'Desperate' Mondays: Season Finale

* Warning, spoilers from the Desperate Housewives season finale ahead. *

Three plot twists stood out among the pack in the DH finale:

1. Susan, Mike, MJ & the murderous Dave . . . plus Delfino nuptials.

If Mike Delfino married anyone OTHER than Susan Mayer -- two months after attempting to heroically save her and their son from the homicidal nutcase Dave Williams/Dash -- then I would be surprised, shocked even, which would be nice, but not in a Grey's Anatomy shocked kind of way. (I'll rant about GA's manipulative finale in a separate post.)

But let's face it, if Mike married someone else -- two months after planning to hop a plane to Vegas to marry Katherine Mayfair -- then the writers will have a lotta 'splainin' to do. I'd be hard pressed to come up with a plausible scenario for Mike marrying anyone who isn't Susan. They've already jerked this couple around enough since season one. Last year's season finale took the new mom Susan, who was happily married to Mike, and flashed forward five years to show Susan kissing another man. During the summer before this fifth season began, everyone speculated about what that scene meant, only to learn that Susan and Mike had divorced in the wake of a traumatic car accident which left a mom and her young child dead.

To have Mike not marry Susan this time around, after all the nonsense with Edie in season three then putting them together and breaking them apart for the second time, would be absurd, particularly because the writers have made it clear that they still love one another and, had it not been for that accident, they'd still be together. Dave remarked that bringing Mike, Susan and MJ to the location where his wife and child died would be poetic. And it truly was if the writers used it -- the location of the incident that ultimately separated Mike and Susan -- to bring the couple back together and make the family whole again.

As for Katherine, well, she's just poor, pathetic Katherine sitting alone in the airport clutching two coffees and looking bewildered, someone who I wished had been more confident in her own value, intellect, success and attractiveness. If she was so afraid that the man who moved in with her and proposed marriage didn't really love her, that she needed to keep him away from his ex-wife lest he flee into his ex's arms, then she already knew, deep down inside, that he was not the right man for her. Hopefully Katherine will be given something more useful to do in season six other than moping around and making moony eyes.

2. Lynette is pregnant with babies five and six just as Tom's getting ready to go back to school to learn Mandarin Chinese.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Tom Scavo found something about which to be excited, other than his bad garage band or his mid-life crisis mobile that he had to sell. Going back to college was a great idea, and it was completely in character how Lynette responded to his initially ambiguous plan. "Okay," I thought, "they're onto something with the Scavos here. 'Bout time."

Then came news of Lynette's twins pregnancy. Are the writers seeking to reboot the Scavos' story, to move the family back to square one from the first season, and if so, will they have learned anything about balancing work and family? I could be on board with an "oops" pregnancy as long as it's not simply a rehash of previously trod territory.

3. The Solises take in Carlos' teenaged niece, in a story that feels like we've previously seen on DH.

Of the big developments in the finale, this one seemed odd. Haven't we already seen this storyline before, albeit with slightly different twists? This reminded me of the fall-out after Tom's eldest daughter Kayla (conceived pre-Lynette with a former gal pal of Tom's) needed to be taken in after her loony mother Nora was killed. The scheming daughter came between Lynette and Tom, manipulated Lynette to get what she wanted, goaded her and pouted in front of Tom until Lynette became so wild with frustration that she convinced Tom that, for the sake of their family, Kayla had to be sent away. After Kayla called child care workers on Lynette, Tom agreed.

Is that what they have in mind for the Solises? Having Carlos' niece Anna goad Gabby and manipulate people into getting her way until Gabby says that, for the sake of the Solis family, Carlos has to send Anna to live with another relative? Anna seems like simply an older version of Kayla, only she's learned how to use her sex appeal to get boys to do her bidding and give her designer duds. She also knows how to make Gabby crazy.

This can go nowhere good. And I must say, I'm not a fan of the girl-as-manipulator storyline being repeated. It also will do nothing positive for Gabby's character, who's at her most unlikeable when she locks horns with another female regarding control over a man, in this case, Carlos.

(I've decided against addressing the Bree Van de Kamp Hodge/Orson Hodge story because I think it's silly.)

Overall, I did like this Desperate Housewives finale. I genuinely wondered whether they'd go so far as to have Dave kill MJ (which would've been really brutal) or harm Susan. Flashing forward two months to show Mike marrying a thickly veiled woman without revealing her face was a clever move, even if it simply cannot be anyone other than Susan.

Your thoughts on the finale? Did it meet your expectations?

Image credit: ABC.