Guest Columnist: Desperate Housewives

Guest writer: Jennie.

For those not in the know, Desperate Housewives is the best thing to happen to dramatic, scripted, AND primetime programming in a long, long, long time.

In the season premiere, Mary Alice blew her brains out over a secret that we can only hope to uncover by the next round of sweeps. Now the women of Wisteria Lane are left behind to play detective while balancing their own suburbian lives. The In-Crowd includes sexy and sweet single mom Susan, picture of “perfection” Bree, career woman turned child wrangler Lynette, and beautiful but bored (while boning someone not her husband) Gabrielle. The outsiders are super slutty and super nip and tucked Edie and frumpy Mrs. Hubbard. Lucky for us, they fail to be seen this episode.This week’s episode opens with Gabrielle arguing for a need for a maid with her mother-in-law, Mama Solis. You know, Selena’s killer. In a desperate attempt to maintain her maid service, Gabrielle seduces her husband. Unfortunately, one seduction over the six episodes is not enough to put a doubt to his suspicions to Gabrielle’s philandering.

The next day we find the whole gang at Paul the widower’s yard sale. He must ditch as much as possible before he makes Wisteria Lane, as well as Mary Alice, a distance memory. But not before dumping off his son, Zach, at a mental ward to keep him pumped full of drugs.

During the sale, Carlos and Mama Solis keep a close eye out for Gabrielle’s mister. As Carlos watches his wife get cozy with a neighbor, his mama stresses that Gabrielle wouldn’t be having an affair with someone she talks to in public. This tip will be very helpful with anyone with a suspicious mind.

To keep herself from turning suicidal, Lynette has decided to volunteer with helping out with the school play, “Little Red Riding Hood.” Her twins are playing the role of oak trees, and guest star Sharon Lawrence is playing the role of the big bad wolf, Maisy Gibbons. In the round one, Lynette and Maisy go head to head over the ending of the play. Maisy feels the wolf should die to be sensitive to the children, while Lynette feels the wolf should die like the original ending. God knows her wild boys can take it. However, since Lynette isn’t doing any “heaving lifting” with the play, her voice doesn’t count. Maisy wins.

Since she can’t break away for the usual mid-day booty call, Gabrielle has decided to join Bree for tea with her mother-in-law in tow. Bree is pleased to see how much quality time they spend together and wishes she had the same opportunity to be close with her own mother-in-law. (First reconcile with husband, then befriend his mother.) Gabrielle gets a twinge of jealousy when her boy toy, John, follows Bree’s daughter, Danielle, home and up to her room. Not to worry though, they are in the school’s abstinence club.

Susan the klutz is up to no good. She lectures her elderly neighbor on borrowing and returning. You see, last year Susan let her neighbor borrow two eggs, never to be returned. Since the neighbor still hasn’t returned the eggs, she must let Susan borrow her stick shift car. You know, because eggs and transmissions are the same thing.

Bree and Rex find themselves back at Dr. Goldfine’s office. The topic of today’s session: sex. Rex doesn’t like sex with Bree because she’s a robot in bed as well as out. The men suggest a sex surrogate to coach them in bed, which Bree naturally rejects. The last time I checked a surrogate was a substitute so my question is who would be having sex with whom?

The girls meet at Lynette’s house for poker, while the murderous mother-in-law knits away in the background. Gabrielle excuses herself and she warns, “It’s going to be a while.” No one seems to be concerned with her possible bowl problem, but maybe that’s another episode. She uses this opportunity to climb out a window, balance on logs, and hop a fence to grab a quick kiss from John who’s mowing the neighbor’s lawn. To think, she gave up modeling for this. Meanwhile, Mama Solis has decided to play Gabrielle’s poker hand. As it turns out, she’s quite good.

Lynette and Maisy. Round Two. Lynette has been promoted from stand by mom to costume seamstress. This gives her the needed voice to kill the big bad wolf. Lynette argues the power of democracy and voting, and the moms vote to let the wolf die. This would have been a great episode before the presidential election. Lynette wins.

Susan has managed to tail Paul to the mental institute that’s holding Zach. Funny how she made it all the way there without dropping the transmission. Maybe it really is just like riding a bike.

On the other side of town, Bree dines with Dr. Goldfine. Of course, after much persuading. A doctor would never socialize with clients. Dr. Goldfine offers the most obvious answer to Bree’s sex problems: she’s prude. On the defense, Bree goes into sooo much detail on how much she loves sex that I had to check to make sure my television wasn’t magically changed to Cinemax.

After pumping her friends dry, Carlos confesses to Gabrielle that his mother has a gambling problem. All too happy to learn of the juicy tidbit, Gabrielle takes mother to a buffet conveniently located in a casino. Mama Solis should have been suspicious at the mention of a buffet, where a model would never eat in public. Blinded by the casino, Mama Solis is just fine with hanging out while Gabrielle runs off to pick up a skirt she suddenly remembered.

Lynette and Maisy. Round three. The moms are at it again. This time over the quality of the costumes that Lynette has made. Maisy suggest if Lynette is too stressed, she would be glad to cut her work load by cutting the trees, Lynette’s twins, from the play. Lynette offers to work harder. Argument over.

When Gabrielle returns, Mama Solis is surprisingly quiet. As intended, she was too occupied with gambling to worry about Gabrielle. However, she has gambled away her own money and maxed out her son’s credit cards. To save her own ass, Gabrielle promises to save Mama Solis’s ass.

Bree seduces her husband, red panties and all. Rex takes time out from his burrito-eating schedule to partake in the timeless art of seduction. As they get things started, Bree is distracted by the burrito’s near spill off the nightstand. She asks Rex to stop, moves to burrito, and summons Rex back to bed. He clearly doesn’t need IT that bad and shows Bree the door. According to Bree, he clearly never had to remove a cheese stain.

Back at the school, another volunteer mom has offered her time to Lynette. Impressed by how together she is, this mom shares her secret to success: Ritalin. Turns out, it can be quite effective for those who don’t need it. Lynette declines the pusher’s offer. She already smoked crack this morning. Well, that explains what happened to the twins.

Lynette later decides against her better judgment. She takes the Ritalin to get the job done and then some. Twelve hours later, she’s still pumped and challenges Maisy to “take it outside.” Maisy declines, but Lynette is still the clear winner. As the camera pans across the rooms to Lynette’s new followers, a sense of power is now instilled in Lynette. Did anyone catch the black mother in the room? Minorities are now on their way to Wisteria Lane.

Susan and Julie go undercover to find Zach or at the very least one of his personalities. When Julie confronts Zach, he tells her of Dana. That’s all he can sputter out before a nurse interrupts. These damn pills have clearly slowed down his motor skills so he won’t be talking much or running away. Props for Julie for attempting to get straight to the point.

Rex and Bree go at it again. This time, not very sexual. She threatens him to take him right here, right now. He tells her that she sounds like a whore, which may dispel any thoughts of a threesome with the surrogate. Again with the rejection, it’s now apparent, that there may be more to Rex. Aside from crying after ejaculation, that is.

Back to the good stuff. Mama Solis has put Carlos’s suspicions to rest. He then tells his mother that Gabrielle really does love and care for her… and how concerned she was to learn of her gambling addiction. It is now clear, that Gabrielle is definitely having an affair. It is later that day, when Gabrielle and John ignore each other after a near-miss body collision that Mama Solis has found her answer to the puzzle. Dum, dum, dum…

Unfortunately, ABC is still adjusting to how to work with great programming because they’ve opted to air the American Music Awards instead of Desperate Housewives next Sunday. Keep your calendars marked for the next episode on November 21.