Desperate Housewives: Chocolate Pain

This week on Desperate Housewives:

McCluskey is cancer-free! Yay! So it’s time for a good ole fashioned Wisteria Lane party, replete with drinks, appetizers, and awkward revelations, as Katherine goes all Anne Heche on Robin’s ass and is all, I don’t know if I’m gay or not! Take me to Fresno so I can knock on strangers’ doors and tell them I need to get back to my home planet! Meanwhile, Lynette and Tom put the kibosh on Preston and Irina’s sexcapades in the house, so Preston decides to get a job to support his Russian whore bride instead of going to college. Also, Irina convinces Preston to push the marriage ahead to next week. Cue Lynette’s head exploding. Bree decides to have Sam join the fam for dinner, complete with a worthless cameo from Danielle. But Andrew throws a major hissy (again), and he and Orson begin to doubt Sam’s motives. Cue audience: “Duh.” J

Juanita and Li’l M.J. are selling that crappy gray expensive candy for school, which results in some actually hilarious hijinks between Susan and Gabby. But what about the Angie plot, you ask? Ah, yes. In continuing with this season’s tradition, we get about 3 minutes of actual season arc development. Turns out Patrick Logan visits Iris for her information on Angie’s whereabouts, and suffice to say, things do not end well. At all.

Hasn’t this family ever heard of game night?

Mary Alice tells us that we shouldn’t trust family photos. I’ll say. I co-signed on a boat loan for a family photo and totally ended up regretting it. She says that, get this, people have things that they hide! Whaaaaa?! This is news to me, Mary Alice. Anyway, Sam’s over at Bree’s house, telling Andrew about how Andrew’s daddy is Sam’s daddy too, so they probably shouldn’t make out because it’d be icky. And once again, Andrew throws a class-act hissy and storms out. Bree tells Orson that when she looks at Sam, she feels guilty, and she’s going to do her best to welcome him into the family. By which she means giving him $40 and dropping him off in the middle of nowhere, only to find out in the next season that he’s homeless. Ah, the Van de Kamp/Hodge household. Nothing says love like lots and lots of shame. Credits.

Man I wish she’d stop putting me in pastels. I feel like a gimpy Easter egg.

M.J. and Juanita’s school is having a drive by selling those gross $3 candy bars that people buy out of pity and then throw away. Li’l M.J. is all sad because he never wins. Flash cut to Susan’s house, where she lets Mike know that she promised M.J. that he would win the candy drive by selling the most gray candy bars. Mike’s like, Why did you do that? And the audience is like, Because she’s Susan! That’s what she does! When will you learn and take off your shirt?! Susan says that M.J. never wins anything and brings up a spelling bee. Mike: “Why DID he think ‘kayak’ had a q?” Hee! And Susan says that she’s never won anything either, and brings up the Jump Rope Story, in which she and another kid were the last two left jumping. This other girl had asthma, and Susan thought she had it in the bag, until, “her mom gave her an antihistamine shot, which is technically a steroid, and she was juiced!” Hee! Mike promises to help her as long as she promises to never tell that story again.

That’s quite a slogan, but I’ll resist.

At Lynette’s house, Preston and Irina have just finished having sex. Does anyone think that the lady who plays Irina looks a good 10-15 years older than Preston? She seems like she’s 35. Also, Preston is shirtless, and since he’s over 18: Yum. Although I still feel all jail-baity icky. All of a sudden, there’s a knock at the bedroom door. Oh my god, it’s Betty Applewhite! No, just kiddin’. It’s totes Lynette, who’s gathering up the laundry. Um, my mom, who is considerably nicer than Lynette, only had two kids and she made us do our laundry starting at age 12, so it’s hard for me to believe that Lynette would still be doing everybody’s laundry. Lynette tells Irina that the sex under her roof can’t happen again, and Irina’s like, If it was any other girl, you’d be fine with it. Irina, sweetie, no: Lynette’s not fine with anything. Ever.

Teenage rebellion in 2010. Sad.

Meanwhile, over on Lady Lovin’ Lane, Katherine and Robin have just finished having sex. Again. Now, before I get through the rest of this recap, I’d like to get on my soapbox for a second: I am a little sick and tired of the “suddenly lesbian” plots, where women suddenly “discover” that they’re lesbians, or at the very least have a lesbian fling. They did it on Buffy (twice if you count the comics), Sex and the City, this show, and dozens of movies. And not ONCE has this plot been used with men. This kind of thing is supposed to be “ground-breaking” but I just find it tired, annoying, and a ploy to get higher ratings, because god forbid anyone would do the same thing with men. And how many times have we seen Bob and Lee even kiss each other on the mouth? Not even once. But Robin and Katherine go at it like frickin’ lady lumberjacks in every single episode. It just perpetuates the notion that it’s acceptable for women to kiss each other on tv, but not men. And that is fucked to the up, my friends.

So now let’s break for lunch.

Oooooooookay. You didn’t come here for that, but it had to be said. Anyway! Katherine tells Robin not to stand in front of the window because she’ll give Roy a heart attack. Well, that or he’ll find out that Katherine is now a big ‘mo. Robin and Katherine have a discussion about Where Their Relationship is Going. Katherine wants to keep it a secret and take her time with coming out, and Robin wants to practically take out an ad in the New York Times that reads, “Katherine and Robin Are Freaking Lesbians! Together! OMFG! LOLZ!” Robin. Honey. It’s been like two weeks. And Katherine’s had only penis for 45 years, so she’s just getting used to the Other Side, so let’s bring the closet outage down a notch, mmkay?

Gabby brings Juannie Sue over to the Wisteria Lane afternoon poker party. Wow. They haven’t played poker together since like season 3 or something. Remember when they played it every week while discussing the actual plot? Those were the good ole days, eh? Gabby’s brought Juanita over so that she can shill her crappy chocolate bars to the ladies. Lynette and Bree agree to buy one each, but it turns out that they’ve already bought a shit ton of them from Susan/M.J. This doesn’t sit well with Gabby, who wants Juanita to win because she doesn’t have any friends, and since the prize for selling the most is a big party, it would really help Juanita. Aw, how sad! Susan tells Gabby she wants to win because M.J., and by extension, Susan, has never won anything before. Except you won Mike, Susan. Which is darn good, if you ask me. But you didn’t. So let’s move on.

The baby inside me is pregnant. Damn I don’t know how that happened. Well at least I’ll have a plot for next season! I’ll raise you a dollar. Are there more chips?

I’m watching the preview for that new Miley Cyrus abortion, “The Last Song,” and I have to ask: Why does Miley think it’s necessary to shout every line at 10,000 decibels like some pre-pubescent robot? “MY MOM SHIPPED ME AND MY BROTHER TO MY DAD’S FOR THE SUMMER!!!” Aaaaah, I can hear you, crazy robot!! Geez!

McCluskey’s having a party to celebrate the fact that she’s cancer-free. Carlos is like, So you had lung cancer, I didn’t even know you smoked. And McCluskey’s like, I didn’t smoke. And then we’re treated to basically a PSA about how you can get lung cancer even if you don’t smoke and . . . they mentioned smoking so now I really want a Marlboro Ultra-Light 100. I mean, come on — it’s ultra-light, how bad can it be?! Holy crap, what the eff kind of necklace is Gabby wearing?! It’s like a bedazzled x-ray smock dipped in purple tempra paint. Too much. Katherine and Robin show up to the party, and Katherine reminds Robin that even though they came to the party together, they’re not TOGETHER. And things become even more awkward when Tom comes over and tells Katherine that there’s this guy at the party who Katherine would be perfect for, so why doesn’t she go over and talk to him already since she’s single and still really, really likes heterosexual coitus?

Meanwhile, Gabby catches Susan selling candy at the party and is none too happy about it. Of course, this blows up in Gabby’s face when Lee comes over to chastise her for selling a bar to Bob because “speedo season is just around the corner.” Oh, gay men. They’re so funny! As long as they aren’t outwardly showing any sort of affection to each other or trying to express their love physically.

Fancy bib.

Katherine’s talking to Boring McSnore about how he’s a doctor or something when Robin gets a little jeally and pulls her away outside to fight about how Katherine’s flirting with that other guy. Katherine’s all, Uh! He was flirting with ME, skank, not the other way around! Inside, McCluskey conveniently asks everyone to have a convenient moment of silence for those people who didn’t make it to the party. Well, I’m sure they were just busy with other things — what’s that? Ooooohhh, she meant people who died of cancer. I didn’t get that. Gee, I hope they don’t overhear anything juicy. Oh no, they totally do! Outside, Robin’s like, “Are you gay or straight?” And Katherine’s like, “Just because I like having sex with you doesn’t mean I’m a lesbian!” Katherine, honey? It kind of does. And of course everyone inside hears this through the conveniently open living room window that conveniently doesn’t have a screen.

He’s not really a member of the family. He’s not wearing black.

It’s time for a Van de Kamp/Hodge family dinner. Pass the biscuits and petty vindication, please! Oh, and Bree, I’ll take the thinly-veiled insults when you’re through with them, thanks. Danielle decided to join the family for dinner. Aw, how sweet. Wasn’t she married to a lawyer? And where’s her baby? Isn’t he like a freshman in high school at this point? Continuity! Bree’s like, I wonder what Rex would say if he was here now. Orson: “Probably, ‘Who’s the guy in the wheelchair?’” Ha! Oh, Orson, you’re funny now. I hope you never walk again. Bree tells everyone that Sam got an M.B.A. while working two jobs and helping his sick mother at the same time, oh and also he helped the poor in Micronesia or something. I call bullshit on that. Micronesia is one of those countries that people have sort of heard of but know absolutely nothing about, so it makes it easy to lie about it. I was once on the phone, trying to cancel a subscription to some coupon book that cost me $20 a month, and I ended up telling the guy that I had to cancel it because I was joining the peace corps and moving to Tuvalu. See? Who the hell knows anything about freaking Tuvalu? Feel free to use that one.

Bree reveals that Rex loved music, and Sam’s like, “I play the guitar!” Of course you do. Turd. So Bree brings down Rex’s old guitar so Sam can play it, and then she decides that Sam can have the guitar. Annnnnddd of course, Andrew throws yet another patented Andrew Van de Kamp Epic Hissy and is like, Me wantee guitar! Me waaaannnteee! He doesn’t like that Bree’s handing out daddy’s old stuff, and Bree’s like, Sam should have it, and then Andrew goes all Slash on everyone’s asses and smashes the guitar on the fireplace mantle. Real mature, douche.

Oh, hey, I’d actually forgotten about Angie. She’s asking Nick if he’s ever going to talk to her again, and throws a gun at him, telling him that she had to tell her mom about Patrick, and she’d rather him shoot her than not talk to her. And then Nick pulls the trigger! Kidding. Nick says that he was the one who was in the delivery room when Danny was born, and he loves him and needs to tell him that he’s not his biological father. Right. That won’t be emotionally devastating or anything. I mean, this is the kid who tried to kill himself over Julie freaking Mayer, so I’m sure THAT news will go over real well.

He’ll probably be happy to not biologically inherit your taste in plaid.

Susan’s driving M.J. around, talking to some old high school friend on her cell phone, trying to sell her some chocolate, when she spies Gabby at a construction site, basically prostituting herself to sell some candy to all the doughy schlubs with jackhammers.

When Juannie is pregnant at fourteen I don’t want anyone acting surprised.

Preston and Irina announce to Lynette and Tom that they’re going to look for their own apartment, since Tom and Lynette are uncomfortable with their son sleeping with a whore in their own house. Tom’s kind of pissed, but Lynette pulls him aside and reminds him about when they lived together, and how they used to fight all the time. “Used to?” Whatevs. They figure that Preston and Irina will hate each other so much from living together that they’ll break up. Now they both approve!

Susan’s in front of the grocery store, hands loaded with cash from selling tons of candy bars, when Gabby pulls up and is all, I can’t believe you’d stoop this low! And we pull away to reveal . . . that Susan’s put M.J. in a wheelchair. Ha. Susan’s like, I saw you at the construction site, ho! And Gabby’s like, Oh it is ON, slut! It’s good to see parents on television teaching their kids good old fashioned morals.

McCluskey catches Katherine outside and after giving her some crap for being a lez, she asks Katherine if she really likes Robin, and if she does, what’s the big deal? Katherine says she doesn’t want to be known as the middle-aged lesbian around the Lane. But you were okay with being called the psycho-bitch from hell? McC is like, If you care what people think, you can either break up with her or move somewhere where people don’t gossip. Katherine’s like, There’s no such place. McCluskey’s like, My point exactly, Lezzie Borden.

Stop being so defensive, Lez Cheney. Dick Van Dyke? Gayvid Bowie? Hair Pie Henni? HoMo Collins?

Irina’s decided to make borscht for everyone to celebrate the fact that she and Preston found a three bedroom apartment. What is borscht, you ask? From the looks of it, a jar of cold Ragu poured into a pot by Marc Cherry’s unpaid intern. But how can Preston possibly afford a big apartment while he’s going to college? Turns out, he’s not going to college because he got a kick-ass job as a “gutter” down at the meat plant! Yay! But Lynette’s not happy about that, mostly because she’s never happy or supportive about anything. Ever. But I hate Irina and her stupid fake Russian accent, so I’m Team Lynette all the way on this one. Lynette tells Irina that basically she’s a dumb whore who’d throw her own mom under the bus for a pair of nice boots. And her thanks for this? A big bowl of borscht right in the kisser!

Danny’s in the garage when Nick pulls up with a couple of brews in a RECYCLABLE GROCERY BAG. Turns out Danny got a job down at the bike shop, so Nick throws him a beer to celebrate. And then Nick waxes on how fast his fake son has grown up. Is this the little boy I carried? Sunrise, sunset. Sunrise, sunset.

All right, all you Doctor Who and Torchwood fans get ready to cream your dorky jeans, because Patrick Logan’s shown up at Iris’s house, and he’s played by none other than John Barrowman, who plays Doctor Who or a time-traveling goblin or something on Torchwood. I don’t know, I don’t watch it, so I know nothing about it. Iris is all, I gave you the info now give me my money bitch! Then she gets all soft and hopes that Patrick won’t do anything to harm Angie or anyone from Rose’s family. Oh, I’m sure Patrick wouldn’t hurt anyone. He seems harmless. And he proves this by knocking in Iris’s window to make it look like a robbery, and then strangles the shit out of her. So, I’m sure Angie’s not in any danger. Also, I find it odd that someone who wants to save dolphins or whatever would murder a human being. Well, earth first, I guess.

Was that a can of tuna I saw in your kitchen?

Irina asks to speak to Lynette and asks her “please to forgive me.” Ugh. Lynette’s all, I will fight you tooth and nail, bitch, because there’s no way in hell you’re marrying my baby. But Irina has some news for Lynette: She’s convinced Preston to up the wedding to next week! Oooohhh, shit. But actually, thank god, because I just want to put this whole ludicrous plot behind me and move the eff on. Am I right, people?

Back at Bree’s house, she’s found a bunch of Rex’s old high school yearbooks so that Sam can get a sense of who his father was. A philandering nutjob who hired a suburban prostitute to walk on his back in stilettos? Is that in the yearbook? No? Cuz that’s who he was, Bree. Bree gets sad because she never gets to talk about Rex anymore, and Sam says he can talk to her about Rex whenever she wants. Orson looks on, clearly concerned that Sam hasn’t begun to deal with his sexuality yet. Oh, and also concerned that Sam’s motives are unclear. Both are equally disturbing. Orson wheels himself outside where Andrew’s sitting, thinking, “He’s not really my whole brother, so we could make out if we — No! No! It’s wrong, wrong! Curse you, awkward boner!” Andrew tells Orson he can’t believe how much of a douche he was at dinner, but he can’t like Sam because there’s something about him that Andrew can’t trust. Orson says he feels the same way, and it’s odd that Sam is trying awfully hard to get to know Bree, and that everything that Sam’s said seems too good to be true, and he’s shady. Ohmigod, I totally just said that! And so did you. Two episodes ago. In the first 30 seconds of Sam’s introduction into the show. Andrew says he needs to find out everything about Sam he can. Orson approves. I kind of like the idea of Orson and Andrew teaming up to solve mysteries. Of course, I said that about McCluskey and her sister, and look where THAT got us.

Lily’s about to get eaten by Glenn Close. This show is bad luck.

At the school, a teacher tells Susan that Juanita’s beating M.J. in the candy biz. So, in class, Susan decides to sabotage Juanita. Which is what any good teacher and parent would do. On opposite day! Sorry, I know that’s the lamest joke ever. On opposite day! I’ll stop. On oppos — sorry, sorry, I’ll totally stop. Susan puts her cell phone in Juanita’s backpack, and then calls it from the landline phone in her room. Since when do teachers have phones in their classrooms? Susan’s all, Juanita you know you can’t have cell phones in the classroom! Juanita says it’s not hers, in fact, it’s Susan’s. “My mom gave it to you for your birthday.” Ha! Susan: “So you’re saying you stole it?” Juanita: “No.” Susan: “Now you’re yelling at me! Someone just bought themselves three hours of detention!” Call me crazy, but that was kind of funny. Also, I just now noticed that Juanita looks a lot like Little Lulu. Gabby gets a phone call from the principal, who tells her that Juanita’s gotten detention, and Susan’s the one who gave it to her. Well, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, and so, with a 44 ounce fountain Coke as bribery, Gabby kidnaps M.J. in her car. She calls Susan, and they agree to “make the exchange”: if Gabby drops M.J. off at school, Susan will let Juanita go.

Juanita tells Susan that she has to win because she wants her mom to be proud of her. She thinks Gabby’s embarrassed of her because she doesn’t have any friends, and no matter how hard she tries, she just can’t seem to make any. Aw, sad! Gabby shows up and takes off with Juanita to sell the last of her chocolate. Susan pulls M.J. aside and is all, I know you want to win, but let me tell you what winning really means. I tell you what it means: It means you’re awesome and everyone else is a mutha fuckin’ chump!

Katherine’s packed a bunch of bags, and when Robin comes home, she’s all, “I’ve rehearsed this speech a hundred times . . .” But it turns out she just wants to go away with Robin somewhere and figure this all out, so she’s booked them on Rosie O’Donnell’s cruise ship, the S.S. Career Ender. Katherine says that if they go away and spend some time together, then maybe she won’t care what people think. Robin’s like, “You know what I think? I’ve always wanted to see Paris.” Um, okay, Robin, since two weeks ago you were totally broke and last week you just got a job. As a hostess. Yeah, Paris is completely reasonable. Idiot.

Hit her!

Back at school, it’s announced that Juanita won the candy bar sale. Wheeeeee. Gabby asks the teacher if it was really close, and the teacher says it was . . . until the last day when Juannie Sue sold 40 bars and M.J. didn’t sell any. Gabby confused . . . She pulls M.J. aside and he’s all, It’s okay that I didn’t win, and I didn’t sell any candy, but my mom said it’s a secret and only a good deed if I didn’t tell. Awwwwwww! Gabby’s like, Well your mom should know, cuz she’s a winner too. Yeah, it was nice of Susan, but I wouldn’t go that far, Gabby.

Mary Alice voice over time! Give us your metaphor and then shut the hell up, Mary Alice. This week it’s obviously about winning and victories and cheating and opponents and defeat. But of course, “for some, it’s not enough to win. Someone else has got to lose.” Well, thanks, Obvious Lady. Seriously, is that the worst metaphor you’ve ever heard? Geezus. That’s like saying, “In order to drink, you have to swallow.” Anyway. Patrick Logan rolls into Wisteria Lane in the middle of the night, as Angie takes her recycling to the trash. He hopes she separated her paper and plastic, otherwise he’s gonna get SO MAD!!

Next week: Oh. My. God. So, we’ve had two episodes in a row, but apparently, that’s too much for ABC to handle because there’s not another new scheduled episode until APRIL EFFING 18th! What the hell, ABC? And then they’re going to complain that the ratings for this season are down, and then I’ll be like, “What do you expect, assholes?! You give us one new episode a month, so people forget that it’s even on! Stop. Screwing. With us!!”