (according to Bree) that church is NOT a place for questions. Of course, it turned out that priest LOVED Lynette's approach and, to try to gain a vague position within the ladies' auxiliary Bree had to convince Lynette to come back to the Presbyterian church.
Honestly, my favorite thing about this storyline was how the gospel church in town is apparently next to the airport, according to Bree. I can understand appreciate that the character of Lynette would seek guidance from a higher power given all the horrible things that have happened lately, but I don't really feel like the show took her to task enough for sort of cherrypicking and lightheartedly trying to decide what religion worked best for her. Mostly though, I feel like this whole "Lynette finds her religion" thing was mostly a one-week distraction and, as a result, sort of a waste of time since it's not going to be bring any significant changes to the character.
Fortunately, the storyline was carried by the two best actresses on the show (Marcia Cross and Felicity Huffman), who made it watchable. As did Orson's exasperated looks and snide remarks when dealing with Bree and the damaged "Van de Kamp" DNA. These two are quickly becoming one of my favorite couples on the show.
My other favorite couple is headed down the aisle — again. Now that Victor is dead, Gabby is free to marry Carlos, which she does after enlisting help from her disapproving minister in a funny scene carried by Longoria-Parker. The only problem is that Gabby isn't aware that Carlos' blindness could be permanent.
Of course, Carlos' stupidly lied and said he'd regain his vision in "four months" tops, but was exposed by Edie who told Gabby the truth, leading to an amusing, but unnecessarily cruel scene of Gabby making Carlos fall over obstacles in their home and drinking dishwater. The scene where he fesses up should've been emotional, but the problem is that when Gabby asks Carlos if he really thought she was shallow enough to leave him if he were permanently blind, the answer is, um, YES. He does think that. Everyone who's ever seen this show does. Another problem is that there's no chance Carlos is permanently blind.
Meanwhile, Susan's soap-star-looking cousin Timmy dropped by the neighborhood to do her taxes, and her neighbor Katherine Mayfair. After Timmy told Susan that he'd lost his job because he slept with his boss's 18-year-old daughter, we were lead to believe that Timmy had his sights set on Katherine's young daughter Dylan (but Susan weirdly didn't have any concerns about her own daughter Julie).
Eventually, interrupted a visit to an oddly good-natured Mike in rehab (I'm sorry, but James Denton, just CANNOT act on this show) to catch Timmy and Katherine in bed. Turns out Katherine had taken Timmy's virginity when he was 16.
Of course, it also randomly turns out that Timmy had witnessed Katherine whacking her husband on the head. What's the deal? Did Timmy forget that he'd possibly witnessed a murder? Do we know for sure that this flashback assault was what led to Katherine's husband's death?
Most importantly, does anyone really care? I kind of snoozed through the scene where Katherine begged her husband Adam to cover up for her again, because I don't really care about the mystery sounding her ex-husband's death. I say this as a big fan of Delaney's work this season on "Desperate Housewives" and as one of the big reasons the show has new life. Every character that moves into the neighborhood doesn't HAVE to come with some sort of deep dark secret (please don't let the gay neighbors have a secret). The character of Katherine is more effective when she's mixing it up with the other women, particularly Bree. Fortunately, from upcoming previews, it looks like that's going to be the case.
So what'd you think of this episode? What sort of grown man goes by "Timmy"? (In fact, what male over the age of 12 goes by "Timmy"?) Where the hell WERE Bob and Lee? Buying more hideous sculptures? Finally, when are they going to have Edie do something other than meddle in other people's affairs and give her a life?
1 comment:
one thing i noticed about this episode (i only watched it last night as i live in the uk and due to the writers strike and the gap in the middle i am now watching it online as i cannot wait until the fall for it to return!) was the fact that Bree's presence was not really made apparent in susan's home. After making such a big deal in the previous episode of how brilliant it was to have Bree to stay because she had added flowers and tidies the house and made food, there was not much of this kind of decor left and susans house had returned to normal. A weakness I thought!
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