Desperate Housewives: Crappy Thanksgiving!

This week on Desperate Housewives:  It’s Thanksgiving!  Susan and Lynette clash over how to raise little Paige.  Paul and Beth have Thanksgiving alone because no one likes them.  Renee hosts Thanksgiving and puts the kids’ table outside.  On her driveway.  And Bree causes a divorce, because that’s what she does.

Mary Alice blahs to us about Felicia Tilman.  And about how she knew many things:  “She knew Paul killed her sister, she knew she had to find proof, and she knew she would need help.”

She knew that she was haunted every night by the ghost of her missing fingers.  Finger ghost!

Felicia also knew she needed help bringing Paul down, so she decided to whore out her own daughter.  When Beth visits her mama in jail, Felicia gets pissed off because A.) Beth’s not finding anything out, and B.) Beth totally rocked Paul’s world.  After telling her daughter that sex makes men stupid (true), Felicia decides that maybe in their afterglow, Paul might let something slip.  Besides his penis.  So she tells Beth to keep boning him, and then pump him for information.  After she’s pumped his — oh, you get the idea.  Felicia warns her daughter that she should watch out, because sex makes girls stupid too.

Pretty much.

It’s Thanksgiving on Wisteria Lane.  What’s up with all the holiday episodes this season?  I can’t wait for the Martin Luther King, Jr. episode next year!  The one time of year the 4 black people in Fairview go out for coffee and complain about how dumb the white people are.  You know, Thanksgiving means many things — turkey, family, lots of wine followed by shame followed by vomiting in your aunt’s guest bathroom followed by more shame.

It also means kids dressed like total tools.

You know, in MY grade school, our pilgrim outfits were made of construction paper.  And by “outfits,” I mean “hats,” because that’s all we had.  Thanksgiving is also stressful, Mary Alice tells us, as Gabby whines about how they have to have a Mexican Thanksgiving this year, because Grace’s family is coming over, and they always have Mexican food for Thanksgiving.  Gabby promised that she’d make their traditional foods.  And by “Gabby,” I mean “Carlos,” because of course she’s making him cook all of it.

Renee invites Lynette and her family over for the Turkey Day festivities, and Lynette asks if Susan can come.  Renee doesn’t like Susan because, “She’s always perky and poor.  It’s an annoying combination.”  Ha!  Lynette says that Susan is her friend and she should come, so Renee caves and invites her.

Speaking of Susan, she’s pushing Paige around and around Lynette’s living room in her stroller, to get her to sleep.  Lynette thinks it might be a good idea to “sleep train” Paige and let her cry it out so she falls asleep on her own accord.  Susan doesn’t really get the point of that.  But then again, Susan doesn’t really get the point of most things.

Subtlety, for example.

Over at Paul’s house, Beth and Paul have had sex.  Again.  In the afterglow, Paul asks Beth if something is wrong.  She says there’s nothing wrong.

” . . . Except that you made me do that . . . thing . . . with my finger again.”

Paul says she seemed distant while they were boinking, and Beth says that she met a woman at the grocery store, who told her that Paul murdered Martha Huber because she was blackmailing his wife.  Paul obviously denies this, just like he’ll later deny that he freaking loved what Beth was doing with her finger while they were humping.  Beth says that she knows that Paul is passionate, and that it’s possible he just lashed out in the heat of the moment, and that Felicia Tilman seemed to think he was guilty.  Paul’s all, That bitch is crazy, she totally even cut off her own fingers to make me seem guilty!  When Paul leaves, Beth’s like, “That’s a good point.”  Uh-oh.  Whom will Beth trust?

Bree hangs an obnoxious cornucopia thing on her front door, and Dr. Wagner (Keith’s mom) shows up with a bouquet to apologize.  She tells Bree that ever since her husband retired from the army, things haven’t been good.  I guess they’ve been used to being apart, so now that they’re together, it’s just weird and awkward.

“He also brought home an Iraqi war bride, but I don’t think that has anything to do with it.”

She tells Bree that when Keith’s around, it helps a little bit, and she’s glad he’ll be with her for Thanksgiving.  Bree invites Dr. Wagner and her husband to come as well.  And I’m 100% positive that everything will turn out wonderful.

Susan arrives at Lynette’s house, where Lynette’s just put down Paige for a nap.  Sure enough, Paige starts bawling her little head off.  Lynette’s solution is to just turn off the baby monitor.  And yeah, I get Lynette’s point, and I’m not a parent, but she may want to, I don’t know, be notified if Paige stops breathing!?  Come on!  Susan goes inside to get some lemons for their iced tea, but that turns out to be just an excuse, as she’s picked up Paige and started to rock her.  Lynette says that since she’s the boss, they’ll have to do things her way.

Tom goes over to Renee’s to drop off a pie.  Really?  He can’t just take it with him on Thanksgiving Day?  Whatever.  Renee answers the door in a towel, of course, which causes Tom to get all flustered.

“Here, I made you a chocolate boobs pie!  I mean, I made you a chocolate cream vagina!  Ha ha ha!  Well, this has been fun, so I’ll just go put this in your nipples.  I mean kitchen!  I mean boobs!  Wow, it’s hot today, huh?”

Renee asks Tom to help her put the pie in the kitchen, and Tom’s embarrassed.  Renee is like, Come on, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before, so how do I look, stud?  Tom says she looks incredible and then knocks over a vase with his boner on the way out.  I’m sure the pie is probably a metaphor for something, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what it would be.

Bree and Keith finish having sex, and like 4 seconds after they’re done, Bree tells him that she invited his parents for Thanksgiving dinner.  Keith wanted to do something romantic, but Bree says she’ll plan something for next weekend.  She then goes to find something for them to eat, and Keith — ugh, you guys, this is painful, okay?  So prepare yourself.  — Keith opens his side drawer, and pulls this out:

And to think, just last week he was all about “just having fun.”  You suck, Cherry.

Susan and M.J. arrive at Renee’s house for dinner.  Apparently, Renee’s having the kids’ table outside.  In her driveway.  Hee.  Lynette and her family show up as well — minus the twins, who are at home making sure Paige screams at the top of her lungs until she falls asleep.

McC and Roy show up.  Allegedly, Bree invited them to Thanksgiving dinner . . . last year.  And I guess it’s just never come up until now.  On Thanksgiving Day.  A full year later.  And no one mentioned it.  At all.  She says that it slipped her mind, but they can eat with her anyway.  Richard and Dr. Wagner show up, fighting about Dr. Wagner’s driving skills.

Meanwhile, Gabby and Hector are stuck in traffic, and Gabby is so desperate for sweet potato pie that she makes Hector drive on the shoulder because Gabby.  Has.  To have.  Pie.  And of course they pass a policeman, who of course pulls them over, and of course he asks for Hector’s license, and of course Hector doesn’t have one.  Oh, Hector.  Hector, Hector, Hector.  If there’s one thing this country hates, it’s the gays.  And if there’s another thing this country hates, it’s the illegals.

Gabby barely gets the stick-shift truck back to her driveway, and everyone’s concerned about Hector.  Except Juanita.  She’s just concerned about pie.  I’m not kidding.  I know that I like to make fun of these people, but literally the first thing out of her mouth is, “Where’s the pie?”  Oh, fat kid jokes.  They never get old, until they totally do.  Gabby tells them what happened, and Carmen (Grace’s mom) rightfully freaks the eff out, and tells Gabby and Carlos that Hector will probably be on the bus back to Mexico tonight (a.k.a. El Saddest Bus Route EVER), and she and Grace will have to pack up their stuff and move to Texas with relatives.  Gabby asks when she’ll be able to see Grace again, but Carmen doesn’t know.

“Well.  Happy Thanksgiving, you stinky puta.”

M.J., Penny, and Parker are thowrin’ around the ole pigskin (in the middle of the street, I might add), when Susan comes over to tell them that since Renee slapped the caterer, dinner’s gonna be a little late.  She hears Paige crying, and throws the football over to Lynette’s house, so she has an excuse to go over there and grab Paige.  Luckily, Porter and Preston are too busy watching the sportsball game to even notice.

At Bree’s house, she asks Richard what he’ll be doing during his retirement.  Dr. Wagner tells everyone that Richard wants to go sailing around the coast of Africa or something, and Richard is all, Yeah, well we were BOTH supposed to go.  And then things sort of devolve into the watered-down holiday edition of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.  It’s a lot like the play/movie, only with less smoking and less bourbon and less eye makeup.

“Oh, hey, did you know that I just got a telegram saying that our son was hit by a car and died?  Also, I ate the telegram.”

“NOOOOOOOOO!  You can’t do that!  You broke the rules!  You can’t kill our son!”

“Too late, already did.  You broke the rules first, so our son’s dead.  Kyrie eleison, blah blah blah.”

“Um, guys?  I’m right here.”

Basically, Dr. Wagner thinks Richard knows nothing about her because he was gone all the time (um, he was off fighting wars — it’s not like he was out playing golf at the country club).  And Richard thinks Dr. Wagner is pretty much a bitch.  And then Dr. Wagner says she wants a divorce.  She tells Keith that Bree gave her that advice, and Keith’s like, “You told my mom to get a divorce?!”  And he storms out after them.

Paul and Beth are having Thanksgiving dinner alone, of course.  Beth says she loves the stuffing, and I’m wondering why I typed that because clearly, it has no plot relevance whatsoever.  Beth says they didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving when she was a kid, because her dad ran off, and then her mama said they had nothing to be thankful for.  Geez, that sounds incredibly sane.  She tells Paul that she once asked her mom if she could have Danny Sullivan over for Thanksgiving dinner.  She didn’t tell her mom it was a boy until the Thanksgiving Day, and then her mom said that boys are evil, and she made them eat dinner while Danny Sullivan knocked on the door to be let in.  Well, that’s just odd and kind of creepy.  Paul says that her mom sounds like a very unhappy woman, and Beth says that she’s just now realizing how damaged her mother is.  Beth says she finally has something to be thankful for.

“Gravy.  I’m thankful for gravy.”

Lynette steps outside to hand her kids some turkey, and M.J. tells her that Susan kicked the football over to her house awhile ago, right before the baby stopped crying.  Uh-oh!  Lynette gets home and finds that Paige isn’t in her crib.  Susan tries to evade Lynette and sneaks Paige back into her crib, but crafty Lynette eventually finds her.  She sends the twins upstairs and tells Susan that the system was working, and Susan says that it’s a crappy system for lazy moms.  Lynette’s like, “You have 1 kid every 18 years, and I have 5 kids in one house all the time.”  She says she has to put her baby on her schedule to keep her life spiraling out of control.  Susan says that she can’t listen to a crying baby, because she has to listen to M.J. cry every night from missing his dad, and then she cries, and there’s just too much crying!  And now it’s time for Season Seven’s Touching Lynette and Susan Moment #17, as Lynette tells Susan to use her phone to give Mike a call in Alaska, where he’s probably too busy making out with longshoremen to answer the phone.

I don’t really have a caption for this.  I just think Felicity Huffman looks really pretty in this episode, so she deserves her own screengrab.

Gabby runs over to tell Carmen that she and Grace don’t have to leave, that they’ll hire a lawyer to take care of everything.  Carmen just tells her to go away.  Oblivious Grace is excited to meet her cousins.  Gabby tells Carmen that she and Grace should stay with Carlos and herself, because “the police will never think to look for [her] there.”  Really?  Considering you were in the truck with Hector when he got arrested, Gabby?  Really?  Mmkay.  Carmen agrees to stay with Gabby, insuring that culture-clash shenanigans will be in many season seven episodes to come.

“So stay tuned for some wacky Mexican stuff, folks!  Like, I don’t know, I try to make mole with Hershey’s Kisses or something, stuff like that.”

Back at Renee’s purple and green house of faux fabulousness, she and Tom sit down for a glass of wine.  They shoot the shit, and then Renee tells Tom that it’s hard to be surrounded by couples and married people.  Tom says that probably won’t last long, knowing Renee.  She waxes about getting older, and Tom says that she’s still got it.  Renee says that there was a time that she could have had any man she wanted, but she went for the rich and famous guys.  She should have been looking for a nice man, who wanted to raise a family.  She tells Tom that Lynette sure knows how to pick ‘em.  This whole scene is like a really boring student-written play.

“You ever feel like you want out of your contract with ABC?”  “Every day.”

Bree shows up at Keith’s apartment, and he says he’s freaked out about what’s happening with his parents.  He says that he doesn’t really have faith in marriage.  His dad interrupts and says that it didn’t happen overnight, that it was a long time coming, but that doesn’t help Keith.  Bree says that she’s been divorced, but she still believes in marriage.  She doesn’t add that she also believes in cheating on her husband and poisoning boyfriends and watching them die.  Keith’s dad tells Bree that he “knew [she] was special from the moment” he saw her.  Oh, fantastic.  So, Bree’s going to fall in love with Keith’s dad.  Or at the very least, we’ll get two episodes of wacky hi-jinks.  And Keith will punch his dad at some point.  This much is true, folks.

Beth is back in the big house to talk to mama, and she tells her that Paul still won’t admit anything.  Felicia tells her that she needs to start getting him drunk a lot so that he might slip.  Beth asks Felicia if she thinks it’s possible that Paul didn’t kill Martha.  Beth tells her that no one saw him and there was no body, and Felicia tells her that she needs to get out of Paul’s house immediately because he’s brainwashing her.  Beth tells her that she has marriage vows and made a commitment,  then Felicia gets pissed off and freaks the hell out.

“I told you to bring Marlboro Reds and a Cinnabon, bitch!”

At Gabby’s, Juanita wants breakfast.  Seriously.  She comes in and says, “I want breakfast.”  Kid gets two freaking lines in this episode and they’re both about food.  Nice, Cherry.  Real nice.  Bob’s there, and he tells them that it’s too late for Hector, and Carmen needs to hide herself.  But since Grace was born in America, she’s a citizen, so she’ll be okay.  Gabby made waffles for the girls, and Grace loves them, and says she wants to live at Gabby’s house all the time.  Gabby smiles, because little does Grace know that that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

Mary Alice blahs about giving thanks and stuff.  This episode was kind of lackluster, so I’m thankful for the end credits.

Next week:  No episode!  
The week after that:  No episode!  Happy Thanksgiving, my friends!  I’ll be back on December 5th when we catch up with all these crazy bitches.