What I'm Watching: Desperate Housewives

Desperate Housewives: Season 7, Episode 4 “The Thing That Counts is What's Inside” (B)

I was impressed with how this season started off, but at this point I'm beginning to lament a few stalled plotlines that seem to be headed in extremely expected directions. I'm speaking mostly about Lynette and Susan, and a bit about Gaby as well. For possibly the first time in the show's history, Penny actually has lines, in the absence of her more big-mouthed brothers. Unfortunately, nothing she has to say is too interesting, and I would posit that Lynette has more than enough problems already without having to live through the embarrassment of having to go pick up her youngest child when the next oldest one takes her to school on the bus because she's out jogging. Susan's plotline is certainly more exciting, but having Mike (or whatever mystery man that was) discover her posters and rip them down just makes all of her hard work seems like it's all for nothing, and they'll eventually have to move back to Wisteria Lane anyway, otherwise their ties to the other housewives and families will wear and at some point before severed forever. Gaby's daughter being exactly like her is amusing, but I don't love the idea of her promising the young girl that she'll get all the expensive stuff she likes and deserves, because it inappropriately turns a comedic plotline into an unnecessarily dramatic one. Anything involving Paul and his skittish second wife already is serious enough, and the show's doing okay with just that as its dramatic backbone. Bree and Renee burying the hatchet is a nice turn of events, and hopefully Bree can find some happiness, if only briefly, with her new beau.