Finishing Up The Season: Desperate Housewives

While I was away in Italy, I dropped this show from my weekly schedule. Realizing the finale was right around the corner, I hastily decided to watch the seven episodes I’d missed since the one hundredth episode with the guest turn by Beau Bridges as the handyman whose death impacted all of the housewives’ lives, even though the episode didn’t progress terribly much and it felt a lot like treading water. The second half of this season leading up to the finale didn’t accomplish a whole lot more. The best way to really see how this season fared is to ask the question the show itself posed with its five-year time jump at the conclusion of last year – are these characters any more interesting five years later?

Two of the main characters had remarkably different lives, while the other two hardly saw any true changes. Gaby was probably most changed at the start of the season, with two kids and some added baby weight. Carlos quickly regained his sight, however, and therefore this notion of Gaby having to compromise her lifestyle and subsist on minimal income was made ineffective, since we didn’t really get much of a chance to feel her burden. With Carlos’ eyes back in play, things immediately were back to normal, with Gaby showing her shallow side at almost every occasion, and even new directions, like her jealousy over Carlos’ robust underling and her coup at the gardening club, didn’t do much to enhance a shallow character who is still played fairly well by Eva Longoria, though the writing for her really has gone downhill. The same goes for Susan, whose comedic mishaps were sidelined to make room for dramatic tension with Mike, and the addition of Jackson, one of the most useless characters in television history, only made Susan seem more three-dimensional next to his transparent woodenness. The time jump made it so that little kids like MJ and Juanita were the focus instead of the far more intriguing older generation which included Julie, Danielle, Dylan, and Andrew. The Scavo twins do not count, because they’re younger and also infinitely boring. Lacking those crucial child elements (Andrea Bowen as Julie was one of the best parts of season one, now she’s relegated to a one-episode guest appearance) clearly hurt this season.

Bree and Lynette, despite the appearance of new arcs, very much led the same lives and faced the same problems. Bree is still a stuck-up perfectionist housewife constantly being sabotaged by members of her family. I was especially disappointed with the way Orson’s character went, since Kyle Maclachlan is such a talented actor and having Orson as a nice, friendly, good guy was a real boon for the show. Unfortunately, now he steals trinkets and acts disturbingly possessively. Bree’s character didn’t grow one bit, and it’s only in the final episode that anything was actually accomplished that could have some lasting meaning for her character (more on that later). Lynette, similarly, didn’t have anything new happen to her. While plotlines like Lynette going to work with Carlos and hopping on a Facebook clone to pose as her son’s girlfriend might seem fresh, they’re simply rehashes of earlier stories the show explored. Lynette’s trip to the doctor in the finale meant one of two very bad things for her character’s going-nowhere story – either she had cancer again or she was pregnant again. The latter is unlikely to be pleasant in season six, especially because no one in Lynette’s circle was ever really happy this season. It’s a shame, considering that Tom wasn’t always a sad sack, and he in fact used to be a terrific character. The fifth housewife, Katharine, managed to do pretty well for herself sticking around, especially since she likely could have been dismissed like Alfre Woodard at the end of her yearlong role as the center of the mystery. She didn’t have to much to do besides fall in love with Mike, but hopefully she’ll have a renewed purpose in the next season. I do hope that Mike is marrying her, because he really needs to get off the ground and have his character accomplish something.

Then there’s the real star of this season, who managed to out-act every single player on this show and keep an occasionally less-than-engaging mystery going for the entire season. Neal McDonough, whose turn on 2002’s NBC series “Boomtown” should convince anyone that this man is a superb actor, carried this entire season as the suspicious Dave Williams. He was the source of any new directions or plotlines, be it with his much-postponed camping trip or the delightful guest appearance(s) by Lily Tomlin. The plot did take the whole season to materialize, but it provided a decent end for Edie, as well as a way to make her relevant for her final days on the series. Compared to previous mysteries, figuring out what Dave was doing was actual pretty easy (Mike was clearly his target early on), but knowing that he was the father and husband of the people who Mike and Susan killed was a bit of a surprise. Dave finding out at the last minute that Susan was the driver and not Mike was far too reminiscent of the Edie-Mrs. Huber confusion in season one. The whole plot was a decent effort, but the show still has trouble balancing its status as a dramedy. One place in which the show excelled in that department, however, is the return of Richard Burgi as Carl, Susan’s first husband. He is delightfully sleazy, and may be the only person to actually ever change Bree. We’ll see in the next season, which I would consider not watching, but I had a feeling I’ll probably end up checking back in, even if it’s not right at the beginning.

Season finale: C
Season grade: C-
Season MVP: Neal McDonough