What I’m Watching: Desperate Housewives

Desperate Housewives: Season 7, Episode 9 “Pleasant Little Kingdom” (C+)

So now we have our first sense of what Paul has been planning all along, and it’s…weird. Putting up a halfway house for convicts and using the many houses he’s bought up as a way to get him votes to get it approved is a peculiar plan that seems almost too small in scale, though it does do justice to his idea of making everyone else feel just as unwelcome as he felt when he was ostracized from Wisteria Lane. What helps is that Mark Moses is a fantastic actor, and watching him delight as the rest of the parents fret does have some merits. Sparking the discussion about Tom’s manhood was somewhat interesting but also repetitive, since an attempt to praise Tom led once again to Lynette encouraging pity for herself. Gaby’s actions were particularly heinous and laughable, and this was in many ways a manipulative episode, since we’re supposed to see Gaby as a sort of heroine because she helped protect Carmen even though she was the one who called immigration on her in the first place. After seven years of growing, Gaby has instantly devolved to a selfish, greedy brat after wanting to get closer to her biological daughter. Bree’s situation feels somewhat irrelevant, since yet another marriage really isn’t a big deal. I had suspected that Keith’s father would have some role to play, and him constantly being in the way is just a nuisance, even more so for the plotline than for his proposing son.