After a month-long hiatus, Desperate Housewives was back with a brand-new episode last night. Unfortunately, it was the very last episode that was filmed before the writers’ strike went into effect, which means that this could be the last one we see in a loooong time, especially as the two sides in the disagreement haven’t made any headway yet.
At any rate, the episode was called “Welcome to Kanagawa” (a title that made no sense to me), and dealt with the aftermath of the tornado that tore through Fairview and Wisteria Lane in 4×09. Here’s a quick look at what happened:
Lynette/Mrs. McCluskey: The entire Scavo clan survived, as Tom and the kids emerged within the first three minutes of the ep. Ida Greenberg, however, wasn’t as lucky. She was crushed under the rubble, and Parker later informed Lynette and Mrs. McCluskey that Ida died after first making sure that the children had a safe place to hide.
Lynette feels like she owes Ida something for that, so she ends up helping Mrs. McCluskey clean Ida’s house. While there, Lynette learns that Ida played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during World War II, and was quite a star in her day. Lynette obviously had no idea about this because she never bothered to get to know Ida at all.
Ida’s relatives come by to loot the house of all valuables and take her ashes back to Nebraska. But when Lynette learns that they’re not going to bother following through on Ida’s last wish to have her ashes scattered on a baseball field, she switches out the ashes for vacuum cleaner debris.
Later, Lynette and Mrs. McCluskey sneak onto the field to do right by Ida. The two women end up getting caught by the cops (and released with just a warning), and they bond in the process.
Bree/Orson/Susan: Bree and Orson have to move in with Susan and Julie while her house gets repaired. At first Susan and Julie are apprehensive because of Bree’s domineering personality, but after they experience the way she runs a household, they don’t want her to leave.
It looks like they’ll get their wish, as the contractor Bree hired decides to back out of the job at the last minute. Apparently, he just went through a devastating breakup, and can’t bear to work for the time being.
After learning that the guy is gay, however, Bree decides that her best shot of getting a new roof and windows is to set the contractor up on a date as soon as possible. So she pulls Andrew in to help. He agrees — in return for a 60″ flat-screen television.
Gabby/Carlos: Gabby attends Victor’s funeral, only to learn from his father that she’ll get nothing from Victor’s will. All of the Lang assets are in the father’s name, so Gabby has no right to any money at all.
She then goes to visit Carlos in the hospital, where he has bandages over his eyes but otherwise looks none the worse for wear. Gabby has to tell him that she lost the Cayman Island bank account papers that Al brought over before the tornado, which means that they have no way to access their offshore funds. In other words, they’re completely broke.
Gabby’s next visit is to Al’s house to see if he has copies of the paperwork. However, she learns that Al died in the tornado, and his widow shredded all documents pertaining to offshore banking in order to protect her husband’s name — so Gabby and Carlos really are screwed.
Later, we learn that Carlos has lost his sight, something that he hid from Gabby because he’s afraid she’ll leave him over it.
The Mayfairs: Adam leaves Katherine, but not before finding the note that her aunt wrote before she died. Apparently, the note reveals that Katherine was to blame for all of the troubles that caused her family to leave Fairview the first time around — not her husband as she has always claimed. Katherine tears the note up and tosses it into the fire. Of course, this being television, the fragments didn’t burn. Instead, Dylan finds a few pieces and is able to read enough to figure out what happened.
My Reaction: I have to admit that it was nice to have Desperate Housewives back again! I’ve really been missing all of my favorite TV shows recently, and enjoyed sitting down to watch this ep. What’s more, I actually liked it (for the most part).
I thought the scenes with Lynette and Karen McCluskey were very well done. I’m glad to see that Lynette is finally starting to look outside her family and her immediate circle of friends, and is being nice to other people. I hate selfish Lynette, so seeing her like this was a nice change of pace.
I also loved the Bree/Susan scenes. It was fun to see the contrast between Bree and Susan’s homemaking skills, and it was a nice touch to have Susan and Julie appreciate Bree’s contributions instead of being annoyed that she took over so quickly.
I’m still not interested in the Mayfair mystery, mostly because the writers have done nothing to whet our appetites for what’s going on. The key to having a good mystery is dropping a lot of timely clues that hint at the story but don’t give too much away. But the DH writers stopped giving clues a long time ago, and are just deliberately being evasive now. Shouldn’t we have gotten a peek at the charred remains of the note to see what was scrawled there? Come on!
I’m not too keen about Carlos being blind, but I think Gabby will surprise us all and stick with him. She’s not as shallow as she was in Season 1, so I don’t think she’s just going to ditch him.
Anyway, this was a strong episode that I really enjoyed. Too bad it could be the last one of the entire season!
It’s been quite some time since I’ve done a website review, so I thought I’d give you one this morning.