Appropriately enough, Mary Alice's voiceover this week is about humiliation. Who's getting humiliated? Everybody. Everybody on the show, but also you and me.
From the top, we got Gabby trying to shove Bob in the gay box so they can plan weddings together and watch movies about Kim Cattrall's vagina together and put on makeup together and all that stuff gay guys like. But then it turns out that he is a human being, not a horrible stereotype, which pisses Gabby off, because she has no idea what it's like to be treated like an object. But then Carlos decides he wants to be Bob's friend, so they act like normal human beings together for a few days and then Lee convinces Gabby that Bob and Carlos are going to do it, gaywise. Given that Bob and Carlos are the two hottest guys on the show, it's a compelling thought.
After she's insulted everyone involved way past the point of ever retaining their friendship, Gabby makes "amends" by matchmaking the two gay guys she knows, so now Lee and Bob are back together like a Birkin bag and a matching pair of Jimmy fuckin' Choos. Whatever it takes to make the straight girl happy, that's what gay guys are willing to do. Also, in this madhouse of a cartoon universe, more than happy to explain the ins and outs and ups and downs and tops and bottoms and versatiles of their own personal sexual preferences to anybody they know, because this show is gross.
most offensive is Bree's obnoxious plot, wherein she gets a hot flash and realizes she's going through menopause, and that because the only thing worse than a woman is an old woman, she must keep this secret from Brian Austin Green at all costs. She goes to a OB-GYN who specializing in lying old bitches, but then the doctor turns out to be Keith's mother, who is also going through The Change. Mom gets drunk and harasses Bree until she admits about her shameful womanly secret. BAG is not bothered by her advanced age, but is turned off when she says she's not even interested in adopting. "My first kid was a homicidal homosexual and my other one is epic trash. I'm done."
Keith is like, "Andrew's gay? Have you introduced him to other gay people you know? With which sexual roles is he most comfortable? Do you know if he shaves his privates?" You know, all the stuff you're dying to know about the gay folks of your acquaintance. Keith is taken aback by the idea that she doesn't want kids, but recovers quickly into a sort of insanely desperate wigout about how it's too early to be talking about kids right now anyway, so they should continue in their futile relationship until A) he finds a working uterus or B) Bree finally dies of being an old bag of bones.
Renee and Lynette decide to start an interior design business, but since Renee doesn't allow children into her home, they hire pathetic Susan to be Paige's nanny. Of course, Susan assumes they want her to be a part of their pretend business, so she's really offended but forced to go along with the nanny plan. Lynette is clueless about it, Renee is openly mean about it, and eventually Susan shows some actual dignity by explaining why this situation is a terrible idea. Then they decide to keep going with the terrible idea, but just to be drunk with it. Also, Tom is diagnosed as a two-beer queer.
On the Beth/Paul front, things get great. He moves his old cellmate into the old Young house, for nefarious purpose, and when Paul won't explain his evil scheme, Beth goes and asks the cellmate to bust up her chiffarobe. Soon enough, she's blackmailed him into explaining whatever the plan is. Then she has a lot of creepy/awesome sex with Paul Young, who is excited that she's into vengeance and doing terrible things to the women of Wisteria Lane. His needs are pretty simple. He just wants a woman that wears crazy costumes all the time (check), is clearly nuttier than he is (check), and will help him murder everybody (check). The only downside: She's Felicia's daughter, and the whole thing is a setup from inside jail on account of how Paul killed Felicia's sister and broke her neck and caused her to cut off her own fingers or whatever happened with all that. I hope Paul and Beth have a baby before all is said and done, because man, do they come from some stable families.
week: Carlos turns gay anyway, Gabrielle saves Grace's family from being deported back to East LA, Bree's face twanging back into position blinds Keith in one eye, Bob and Lee disappear from this disgusting neighborhood and are never heard from again, Beth and Paul experiment with breath play, and Susan accidentally sells Lynette's baby for some magic beans.
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Humiliation. It's not something I'm really into, which makes talking about this episode difficult. But unfortunately, sometimes you do for money what you would not do for love, like watch this show. This show where Bree is dressed like Boof from Teen Wolf, rollerblading and having a hot flash because menopause is the death all women fear. Even Samantha lost something when she got the menopause, and then the thing you know she had to have chemotherapy. So, you know, it's a slippery slope.
Five-foot, 11-inch Brian Austin Green was born the 15th of July, in 1973. Making him, roughly, old. Marcia Cross, on the other hand, was a vibrant 48 on her last birthday, March 25. I won't say that she hasn't had some work done, because she has had too much work done, but when you're on a cast with Teri Hatcher, it's like standing in the tracks of a brontosaurus on the bottom of a now-dry river. Your sense of scope is all off and fucked. It's how they made the Hobbits look like Hobbits. Just over eleven years' age difference.
So this hot flash is of such power that it knocks her ass sideways and she falls down on her rollerblades (rollerblades) and into the bushes like she's Susan Delfino, and he's like, "Is this because we're having dinner with my parents?" And she's like, "No, it's just really hot!" And even though his mother is going through the Change, and at 48 Bree should probably know what is going on, too, this episode is so fucking stupid in every way that they both think maybe she's dying. Then she pitches sideways again on the pavement, and because she's so old and decrepit and worthless, her hot young boyfriend, who is less than 12 years younger than her and looking every bit his 37 years of age, that guy? He hits the fucking bricks, assuming she is dead.
The paramedic lady stares at them for awhile, trying to figure out if they're retarded or lying or what is going on, and finally points out that clearly Bree is entering menopause, which is something that happens to everyone and thus doesn't actually mean anything about you or say anything about Bree's character heretofore, but because she's already been married twice and done both the widow story and the wheelchair story, for her new man she needs somebody young that she doesn't actually respect. And since a woman can't want sex -- especially a woman over a certain age -- without being made fun of, this story is suddenly about Bree's vanity. Not the stretched monster mask that was once her beautiful face, no: The screeching impossibility that either of them have ever heard of menopause or what it means.
It was Martha that blackmailed his wife and Felicia that cut off her fingers and soaped his steps and tried to have him gassed, right? It was Mike that put him in the trunk that time, but he got him back for that during the amnesia. Susan mailed poor Zach to Abu Dhabi, but that worked out okay, and now he's a bajillionaire. Who's left for him to hate? McCluskey, because she fucks with everybody all the time. Gabrielle and Carlos, for that time with Zach's giant penis. If he's pissed at Alfre Woodard's family or those eco-terrorists, he is SOL. We are never going to see those freaks again. Bree, probably she did something to him at some point. Maybe he's mad at one of the Flippers? But if so they deserve a high five from both me and Derek. Maybe he's mad at Mary Alice's voice and that carpentry Derek's doing is some kind of device to shut her the hell up.
Beth is like, "Paul, I totally understand vengeance. Completely. And totally. I mean, I really get what a person would do, to get vengeance. Like, revenge is something I understand on a deep and personal level. There's no telling what I would do, to get revenge and vengeance on someone who had done me wrong. Or somebody in my family. Like my aunt, for blackmailing their wife into suicide after she stabbed a heroin addict. Or like my mom, for cutting off their own... But perhaps I've said too much."
Because Paul is, this week, as stupid as we're supposed to be, he's like, "No, I have no idea where you were going with that. But somebody who dresses like a child's idea of sex at the circus and will cut right to second without even dropping my jeans, while talking endlessly about revenge? That is the perfect wife. Are you sure your first name isn't Lady Mac?"
Bree's hanging out on her stairs when Keith gets to her house. He got there really fast on his rollerblades; Bree just can't quite make it up the stairs due to her wheezing and need for dialysis and a pelvic floor readjustment. Bree explains to him that they have to break up for no reason, and he says they don't -- also for no reason -- and she explains that she doesn't want to have kids, even if her shattered-glass aquarium of a womb were capable of hosting life and not just endless whispering death.
"I've had gay babies and I've had whore babies. I've had pretend babies that were really just couch cushions. I was married to a big fucking baby named Orson Hodge and it drove me to drink. I'm fucking a 37-year-old man right now, which is practically a baby by comparison. You are 17 years younger than me. That makes you... 55 years of age. I'm sorry, but you've got way too much living ahead of you. Just leave. I'll eventually make it upstairs, to die alone in my best quilted housecoat."