'Desperate' Mondays: City on Fire

The latest episode of Desperate Housewives featured two obviously ill-fated relationships, one count of brutal spousal battery, one murder, one case of arson that killed a half-dozen more people, and one thinly veiled threat to an unconscious Mike Delfino (how much time has this guy spent unconscious on this show?). Too much for one episode? I can't decide, though I'm leaning toward a "Yes." While on the one hand, DH is known for its over-the-topness, sometimes too much over-the-topness can poison the glorious satirical effect it's trying to achieve.

It's one thing to continue to deepen the mystery behind the menacing Dave Williams, but it's another to have him kill a renowned psychiatrist with his bare hands in a supply closet and then intentionally set a fire to cover up the murder, thus killing more people. (How many fires does this make for DH over the years? Edie Britt's house. Susan Mayer's house. Am I missing any?) I do, however, like the notion of turning Dave into an anti-hero after he went into the burning nightclub to save people.

But the fire scene disturbed me because I live in New England and still clearly remember the fatal nightclub fire in Rhode Island that killed 100 people in 2003, many of whom became trapped inside after emergency exits were locked, as they were in the fictional DH nightclub in the recent episode. I wished the DH fire hadn't been located inside a nightclub while a band was playing, but maybe that's just me.

Meanwhile, May-December romances were curiously rampant along Wisteria Lane. Twentysomething Julie Mayer brought home a thrice-divorced fortysomething professor with a penchant for bedding young women. (Mom Susan Mayer tried to thwart his wedding proposal, but Julie did that on her own, saying that she was never getting married because marriage never led to happiness for the twice-divorced Susan, so the institution was pointless.)

Teenager Porter Scavo and fortysomething mom Anne Schilling continue to be a couple, plus Schilling's still pregnant with his child and now in the hospital recovering after being beaten by her husband, the nightclub owner, after he learned about the affair. However if Porter, who was seen toting a pistol, actually shoots Anne's husband, I'll be disappointed. A shooting would be too easy an out for this situation. There'd be a trial, Lynette Scavo would mount a mama bear defense, etc. It could easily become unbearable.

I continue to admire the evolution of the Bree Van de Kamp Hodge character, a blend of brittle perfectionism covering for a deeply vulnerable, wounded inner soul. It was a great touch to have Bree be interviewed by a hard-hitting reporter who dug up info on the sordid turns in Bree's life (such as Bree's alcoholism, her deceased husband's unfaithful dedication to bondage with someone else's wife, her gay son who previously lived on the streets, her current husband's incarceration). My favorite moment of the episode arrived close to the end, when Bree said that her old fashioned homemaking/cookbook wasn't meant to make other women feel inadequate, as the reporter had suggested, but was meant to offer them the chance to control some part of their lives (cooking, homemaking) and make it good when everything else is crumbling around them. The scene, along with last week's with Bree and Orson on the test kitchen counter, humanize her.

Your favorite moments from the recent episode? Love or hate the use of the nightclub fire as a plot point? Predictions?

Image credit: ABC.

'Desperate' Mondays: There's Always a Woman

Poor Lynette Scavo.

At least once a season, it seems, Lynette suspects her husband Tom is having an affair, or is having some sort of relationship-altering break-down. Remember that wretched Nora character a few years ago, who was killed during the made-for-sweeps-week grocery store shooting, who'd had a relationship with Tom that pre-dated Lynette and yielded a child named Kayla? Lynette, who'd initially suspected Tom of going to back his old flame, had to then suffer under the torment of Kayla, until Tom finally agreed with Lynette that the girl was troubled and needed to be sent away. (During that same time-frame, Lynette almost had an affair with a Scavos' employee.)

Over the past few episodes of this fifth season of Desperate Housewives, Tom started a garage band, bought an expensive mid-life-crisis mobile, wanted to sell the family restaurant (for which Lynette left her ad exec job to help him run) in order to take a year-long RV tour, and then signed a lease without consulting Lynette for space for his crappy mid-life-crisis band. The latest episode portrayed Tom acting even more immaturely by hiding out from Lynette -- leaving her with restaurant work and parenting to do all on her own -- and playing video games at the band's playing space until the wee hours of the morning.

Throughout the show, it was suggested that Tom was up to more than simply being a childish idiot, particularly when he spied a condom wrapper on the floor of his band's practice space and hid it from Lynette. It was only at the tail-end of the episode that viewers learned that one of Tom and Lynette's teenaged sons was having an affair with a woman old enough to be his mother. But because Tom's been lying and sneaking around, Lynette thinks it's Tom having the affair.

It's enough to make you feel utter fatigue for Lynette, formerly my favorite character on TV. We've been down the I-don't-trust-Tom road before. That's so season two. While the teenage son having an affair with an older woman is a different twist for the Scavos (thought May-December trysts have been done in season one with Gabby and the gardener, and with Danielle Van de Kamp and her high school teacher), I'm growing weary of seeing Lynette jumping to conclusions and having to go through the same, old tired arguments with Tom.

What I did find fresh and new in the latest episode was the Gabby & Carlos Solis story, where Carlos inadvertently gave a rich older client Virginia Hildebrand (played by Six Feet Under's Frances Conroy) an orgasm when he massaged her back. This led to Virginia offering Carlos $50,000/month to accompany her to Europe for a few months. With giant dollar signs in her eyes, Gabby was initially on board with this arrangement . . . until she learned about the orgasm. Her ire was cooled, however, when Virginia offered to take Gabby and the girls to Europe as well, and to pay off Gabby with couture.

This has snappy satire written all over it. The character with the funniest story arc and wittiest lines, by far, is Eva Longoria Parker's Gabby. Neal McDonough's Dave Williams, as Edie Britt's husband, has also added some much-needed spark to Wisteria Lane with his character's mysterious backstory and odd antagonism with Karen McCluskey.

As for the other stories this week -- Susan Mayer's on/off affair with the goofy painter and Katherine Mayfair's fling with the ex-con organ thief -- eh, I'm not too interested. I want more Gabby, more Dave and more authentic Lynette (say, from season one and early season two).

Thoughts on the Lynette-Tom tension? Is it a tired storyline? What's ahead for Gabby and Carlos as they enter into business with Virginia?

Image credit: ABC.