(S03E08) You know, right up to the end of this episode I thought there were some funny moments, and it was entertaining. However, it seemed clearly to be just a hamster-on-a-treadmill kind of episode, just providing a denouement after the high drama of last week. But, oh, how I was wrong.First things first. Clearly, the witty bits about Mrs. McCluskey at the beginning of the episode were foreshadowing. Talk about a meddling neighbor; it's one thing to take down somebody's Christmas lights, but if I got somebody's cat neutered, it would start being my cat from the first ship. But clearly, Mrs. McCluskey has access to Mike's garage, so that is our first clue that when the police search Mike's house for the pipe wrench that killed Monique, they aren't going to find anything. And Mrs. McCluskey does love to blackmail people.
The question is: will she tell anybody about the dirty wrench she found? Nice bit of tension there. And what will be more dramatic? When she shows Mike the pictures of him and Susan that Edie cleared out, or when she tells someone about the toolbox?
Big big big to-do's about Lynette being grateful to new neighbor Art (who supposedly has a sister in a wheelchair who lives with him. Um, do you suppose that is a lie?). She goes so far as to have Art pretend to be a superhero. And boy, who would suspect that mild-mannered Art would be capable of saving someone's life with ice cream, let alone be Protector Man in disguise? Unfortunately, Lynette seems to have just handed Art a free pass to get more kids down to his creepy basement so he can take naked pictures of them. And she successfully created a world in which her kids view Art as irretrievably cool. I love the metaphor here about surfaces being deceptive until you get you get to know someone's depths (depth = basement, get it?).
Boring Susan confrontations with Julie-- was the whole point of that Hysterical Mom moment that Karl found out about Ian? Whatever. Julie and Austin are dating. Didn't see that coming, did you? Kidding! Blah blah blah, teen sex is only interesting if somebody gets knocked up or a disease.
One of our commenters said a few weeks ago that it seems so cllear that Mike wants off this show because the actor is so freaking wooden and poker-faced. Amen. Geez, the guy was in a coma; he didn't have so much plastic surgery that he can't move his face!
Speaking of plastic surgery, Gaby contacted her former agent and announced her return to the world of modeling. How does someone who did 36 magazine covers before she was 20 fail to realize that at age 30, she is washed up? But Gaby isn't always in touch with reality, now is she?
Finally, we see a darker side of Orson starting to emerge. He has stuffed his evil evil mother into a nursing home, and Bree, God Bless her everloving heart, decides to move Gloria Hodge in with them for a few weeks. Dixie Carter, formerly of Designing Women, (who recently spoke frankly on some entertainment show about her own many plastic surgeries) plays Orson's mother. She gets off a few great zingers like, "I should have smothered you in your crib when I had the chance." and "I gave you life. You know I won't hesitate to take it away."
But , as always, Andrew gets the best line and best delivery of the episode with, "So. Can we call her Grandma?"
Awesome. Finally, things are starting to heat up under Orson's feet so we will get to watch him dance.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
11-13-2006 @ 12:49AM
Courtney said...
Anyone else get the feeling that maybe Mike is conveniently faking his memory loss? When he came home from the hospital, he seemed to be wondering "What the hell did Edie do to my house?" And I think he is definitely upset about having to pretend he doesn't know Susan....
Crazy twist with Art. Poor Lynette can't catch a break. She was trying to show Parker that the world was safe, and she uses a pedophile to do it. As soon as I saw Parker wearing that cowboy hat and all the trains and games in that basement, I knew something was off.
I definitely felt the same way... mediocre episode until the end.
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11-13-2006 @ 3:09AM
grae said...
definitely one of the best episodes this season, last episode with the grocery store hold up was brilliant. yes this show did start slowly and until recently, been somewhat predictable, but last week and this week really got me excited.
didn't expect art to turn out so...evil! good twist. i just remember he's also a swim coach or something? i like how ordinary he seemed until this episode. that's how pedophiles are...we never realize who the bad guys are until they are right up next to you! neighbors!
i am not sure about mike's character...if there are really big plans for him to collide or remember orson, etc. hopefully so...i do like edie taking advantage of mike though, AHA!
mrs. mccluskey is such a fun character. i like her zinger line: "don't give a hoot if i get shot, do ya kid?" AAHAH!
i did enjoy gabie's storyline, how sad it is that she's now playing the mother model instead of the supermodel. a good lesson...and moment for her character.
one big thing left out from last week, was nora's kid girl...i thought she was going to get adopted by lynette's family? or she went into foster care and disappeared?
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11-13-2006 @ 4:01AM
tv junkie said...
to "grae", It was explained that Nora's daughter was staying with her grandma.
Now that they finally killed off the extremely annoying Nora, which had to be one of the writers' many mistakes from last season, why didn't they kill of another useless stupid character, Austin??? First of all, the dude that plays him is a god awful actor! i cant stand him! if i want a hunky teen in the show, i much prefer John the carpenter than Austin. while on the subject, why don't they kill of Julie as well. How stupid was she when she said that without Austin, she could have get killed in the market. Um, i remember the only reason that the crazy woman killed Nora was because she was trying to steal Lynette's husband. Julie was in no danger whatsoever! I think now that her weird romance with Zach Young is over, she's useless on the show now. kill Julie and Austin.
speaking of writers' mistakes from last season, remember Orson's visits to a woman in the Psychiatric Hospital? will she ever come into play this season? i remembered it was said that Orson visit that woman every often like every day or something, so now she's forgotten?
a little tidbit: Josh Henderson, the awful actor that plays Austin Brit, used to be on FX's "Over There". his co-star on that show, Luke MacFarlane, a much better actor is now playing Scotty on "Brothers & Sisters" which is just getter better and better each week.
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11-13-2006 @ 7:25AM
Murphy said...
We need more Andrew..STAT!
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11-13-2006 @ 9:33AM
Gordy said...
I can't wait until Bree finally unmasks Orson. You just know introducing mom to the fray was just a way for her to get to know the real man...and it worked. She's been deceived too many times. I hope they make her stronger this time around.
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11-13-2006 @ 10:00AM
Sean said...
Technically we don't know if Art is a pedophile. We know he likes pictures of young boy's with their shirts off, which is by no means a good sign, but we can't really be sure if he acts on those desires. If he does act on them, he is a dangerous and very bad man. However if pictures of boys in their swimming trunks is as far as it goes, he's just a very creepy neighbor.
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11-13-2006 @ 10:14AM
ann said...
It just cracks me up that Gabrielle is supposed to have been this fab fashion model - granted she is gorgeous but she is so tiny! At 5'2" I have a hard time believing that she was a high end fashion model on 36 covers. Petites? sure. Make-up? you bet. But even when her old friends visited a few seasons ago, they all stood over her about a foot.
I know: suspend disbelief! Don't flame me. It's just one of the quirks on the show that makes me snicker.
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11-13-2006 @ 11:02AM
Kristie said...
I don't understand why Lynette didn't call the police on her new neighbor. Yes, they were just pictures of kids without their shirts off, but they were still suspicious.
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11-13-2006 @ 11:16AM
Carl said...
"Technically we don't know if Art is a pedophile. We know he likes pictures of young boy's with their shirts off, which is by no means a good sign, but we can't really be sure if he acts on those desires. If he does act on them, he is a dangerous and very bad man. However if pictures of boys in their swimming trunks is as far as it goes, he's just a very creepy neighbor."
Would you let your kid hang out with him?
I didn't think so.
It is a little bit more than creepy.
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11-13-2006 @ 12:13PM
Marshall Maresca said...
"I don't understand why Lynette didn't call the police on her new neighbor. Yes, they were just pictures of kids without their shirts off, but they were still suspicious."
Two key reasons. One, she only saw them because she went into the house uninvited. It doesn't work very well if your call to the police includes the phrase, "When I broke into my neighbor's house..." Two, the Wall of Shirtless Boys, while creepy and suspicious, can also have a Perfectly Reasonable Explanation. Namely, the guy is a swim coach, and that wall COULD just be his "Proud Winners" display. At least, that's what he could tell the cops if they came. Calling the cops would be useless because it is all nothing but circumstantial evidence. Not that Lynette shouldn't be on her guard, right now she's got nothing.
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11-13-2006 @ 1:43PM
Aaren said...
I knew immediately when I was the basement with the pinball machines abnd train and everything that Lynette would find something like that creepy wall of little boys. Lynette didn't really break into the house, so I don't really think the police would be angry about it. And there is no way that he could explain that wall of pictures as his "Proud Winners" display, I mean there were a TON of pictures, and it some of them the little boys' faces look kind of frightened.
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11-13-2006 @ 1:56PM
Patti said...
Maybe the pedophile is Art's sister in the wheelchair? And yes, there are stairs going down to the basement, but perhaps, she doesn't really 'need' the wheelchair, it is a guise to get at the kids.
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11-25-2006 @ 5:39AM
CastingGod said...
For the life of me I can't remember Mike's wifes name. Zach's mother.Was it Monique?
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11-13-2006 @ 4:40PM
Blue Sam said...
I think that explain perfect since Art's t-shirt have P that hint as "pedophile". lol
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11-13-2006 @ 6:10PM
Jessyka said...
Did anybody think of Michael Jackson when Lynette went down into his Never-Never Land basement? I thought he played that superhero too well.
I also don't like Mike's character this season. He was hott when he was the sexy plumber who was madly in love with Susan, but it doesn't quite work the same way when he's the coma guy who can't remember anything and is letting the neighborhood slut take advantage of him. Leave it to Edi to place a skanky pic of her on Mike's mantle where a pic of Susan probably sat not long ago.
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11-13-2006 @ 7:29PM
e s said...
I really liked Desperate Housewives until last night. This pedophile storyline made me truly ill. I just think the show has more than enough gossip, intrigue and craziness to feel the need add such controversial and devastating a subject matter which a typical parent (I would hope!) would just as well not even think about when "escaping" with the latest soap opera episode. I spend enough time in the real world worrying about my child. I was a true fan, but I can't watch this show until that storyline is over, and I hope it ends with this guy being caught and punished the way such evil should be. Thanks...
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11-13-2006 @ 7:30PM
e s said...
I really liked Desperate Housewives until last night. This pedophile storyline made me truly ill. I just think the show has more than enough gossip, intrigue and craziness to feel the need add such controversial and devastating a subject matter which a typical parent (I would hope!) would just as well not even think about when "escaping" with the latest soap opera episode. I spend enough time in the real world worrying about my child. I was a true fan, but I can't watch this show until that storyline is over, and I hope it ends with this guy being caught and punished the way such evil should be. Thanks...
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11-13-2006 @ 8:48PM
Sean said...
Oh, be freaked out by Art, no question, and definitely keep young boys away from him. I was just pointing out that, while sexually molesting children is highly illegal and immoral, masturbating to pictures of boys from swim practice (as horrendously creepy as it is), and we've been given no indication so far that it's gone beyond that.
I just think it would be interesting if the guy with a secret lust for young boy's ends up being the one Wisteria Lane resident to not be guilty of a felony. Just seems more original.
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11-14-2006 @ 10:51AM
1b said...
How come Julie can have a hottie bf and Andrew's is nowhere to be seen? What happened to Andrew's antics?
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11-14-2006 @ 12:23AM
Nicki said...
e s, do you understand the point of the show at all? Since I cannot think of a single way to phrase this inoffensively, your reasoning is really stupid. Watching a tv show should not make you worry about your child any more or less, really. Then again, maybe it's your lack of coherency that's impeding my ability to understand your point but really, if you're going to be so petty as to allow the introdution of a storyline to deter your from a show because of some incomprehensible parenting excuse, that's really just your loss.
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