By Evany
George sets himself up with a rolling, amplified karaoke machine and starts singing a medley of apology songs out in front of Bree's house. Bree, who's throwing a dinner party for a bunch of people I've never seen before, is understandably saddened by this interruption, so she does what any hostess worth her organic sea salt would do: she dismantles George's singing machine with one blast from her shotgun. But George doesn't give up! He keeps "Operation 'I'm So Sorry'" in gear by...riding his bike up and down in front of Bree's house, an approach which doesn't work with seventh-graders, let alone Bree. Later, Bree visits Dr. Goldfine in the hospital. The doctor's fall from the OVERPASS may have broken many bones, but it hasn't broken his spirit: the fine doctor is convinced that his attack was a random act of violence, and that the person who tried to kill him was deluded and not at all trying to target Dr. Goldfine. But when Dr. Goldfine makes an offhand comment about the attacker's blue bicycle, a look of fear and deep revulsion crosses Bree's face. She's seen that bicyle! Cut to George's house being searched by the police. George runs away before the police can catch him, and he gets a room in the hotel that just happens to be hosting an event that Bree is chairing. George has an elevator man hand Bree a note, in which he pleads with her to come visit him in his room for one final goodbye (re: the many pills he's just ingested). Bree calls the police, but before she can report this latest George development, the police tell her that their search of George's house has revealed evidence that George killed Rex! This news throws Bree into a K-hole of grief. Weeping, and looking very pretty in a plunging white Marilyn dress, Bree goes up to George's room and essentially does nothing as George quietly overdoses. Meanwhile: Susan tries to get closer to her bio-dad (Addison Prudy) by, surprise, applying for a job at his store. But when he misinterprets a weird comment she makes about the loveliness of his eyes as "flirting," he tries to give her the boot, convinced that his suspicious wife has hired Susan as a plant to try to tempt him into infidelity. The grossness of the situation freaks Susan into blurting out that she's his daughter, which promptly gives him a heart attack. Later, at the hospital, he tells her he doesn't want her in his life because his marriage can't handle the strain of the sudden appearance of his love-child. But Susan doesn't give up! When Mrs. Prudy arrives, Susan gives her a cover story about being Mr. Prudy's guardian angel. And as Susan goes to leave, she hugs Mr. Prudy and whispers that she's going to keep trying to forge some kind of relationship with him. Lynette catches Bossy Boobs having sexual relations with Receptionist Stu. She uses the knowledge to blackmail Bossy into being "nicer," but instead Bossy just fires Stu. Lynette gets in touch with Stu and somewhat accidentally informs him of his legal rights as a sexual harass-ee. Stu files a lawsuit against Lynette's firm, and the settlement is so fat that the head of the company has to fire pretty much everyone...except Lynette, who now has Bossy's old job. In Bossy's parting words to Lynette, she gloats over the long, long, long hours Lynette will be logging from here on in, which seems to bode not at all well on the "seeing the family ever again" front for Lynette. Carlos gets out of jail early, thanks to some lobbying from a group of prisoner-helping Catholics. In the process, though, Carlos appears to have got himself some religion, and now he's praying all the time, going to church, and fraternizing with a somewhat attractive nun. Gabby's alarm bells start a-ringing, and she tries to send "Sister Mary Hotpants" packing, but the good sister is here to stay...until the episode, at least.
Previouslies: Susan had a dad, Lynette got hired by a man named Ed (the boss of Bossy Boobs), Carlos promised to change his ways, and Bree dumped George.
MAVO: "Anyone who'd ever been to a party at Bree Van de Kamp's thought of her as the perfect hostess, because Bree knew how to take care of her guests." Over a flashback of dinner parties, we see a parade of people I don't recognize having a ball at Bree's dinner table. MAVO: "Her dinners all were served promptly, her liquor always flowed freely, and her anecdotes were always enjoyable." Though I'm not entirely convinced about the "enjoyable anecdotes" part: certainly the sausage dinner (where Bree blurted to her son and the minister that Rex was into S&M) was a shade uncomfortable, as was the famous "Rex cries after he ejaculates" dinner party.
In any case, back in the now, Bree is serving coffee at the end of one of her triumphant dinner parties, and she is looking fabulous in pearls and a coral, fitted, lacy cocktail dress with spaghetti straps. MAVO: "But on this night, the perfect hostess was about to find herself in a very imperfect predicament." A woman -- who (like all the other guests at this dinner) I don't remember ever seeing before -- shushes the table and tells everyone that she hears strange music. Bree puts down the coffee pot and heads over to the window to check it out and...uh oh. It's George, out on the lawn, standing in that particular wide-legged musical-theater stance, and singing "Don't Give Up On Us, Baby" into a microphone. Apparently, George has some kind of karaoke rig linked up to a huge speaker propped on a van behind him. Bree's face screws up in fury...
...and then Bree turns and smiles at her dinner guests and excuses herself as she dashes outside to confront George. George, still amplified: "We had a tiff, I upset you, now I'm just trying to make things right again!" Bree: "It was not a tiff. We broke up. It's over." George, singing again: "We can still pull throughhhhh!" Ha. Bree threatens to call the police and stomps back inside, and George yells that if she calls the police, he's going to come right back and start singing again because he wants her to hear the "whole medley." Uh oh. Inside, all of Bree's guests are up form the table, standing in the foyer and looking at Bree inquisitively. Bree shoos them back to the table with a promise that "dessert is about to be served." Her guests heading back to the table, Bree lurches upstairs, pulls a gun case out from under her bed, feeds a bullet in to the shotgun and then loads the chamber with one hand. Hot! Outside, George is singing, "I really lost my head last night, you got a right -- " but just then Bree leans out the upstairs window and shoots George's speaker into oblivion. George, who clearly isn't sure if the bullet was meant for him or the speaker, looks up at Bree in hurt confusion, but Bree smiles back at him with satisfaction. MAVO: "Yes, Bree knew how to take care of her guests, especially those who weren't invited." And roll the truncated credits!
We see two boys with guns stalking each other around some flora in someone's yard on Wisteria Lane. One of the boys is wearing a black hat, one white. MAVO (yes, more MAVO): "Good guys where white hats, and bad guys wear black. This is how children distinguish between good and evil." The boys fire their cap guns at each other, and Black Hat falls to the grass, slo-mo style. MAVO: "But they soon learn that bad guys don't always look so bad." Up rolls George in his helmet on his big blue bicycle. The twisted pharmacist smiles and waves at the boys, and the boys smile and wave back. MAVO: "In fact, sometimes they even seem downright friendly. That is...until you get to know them a little bit better." George pulls up at Bree's car just as she's getting in. George pulls a "fancy seeing you here," but Bree totally calls him on it: "Don't lie to me, George, you've been riding up and down this street for the last hour." Didn't The 40-Year-Old Virgin race around on a big-boy bike just like this? And, really, there's something particularly emasculating about that helmet on George -- it's like the second he put it on his penis melted into a Ken nub. Not that I thought he had a penis before! But, well...now he doubly doesn't have one. George tells Bree that riding around on his penis-remover is a last resort, what with Bree refusing to return any of his calls. Bree: "So stalking me is Plan B?" Bree gets in the car and slams the door, and George sweatily pushes his bike over to her open window. George, desperately, weepily: "Bree, I know I messed up, I know I've got some...issues to work on. But I'd be willing to see a therapist if that's what you want, I'll do anything, but how can I show you that I can change if you don't give me a second chance?" Oh, but Georgedidsee a therapist, and then he tossed him off an OVERPASS. George, still pleading, tells Bree she knows he's not a bad person. Bree: "I do know that. But I'm just not sure you're a good one, either." Oh, I'm pretty sure George is bad, bad person. Just ask Dr. Goldfine! And with that, Bree peels right on out of there, leaving a deflated-looking George in the middle of the street with his bicycle.
Lynette is at work, pitching a poster covered in running panthers for some company called "Hinterland," and babbling that they "integrated the corporate logo into the jungle background, creating not only an ad for the clothing, but for the company itself." She smiles proudly at the assembled group of suits, and Ed (remember, he's the guy who hired Lynette) says, "I don't get it." Lynette, clearly thrown, asks Ed to clarify what it is that he's not getting, and he tells her, "The whole idea just kind of makes my head hurt." While Ed lets this drop, Bossy Boobs is sitting to him, smiling to herself. Ed asks if he's alone on this, and Bossy agrees with him that Lynette's pitch "stinks." Ed tells everyone that it's "back to the drawing board" and then takes off, mentioning his "tickets to a game." On his way out, Ed mutters to Bossy that she has to do whatever she has to do to keep the campaign afloat.
As soon as Ed leaves, Bossy announces that it's going to be another late night, and then sarcastically adds, "Nice work, everybody, thank you." Lynette, massaging her neck: "Can you can the attitude, Nina?" Bossy: "I'm sorry, what did you just say?" For some reason, all the other people in the meeting -- Lynette's team, I guess -- stand up, so now everyone's standing there, looking awkward, as Lynette says: "You're being rude. And it's totally out of line. You know how hard we worked on this...I think I speak for everyone here when I say we are sick and tired of your abuse. Frankly, you owe us an apology." Nina, in a manipulatively semi-sincere way, asks everyone, "Is this true? I mean I would be mortified if I thought I'd hurt any of you. If anybody feels like I owe them an apology, please...speak up." Nina sits down, and abruptly, the rest of the group sits down with her. One by one, she directly turns to the people at the table, but no one speaks up. Bossy: "Gee, Lynette. I guess you were mistaken." Bossy stands to go, and once again the entire group stands with her. Bossy: "All right, let's recap, shall we? Stinky pitch, working late, no apologies." Once Bossy leaves, Lynette looks at her team with disappointed amazement. "What happened to standing up for ourselves?" she asks them. Just then, Receptionist Stu walks in with a basket of "hot muffins," which...I don't get. Did he just whip them up in the company kitchen? Also, I guess he's fully recovered from the tasering incident? Huh. Lynette: "No, Stu. These people don't deserve muffins." Lynette's team all hangs their heads in shame and also muffin disappointment.
Gabby is in her bedroom unloading some more purchases when the phone rings. It's "Assistant Warden Mark Martinez" down at county, calling to tell Gabby, "At 7:23 this morning, your husband held two guards at gunpoint and successfully escaped." Gabby: "He WHAT?" Assistant Warden Martinez: "I take it you had no prior knowledge that he planned to do this?" Gabby denies this strenuously, and in fact calls Carlos a "moron." The Assistant Warden informs Gabby that they think Carlos will be coming to find her, and that they believe him to be "armed and very, very horny." On "horny," Carlos himself walks in the bedroom. Ah, such a relief to see him out of that cursed orange jumpsuit and into some normal clothes for a change. Gabby is faced away from the door, so she doesn't see him, but then he hangs up his cell and says, "Surprise, baby," and she turns around to find him there. Surprise! It turns out the breakout was all a ruse: actually, Carlos actually got paroled early. Gabby jumps all over him and seems genuinely happy to see him. She asked him what happened, and he reveals that a "church group that helps out Catholic prisoners" lobbied the parole board. Gabby gives him a big kiss and tells him, "I guess I owe the Pope a big thank-you note." Carlos throws Gabby down on the bed and says, "Less talking, more stripping."
Susan and Julie drive up to Susan's real dad's feed store, and for some reason, we hear a rooster crowing. Julie asks Susan how she's going to tell Mr. Prudy's that he's her dad. Susan pretends that she's totally not going to tell him, claiming that she has no interest in pursuing a relationship with someone who abandoned her before she was born. Julie, who knows her mom all too well, looks at her incredulously, and then asks why it is that they're there out in front of the man's store, spying on him? Susan: "I just want to see what he's like. Satisfy my curiosity, get it out of my system."
Cut to Susan walking into the store with a wild look in her eye and a weird shawl on her shoulders. What the...? It's like a huge tube-top thing that she's wearing over her arms, and it's a very yucky brown with pink streaks and some dangling bow elements, and maybe a tail? It's a very difficult garment to parse. Mr. Prudy is joshing with a customer, telling him? her? to tell "Charlie" that he misses his "ugly mug." As soon as the customer leaves, Mr. Prudy spies Susan and says he bets he knows why she's there. Susan looks totally shocked, all "Daddy?"-eyed, but it turns out that he just thinks she's there for the free cowboy hat giveaway. Susan tries to tell him she's fine, she doesn't need anything from him, but he tells her to relax; the hat is a "promotional item," as in he didn't pay for it. He sticks it on her head, and she gets this sad little puppy look. The "sad little girl sans father" music swells, and Mr. Prudy tells Susan she's "pretty as a picture."
Cut to Susan running out of the store and beaming. Julie, looking all, "uh oh," just stares at Susan as she gets in the car and giggles, "I have a dad. He's great. He gave me a hat!" Is Susan maybe...special?
Solis bed of post-coital bliss. Gabby, in a pink satin robe, has her head tucked on Carlos's naked chest, and he has his arm around her. Aw. Gabby: "Wow. That biting thing at the end? It totally blew my mind. Please tell me you didn't learn that in prison." Carlos laughs, kisses the top of her head, and turns over to go to sleep. Wow, I've never gotten a good look at the tattoo on his arm. It looks like a big, fat, totally 3D cross, intertwined with a serpent. As we see in the scenes that follow, Carlos is ramping up for a serious religious freak-out, but with a tattoo like that, I wonder if he's been struggling with his faith for some time now. Gabby gives Carlos a hard time for going to sleep, regarding the fact that she is still sex-hungry, but he begs for just ten minutes of sleep. Gabby: "What is wrong with you? You are totally useless after sex." Carlos: "I know, I should probably get my thyroid checked." Which is a joke, I guess?
While Carlos dozes, Gabby takes the opportunity to rifle through a plastic bag of his stuff, and finds a stack of letters. Gabby: "Who's Sister Mary Bernard?" Carlos's eyes spring open and he tries to grab the letters, yelling that they're "private." Gabby yanks them out of range and gives Carlos a petulant look until he explains that Sister Mary Bernard is one of the nuns who helped him to get out of jail early, and that she visited him a couple times. Gabby reads one of the letters out loud, mockingly: "When you walk with God every day, you learn that truth is understood in the mind, but faith burns in the heart." Carlos grabs the letters back and tells Gabby that she doesn't know what it was like in prison, "twenty hours a day, eight-by-ten cell, just you and your mind." Gabby: "So, pretty much just you," as in, Carlos has no mind. Zing! Carlos keeps plugging along with the earnestness, saying that he realized he was "a very bad person for a very long time, but now all that is gonna change. Because I'm on a new path." Gabby looks somewhat concerned at this news. Carlos to Gabby: "I want to do right by you, by my mama, and by God." With that, Carlos walks off toward the bathroom (and what're those? the barest hint of love handles? all the better to steer him over in my direction, I say!). Gabby: "What the hell did they do to you in that prison?"
All the ladies -- Lynette, Bree, Edie, Gabby, and Susan (still in her cowboy hat and still looking clam-happy) -- are sitting around the poker table, drinking an assortment of wine and beer. Poker night, yay! Lynette says that this is her last hand, and then she has to head back into work to look over a proposal she left on her desk. Lynette: "I have to go over it tonight or You Know Who is going to have my head." Lord Voldemort? No. As all the ladies chime in together, it's "Nina!" Ha! Bree: "You know this 'gainful employment' thing is really starting to cut into our social life." Lynette: "Well, if one of you would just agree to raise my kids, I wouldn't need a job. Any takers?" Edie laughs wryly. Lynette: "Yeah, well, I didn't think so." Also, how would having someone else raising her kids enable Lynette to stop working? Not having kids around doesn't negate the need for paying the mortgage, and I don't still don't think Tom's in any mood to go back to work since Lynette maneuvered him out of a job. But whatever, it's good to just have the ladies all in one room, they truly are nice, funny, and relaxed together, and the show really sings when the gang's all there.
Edie to Susan: "Speaking of child abandonment, when are you going to tell your father that he has a bouncing middle-aged baby girl?" See? What I mean? Funny! Susan, beaming, says she's going to tell him soon, but that she's going to "ease into it." Gabby, looking over her cards, asks, "How do you ease into 'Hi, I'm your illegitimate daughter'?" Gabby, by the way, is rocking an awesome Beach Blanket side-pony fastened by rubber band featuring the kind of pink plastic orb favored by five year-olds. Susan (looking pretty crazy): "Actually? There's a Help Wanted sign in the window. So I was thinking about getting a job there. And you know, he'd get to know me, and I'm sure he'd like me, and I'd like him. Then one day he'd say 'You're like the daughter I've never had,' and I'd say, 'Well actually, now that you mentioned it....'" Oh my god, did I call that Help Wanted sign or what? The ladies respond to this idiotic plan with the wall of silence it deserves. After a few beats, and some meaningful glances, Edie says, "Well, okay, I'll go first. That is the most idiotic plan I've ever heard of." Susan, looking hurt, asks why, and petulantly takes off her hat. Edie: "Because it all hinges on him responding to your personality. And let's face it, you are an acquired taste." Lynette chastises Edie for her meanness and tells Susan that she's sure Susan's dad is going to like her. But then Bree warns Susan that she just hopes Susan isn't expecting too much from the relationship, and that maybe the only thing they share in common is DNA. Susan agrees, but says she just needs to find out if there's "something there": "I've always wanted a dad, I mean, I know not having one affected me." Gabby: "Of course it did. Everyone needs a strong male role model." Edie: "No, they don't. I grew up without a father and it didn't affect me one bit." The "Oh Edie, You Slut" music swells as Lynette puts some chips into the pot and absently asks, "Edie, how old were you when you lost your virginity?" Edie: "Point well taken."
Later, Lynette gets off the elevator at work and the lights are all off. As she goes to grab the report from her desk, we see a man, wearing nothing but boxers, dashing up the hall behind her office. Lynette catches the movement out of the corner of her eye and looks up to see Stu, at the doorway to Bossy's office, announcing that he's got two beers he "found in Ed's fridge." He prances into Bossy's office. Lynette's eyes narrow suspiciously, and she slowly walks over. Peeking around the edge of Bossy's doorway, Lynette sees Bossy sitting on the edge of her desk, her legs wrapped around Stu's waist. Stu is kissing Bossy's neck and Bossy's moaning very theatrically. Lynette grimaces and yet...still doesn't look away. Just then, Bossy's eyes open, and she catches Lynette standing there. Lynette looks totally busted for a moment, but then she gets a sly, sly look her eye.
Cut to the morning. Lynette saunters into work and gives Stu an bright hello. Then she turns to Bossy and says her name in a long, taunting sing-song: "Kneee-nahhhh!" Bossy looks totally agonized, and she asks Lynette if she has time for a little chat. They head into Lynette's office. Lynette: "Tsk, tsk. Having sex with the support staff. That's a big no-no. Ed's been known to fire people for that sort of thing." Bossy tries for the "I know we've had our differences" speech: "We're both good people," she says. "We're both smart women who are just trying to make it in this vicious male-dominated jungle..." and then she interrupts herself to say, "Okay, what do you want?" She offers Lynette a raise, or a better office, but Lynette tells Bossy that all she wants is for her to be nicer: "No more belittling, no more berating, no more rude sarcasm." Bossy: "And in return I get your silence?" Lynette: "Yeah -- pretty sweet deal, don't you think?" Bossy, with the difficulty of the Fonz trying to say "I love you," coughs out that she'll see what she can do. Lynette says "great," and Bossy turns to leave. Lynette: "And I'm going to take your parking space." Bossy turns back, her body all slumped resignedly. Lynette: "I kid the Nina!" Which for no real reason strikes me as funny. Nina delivers a forced laughs that reveals every inch of how hard it's going to be for her to act "nicer," and she hunches her way out Lynette's door.
Gabby comes down to the kitchen, this time in a blue robe. Carlos is already up, and fully dressed in a suit and tie. Carlos, it appears, is heading off to mass. Gabby points out that it's not even Sunday. Carlos laughs and says that they have mass every day of the week. Gabby: "Really? When did they start doing that?" Ha, I love how sporadic Gabby's Catholicism is. A car horn sounds and Carlos looks out the window. Carlos: "That's Sister Mary Bernard. Did you see where I put my Bible?" Carlos traipses off to find his good book, and Gabby looks up from her coffee, suspicion written all over her face. She stomps over to the window for a peek at some Sister Mary (huh, Gabby is wearing full makeup? I guess it's not that early in the morning). Outside, we see an ultra-blonde woman in a sensible grey knee-length skirt and white blouse, and leaning over a sensible compact car. She appears to be...dusting the windshield with her fingers? The "like a virgin" Wisteria music trills, and Sister Marry turns around to reveal that she's a very, very pale woman with dark, dark eyebrows. Her shirt is buttoned up beyond all reason, she's got a crucifix dangling from her neck, and her face is aglow with goodness. She also looks a little nuts, what with all the smiling and looking around like she's waiting for blue-birds to land on her shoulder. Through the window, we see Gabby's eyes flash open with astonishment and then narrow into an "a-ha!"
Cut to a large basket of muffins. Are these the hot muffins of ex-Receptionist Stu? No, because as the camera pans up we see...Dr. Goldfine! He's alive! Alive and in the hospital, and all trussed up in one of those dangling leg casts, along with a broken arm buttressed up at a right angle from his body. Bree's there, I guess just paying him a friendly visit (I can't imagine he's actually holding office hours), and he's telling her that the doctors say he's going to get better, "slowly but surely." Which, frankly, is a miracle: after his George-assisted launch from the OVERPASS, there was a loooong delay before we heard him land. Dr. Goldfine, with incredible selflessness, asks Bree how she's doing. She tells him she's good -- that she's been seeing friends and "co-chairing an event for the Junior League." Oh, and she broke up with George. Dr. Goldfine looks very happy to hear this news -- so happy that I can't help but think that maybe he has been keeping his loin fires burning for Bree since pretty early on?
Bree: "Dr. Goldfine? Do you really cure people? I mean, even if they're really crazy." Dr. Goldfine says he's not a big fan of the word "crazy." When he works with people with mental-health problems, he treats them as if they had any other disease, "and sometimes they get better." Bree confesses that, when she dumped George, she "saw something" in his eyes -- a "sort of malevolence" that she can't really imagine being curable. Dr. Goldfine tells her that he doesn't believe in evil. Bree points out that he of all people has a reason to: "A man just threw you off a bridge for no reason!" Ah, so I guess Dr. Goldfine didn't recognize George? Even though George wasn't wearing a mask, and I'm pretty sure Dr. Goldfine knew what George looked like. (Didn't George and Bree run into Dr. G in a nursery parking lot? Or maybe that was one of those irritating "secret" Good Morning America scenes, because I can't seem to find it in any of the old recaps, hell.) Dr. Goldfine: "Exactly! He didn't know anything about me! He just rode up on his little blue bike and tried to hurt me. Do I think he's wicked? No! He's disturbed." Dr. Goldfine keeps talking about the "chemical imbalance" he believes this mystery man possesses, but Bree isn't listening because at the words "blue bike," it all clicks. George tried to kill Dr. Goldfine! Ah, how satisfying to have Bree finally, finally know just how nutso George is. Bree swallows hard and asks Dr. Goldfine, "Did you say 'blue bike'?" The "I had sex with a murderer, gross" music swells, and SCENE!
Meanwhile, over at...Lynette's house? (Since when did the Scavos have a palatial veranda out in front of their house?) Ex-Receptionist Stu sits out on a white wicker chair, and Lynette brings him a cup of coffee. Stu tells her that he didn't even think she'd notice he was gone. Lynette pats his knee and tells him that of course she noticed -- he's one of her favorites. In fact, she thought it was really unfair how everything went down. Stu: "It wasn't that unfair. I was late all those times. And I broke the copier. And I stole all those paper clips." The "Lynette you meddling simpleton" music starts up, and Lynette tells Stu that she doesn't think those were the reasons why he got fired: "Word got out that you and Nina were..." Stu: "Shagging?" Lynette, laughing uncomfortably: "...being intimate, and Nina fired you to keep Ed from finding out." Stu is surprised to hear this news. Lynette goes on to say how wrong it was of Nina to have sex with him, seeing as how she's upper management: "Technically, it's sexual harassment." Stu tells her that he was into, though. Lynette explains that as a "gopher," he "can't consent to anything." Which is kind of bitchy, and for a second there, it looks like Stu is a little offended. Lynette keeps on plugging, though, encouraging Stu to talk to Ed about getting his job back. Stu: "Why would he care?" Lynette, fatally: "Oh, he'll care. He doesn't want you suing him for millions of dollars." Stu's face lights up, but Lynette totally doesn't get that she's just planted a multimillion-dollar seed in Stu's tiny mind. Stu worriedly asks if Bossy would get in trouble, and Lynette not so convincingly tells him that there's a "possibility" that Bossy would get a "slap on the wrist," and then she shrugs, like "no biggie." Stu nods his head thoughtfully and appears to agree with Lynette's parting encouragements to talk to Ed.
Susan walks into Papa Prudy's hospital room. PP apologizes for "spooking" Susan by nearly dying, and explains that he's got a "bad heart," which, he mentions, is genetic, so Susan has that to look forward to. Susan smiles and goes to takes off her coat, like she's there to stay awhile. PP: "Look, don't take this wrong, but I need you to clear out." Apparently, his wife Carol is on her way over, and if she finds out that PP has an "adult love-child running around, that's going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back." You see, Sophie wasn't the only woman PP cheated with. Susan: "Charming." PP: "But believe me, it was nice to finally get to meet you. You're a lovely woman." Susan stands there, blinking. PP, clearly feeling the pressure of time running out: "Hon? You really need to leave now." Susan looks hurt, and as she turns to go, you can see her face starting to crumple...
...but then she abruptly turns back around and tells him her name is Susan, which I'm guessing she put on her job application, but if he's calling her "Hon," maybe he needs reminding? Then she shakes her head and tells him no, this isn't good enough. PP says that he's trying hard to be nice, but she's "backing [him] into a corner." Susan tells him she isn't looking for an invite to Thanksgiving. She just wants "coffee or lunch." PP says that starting up something with Susan wouldn't be fair to his wife. Susan: "Oh, that's funny -- so all the times you were cheating on her, that was okay, but lunch with your daughter, that just crosses the line. I just want a chance to get to know you." PP sighs and then tells her, "Well, I don't want to know you. I've already got a family." Ouch. And yet, Susan is a spastically self-involved disaster magnet, so maybe he's got the right idea here? He explains that he paid Sophie a big hunk of money to "keep things quiet." Susan: "Well, I wasn't consulted on that little arrangement." PP tells her he doesn't think it's fair of her to punish him for a mistake he made years ago. Susan: "Is that what you think of me? I'm a mistake?" PP: "If that's what you need to hear, then yeah, that's what I think."
Susan is standing there, looking crushed and on the verge of tears again, when in bursts Carol. "Oh Addie," Carol coos, running over and hugging him and telling him the kids are on their way. Susan kind of wanders over into Carol's line of peripheral vision, and finally, Carol looks up and asks Susan who she is. Susan, to Mr. Prudy: "Do you want to tell her, or should I?" Carol looks confused, and Mr. Prudy look totally "uh oh." Susan: "I'm your husband's...guardian angel." Way to be cool, Susan! She explains to Carol that she just so happened to be in the store when her husband collapsed, and that she gave him CPR and called 911. Carol hugs Susan hugely and says, "When I think of what could have happened..." Which clearly is exactly what Papa Prudy is thinking himself. Susan says she's going to take off, and she leans in to give Prudy a kiss on the cheek. While she's down there, she whispers, "I'm not giving up." At the door, she tells him she'll be back in the store week, regarding that "darn horse feed" she never did pick up. Papa Prudy grudgingly tells her that he guesses he'll set a bag aside for her. Will he really be out of the hospital so soon? After a heart attack? Huh. Susan, over her shoulder: "You do that!"
George is walking home, carrying groceries, when he looks up and spies a herd of policemen ransacking his house. He ducks behind some bushes and calls Bree on his cell phone. He gets her machine. "Bree, it's me," he says. "The police are at my house. They're going through my stuff. What the hell is going on? Look, I know you're there. PICK UP. Did you have anything to do with this? Bree? Bree!" We see that Bree is, indeed, standing right there by the phone, and for a second I'm proud of her for staying mum, but then she picks up the phone and starts talking to George, which seems insane given her new understanding of the depth of George's "malevolence." She confesses that she knows what George did to Dr. Goldfine, and tells him she can now see how sick he really is, and encourages him to turn himself in and get some help. George gets his robot face going and slowly puts his phone in his pocket, picks up his grocery bags, and starts walking up the street, away from his house. After a few steps, he just drops the bags and wind-sprints up the street. Huh. Maybe time a suspect is still at large, the Fairview cops will be a little more discreet with their house marauding.
Carlos comes downstairs, finds Gabby setting the table, and asks her what's going on. Gabby: "Oh, I invited Sister Mary Hotpants over for lunch." Whee! Carlos is all, "What?" Gabby: "You said she touched your soul, so I just want to make sure her hands are clean." The doorbell rings, and lunch begins. Sister Mary Hotpants sits at the table, radiating her jack-o-lantern smile of intense goodness as Gabby grills her with thinly, so thinly veiled animosity: "You bond with all the convicts, or was Carlos just special?" SMH pleasantly informs Gabby that while Carlos is indeed special, SMH's mission does "a ton of evangelical work with several prisons." Gabby: "Oh, I get it. Sort of like 'today's convict is tomorrow's convert'?" SMH laughs and agrees that it's something like that, but adds that she mostly does charity work. SMH asks if Gabby and Carlos are involved in any charities, and Gabby takes a big bite of carrot and mumbles, "No." Carlos: "But...we should be." Gabby gives him a questioning look, and Carlos continues: "I mean let's face it, Gabby, buying more stuff isn't going to make our lives any better." SMH, with an air of sanctimoniousness: "Exactly. Money can't buy happiness." Gabby: "Sure it can! That's just a lie we tell poor people to keep them from rioting." Gabby! Carlos: "Gabby!" Gabby tells him to lighten up, she was just joking. SMH's sunny smile dims. Carlos to SMH: "Can you believe this? I married a woman so selfish, she makes fun of the entire concept of charity." Gabby accuses Carlos of being a hypocrite, saying that the price he paid for his sports vehicle "could buy a mud hut for every peasant in Ecuador." Carlos calmly agrees, but informs her that he's "evolving." And then he offers to donate his car to SMH's mission! Gabby, who is less than thrilled to hear that they'll now be sharing one car, asks, "What if you have the car and I need to go shopping?" Carlos, with infuriating calmness: "We're going to cut back on shopping, too." Gabby, who's totally losing it: "Okay, I think we should all just calm down a little bit!" Carlos leaves the table to go find the pink slip for the car, and Gabby hands the bottle of wine to SMH, telling her to drink up -- "No one needs to know" -- and then Gabby races upstairs to find Carlos. I thought wine-drinking wasn't really something Catholics would need to keep secret, what with it being the blood of Christ, but maybe I'm an idiot, or maybe nuns are an exception, or maybe this is just more evidence of Gabby's complete lack of religious know-how? ["My mom used to work at a Catholic college, and I can tell you: no one drinks like a Jesuit." -- Wing Chun]
Upstairs, Gabby distracts Carlos from looking for the pink slip by baby voicing that she's "sick of being bad" and that she wants "to be a better person too," all the while giving him a highly distracting rubdown. Clearly aroused, Carlos makes some feeble attempts to take the pink slip down to SMH, but Gabby keeps going with the kissing and the shirt unbuttoning, telling him the Sister "can wait five minutes" considering that they're giving her a car. Finally, Carlos gives in and lets Gabby tip him back onto the bed and then jump on top of him. I'm not sure what Gabby's trying to accomplish here. In the past, she's always held sway over Carlos by withholding sex. Maybe her newfound jealousy is prompting her to mark her territory? Confusing.
Lynette gets off the elevator at work and is immediately confronted with a layoff melee: people are weeping, hanging their heads, yelling, shoving, and carrying out boxes of personal items. Lynette bellies up to the receptionist station and asks New Receptionist Pat what the deal is. Pat, incidentally, is wearing a weird, high-necked blouse-thing with a print that, I think, features...elephants...and the Eiffel Tower? And Lynette is wearing a very snappy suit with a pretty and delicate silver necklace: it's double-stranded, with one small silver ball centered on the shorter strand and then three evenly distributed silver balls on the longer strand. It's a very classy necklace, and a far cry from Lynette's sad choker of yesteryear, and I very much want one of my very own. Pat, worriedly: "Ed keeps calling people into his office? I think people are getting fired."
At just that moment, Ed himself emerges from his office and yells Lynette's name; Lynette creeps into his office. He looks up from some paperwork and brusquely informs her, "Nina's out, you're in. You are our new VP of accounts." Which sounds like good news, and yet...I wonder! As Lynette struggles to get her mind around this information, Ed tells her that he just gave Bossy "the ax, along with a bunch of other people." Why? Because, as Ed informs Lynette, "our old pal Stu just filed a sexual harassment suit against the company," and he "hired a fancy lawyer and threatened to go to the press." Stu even has a videotape of himself, delivering hot muffins to (i.e., sexing) the Bossy herself. In short, Ed had no choice but to pay Stu off. Lynette, scrambling to catch up, says that she gets why Ed fired Bossy, but why everyone else? Ed: "Stu's taking us to the cleaners. If I don't cut back on staff, the round of paychecks are going to bounce." Many people on the boards have pointed out that a legitimate company would have insurance to cover such contingencies, and that if Lynette were smart, she'd leave at the first hint of how bubble-gummed together the whole agency really is. But, it appears, Lynette hasn't really left herself with the luxury of that kind of wiggle room. Lynette to Ed: "Oh god, Ed. I am soooo sorry." Ed, still distractedly sorting through papers, tells Lynette it's not her fault, and she gives the top of his head a funny little eye shrug, like "actually..." Ed: "We'll get through this. You and me. Together." Lynette nods in a stunned sort of way that conveys the very tip of a dawning regret iceberg. Ed: "Oh! Can you run down to the art department? Someone's got to can Jeff and Elizabeth." Lynette mumbles something about how sure, she'll take care of it, and then she stumbles out of his office.
And who's standing right outside Ed's office, sipping a glass of wine? A very relaxed-looking Bossy Boobs. Bossy cheerfully offers Lynette her congratulations. Lynette tells Bossy that "this" (everyone losing their jobs) isn't at all what Lynette wanted. She just wanted Bossy to be nicer! Bossy: "You know what? I used to be nice. But our boss -- I'm sorry your boss -- is incompetent, and selfish, and has the attention span of a poodle. I mean, from day one I've been the only one around here keeping this place from crumbling around his stupid ears." Lynette tries to interject with some murmurs of disbelief, but Bossy just keeps rolling: "Nice is a luxury that I gave up along with vacations and relationships and eating at home. This job sucks you dry. You better kiss those four little kiddies of yours goodbye, because you have just adopted [Nina points toward Ed's office] the neediest little child in the world." Bossy takes a big swig of wine, and Lynette gives her an icy look. Abruptly, Bossy hands the glass of wine over to Lynette: "You're going to need this more than I do." Bossy winks and goes back into her office to pack up, and Lynette shoots a panicked look toward Ed who, as we can see through the glass of his office walls, is sitting at his desk with his head buried in his hands. That Lynette, she sure has done it this time! So, so satisfying.
Done with marking Carlos as her own, Gabby comes downstairs (wearing nothing but a cream-colored robe) to inform Sister Mary Hotpants that she and Carlos have had an "intense...talk," and that Carlos is upstairs resting. ["And now we know why Gabby decided not to go the withholding route: nailing Carlos knocked him out, so that Gabby could get rid of the nun." -- Wing Chun] SMH confesses that she overheard some of Gabby and Carlos's "talk." Gabby, with supreme insincerity and a big, big smile: "I'm sorry. He's such an animal!" Then Gabby motions SMH out front for a chat. As soon as they're out of potential-Carlos-hearing range, Gabby informs SMH that with Carlos home, Carlos and Gabby need to concentrate on getting back into sync. "And we can't do that," Gabby says, "if he keeps running off to church and charity bake sales. We need 'us time,' do you know what I mean?" SMH smiles and tells Gabby she understands exactly what she means. And yet Gabby feels the need to make it perfectly clear: "So it would really help our marriage if you just backed off for a while, okay?" SMH smiles for a second and then says, "No." Gabby's self-assured smile evaporates. SMH: "Carlos is a diamond in the rough. A flawed man to be sure, but someone who is desperately searching for something to believe in. To satisfy your materialism, he ended up breaking the law. To deal with your adultery, he resorted to assault. As long he's with you, he will never find what he's looking for." Whoa, harsh. And yet...somewhat true! Gabby says that maybe Carlos should have thought of all that before he got married, and SMH shrugs and drops this bomb: "Some marriages were meant to be annulled." Can...can they do that? Gabby, downshifting from sickly sweet to full battle stance: "What the hell kind of nun are you? Look, if you try to come between me and my husband, I will take you down." SMH just laughs and tells Gabby, "I come from the South Side of Chicago. If you want to threaten me, you're going to have to do a lot better than that." Gabby, getting right up in that nun's face, spits, "You listen to me, you little bitch; you do not what to start a war with me." SMH laughs again and tells Gabby, "I have God on my side. Bring it on." Gabby glares and SMH smiles unnervingly for a few beats, and then the nun walks off. Ohhh, fight, fight, fight!
Okay, now, hold on to your hats, everybody, because here comes the big George-and-Bree-meltdown finale! George is sitting on the edge of a bed in a hotel, looking like a robot with dead batteries, when a knock sounds on the door. It's the bellman. George tells him, "There's a charity dinner taking place downstairs. My friend, Bree Van de Kamp, is one of the co-chairs. Give her this note [handing him an envelope] and walk away. If she comes up in the elevator, call me." George hands the bellman a stack of what appears to be ones and fives, and the bellman -- who I guess is impressed by this eight-dollar tip -- hops to it.
Downstairs, the bellman hands the note to Bree, who's writing on a clipboard in front of a table filled with nametags. Her hair is down, and she's wearing an amazing, plunging white Marilyn-in-The Seven Year Itch dress, which looks truly awesome (my one complaint: she has what I call a "kiwi problem," which refers to the upside down, kiwi-sized "U" of concave, mid-breast boniness that is the bane some ultra-thin women). The note reads: "Bree, I can't stand you thinking I'm a bad person. I've taken some pills. If you could do me one last kindness, please come up and say goodbye. I'm in room #617. George." Bree whips out her cell phone and calls Detective Barton, but before she can deliver the news about George and his little overdose, Barton interrupts with some news: Barton's men have just uncovered evidence over at George's house which suggests that George was involved in Rex's death. This data removes all the wind from Bree's sails, and she just manages to gasp, "What?!" Barton: "Yeah, we found Rex's subscription bottles and doctored potassium pills as well as some...disturbing diary entries." Really? I'm kind of surprised that George would hold on to incriminating evidence for so long, what with being so good at cleaning up after himself (e.g. breaking in to the Van de Kamps' house to replace Rex's doctored pills with the prescribed ones). Bree falls into a chair, speechless, and her phone-holding hand slowly drops into her lap. Barton says her name a few times, but she's clearly in another world.
Then like a zombie -- a zombie ready to vomit -- Bree stands and steps into the elevator. The bellman, who clearly has the wrong end of the stick here, gets a big smile on his face and calls George to tell him that Bree's on her way up. George puts down the phone and starts washing down pills with some Jack Daniels. With the first pill, he says, "she loves me," and with the second pill, he says, "she loves me not."
Meanwhile, Bree's having an existential breakdown in the elevator, hugging herself and staring at her reflection in the elevator doors with a haggard look of horror on her face. She bangs on the doors with her fist and then sinks to the floor.
Meanwhile, upstairs George keeps going with the "loves me/loves me not" pill gobbling, and finally, with the last "she loves me," he calmly takes a whole handful of pills.
From the floor of the elevator, Bree reaches up and hits the STOP button, and the elevator alarm bells start ringing. Okay and now here things get a little weird. We get a close-up of Bree's face, and she looks like maybe she's gone into shock. This shot cross-fades to a shot of George, who's lying on his bed with his eyes closed. Clearly, some time has passed, since the last time we saw George, he was sitting in a chair, but it's not at all clear how much time has gone by. George suddenly sucks in a breath and sits up. He drowsily looks at his watch, which he's taken off and put on the bedside table, and then he starts breathing unevenly and reaches for the phone. He sort of paws the receiver off its cradle and then, with much effort, manages to dial zero. George, slurring: "Operator? This is a bit embarrassing, but I've swallowed some pills. I think you need to call an ambulance."
Just then, a knock sounds on the door, and George's eyes fly from half-mast to wide open. He tells the operator that, whoops, false alarm, the pills were actually just vitamins, and then he hangs up. George weakly calls out that the door's open, and Bree walks in. She takes in the sight of the pills and the booze, and asks George what he was thinking. George mutters that he didn't hurt Dr. Goldfine, and that for Bree to find him "capable of that sort of violence"...and then he trails off. Bree says George's name, sharply, and walks over to the bed (hoo, that dress sure does dip down, down, down, all the way to the crack of Bree's liberty bell) and asks him why he's telling her all this. George: "Because maybe I don't have to die. I could face the police, knowing that you'd be there for me, that you'd stay my friend. Then I'll have something to live for." Bree, getting the gist of George's plan: "And then we'll call an ambulance and they'll pump your stomach." The ominous music is, of course, really ramping up by this point.
Bree gives George a sort of disgusted once-over look, and then she slowly, meticulously pulls up a chair and sits down: "I want to help you, but in order to do that, I need to forgive you. And I can't do that until you admit what you've done." George gurgles that he didn't push Dr. Goldfine, but Bree whispers, "Yes, you did. But that's not what I'm talking about." George acknowledges this new development by cracking his eyes open, so he gets a nice view of Bree's tear-contorted face as she says, "You killed Rex." George delivers a scoffing sort of burp and then turns his head toward the phone. Bree tells him that it wasn't "totally" his fault, that he's "not well." Bree pleads for him to "just be honest" with her, and then she can forgive him: "It'll be the hardest thing I've ever done, but I will do it. But you have to tell me the truth." George turns his head back to look at Bree, and says in a small, fading voice, "Look, I'm in trouble here. We need to call someone." We get a very tight shot on Bree as she tells him, "Not until you admit what you've done," and she is kind of scary here! George, in a sighing little croak of a voice: "I love you. I think I may have done it for you. Because you wanted me too. You know you did." Bree looks shattered and revolted and disgusted and frightened by this revelation, and the music shifts from eerie tinkling to a sort of Jason-esque menacing "CHA-Chah-chah." George's eyes close, and Bree looks at him like...well, like she's finally seeing George for the monster he truly is. But George isn't dead yet. He sucks in another big breath and his eyes open once again. "We need to call an ambulance," he pleads, and Bree sits there, and then her face shifts a bit, like clearly she's made some kind of decision, and with a tearful smile, she lies that she called the ambulance while he was asleep, and that they're already on their way. George gazes up at her with the innocent smile of a baby, and Bree smiles back, and slowly George's eyes flutter closed. Bree takes a big breath, and...the MAVO summary kicks in!
"It's not always that easy to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys," MAVO tells us. We see Gabby, in bed, glaring at Carlos as he kneels alongside it, deep in prayer. MAVO: "Sinners can surprise you, and the same is true for saints." Sister Mary Hotpants, still with the loony god-infused smile, is kneeling by her bed. She crosses herself, and then licks her fingers and singes out a huge candle with a cross on it, a simple little act that she manages to infuse with an impressive dose of menace. MAVO: "Why do we try to define people as simply good or simply evil?" Bossy Boobs packs her stuff into a box at work and weeps quietly. Sad! MAVO: "Because no one wants to admit that compassion and cruelty can live side-by-side in one heart." Carol sits holding Papa Prudy's hand, and they sigh and turn away from each other. MAVO: "And that anyone is capable of anything." Meanwhile, over at OD Hotel, Bree returns the chair to its original location, gives George's room one last look, and then walks out of there with her head held high. Whoa...ladies and gentlemen: Bree "Judge, Jury, Executioner" Van de Kamp! What the hell was THAT? What happened during those missing minutes in the elevator? Did Bree call the police and they fitted her with a wire -- was that why she was gunning for George's confession? If not, then why, knowing George's monstrous side as she does now, would Bree ever go to his room unarmed? Also, I thought for sure we'd have a few more juicy episodes out of this, where George tried to frame Bree and Bree got to...bust out the guns and a snug safari outfit and hunt him down like a dog. This is all just happening too fast! Or maybe! Maybe George is faking? Anyone? Hello?
week: Andrew's back, and Carlos wants to be one of God's soldiers!