Here's a tip. When a police detective who suspects you of murder asks if you want to see a lawyer, say YES. That’s right, Bree Van De Kamp, who we always thought was the smart one in the bunch (because prettiest and weirdest were already taken), makes the cardinal sin of virtually every perp Lenny Briscoe ever interviewed, or every skel Sipowitz ever beat up. But that’s not all that happened this week on Desperate Housewives. We got to see an Oscar-nominated actress pistol whip a huge crazy guy, and Eva Longoria’s first actual attempt at acting since she played Flight Attendant #3 in a March 2000 episode of 90210. But before we get started, the weekly sports anecdote to keep my testosterone levels in check. The Red Sox lost, but that’s OK because so did the Spankmees. A-Rod’s misfortune is my schadenfreude. My pick to win the World Series is the White Sox. You can take that to the bank. Now that that’s out of the way, on with the recap…
As the episode opens we get mother-in-law from hell Phyllis and good old Bree, in yet another fantastic black mourning outfit, going to Rex's grave to leave some flowers. Bree is wondering about Phyllis's faulty memory, to which we get a series of flashbacks where we see Phyllis's "memory problems" all of which result in something bad happening to Bree. Falling down on a wet floor, sitting in a newly painted chair, etc. Only we only get the aftermaths of these mishaps so it's kind of like watching America's Funniest Home Videos the moment the video ends. I mean, who wouldn't want to see Marcia Cross take a digger? That would've made my night. Oh well. Once they reach the grave they are shocked to see that it is empty. When Bree wonders why in the world someone could do this, Phyllis then suddenly "remembers" that the insurance man came by the house while she was out and said that they were investigating the possibility that Rex was murdered, and she "forgot" to tell Bree. I of course was wondering how any show could write in a scene where the mother of a dead man could have her son's remains disinterred without the wife's knowledge or permission, but then I realized we are watching Desperate Housewives, and that would be like asking why the phasers on the Enterprise make noise in space. Some things just aren't supposed to make sense. As Phyllis walks off we see her with her shit-eating grin, thus revealing that her memory is fine; she's just an evil bitch.
Gabrielle meanwhile is standing in her window having her morning wet dream about her gardener/former lover John. Right as the fantasy is about to get good we get the usual "snap out of it moment" and Gabrielle then looks out to see that the gardener that she actually has is in fact Horatio Sanz's father. I'm sure somewhere off camera Jimmy Fallon's dad was doing something really unfunny and Horatio's father started to crack up. I hate Jimmy Fallon (except for Taxi, that shit was hee-larious). She then pops in her car and heads on over to park across the street from John as he mows someone’s lawn and she sits in her car and ogles him. Come to think of it, her hands weren't visible, so who knows what was going on in that car other than ogling. I'm thinking of a word and it rhymes with "plaster baiting."
In slapsticky Susan land, she's marching towards Edie and Karl's house in her oh so wacky walk. When her "pseudo boyfriend because his son who he never knew he had tried to kill her" asks what’s up, she says that Karl was supposed to return Julie by 6 and it's already . . . 6:15. As she stomps up to Edie's house she says that for all she knows there could be porn and drugs in the house. This would make things interesting, but then we look in and see Julie singing while Edie plays the guitar. And they all look happy, much to the consternation of Susan. She hates Edie so much she was wishing to see her knee deep in porn and drugs. So was I, but for vastly different reasons.
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Comments (39)
Where the hell are Lynette's twin boys? They haven't been around at all--Parker is a cuter kid though.
They were such trouble makers, how is Tom getting off so easy with them? Did those kid actors leave the show?
1 of 39 | Posted by Michele | Posted on October 11, 2005 9:26 AM
prescription for EVIL.
haha, nice recap.
2 of 39 | Posted by jash | Posted on October 11, 2005 9:27 AM
"she retaliates by cutting down the woman’s bushes"
Oh the places we could go with this one. I thought it was very appropriate for a scorned lover to cut down the other woman's bushes. Isn't that what gardener boy was doing anyway?
3 of 39 | Posted by RealityTV4Me | Posted on October 11, 2005 9:37 AM
Great pic of "Horatio Sanz's father". That was a hilarious fantasy come reality. And how perfect is the pharmacist to play a creepy guy; his eyes his smile, psycho!
4 of 39 | Posted by couchpotato | Posted on October 11, 2005 10:03 AM
Show continues to ROCK...these bitches and 'ho's keep you jumping...
5 of 39 | Posted by Alohaguy | Posted on October 11, 2005 10:04 AM
Bree then confronts George at the local Walgreens where he hatches all his evil plans..
I almost choked on my lunch over that one!
6 of 39 | Posted by Pamsey | Posted on October 11, 2005 10:05 AM
eva sucks
7 of 39 | Posted by ali | Posted on October 11, 2005 10:20 AM
I cant believe the writers actually think we are going to forget Lynette had the twins. Since the new season started there has been no mention of them and on this episode they showed a family picture in Lynette's office - and surprise! No twins.
Last season they stole from the old lady neighbor, got dropped off in the middle of nowhere when Lynette tried to teach them a lesson, got spanked by Bree, and drove Lynette so crazy she had to steal a nanny....now they just dont exist??
Maybe Lynette really is crazy and they were just her hallucinations.
8 of 39 | Posted by dawn | Posted on October 11, 2005 10:28 AM
Noo..must not...watch this..show! Oh WTF the recap is soo damn good. Since I'm nearly a season and a half behind I guess i'll wait for the DVD's.
9 of 39 | Posted by America's Next Top Fan | Posted on October 11, 2005 10:34 AM
Do they cake enough make-up on the pharmacist dude? I mean he looks like he belongs in an off broadway production of The Rock Horror Picture Show...you know, without the lingerie.
10 of 39 | Posted by realiTV fan | Posted on October 11, 2005 10:36 AM
i think the pharmacist took medication to pass the lie detector test. sounds like some james bond type stuff. what do you think? he's so evil. Bree and him will never work out even if she does think she's in love with him
11 of 39 | Posted by hmmmm | Posted on October 11, 2005 10:42 AM
I like how you pointed out Lynette's flaws but I'm surprised you're surprised at her behavior. The name of the show is Desparate Housewives after all...there is no normal one!
Thanks for the Stern fan shout out!
BA BA BA BABABOOOOOEY!!
12 of 39 | Posted by Krista | Posted on October 11, 2005 10:57 AM
Certain mood altering drugs such as anti-depressants are known to interfere with polygraphs by helping to suppress emotional and physical responses to lying. I’m sure a trained pharmacist with access to anything he wants could figure out some concoction of meds to at least get an inconclusive result if not pass it outright. However, last I heard (from various cop and legal TV shows), lie detectors were not allowed to be submitted as evidence in a criminal trial so that doesn’t really help prove or disprove his or her innocence.
I hope the rest of the world doesn’t watch this show and think this is how all American mothers behave. Selfish, deceitful, uncaring. I know they are only fictional characters but I wish the fictional Social Services department would come by and fictionally take away their fictional kids to be raised by less insane fictional parents.
13 of 39 | Posted by MODULUS | Posted on October 11, 2005 11:02 AM
also you can fool a lie detector sometimes by as meanial a deterrent as putting a pen in your shoe. because that awkward sensation in your shoe distracts your mind from anything else you may be asked, it would prove inconclusive.
....so i've hear, no really.
14 of 39 | Posted by jash | Posted on October 11, 2005 11:04 AM
Modulus - And what kind of show would that result in? The non-fictional family hour? I see that every day at my own house. Trust me...not much entertainment there. :-)
15 of 39 | Posted by RealityTV4Me | Posted on October 11, 2005 11:38 AM
Besides the obvious plot flaw of digging up a dead guy without any court order, the thing that really annoyed me was Edie's stupid cast. It was only on her leg and not her foot. What's the point in that? It just irritated me. Can ABC not afford to hire a fact checker or whoever would pick up on these mistakes?
16 of 39 | Posted by E. | Posted on October 11, 2005 11:42 AM
i'm tiring of this show..
last season was "good" and original-ish, this season we have the convenient results of complicated scenarios
the "actors" who portrayed lynette's twins obviously asked for more money (i mean their "manager" mother did)
suspending reality is fun to a point, but seriously, inflicting 3rd degree burns so you can watch a kid get his cubby at kindergarten..on conference-ware?
i'm liking each of them less and less. there used to be SOME redeeming qualities about most of them, with the exception of Gabrielle, which was amusing.
in fact the ONLY redeeming quality about Susan was putting her daughter first, which she's thrown out the window
and now Gabrielle is remorseful about her dark deeds? where's the fun in that?
DH is now officially OFF my DVR record list - i'll still read the re-cap to see if there's some reason to resume actual watching
i'd rather watch Laguna Beach than this wad of contrived crap..and yes i AM bitter!
17 of 39 | Posted by Laura | Posted on October 11, 2005 12:38 PM
"It's not a lie if you believe it."
-George Constanza
18 of 39 | Posted by MB | Posted on October 11, 2005 12:53 PM
Right on Laura! I was loving this show last season, but it's just become retarded. I'm starting to hate all of the characters now. And what's up with Gabrielle apologizing to Carlos? So lame! She's supposed to do something wacky like run off to Mexico with the gardner. This season sucks!
19 of 39 | Posted by Kristin H | Posted on October 11, 2005 12:56 PM
Have the twins been on any episodes this season? I hadn't really noticed until this one. Also- the son who starts Kindergarten looks like he should be starting 3rd grade. He has already lost his baby teeth and has the permanent ones.
You just know that Andrew is going to do something heinous in the next couple weeks.
Also- why would Susan keep going to the Applewhites in the first place? Their crazy and she knows it.
20 of 39 | Posted by Kelley | Posted on October 11, 2005 1:05 PM
Lynette: Her story is dull. Another example of how parents over indulge their children and the constant need to make them feel special. Sickening nonsense.
Susan: Her legs are so skinny, its gross. She does her best to channel John Ritter by acting like Jack Tripper from a bad Three's Company episode.
Betty Applewhite: At least she is interesting on screen and can deliver a line...'I'm making cherry pie'....awesome!
Gabrielle: Really bad soap acting at its best. How did she get hired? She must perform awesome oral sex. The emmy council was right to snub her. Go back to daytime.
Bree: Another idiotic storyline, if she's so smart, she doesn't get a lawyer. What a dope. She should go all Dr. Kimberly Shaw on them and blow something up.
Edie: She can play a guitar? She looks more and more like a cat every day. Freakish! I do enjoy her bickering with Susan.
Conclusion: More Edie, Bree and Betty. Less Lynette, Susan and Gabrielle.
KH
21 of 39 | Posted by KatiesHole | Posted on October 11, 2005 1:30 PM
Maybe I'm wrong, but in the previous episode where they showed the hands of the person in the basement... I could have swore they were white. So I was really shocked when a black dude came running out.
Ed Torrian should have been hired to adminster the lie detector.
22 of 39 | Posted by JS | Posted on October 11, 2005 1:47 PM
how about more felicia. where the hell is felicia?!
23 of 39 | Posted by hoark | Posted on October 11, 2005 1:50 PM
FYI, lie detector tests don't work unless you believe they do and therefore your body physiology responds to the questions you know you are lying to. If you go in there knowing they are shit, which they are, you will be clean. Which I'm sure a pharmicist such as George would know. Of course, the fucking idiot writers will make it be a drug because they are too fucking stupid to make any of their plotlines the least bit plausible.
24 of 39 | Posted by Svan | Posted on October 11, 2005 2:48 PM
The detective, played by that character actor who has made a nice living by being the perennial "weaselly bad guy" in films such as Ghostbusters 2 , simply says there were "anomalies in the report."
Said character actor is Kurt Fuller (equally nefarious in Wayne's World). I met him when I was 8 or 9 when he was in the fine Hulk Hogan movie No Holds Barred. What's that? You didn't see it? Anyway, he's not as weaselly in person.
25 of 39 | Posted by Britt | Posted on October 11, 2005 3:31 PM
I think George passed the lie detector because they asked him if he poisoned Rex. He didn't, he replaced his meds with placebo.
KatiesHole, I agree w/your take on making Bree, Betty and Edie storylines the primary ones.
26 of 39 | Posted by skillet | Posted on October 11, 2005 3:59 PM
Hey..I thought I was crazy When I noticed the white/black hands for the guy in the basement as well...freaky. And then those missing twins...But we always have Edie's pair....
27 of 39 | Posted by Alohaguy | Posted on October 11, 2005 4:53 PM
Glad to see i'm not the only one tiring of the stupid story lines on this show. I could do without Susan entirely. I'm not ready to give up on it quite yet but the show needs some help!
28 of 39 | Posted by mere2142 | Posted on October 11, 2005 5:03 PM
The critics agree with those of us who are tiring of the show. The critics from USA Today and NY Daily News (unimpeachable sources, I know) have both run articles talking about how slow the season has been so far. I'm just waiting for the article that will come out and say that the first season was overrated and we are now seeing what happens when mediocrity hits the wall.
29 of 39 | Posted by Aries | Posted on October 11, 2005 5:33 PM
Ditto on the show getting boring and nonsensical. Last season it was all fresh and totally unexpected. This season the writers are getting desperate and keep spinning more and more subplots. I, too, am tired of Terri Hatcher. She's not up to par and her legs ARE way skinny. BTW, her boobs are nothing to write home about, seen them in some photos before. She was lying in the Seinfeld episode when she said they were "spectacular".
Eva Longoria is a bore and her husband isn't the least bit macho. And where does she keep finding money to buy $125,000 cars? Now she has an Aston Martin. Yeah, sure...
Bree is an idiot. 'nuf said.
Lynette? Oh, Lynette, probably the worst of the lot. How can they have us believe she's tops in her field after being away from work for so many years? And now she never seems to do anything productive. Her top boss should go back to NYPD Blue, where he at least made a credible closet gay with a chip on his ahoulder about discipline.
The best character has been eliminated when Shirley Knight was broomed away. One can only hope she's coming back.
The Applewhites? Poorly contrived subplot. How the hell did they get the guy INTO the house when they moved in?
Give DH an "E", and not necessarily for effort. Need to find a replacement for that show.
30 of 39 | Posted by Tony A. | Posted on October 12, 2005 4:50 AM
I miss Felicia. We saw only a brief glimpse of her this week, and it was the best part of the episode.
This show held together last season because of the central mystery. We're supposed to consider the Applewhites the central mystery this time, but it's so slow and has so little connection to everyone else on the show that it doesn't work. Susan's act has worn thin, Gabrielle's act was thin before the show ever started, Lynette has gotten more and more ridiculous, and Bree is stuck in a rut. The grieving but not showing it, proper yet ready to snap thing is boring.
31 of 39 | Posted by callygirl | Posted on October 12, 2005 6:39 AM
Oh, and you forgot the one funny, catty line from this week. Lynette to her boss after the boss complained that she didn't have time to get a hair cut: "I'm sorry about your hair. I can see why you're so upset about it."
32 of 39 | Posted by callygirl | Posted on October 12, 2005 6:43 AM
And another thing about Lynette. No matter how wonderful she was at her job prior to giving birth, no company would take her back at that level, ever.
It is almost impossible to walk into a new job like the one she currently has. I don't always look for realism in dopey TV shows, but it would of been interesting if we had to see her at the bottom of the ladder, and work her way up, as opposed to starting at the top.
And no man, with any balls, would quit his job to be Mr. Mom, especially with those obnoxious over indulged rug rats.
KH
33 of 39 | Posted by katiehole | Posted on October 12, 2005 7:06 AM
Great recap for a disappointing show. Agree with the comments above - the show has lost it.
Also, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Orange County will will the World Series. Don't underestimate the power of the Rally Monkey!
34 of 39 | Posted by SaveFerris | Posted on October 12, 2005 7:15 AM
I agree with all the comments above - I had to fast forward through most of Susan's scenes, they were just too painful to watch. And the whole Lynette plotline is almost as unwatchable too - in any real job she'd be out on her a$$ within a couple days, no matter how cute or needy her kids are. DH is very close to gettin kicked off my Tivo in favor of Law & Order: CI at the same time slot. They must be losing viewers, I'd think.
35 of 39 | Posted by bhuuuuv | Posted on October 12, 2005 10:32 AM
Britt: You forget Kurt Fuller's (the prototypical "that guy from that show") best role to date ... Karl Rove in "That's My Bush!"
36 of 39 | Posted by Hater | Posted on October 12, 2005 1:06 PM
Applewhite's moved into house in the middle of the night. They bought it from Edie sight unseen.
37 of 39 | Posted by batmusic | Posted on October 12, 2005 3:34 PM
Sorry, you all lost this viewer...where's the story?
Your trashing your own program. Get a story..please.
38 of 39 | Posted by Lynne Reber | Posted on October 19, 2005 9:55 AM
I'm enjoying the second season as much as I've been enjoying the first one -- maybe it's because I'm not taking it seriously and I'm just letting myself be entertained -- I just can't see what's wrong with it. It's only started, I think it's too early to judge it.
39 of 39 | Posted by Meaghan | Posted on October 21, 2005 10:10 PM