By Evany
CreePaul reveals the reason he tried to artificially instill feelings of debt and gratitude in Mike: he wants Mike to ask his bio-son Zana to come visit CreePaul. The fancy lawyer Ian hires for Mike vastly disappoints Susan by recommending that Mike plead guilty. How dare the man make an educated evaluation of the evidence and suggest a route that will help minimize Mike's prison time! So Susan decides to use her own money to hire an even better lawyer, i.e. one who will do whatever she says. And by "her own money," I mean she gets Gabby to get Zana to foot Mike's legal bills, a request that costs Gabby one day-long date with Zana. Gabby actually has fun on their date, but she still rejects Zana's romantic overtures. Zana is hurt, Gabby realizes he's lonely just like she is, and they agree to be Best Friends Forever, aw. Except that when Zana finally heeds Mike's request to go visit CreePaul, and CreePaul predictably asks for money (to hire a PI to track down Felicia), Zana launches into a deluded rant about how he has no money to spare because all his vast fortunes are earmarked for his sexy future wife (Gabby). Oops, make that Best One-Sided Obsession Forever. While Ian's out of town on a business trip, his coma-bound wife Jane takes a turn for the worse, so Ian -- who's worried about his wife dying alone -- asks Susan to sit with her until he can make it home. But Jane isn't alone: her best friend is there, as is the man whom Jane once had an affair with. The best friend gossips to Susan that poor, kind Ian took Jane back even after she cheated on him, but clearly he never trusted her again. This is clearly supposed to give us a big "A-ha!" moment, re: all of Ian's weirdo jealousy problems with Susan. Jane dies. Susan, fueled by this fantastic new insight into Ian's crazy, retells Mike that she can't see him anymore, which makes Mike stand awkwardly on the corner and stare vacantly into space. Lynette -- after getting busted for lying to her boss about still being injured so that she could help hawk Scavo pizza at the big street fair -- decides that she'd rather work with Tom down at the pizzeria. Because sharing the same workplace worked out so well the first time. Bree shows Orson the teeth she found in Alma's floor, and Orson informs Alma that the jig is up. Later, Gloria lures Orson over to Alma's house by pretending that Alma slit her wrists in an attempted suicide. Orson races over to Alma's house, and Gloria slips him a date-rape cocktail (Viagra+GHB+some kind of brown liquor). Alma whips off her fake bandages, strips down to some sexy lingerie, and pounces on Orson. Her plan: get pregnant again (the stuff she's been injecting turns out to be pregnancy-inviting hormones), which will automatically cause Orson to love her. Because that worked out so well the first time. Oh and Bree arrives and punches Alma's lights out.
Previously: all of last week's developments (Bree finds some bloody teeth, Hair Zana stalks Gabby, CreePaul paid prison thugs to beat on Mike), plus Mary Alice reminds us not to forget that Alma and Gloria are in cahoots.
This week, Mary Alice applies the full force of her plummy voiceover on Orson's deep-rooted love of teeth. We see him admiring his own choppers in the mirror at home, and then we flashback to Orson at a barbeque, where he's conducting an impromptu examination of the long-in-the-tooth teeth of one of the Wisteria biddies. It's either The Drunk One or The Cat Lady, I can never, ever keep them straight, which of course terrible because it makes it seem like I think all whiteheads look alike (that's the politically correct term that kids at my high school used to describe elderly people, "whiteheads"). But really, do we even need both those characters? We already have plucky old Mrs. McCluskey; there just isn't enough plotlines to support another two old ladies, especially when they're essentially interchangeable. Can't we just morph them into one character, Drunk Old Cat Lady Whitehead? Or transgender one of them into a man?
Back to Orson and his love affair with teeth: There he is, looking deep into Edie's mouth at a neighborhood party (careful, Orse, many a man has disappeared into that sunny black hole). it's Carlos, soliciting free dental advice while standing to a urinal. Which seems very wrong -- opening your mouth that wide with all those pee molecules floating around? Actually, I wonder if this little moment even has anything to do with dentistry; it could just as easily be a bathhouse romance. Anything's possible: Mary Alice has certainly been wrong before.
Back in the now. MA: "Yes, when it came to teeth, people expected Dr. Hodge to have all the answers. Sadly for Orson, that was not always the case." Orson turns to find Bree standing there, holding the bloody teeth out in her bare hand. Again, I just cannot believe that Bree would be handling those horrors without the benefit of rubber kitchen gloves. And a paper mask. Cleanliness aside, isn't she at all worried about getting her fingerprints on them?
Orson, who I'm beginning to suspect might actually be an idiot, holds one of the teeth up to the light and comments that it all seems a "little fishy." Bree thinks it's beyond fishy: she thinks Alma killed Monique and pulled out all her teeth to implicate the tooth-obsessed Orson, and now she's probably planning to set up Orson to take the fall by planting the teeth on him. Orson -- curious if the teeth make up a "full set" -- spills them out onto their bed, which eeks Bree out, because bloody teeth on the bed is indeed fantastically gross (isn't he supposed to be neat freaky, too?). And then he rolls his hands all over the teeth, which means that his prints are now all over them, too. Bree and Orson hatch a brilliant plan to return the teeth to Alma's house and then call the police on her. They exchange a smug kiss and Bree leaves. Orson picks up the phone and calls mama Gloria, and accuses her of getting up to something "naughty." So if Orson calls Gloria first thing after discovering these teeth, that must mean that he had enough pre-knowledge about their existence to link them to Gloria. Which means that either Gloria pulled the teeth herself and told Orson all about it, or he was the one who did the pulling and Gloria stole the teeth and gave them to Alma. Or I guess there could be some third party who pulled out the teeth, someone that Orson associates with Gloria. And don't forget Mike has to be wrapped up in all this, too, otherwise why else would Orson try to speed-bump him with his car? And then there's that unexplained woman whom Orson visits in the insane asylum (and how weird that Bree hasn't asked about her before now). It sure is a snarled mess of questions, too many questions, maybe? It's all so convoluted that my brain just wants to step out for a hamburger. I keep losing track of the main mystery, which I guess is just, "Who killed Monique?" And that seems like a bad sign. Shouldn't that central question be at the forefront of my mind at all times? Shouldn't I be tossing and turning at night, wondering whodunit? Maybe it's just me, maybe I'm the only one who no longer much cares about all this. Or maybe this is just the mid-season blahs. All I know is that I'm feeling pretty disengaged these days.
Anyway. Gloria pretends not to know what Orson's talking about, but Orson doesn't believe her for a second. MA: "Yes, Orson was an expert on teeth...that's how he could tell when people were lying through them." Dun-dun-DUN! Credits.
We return to discover ourselves down at the hospital. Mary Alice is babbling something about how lives change in an instant: people's legs get shot, babies shoot out of birthing canals, old ladies' husbands die. We see a doctor comforting a whitehead who is neither The Drunk old lady, nor is she The Cat Lady old lady. She isn't even Mrs. McCluskey, which means there's another old lady in Fairview. That makes four! It's like some kind of infestation. MAVO gently guides us into coma Jane's room. We learn that she has a fever, and that her doctor is mildly concerned. Oh man, she is so totally waking up today.
Down at the Big House. Susan introduces Mike to his new lawyer. Ian is also there, looking jealous and bitter and nuts. Mike thanks Ian for his generosity, Ian glowers and then pees a big circle of ownership around Susan. Susan and Mike exchange amused glances. They all sit down and the hotshot lawyer announces that he's worked out a great strategy. Cut to...
...Susan at home with Ian, ranting about the lameness of the lawyer's plan, which is to have Mike plead guilty, seeing as the evidence against him is so compelling. That way, he would only get a ten-year sentence (five for good behavior), versus the life imprisonment that he'd be risking if he opted to plead innocent. But Susan, that old wacky idealist, wants Mike to have a lawyer who believes in his innocence! This really clangs Ian's jealousy bells, and he brats that if Susan wants to change lawyers, then she's on her own, financially speaking. I don't get it, can't they just tell their current lawyer that they refuse to plead guilty? Make him come up with a new strategy based around Mike pleading innocent? Though I guess hippie Susan wants an idealistic rainbow unicorn lawyer who truly, actually believes in Mike's innocence. Susan asks Ian to explain the source of his never-ending jealousy, and Ian avoids the question by flying to Montreal.
Lynette is trying to figure out what to wear on her first day back to work after the eight weeks of paid sick leave she got after getting shot in the arm. The non-twin boy P comes in to tell her that he's sad she's going back to work. Lynette points out that with her gone during the day, she won't be around to nag him about homework and cleaning his room. But, according to P she's actually been "a lot nicer" since the shooting, and now he misses her every second they're apart, etc. Lynette kisses him and cuddles him, then she says: "Do you really mean that, or are you manipulating Mommy into feeling incredibly guilty?" P: "A little bit of both." Lynette compliments him on being a chip off the old Tom.
Remember that storyline about Gabby teaching little homely girls how to be beauty pageant contestants? The one where Gabby realized she'd found her true calling, allowing her to finally stopped caring about something other than herself, and shopping? It's totally understandable if you forgot all about it -- after all, Newly Confident and Introspective Gabby hasn't made an appearance since before the holiday break, and we've been stuck with Shallow Gabby ever since. Well, the day of the long-forgotten Snowflake Pageant has finally arrived. The judges announce the winner, and it's "Sherri Maltby," the former best friend of little Amy Whatsitwhos. Vern and Gabby, sitting out in the audience, scream and leap into the air. Gabby is wearing a iridescent turquoise dress that makes her look like a giant Sea Wee. She's also wearing a gigantic necklace with matching earrings that seem to be made out of thatches of gold-dipped kindling, which is either fabulous or completely hideous, I still can't decide.
Later, during Sherri's post-pageant photo shoot, Vern and Gabby snark about one of the other contestants, a little "blonde bitch" whom they were sure was going to win based on her patriotic talent routine (Gabby: "She practically had sparklers coming out of her ass."). Vern sweeps Sherri off to go talk to the press, reminding her to tell them that she owes everything to Beauty By Vern. Suddenly Hair Zana is there; turns out he bribed the judges so Gabby's student would win. Now can they go on a date? Gabby stomps and fumes, and Zana is all, "I love it when we banter."
Alma comes home to find Orson in her living room. He's there to inform her that the show's over. Alma reminds him of her threat to tell Bree about what he did to Monique and Mike (which we still don't know the meaning of), and he smarms that her threat "no longer has any teeth in it." He warns her that Monique's teeth could be hidden anywhere, maybe even in Alma's house, and won't the police be surprised when they find them there? Alma cockily assures him that he won't be calling the police, I guess since they're the last people he'd want sniffing around Wisteria Lane. Orson: "Well, neither will you, now!" He tells her to leave town, and she gets all weepy, sniveling that they should have tried to have another baby after the miscarriage, that way they'd still be together. Orson: "I know, that's why I stopped trying." And the "Won't You Please Care About This Mystery, Please?" fiddles strum.
Lynette, all made up and looking sharp in a suit, is just about out the door when Tom bursts into the kitchen: He's "screwed": the manager he hired for the Scavoria just quit! Which means he has to cancel the booth at the big street fair, which was the advertising strategy they were banking on to get the good word out about the restaurant. Isn't there some way Lynette could postpone her return to work for just one more week? A honk sounds outside: it's boss Ed, who (for some reason?) is picking her up for work. Cut to...
...Lynette, back in her arm sling. She's no longer wearing any makeup, and she's looking pale and glum indeed. Ed and one of the guys from the office are there, travel mugs in hand. They're surprised to see her still in her sling, and Lynette sighs that it still hurts, seeing as they were unable to remove the bullet because it was "too close." Ed, concerned: "To what?" Lynette, sighing: "Everything." Ed notices she has something on her lip, and she absently rubs it off, explaining that it's probably just run-off from all the puking she's been doing, because of the pain. She goes to get in the car, and one of them jostles her, she yelps in pain and screams at them to get her pills, her pills, they're in her bag! The office guy hands her the pills and they fly everywhere. She bursts into tears and just keeps keening about her pills, her pills. Ed and office guy exchanged pained looks. Cut to...
...the car driving off with Lynette still standing there. "See you week!" she yells. Couple questions: doesn't Andrew work for Tom now? Can't he step in and help out with the booth at the street fair? Also, this street fair is on a weekend, right? It'd have to be, otherwise no one would be able to go to it. So what's the problem? Lynette doesn't work weekends, does she?
Big house. CreePaul is innocently reading a book in the rec room -- don't these prisoners have any license plates to make? Rodeos to train for? -- when Mike arrives in full Pissy Tuff Guy mode: "Looks like an interesting book, what's it about?" Without pausing for an answer, he grabs the book and throws it across the room. "Never mind," he says, "I'll wait for the movie." Zing! Mike confronts CreePaul about siccing the thugs on him, and CreePaul confesses that he only did it because he needs Mike to do him a favor. He asks Mike if he remembers Zana at all, but Mike only remembers him "vaguely." CreePaul: "Turns out you and I share more than a cellblock."
Bree's out watering her garden when Gloria drops by to say how concerned she is about Orson's "soul," seeing how "adultery is a sin." Bree, bitterly: "I wouldn't worry about Orson's soul: he won't be sleeping with Alma." Gloria: "When I said 'adultery,' I wasn't referring to Orson and Alma. I meant Orson and you." In the eyes of Gloria's god, a god that doesn't recognize divorce, Bree is the "other woman." A point of view that Gloria insists Orson coming around to. Bree: "Are those shoes suede?" Puzzled, Gloria confirms that why yes, her shoes are most definitely suede. Bree points her hose at Gloria's and lets fly. Water ruins suede, you see.
And back to the swanky prison where convicts get to lounge all the livelong day. Mike and CreePaul are still in the recreation area, only now they're alone. Because what prison doesn't shift all its inmates to a new space just so two convicts can have a little private time? Mike is upset to learn that he has a son, and mad that no one even bothered to tell him. CreePaul offers the half-hearted explanation that people probably didn't want to jar his fragile psyche after all that coma time. Whatever. Mike's already been arrested for murder, which is even harder than (or at least on par with, depending on your views about having children) the news that you have a surprise son, even a black-souled son like Zana (though Mike doesn't even remember him). So CreePaul's favor: Zana won't respond to any of CreePaul's attempts to get in touch, so CreePaul wants Mike to ask Zana to come and pay CreePaul a visit. Because Zana's all he's got in this world! Mike: "That's one hell of a favor. Man, you've got some nerve." CreePaul: "I know, it's kind of what got me in here." Despite Mike's grumpiness (having someone ask you for a favor right after they had your ass kicked would make anyone crabby), you can tell he's sympathetic to CreePaul's plea. Which begs the question: if CreePaul's request was so easy to make a case for, why did he go through all those shenanigans with the hired thugs?
Another bouquet of flowers arrives for Gabby. Susan and Lynette watch the florist arrive from across the street. Susan wonders if it's Gabby's birthday or something, and Lynette dishes the news about Zana's big crush on Gabby, and how he's burning all this money because his inheritance came through when he turned eighteen "last month." Wait, but I thought Zana said he was a few months older than John the Gardener. And isn't John at least twenty? What with his fancy landscaping business and his fiancée? Susan, schemingly: "So Zach Young is loaded, huh?" Cut to...
...Gabby forcefully say to Susan, "No, absolutely not." Susan whines and begs. Gabby: "You wouldn't even let your own daughter go out with him." Huh? That statement would have only made sense if Gabby had cited someone who Susan hated, like, "You wouldn't even let Edie go out with him." Because I think there are probably many men whom Susan would find suitable for Gabby but not her sixteen-year-old daughter. Susan whines that Zach has really matured since becoming a "billionaire." Gabby snaps at Susan for "pimping [her] out to a teenager." Susan: "Okay, I deserve the 'pimping' remark, but let's not pretend that we're above teenagers." Did Susan go to the same lame favor-asking school as CreePaul? Because judgmentally alluding to a friend's affair with a teenaged gardener isn't really going to grease any wheels. Susan: "Gabby, you're all I've got." Didn't CreePaul just say that Zana's all he's got in the world? Are we supposed to be drawing parallels between Susan and CreePaul? If so, it doesn't really reflect well on Susan. Or CreePaul, really. For some unfathomable reason, Gabby agrees to this lame scheme, but then she asks Susan why she thinks Zana will even agree to the idea. Susan: "Because he's a great kid, and he's gonna want to help Mike. And you won't be wearing a bra when you ask him out." I wonder, is that a reference to all the rumors bouncing around these days about how the Housewives keep insisting on going braless on the set, and it's costing huge dollars to digitally erase their pointy nipples in post-production?
And now for the debut of Rebel Zana. Let me first set the scene: a room decorated with Z Gallerie-style "hip" furniture: a kidney-shaped couch that's sort of '50s Atomic-inspired, except that the couch back is done up in panels of differently colored leather (red, pink, yellow, blue, turquoise), a full bar with stools covered in a cow print. There's pinball machine in one corner, and a motorcycle propped up against the wall, and there's a band jamming on a stage. I guess Zana's built himself his own clubhouse? Zana is wailing ("The chords we're hearing aren't the chords he's playing," says my guitar-playing boyfriend) on a little spiral-painted guitar ("an Epiphone copy of a Zakk Wylde Les Paul"), and he's wearing a stiff-leather motorcycle jacket -- not the most comfortable thing in the world to wear whilst you're shredding, but looking that idiotic is totally worth a little discomfort.
Gabby walks in and Zana's face lights up like a...like a...like a teenaged boy who's just spotted the object of his "sexy older woman" fantasies walking into his own private Viper Room. He tells his band to "take five." Gabby compliments him on owning his own recording studio. Zana, super-coolly: "Yeah. I needed a place to lay some tracks with my band." Oh myLANTA, he is such a feeb. Then Zana brags that one of his musicians "used to tour with the Doobie Brothers." Unless I've really missed something, and I don't know how I could have missed something as hugely inexplicable as a Doobie Brothers resurgence, then this is possibly the saddest thing Zana's said yet. Is there anyone born after 1945 who would be stoked by presence of some guy who used to tour with the Doobs? I don't know, maybe he's just being super ironic. But no, he's too humorless for that. Gabby, not wanting to hang any longer than necessary, lays out the terms of her whorish scheme. They bicker over terms -- she wants a meal, no dessert, separate cars, no touching; he wants a whole day, three meals, and a goodnight kiss. They compromise with lunch and dinner, and (after Zana promises to put up Mike's million-dollar bail, in addition to covering his legal fees) one kiss.
Street fair. The Scavoria tent is going great guns. There's a line of customers and Lynette and Tom are cranking out the pizzas. Tom: "This restaurant is going to be a big, fat hit." Could a more jinx-tempting statement ever have been uttered?
House of Brats. Mrs. McCluskey is babysitting Kayla -- the P-kids are at the street fair. Mrs. McC brings Kayla a plate of cookies and tries to talk to her about how her refusing to go to the fair hurt Lynette's feelings. Kayla just keeps...drawing on her stuffed animal with a pen? What the hell? Is this some sort of new trend? Kids today love the Doobie Brothers and draw on their stuffed animals? Apparently so. (Note: Link not safe for work due to an incredibly loud auto-play song -- "I'm A Doodle Bear," to the tune of "I'm a Wanderer" -- that blasts your chi out of alignment the second you arrive at the site.) The doorbell rings, and Kayla turns, and with evil calm, just says, "Doorbell." Like a command. Mrs. McC gets up to answer the door, "Someone should be left on a hillside to rot," she whispers to herself. So it's Ed at the door, and he's brought Lynette a can of something...cookies? Mrs. McC covers by saying Lynette's at the doctor's. Over on the couch, Kayla shoots Mrs. McC a dirty look. Ed tells Mrs. McC to tell Lynette that she doesn't need to come back until she's really feeling better.
As Ed's leaving, Kayla sneaks out the back and meets him out front. "Excuse me, mister? I just wanted to tell you that my babysitter gets mixed up sometimes. Lynette's not at the doctor's." I wonder if spanking still legal in the Eagle State?
Street fair. Lynette tells Tom to fill her up a tray full of pizza so she can go "poach customers from that sausage-on-a-stick guy." O right, I forgot: Lynette is a bitch. So when the tipped-off Ed finds her, not only is she not barfing and screaming in pain like she's supposed to be, but she's actually carrying a huge pan of pizza with her bad arm. Lynette winces guiltily and tells him that she'll be there "bright and early on Monday morning," so the street fair IS on the weekend, which means she would have had the day off anyway. Why the big lie, then? Ed fires her, Lynette begs and pleads. Ed agrees to take her back, but only if she promises to work mega overtime, even if it means missing her kid's baseball game. Unfortunately, the non-twin boy P (Sensitive P) overhears her promise, and his face does its patented crumple. But he isn't even playing baseball anymore.
Ian calls Susan from Montreal. It appears that his coma wife's doctor called him, and she's taken a turn for the worse, and "Jane's parents are in Rome". Ian's heading home on the flight, but is wondering if Susan would mind going down to the hospital and sitting with Jane. Ian doesn't want her to be alone. Kind of a weird request: would Jane even want her husband's new girlfriend by her side?
Zana and Gabby's big date just coming to a close, and -- get this -- Gabby is actually having a good time. They tumble out of the limo, and Gabby's laughing, ohhoho: she "can't believe [she let him] talk her into that crème brûlée! Whatever. He tells her not to "feel guilty," double-oh-whatever, because they so clearly "burned it off on the dance floor." Yeah, they went salsa dancing. Apparently Zana has been taking lessons ever since he read it in an interview she gave in "Cosmo, '98." So it's Kiss Time, and Gabby offers up her pursed lips for a chaste peck, but Zana engulfs her face with a terrifying a deep-tissue maneuver that is more outer space docking procedure than kiss. Gabby pries herself away, coughing and spitting. Zana pouts that all the girls he's docked have told him that he's a great kisser, and Gabby asks him if they were on his payroll at the time. He gets all mortified -- because they were all prostitutes -- and takes off.
Susan arrives down at the coma ward just as a woman is giving some guy the boot from Jane's room. The woman turns to Susan and accuses her of being one of the "organ-donor vultures." Susan clarifies that she's actually there at Ian's request. Woman, suddenly welcoming: "Oh, you're the girlfriend...come on in." Susan asks the woman, who's name is Erika (played by Amy Aquino, who I totally recognize even though she appears to only appear on a bunch of shows I don't watch), who the guy was she evicted early. Oh, that was Ted, the guy who Jane cheated on Ian with. Susan: "When was this?" Erika: "I hate to dish my best friend on her deathbed," beat, beat, "but gossip was the foundation of our relationship." Erika relocates over to the spot on the couch to Susan and spills all the sordid details: how Ian was traveling a lot, how Jane got lonely. Ian did take Jane back afterward, but he "never trusted her again." The poignant "Ah, So That's Why Ian's Such A Controlling Dick" music swells, and it's clear that this is supposed to be a big break-through moment. But, since I'm not all that invested in this relationship -- they have so little chemistry that I keep kind of forgetting that they're dating -- I don't really care what does or doesn't make Ian tick. And since this whole scene with Jane's best friend is nothing but a scratch for an itch I don't have, it just feels kind of ham-fisted. For instance, why is Susan there at all? If Jane's best friend is covering the deathbed duties, then there's really no need for Susan to be there.
Scavoria. Lynette walks in and hands Tom her application for the manager job. She quit her job! And now she wants to join the family business, because ever since she got shot, she's wanted to spend more time with her family. Hmmm, I'm not so sure this is the greatest plan. Remember the last time they worked together? And Lynette had to eat a pound of raw bacon to protect Tom from being a whipping boy? Also I'm not sure how running a restaurant, which is a seven-days-a-week, sixteen-hour-a-day job, is going to bring her closer to her kids, but okay. (Maybe this was bitchy Kayla's plan all along? Get Lynette fired so she'd have to work at the Scavoria and never, ever come home? Evil genius!) Tom: "You do realize you're going to have to sleep with the boss." They kiss, and the deal is done.
Orson comes home to find Andrew in front of the computer. The phone rings, and Orson yells, "Alma did WHAT?!" Orson goes racing over to Alma's house, and Andrew, once the funniest person on this show, just sits there and blankly says, "Wait, what did Alma do?" Has Andrew been lobotomized? Why was he even in this scene?
Alma's lying in bed, eyes closed, and she's got bloody bandages on her wrist. Gloria is there, holding a Scotch. Orson asks why Gloria didn't call an ambulance, but she snips that she "thought it best for all concerned to keep this quiet." Gloria points out that Alma left Orson a note, it's sitting right there to the bed. Fast cut to...
...Orson, sitting with Gloria in the chairs across from Alma's bed, holding a Scotch of his own and looking at the note. The part that we can see reads: "Make you love me again, even after the terrible thing I did. I was wrong. If I can't live with you, I don't want to live at all." Orson rants that Alma only attempted suicide to "upset" him, that she knows his "history," and therefore "knows exactly what buttons to push." Gloria pours him more Scotch and shoots him a smug look that I can't believe he misses -- maybe he's drunk? He goes to stand up and immediately falls back into his chair. He is drunk. Or wait...DRUGGED! Orson looks at his glass, then at Gloria, and pieces it together. Alma sits up and removes her bloody bandages, which are totally fake. Orson, with hilarious flying-tea-cup eyes, asks Gloria what it is that she wants. Gloria: "What every mother wants, dear: a grandchild!" Ew. Alma takes off her robe, and underneath she's wearing this red lingerie thing that sort of looks like a bathing suit from the '50s, which makes no sense, but I must say, she looks very pretty in it. Pretty and completely bananas. Orson tries one last time to stand up and tips right out of his chair (a TULLSTA, if I'm not mistaken...I'd recognize that tippy instability anywhere).
Together Alma and Gloria lift Orson onto the bed -- the fact that Alma stripped down while Gloria was still there makes this whole thing even creepier. Gloria, all nudge-nudge: "Why don't I give you two some privacy?" Alma thanks her enthusiastically. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Orson tries again to sit up, but Alma slams him back onto the bed. "You mustn't struggle," she chides, "I want this baby to be born of love!" Orson's eyes are huge, screaming alarm bells. Alma gets up to put a silk scarf over the lamp and spray herself with perfume, and as preps for love-time, she tells Orson that she's been injecting herself with hormones so she'd be sure to catch pregnant once they finally got together. Hormones! We totally called it! Orson: "You're crazy." Alma, in the voice of Simka from Taxi: "Crazy for you, mister!" She tweaks his nose. Oh no, no. My brain, she is hanging out the Do Not Disturb sign, but my eyes, they cannot look away! Orson: "I won't, you can't make me." Ah, but she can: She gleefully informs him that his drink was loaded with two kinds of pills. "One to put you to sleep," she says, "and one to keep the part of you I need nice and perky." Isn't that how John Belushi died?
Okay, so you know how on Rescue Me, when Sheila dosed Tommy with GHB and Viagra and then raped him while weeping uncontrollably? Well, what follows goes almost exactly like that, except instead of crying while she's climbing aboard, Alma lip-syncs along to "Let's Misbehave" while smiling like a scary animatronic sexbot.
Coma ward. Coma Jane's blood pressure is dropping, and the doctor's don't think she's going to hold out much longer. Best friend Erika leaves to go call Jane's parents, on a payphone, I guess. Susan's cell phone rings (why didn't she let Erika use her phone to call the parents?). It's Ian, calling from a plane phone: his flight just took off, he should be to Fairview in about six hours. Susan gently tells him that Jane probably isn't going to last that long. Ian very passionately and sadly says that there are "things [he's] got to say to her," that he's "carried around so much anger about something that doesn't mean anything now." Susan offers to put the phone up to Jane's ear so he can tell her everything, and he starts talking. The "Sad, Isn't It?" music soars, and I idly think about whether I need to buy dog food.
You know what really is sad? Zana. Gabby -- wearing the same outfit she wore on her date, so it's still the same night -- shows up at Hot Topic Studios to find him strumming mournfully on his acoustic. ("He's actually playing in these scene," says Marco. "So why did they make him fake it before?") Gabby apologizes for the way their date ended, and he tries to explain "about those women" (i.e., the hookers who told him his barnacle kissing style was tops). Gabby: "Forget about it. Give a horny kid a couple million bucks and the Yellow Pages, and stuff is going to happen." Zana pitifully confesses that the problem is because he's paying everyone, even the guys in his band, but it's the only way to get anyone to like him. Gabby nicely volunteers to be his friend, and he seems genuinely happy.
Bree comes home from her book club. Andrew, it seems, has migrated his brainless stare from the computer over to the television. Bree asks why Orson isn't home yet, and he Andrew informs her that he's been over at Alma's for the past few hours. Ah. So that's why they shoehorned him into the "Orson Gets a Phone Call" scene: so he could pass the news along to Bree. Cut to...
...Bree, walking in to Alma's room and discovering Alma -- eyes closed, big smile on her face -- lying atop Orson. Orson's shirt is off (that Alma, she's a rapist with a detail-oriented eye for verisimilitude). Alma leaps to her feet and says, with faux concern, "I'm sorry you had to find out this way." Bree screams at Orson, who refuses to wake up, so she starts beating him with her purse. When he still doesn't wake up, she gets suspicious. Alma tries to play it off as post-coital fatigue, but Bree isn't biting. Bree opens up the beside table and finds the pills Alma used. Bree checks the labels, and then, horrified, she lifts the sheet and checks Orson's Viagra Falls region. She turns, her face full of fury, and growls at Alma, "You. Raped. My husband." Crazy, crazy, crazy Alma: "We made love. And when our baby's born, he's going to come back to me." So crazy. Alma: "I could be expecting right now." Bree: "Were you expecting THIS?" She winds up and fells Alma with a haymaker. Two redheads -- one potentially pregnant but only fictitiously, one pregnant in real life but pretending not to be -- cat fighting with only a World According to Garp-style unconscious man as witness? You just know the three lonely people out there who have this exact, highly specific fetish are just so, so happy right now. Bree picks up the phone and calls Andrew, tells him to come over, "and bring the wheelbarrow." If it were someone else, I'd say call the cops, but I can imagine Bree is pretty leery of the cops by now, after they interrupted her wedding and her latest dinner party. And then there are always appearances that need to be upheld; a male rape victim would be a sweet, sweet berry on the gossip vine.
Mike, now out on bail, pulls up at his house. Zana is waiting for him on the porch. They exchange a strange, strained conversation with lots of silent patches (silent except for the emotiolins fiddling their sad, sad song in the background). Zana asks if Mike remembers him, and Mike confesses that he doesn't, really, but he's aware of Zana's identity. Then Mike thanks him for the lawyer and the bailout. Zana tells him, "It's cool," and then offers to help again if ever Mike needs it. Mike: "I do need something. But it's not for me." Cut to...
...Zana, down at the pokey, visiting CreePaul. CreePaul is desperately trying to bond -- telling Zana how "mature" he looks, how "proud [his] mother would be," by which he clearly means Mary Alice, not Zana's bio-mom -- but Zana is weirdly withdrawn, with his body all folded in on itself and his voice all teeny. Paul apologizes for everything that's happened, and explains how he wants Zana to be his friend. Zana, suspiciously: "And that's the only reason you wanted to see me, so we could be friends." CreePaul insists that that's for sure the only reason. Except...he needs money to hire a private investigator to track down Felicia. At the mention of money, Zana -- fresh off his sad revelation that the only reason people like him is because of his fortunes -- visibly bristles. Totally oblivious, CreePaul keeps elaborating on his reasons for needing the cash. Zana, suddenly all animated like a switch got flipped, leans in and starts quiet-yelling at CreePaul about how he's got the "hottest, most amazing girlfriend in the entire world" now, and she's got really expensive tastes. So actually he really can't afford to give CreePaul any money, sorry. Aw, why can't Zana and Alma get together? Two totally deluded nut jobs with boggling tenacious stalking skills? Those crazy, crazy, crazy kids would light up the sky like a flame.
Susan is standing out in front of her house, looking around like she's waiting for something, when Mike walks over. He thanks her for what he suspects is her involvement in helping convince Zana to bail him out, and the he asks if he can do anything for her in return. Susan, sad, sad, so sadly: "Actually there is...I can't see you anymore." Clearly the whole "Ian is afraid that I'm going to cheat on him just like his wife did" revelation has actually seeped into Susan's heretofore impenetrable noggin, and she's actually acting on the knowledge that she's absorbed. And yet...didn't she already tell Mike she couldn't see him anymore? This whole conversation loses its poignancy when you know that Mike's already agreed not to see her. Mike looks sad, though, even though he says that he "gets it." Just then, Ian's limo rounds the corner, and Susan shoots Mike a look of panic. Ah, now I see why Susan's be so antsy throughout this scene: she's been worrying that Ian would come home while she and Mike were still talking. But it makes me feel a touch sad for her, that she's with someone who's so fragile that she has to freak out whenever one of his insecurities are in jeopardy of being jostled. Then again, Ian's wife did just die -- if ever Susan could just cool it with the Mike thing, this would be the time.
Mike wanders back to his side of the street, and Susan walks up to Ian's car. Ian gets out and stares at her with crazy-man intensity, and then he frantically grapples her into one of those head-swiveling tongue kisses. Behind them, we see Mike, staring at them go at it with just a touch of wist.
Why hello, Mary Alice. MAVO ties this one up by bringing us back to the opening "life can change in an instant" theme. "Unlikely friendships can blossom," she tells us, and Zana, sitting in his rock 'n' roll studio, looks down at a huge bouquet of flowers. The card reads: "Thanks for dinner...Your New Friend."
MAVO: "Important careers can be tossed aside." Lynette pulls a pizza out of the oven, and does a little strut of joy and pride, and Tom kisses her cute temple.
"A long-lost hope," MAVO tells us, "can be rekindled." Alma takes a pregnancy test out of a shopping bag and smiles at it like the crazy, crazy, crazy person she truly is.
"Still, we should be grateful for whatever changes life throws at us," MAVO continues. Mike and Carlos crack open some beers out on their front porch.
And then she finishes up with this ominous warning: "Because all too soon, the day will come when there are no changes left." With "Danger, Danger" background music at full throttle, we see a body being rolled into the hospital elevator. The toe tag reads "Jane Hainsworth." Desperate convention dictates that when music like this is playing, and MAVO's being all spooky, and it's the last shot of the episode, that something creepy and or mysterious has just been revealed. But what's so mysterious about a woman dying after languishing in a coma for three years?
Up : Lynette and Tom start bickering down at the pizzeria, if you can believe that (other news flashes: war hurts people and cake tastes great when administered orally), and Bree falls off a ladder.