'Desperate' Mondays . . . A Tad Late

President's Day. February school vacation + 3 kids at home making me crazy = The dog ate my homework. My bad on not getting this Desperate Housewives post up more promptly. But it's never too late to wax on at length about the Wisteria Lane gals . . .

Generally, I've been pleased with the last few episodes, now that the writers have dispensed with the Scavos-in-daytime-TVesque-peril-following-absurd-love-affair-and-faux-murder-accusations. It's been a relief to see that Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman) is starting to return to a quasi-likable character again, though she'd not quite there yet. I'm likewise happy to see that the writers have been effectively folding the current economic realities into the Housewives' stories. It lends an air of audience connectedness to some of the characters that had been woefully lacking, which explains why the dowdy Gabby Solis, frustrated by parenting two young girls, resonated much more with me than any other character during the season.

This past Sunday's fresh episode, "In a World Where the Kings are Employers," the grounded storyline trend continued when Susan Mayer had her first working mom conflict when her son was sick and both she and her ex-husband Mike Delfino, were supposed to work. They attempted to one-up each other over in order to figure out who'd stay home with the sick kid. Susan won out but Mike pawned the kid off on his girlfriend Katherine Mayfair. It was entertaining watching Susan trying to "compete" with Katherine over who's the best domestic engineer, a competition Susan could lose to even Edie Britt or Mrs. McCluskey's dead cat. The tension between Susan and Katherine this week was certainly more realistic than Susan's attempt to steal Katherine's fake pearl necklace last week.

The Gabby-Carlos storyline -- where Gabby blackmailed Carlos' boss into giving Carlos the company's only bonus in exchange for her not mentioning to the boss' pregnant wife that he was stepping out on her -- was mildly amusing. However I'm still in mourning for paunchy, poor Gabby. She had more kick. I would've invited that Gabby over for coffee.

*Spoiler alert!*

I'm sure many of you have heard about the impending departure of Nicollette Sheridan and her character Edie. Rumor has it that Edie will meet her demise at the hands of her nutty, mysterious husband Dave, who killed his therapist and covered the murder by setting fire to a bar many episodes back. (This was the fire Porter Scavo was accused of setting.) I like Dave Williams, played with verve by Neal McDonough. I hope the writers give Edie a decent send-off.

Are you saddened to hear that Edie will be leaving the show? Are you pleased with how season five has been playing out, or disappointed?

Image credit: ABC.