Sunday night’s episode of Desperate Housewives was called “Gossip” and dealt mostly with the various ways that neighborhood gossip interferes with people’s lives. We got lots of interaction between the wives (which is always a good thing), plus a nice mention of Bree. Anyway, here’s a more detailed look at what happened in episode 3×20.

Lynette/Tom: Tom is becoming more mobile after six weeks of bed rest, so one night he surprises Lynette at the pizza joint — just as she and Rick were about to head out to a restaurant event together. Lynette pulls herself together quickly and doesn’t let on that she’s disappointed to see her family, but Kayla sees her talking to Rick and gets the feeling that something’s up between those two.

She opens her big mouth to Tom, saying that she thinks Lynette “likes” Rick. No, likes likes him, ya know? So Tom puts the feelers out there and tells Lynette that he thinks it’s time for him to get back to the restaurant. That way, they’ll be able to cut Rick loose and enjoy more of the profits for themselves. Lynette skirts around the issue, saying Tom needs to rest some more so he doesn’t injure himself again. Plus, why would they fire Rick when he’s the one that’s responsible for their new-and-improved menu in the first place? At that point, Tom realizes that Lynette is acting strange and that maybe he has something to worry about after all.

Susan/Ian/Mike: Both Ian and Mike continue to try to get back with Susan, but she refuses to see either one of them. The strain of her personal life is causing her to stress out over little things, and she flips out on a guy in a mall parking lot. She ends up assaulting him, then has to go to court-ordered therapy.

While in therapy, Susan decides that she really does love Ian and that she wants to marry him. She goes and breaks the news to Mike first, then calls Ian to celebrate. Just before they head upstairs, Susan checks her phone messages and hears one from Mike (he’s congratulating the couple and telling them he’ll stay out of their way). She listens to it again, not knowing that Ian is standing behind her. At that point, Ian knows for sure that Susan will never be his, so he breaks up with her.

Later on, Susan hears from a neighbor that Mike packed up his truck and moved away — all without stopping to say goodbye to her.

Gabby/Carlos/Edie: Gabby has an engagement party to celebrate her upcoming nuptials with Victor, but Edie ruins her night by admitting that she and Carlos have been seeing each other for a while. Gabby is outraged, and tries to get Lynette and Susan to join her in dissing Edie. They reluctantly agree, but Edie gets the last laugh by asking Lynette to cater Travers’s birthday party and asking Susan to do a book signing at the party.

Gabby ends up making a scene at the party, at which point Carlos physically hauls her off to have a chat with her. He wants to know what her problem is, since she’s the one who demanded a divorce in the first place. He’s free to date whomever she wants, and Gabby’s engagement should mean that she doesn’t care what Carlos does. Gabby finally relents, but only because she can see that Carlos is still in love with her.

Mrs. McCluskey: As expected, it’s revealed that Mrs. McCluskey didn’t actually kill her husband before putting him in the freezer. He died of natural causes, but since he didn’t change the beneficiary on his pension plan, his first wife stood to get everything and Karen was about to lose it all. So she decided to put him in the freezer, not report his death, and keep cashing his pension checks.

My Reaction: While this wasn’t a great episode, I did enjoy it very much. There were even a few laugh-out-loud moments along the way, like when Lynette and Susan were crawling around on the ground trying to hide from Gabby or when Susan attacked the guy in the parking lot. This felt like a fun episode again, and that’s really what Desperate Housewives should be. Here’s hoping this trend continues next week!

Sunday night’s episode of The Sopranos was called “Chasing It” and dealt almost exclusively with Tony’s escalating gambling losses, along with the ensuing tension caused by his mounting debts. Here’s a quick recap of what happened in episode number 6×16.

From the last episode, we know that Tony borrowed $200,000 from his good friend Hesh to cover some of his gambling losses. Well, in this episode, we see Tony consistently making terrible bets — and losing big. For instance, after hitting a number straight-up in roulette, he lets the $18,000 ride on the very same number and loses. After winning at blackjack, he puts $100k on a horse race just because the horse’s name is Meadow-something.

All of his losses cause Tony to become anxious and pissed off with everyone he deals with. He gripes about having to pay Hesh back, and can’t pass over the $3,000/wk vig without making biting comments as well. He gets into a huge fight with Carm when she doesn’t want to put money from her first commission on a “sure thing” football game. And he snaps at his crew because they’re not earning what they should be.

Aside from the gambling, Tony has to deal with other nagging problems in this episode as well. For instance, Vito Spatafore’s wife comes to him complaining that Vito Jr. is acting up in school, and she asks Tony for $100,000 so the family can relocate to Maine. Tony is livid that she’s placing the burden on him, especially since Phil Leotardo caused the problem in the first place and Phil’s her cousin. In the end, Tony offers up $18,000 to send Vito Jr. away to a camp in Idaho for troubled teens.

Other things that happened: AJ proposed to his girlfriend Blanca. She was hesitant at first, but AJ told her that he loves her and is willing to work hard to support her and Hector (her son). She then agrees, but later changes her mind again and ends up breaking up with AJ.

Hesh’s girlfriend Renatta was found dead in bed one morning, and the writers didn’t make it very clear what happened to her. She could have just died in her sleep, or Tony could have had her clipped because he didn’t like the way Hesh was acting about the big debt. Either way, Tony shows up at Hesh’s house and pays off the $200k in full the same morning that Renatta died.

My Reaction: I had mixed feelings about this episode. First of all, I have no idea where Tony’s huge gambling problem is coming from. It’s like the writers just decided to pull this whole storyline out of a hat and make it loom large for a while. I mean, I know Tony’s a mobster and a big part of his business is taking in sports bets, so he’s obviously been around that kind of action for his whole career. But no one has ever dropped so much as a tiny hint that Tony had any kind of gambling problem, so I’m calling b.s. on the whole thing.

Usually I feel bad for Carmela for the way Tony treats her, but in this episode she showed just how selfish she can be as well. Wasn’t Tony the one who gave her the money to get started with the whole realtor business? And now when she finally turns a profit she doesn’t want to share with him? Um, okaaay.

And poor AJ. I never really liked him before, but he seems to have sincerely changed his ways for Blanca. So I felt bad for him when Blanca dumped him so unceremoniously.

Just a handful of Sopranos episodes left. I can’t wait to see how this series ends!

Last night HBO treated viewers to yet another new Entourage episode. It was number 3×16 and was called “Gotcha!” In this ep it seemed that Ari, Drama, and Turtle got more screen time than Vince and E, which was actually a nice change — especially since there’s not much going on in Vince’s career right now. Anyway, here’s a closer look at what happened:

Ari/Mrs. Ari: I just realized that Ari’s wife has no name! I went to look it up on IMDB.com for this recap, and saw that she’s listed simply as “Mrs. Ari.” Strange, huh? Anyway, these two spent the ep entertaining an old frat buddy of Ari’s. They hadn’t seen the guy in 10 years, and back then he was a loud, obnoxious loser who was bartending at Hooters and didn’t have a decent future ahead of him. Plus, he always made lewd comments about Mrs. Ari, which Ari found hilarious, but she didn’t.

Anyway, when the guy arrives, he’s got a hot young fiancée who looks even better than Mrs. Ari. The Golds can’t believe what’s going on, and after repeated questioning, the frat brother finally explains himself: he was one of the early investors in Stamps.com and when he sold his share, he got $65 million. Ari, despite laughing about how absurd the whole thing sounds, becomes insanely jealous and spends the rest of the ep making an ass of himself.

Drama/Turtle: Turtle tells Drama that Pauly Shore is doing a Punk’d style show and wants Drama to be the first victim for the pilot episode. Drama hates Pauly Shore, but the thought of being in a pilot is too tempting to pass up, so he agrees. Since Turtle already explained to him that there would be hidden cameras around, all Drama has to do is “act surprised” and everything will be ok.

Those two head out to the scene of the supposed punking and get into a confrontation in the parking lot as some guy tries to pull into the same space. Drama thinks this is the punk, so he gets out and acts tough even though the other driver is an Ultimate Fighting champion. Turtle tries to tell Johnny that’s not the punk, but Johnny is past the point of no return. The fighter threatens to kick his ass later on (he can’t do it now because his daughter is in the car).

Drama spends the rest of the ep worrying about having this ultimate fighter after him, but Turtle comes up with a way to earn the guy’s forgiveness. All the have to do is show up at the fighter’s charity event, make a donation, and apologize. They go there, and the guy calls Drama into the ring where he tells him he has two choices: either get down on his knees and beg for forgiveness in front of everyone or start fighting. Just as Drama drops to his knees, they reveal that this is the punk after all.

Vince/Amanda/E: E figures out that Vince and Amanda slept together, and he thinks it’s a huge mistake. Vince doesn’t agree, however, and it’s clear that he and Amanda actually like each other as more than just business associates. The ep didn’t really pursue this avenue very far, but I’m sure this storyline won’t just go away. Could this be how Vince eventually finds his way back to Ari??

My Reaction: This was pretty much a throwaway episode with filler content, but like I said above, it was fun to see some of the other characters take center stage for awhile. Plus, anything that keeps E off my screen is fine with me! Oh, yeah — did you see that shot of a shirtless Jeremy Piven?? OMG, he’s got some abs!!!