After one week off, Desperate Housewives was back with an all-new episode last night. It was called “A Distant Past”, and mostly dealt with Mike’s addiction, Gabby and Carlos’ saga with Victor, and Lynette’s search for Stella. There seemed to be a lot going on in the hour, but none of the major plotlines actually moved forward very much, so I would consider this to be a filler ep more than anything else. Here’s what happened:

Gabby/Carlos/Victor: Victor’s office reported him missing, so the cops come to ask Gabby some questions. She plays dumb until they leave. She then immediately calls Carlos and tells him their best move would be to keep quiet. Carlos disagrees, thinking that someone’s eventually going to figure out that he and Gabby were on the boat with Victor. They knocked him overboard in self-defense, so if they come clean now, maybe the cops will believe the story.

The debate ends up being moot because a couple of fishermen find Victor’s body. He was unconscious, but stable. Gabby and the cops go to see Victor in the hospital, where he pretends not to remember anything about his ordeal. After the detectives leave, however, he grabs Gabby’s face and says (in his most ominous voice), “I remember everything.”

Lynette/Stella: Lynette hasn’t had any luck tracking Stella down since she took off in a taxi. Then she gets a visit from someone she hasn’t seen in more than 30 years: her stepfather Glen. Glen says that Stella called him to borrow some money, and since she also said she’d been sleeping in a car, Glen figured Lynette would want to know about it.

So the two of them go to meet Stella, and after Stella’s initial anger subsides, everyone starts talking. It turns out that Glen didn’t leave Stella because she was cheating; he left her because he realized he was gay.

Lynette and Stella then hash things out and realize that they’ve been getting along better than they ever have before. Lynette invites Stella to move back in, but Stella doesn’t want to ruin their current relationship. So Glen pipes in and says Stella can live with him. His longtime partner died, and he’s been feeling a little lonely lately. He and Stella always had a great time together, so why not? Stella agrees, and everyone’s happy for the time being.

Mike/Susan: Mike owes money to his drug dealer Barrett, a college kid who’s studying to be a doctor. Barrett actually shows up at Susan’s house to collect, at which point Susan cluelessly works on setting him up with Julie. The next day, Barrett comes by again to take Julie to visit his campus. Mike flips when he sees Barrett cozying up to Julie, so he comes clean and tells Susan that the kid is a drug dealer.

With that drug pipeline cut off, Mike ends up getting a prescription from Orson — after Adam Mayfair leaned on him due to pressure from Mike. Later, Susan sees Mike sneaking some pills in his truck, even though he swore to her that he was done.

Bree/Orson/Andrew: The baby is causing a strain in Bree and Orson’s marriage because Bree insists on letting him sleep in the “family bed”. This prevents Orson from getting sleep and getting sex, so he’s on edge. Bree decides to visit Orson at the office for a quickie, which seems to appease him for the time being.

Meanwhile, Andrew can tell that he doesn’t fit in at home anymore. Bree and Orson have their marriage to worry about, and now the new baby to look after, so Andrew is the last thing on their minds. Furthermore, Bree constantly refers to Andrew as an example of her parenting mistakes, and says that her family consists of three people — leaving both Andrew and Danielle out of the equation entirely.

So Andrew decides to move out on his own. He takes a crappy apartment in a bad neighborhood, and tells Bree that he doesn’t need any more help from her. Later, Bree visits and they finally get a chance to talk. Andrew says everything in the past is forgiven, and that he’s ready to move on.

Adam Mayfair: Lydia, a woman from Adam’s past, suddenly shows up at his door. From their short conversation, we get the idea that Lydia is some kind of mentally unbalanced stalker that Adam wants to hide from Katherine. Adam tells Lydia to get out and never come back, but later we see her lurking beside the garage, watching him.

My Reaction: As I said, I thought this episode was mostly filler. I’m glad Victor’s body surfaced so quickly because the last thing I want is for that miserable storyline to get dragged out any longer than necessary. I’m glad he’s not dead so we don’t have to deal with Gabby and Carlos being murderers, but at the same time, I just want the character to be gone. But I guess we have to go through some blackmail/revenge storyline first. Whatever.

Mike’s drug addiction storyline is also boring as hell. I mean, at this point he’s just doing the same thing every single week: telling Susan that he quit, sneaking off to pop pills somewhere else, and being dumb enough to do it where Susan can see him. Yawn.

I was completely unspoiled for this ep, so I didn’t know that Richard Chamberlain would be guest starring! I loved him as Father Ralph on The Thorn Birds ages and ages ago, and thought he was fun as Glen. Let’s hope this is a recurring role, because I wouldn’t mind if he stuck around for a while.

I don’t really have anything else to say about this episode. It was pretty boring on the whole, and didn’t answer any major questions. I wish I could say that I’m intrigued by the new stalker, but I’m not. How many different Mayfair mysteries are we supposed to have going on at one time here???

Tornado next week — I can’t wait!!