What I’m Watching: Desperate Housewives

Desperate Housewives: Season 7, Episode 17 “Everything’s Different, Nothing’s Changed” (C+)

It’s equally intriguing and irritating to me that this show continues to resort back to age-old plotlines when it needs to fill some sort of void in the action for one or more of the characters. This episode invokes Andrew, Tom’s career, and Felicia Tillman all in one, to various degrees of effectiveness. Andrew’s reappearance and split from his boyfriend seems completely random since we had all but forgotten about him, and his references to his childhood and Bree’s mistreatment feel quite dated given the fact that they buried the hatchet and got back on good terms a few seasons back. Additionally, wasn’t Bree more than eager to give Susan a kidney, and shouldn’t that have been something she should bring up when it seemed that Beth wouldn’t be the donor for which Susan had been hoping? Paul coming to terms with Susan taking Beth’s kidney was a nice development, and it’s therefore frustrating to me to see that Felicia still harbors ill will against him and that her display of emotion may have actually just been a ruse to get released from jail. This reassertion of the business relationship between Carlos and Tom feels like it comes from out of nowhere, and we’ve seen this manipulation of Tom by Lynette before, almost exactly like this. Unless I’m mistaken, didn’t season one end with Tom telling Lynette she had to go back to work because she had interfered and tried to accept a promotion on his behalf? I didn’t buy this reiteration of that plotline at all, and I think that Gaby’s life of lavishness has been diagnosed so much as overcompensation that we don’t need that to apply to Renee too.