Paul takes his prison bride Beth to a therapist, male, in the hopes that he'll instruct her to give it up. Instead, the guy tells them to start dating, and maybe someday Beth will -- through the power of haunted houses, potluck suppers and neighborhood picnics -- somehow turn from the kind of lunatic who would marry a murderer in jail to the kind of lunatic that would marry Paul Young. After their first date goes well, Paul leans in for the kiss, gets slapped instead, and kicks Beth out.
Since the only way that storyline could get creepier is if Susan were involved, Susan is involved. To head off Paul's attempt at blackmailing her, she comes clean to Mike about her lame pornography career. Mike immediately starts making up ways to martyr himself and doubt his abilities to provide, over the more obvious route of realizing that he's married to a dangerously incompetent, emotionally retarded head case.
Brian Austin Keith has a female roommate, so Bree gets all Bree for a second and goes through his mail. He's had some assault charges -- no red flags there! -- but Renee says she heard he was just defending his girlfriend. Bree engineers a similar situation and nearly gets a guy beat to hell, and when an ashamed Keith storms off, Bree tells him to chill: This is the point in the relationship at which they start learning the messed up stuff. Like, for example, did he know she was a famously huge alcoholic? Then they make out, and as the only romantic thing in this entire unsavory episode, it's awesome.
Mike decides to kill Paul with a hammer for blackmailing his disabled wife, but Susan decides it'd be way smarter to go over there and intimidate him with muffins. Because one thing that doesn't ever bother Paul Young is getting fucked with. Nobody's ever lost fingers or gotten buried in the backyard from messing with that beehive before. So she shambles on over to Paul's house and does some stupid Susan shit, and of course he immediately retaliates and gets her fired from her teaching job. So suddenly Mike has to move to Alaska, or else they'll have to move their house to the lee of the stone or whatever she's always whining about. Susan's money troubles are symptoms, not causes. You know? It's hard to pay attention.
About twelve hours after it became obvious, Susan finally twigs to the fact that her rampage and abrupt firing might be connected, so she heads over to Paul's house -- dressed like Beth the Clown from Passions -- and almost gets her ass shot by Beth, who (after some heavily coded conversations about how far she's willing to go to stay in Paul's house) has finally figured out a way to keep Paul close and happy: Gunplay and making out.
Juanita and Grace continue to bond, by which I mean of course that Gabrielle and her biodaughter Grace continue to bond while Juanita continues to spin wildly into a dark and chubby madness. She spots that necklace in Grace's stuff and steals it back; no thanks from mom. She dresses up like an adorable puppy; Grace is a princess. By the end of the episode Gabrielle is just straight-up abusing her real kids, so Juanita chops off all of Grace's hair with that glint of crazy in her eye that proves she's Gabrielle's real daughter through and through: Blood's thicker than water, but crazy trumps everything. Juanita calls her mom out in front of the painfully not-present Carlos, and Gabrielle confronts some hard truths about how she's out of control and kind of an asshole. Just kidding, she totally doesn't confront those truths.
The other major storyline this week has to do with Tom Scavo's clearly senile mother, in whom both Lynette and Tom seem to have complete faith even though she SCREAMS IN ALL CAPITALS whenever she talks and generally seems a toilet seat away from Riding The Bus With My Sister. Of course, these are the same people that nominated their tween daughter to be the new mommy of their house last week, so it's not surprising that they're overlooking symptoms.
Lynette finally notices that Mother Scavo is old and bonkers, but then Tom can't believe it on account of how he's Tom Scavo, and you're like, "Countdown to Lynette's mother-in-law killing at least one of Lynette's children starts here." After more symptoms come to light -- hoarding, "sundowning," mood swings -- Tom and Lynette leave her to take care of their entire family so they can go to a party. Of course Grandma goes wandering the streets of Fairview immediately, and Tom panics and walks past her in an old-lady k-hole, and then they ship her off to a home. Seems like the right call, right? Because now they can get a grownup nanny? With all her senses and a rational mind? Right?
...Except guess who just got fired.
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Because Paul Young still hasn't figured out that his prison wife is deranged, he can't understand why they haven't had sex. As their therapist points out, even in her cover story where she's one of those crazy ladies that falls in love with Charlie Manson, she wouldn't be into him, having chosen a jail person to wed because there's no touching in jail. And since that story is also clearly a lie, that's two levels of no sex with Paul Young.
Paul is bummed because he assumed -- as Mary Alice points out, with no more judgment in her voice than the natural condescension with which she says everything -- that a male therapist would be on his side. "Submit to marital rape!" the doctor would say, and Batshit Beth would be like, "Well, if science says so." Instead, the doctor gives them some quackery about "Well, since your relationship is not real and based on the tenuous balance of both your insane membranes, why not start with dating? You know, like how adults would have done it?"
Paul does not want to drop money on that shit because Paul is very much obsessed with his mysterious schemes. At this point, I don't blame him. I feel like just keeping up with his crazy self is something I've never been able to do, and I'm trying it from my relatively non-crazy brain. The noises in there, who knows. Honestly, it's so complicated at this point I plead ignorance. Tell me he cut off that lady's thumb, I'll say yes. Tell me he shot his wife in the kitchen while she was hanging herself, and then traded their son for a record third time with the Solis baby five years ago, maybe I would believe you. I never thought I would have to pay attention to this shit, so I didn't.
It is kind of a bummer that Mary Alice doesn't go Lovely Bones on their asses anymore. She still talks about friendship and whatever, neighbors and how to be neighborly, but how great would it be if she singsonged, "And I hope that motherfucker gets what's coming to him" or "Beth's a virgin? OH SNAP!" Every now and then, I mean. But also, I love what Paul says on finding out that latter fact he's like, "Saving yourself for marriage? GUESS WHAT YOU ARE MARRIED." Then he ruins it by calling her vagina a cookie jar and asking for a cookie, which: Nope. Advantage Beth. Oh, and supposedly she's 30, too.
Renee is having a party, so she lets herself into Lynette's house without knocking. "Yo bitches," she says, "I heard you like being insulted so I put some insults in this invitation so I can insult you while I invite you... To my Halloween party!" Since all of them have carried the crazy ball at this point -- and because all of them miss Edie more than they'll ever admit -- they don't even point out how incredibly rude she is. It's like a built-in reason for martyr Lynette to feel put-upon, and Susan deserves a shovel to the face at least three times a day, but I don't know why the others take it.
Gabrielle is, of course, having a sleepover with her best friend in the whole world, an eight-year-old girl, while dressing her actual daughter as a big fat puppy. Renee explains that none of this is relevant because there are no kids allowed at her party: "See this? The tricycle with a line through it? No kids. They always get underfoot, they eat all the candy, and, uh, you can't swear in front of the little bastards." She does make an exception for Bree's boyfriend Keith, because watching him try to comprehend the whole "bobbing for apples" thing might just be the revenge that will quench her mean-girl thirst.
Mother Scavo comes stumbling into the room like a zombie and screams crazy senile talk about the China Sea or the China Syndrome or something, and as usual nobody notices that she constantly acts like Betty Draper having a bad trip in the parking lot of a String Cheese Incident show. This is why they are constantly surrounded by murderers and vehicular homicide and secret lesbians and boys locked in basements: It's that Fairview etiquette that says you see nothing, you say nothing, you let people stew. You hope the tornado doesn't have a plane crash inside it.
Lynette remembers that Allison never asked her to get her special China Pearl hand cream, but of course Bloody Momma's all, "I ASKED YOU A MILLION TIMES! MY HANDS BEGIN TO CRACK AND BLEED! I STEWED AND ATE THE LINDBERGH BABY!" There's a great moment where Gabrielle stares at the Scav like, "Oh, this one's right on the edge. And don't you dare bleed on me, old lady." But she doesn't say anything, of course. Lynette agrees to hit the store -- ditching everybody she knows, in her living room -- as long as Allison wakes up baby Paige at three, so that she won't sleep all day and scream all night. Baby Paige shivers and turns over in her crib upstairs, hoping her mom comes home before Grandma leaves her in the yard, or on the roof, or mails her somewhere.
For once in her stupid life, Susan has decided to do the right thing: Show Mike how she's been prostituting herself firsthand, so that Paul will lose his blackmailing power over her. Mike, of course, makes it all about his wounded subprime masculinity and how he should have taken a job in Alaska to get the hell away from his horrible wife, and just send back the money she needs for paper doll costumes and cactuses to lick.
Susan tries to point out that, as usual, this is all her fault and there's no need for him to feel poorly about himself, but now that he sees an out, there's no way he's going to pass it up. She lets the other shoe fall and admits that Paul Young is blackmailing her to get their house, because he's so into their house for whatever reason. So Mike grabs a literal hammer and heads out the door, because after all the things Paul has done to him specifically, a real estate scheme involving his retarded wife is apparently the last straw. She jumps on his back -- again, literally -- and tells him she has an even worse idea.
Juanita and Grace talk about little kid stuff, Halloween stuff, and then Juanita notices that ugly necklace Gabrielle got for her first modeling job and gave to Grace. Juanita is suspicious about that, and eventually steals it "back." Of course, she's delighted to tell her mother about this immediately, in the hopes that she'll stop forcing her to hang with this girl and let her go back to being weird and lonesome, and Gabrielle screams in her face: "No! No! No!" Realizing this makes her look nuts, Gabby pulls back and admits she gave it to Grace as a present, because Grace is poor, and she hates it when people are poor. Juanita points out that her aunt Rosie's poor, but in that case "you always hide your jewelry box when she comes over." Gabrielle says the difference is that Grace isn't a klepto with a meth habit, and Juanita's like, "Give me a week."
Momma Scavenger is all, "I WAS DOWN TO MY LAST JAR OF CHINA PEARL HAND CREAM! IT WAS LIKE IN THE WAR! WE DREW LINES DOWN OUR LEGS SO IT LOOKED LIKE WE HAD STOCKINGS ON BUT THEY WEREN'T STOCKINGS! THEY WERE JUST LEGS! LEGS!"
Lynette's pissed that Allison let the baby sleep -- for the four hours it apparently took her to get this stuff, because I guess she went to actual China and got some pearls and creamed 'em up real nice -- which causes Gramps to get super freaky and, while simultaneously confusing her son with his brother and his father and LAWRENCE WELK, flip the script on Lynette in a fairly scary mood swing: A grab-the-sewing-scissors flipout that seamlessly transforms into a Morrissey weeping jag. The head threatens to twist all the way around, but Lynette does not fucking stick around to find out. I woulda taken the hand cream away, too. Treat me like that? No, ma'am. "Old & Bonkers" ain't a free pass, Treetrunks.
But I don't know what Susan's fucking excuse is, either. She takes some muffins over to Paul's house and grins manically like the ghoulish skellington she is, and then pretends to notice a calendar, held to the wall with a thumbtack. As usual, Paul is the only class act on this show: "I tried willing the calendar to stay up? But it just wouldn't cooperate." Susan trumps up some bullshit, you see where this is headed, and evicts both him and Virgin Suicide upstairs.
Paul points out that he has her dirty little underwear secret in his back pocket, like he's playing this legit, and she says she's already told Mike everything. I think a more salient point, Paul, would be to say, "I am fucking Paul Young. Wisteria Lane trembles at my passage. I killed a paperboy this morning just to find out what his blood tasted like."
None of this "I'm going to shock people with the knowledge that you're an airhead" nonsense, because guess what: They are aware. Why do you think Bree's always the one to cut your birthday cake? Because we all know you're gonna end up windmilling your arms -- backward, and then forward, and then right into the cake -- and we don't want you weaponized for that.
Needless to say, the more futile it gets the more confidence Susan finds in herself. So then she threatens Paul about how Mike wanted to kill him with a hammer, which she brought over just to show Paul. Which, again: "I'm Paul Young. Your husband tries to kill me at least three times every fiscal year. I know he had amnesia, lady, but what's your excuse?" She smashes a muffin with the hammer, just to make sure Paul is good and enraged, and then toodle-oos with another warning to vacate and a classy parting Susan shot about how the "raisin muffins" might actually contain rat shit. Charmed, I'm sure.
So while Paul sighs and goes down to the basement to find the best tools to murder Susan at her own ebullient request, Bree has finally gotten to see the interior of Keith's apartment. Which is gorgeous. Of course, she can't help but tell him how she was assuming she'd have to have a big fake smile because it would presumably be a crack den, because what's the point of slumming if you're not constantly telling the person, and they discuss their favorite potpourri scents. (For real.) They're about to fuck on a placemat when Keith's hot roommate Mimi walks through, and Bree goes cold. She's like "There's that fake smile! I have to notify you that I am having emotions because this is also just my actual face now."
Beth Getting Married? is all, "Did we really have to go all the way to a haunted house for our first date? Because I live with a serial killer, so..." Paul sends her to get some banana bread and grabs a mom -- this is an Oakridge School benefit, which is where Susan works when she's not getting everything all soapy and wet -- to tell her about how her kid's favorite teacher is moonlighting as a braindead idiot in her underwear.
Paige still isn't sleeping, of course, so Lynette sings to her about how dangerous and stupid it is to leave a demented, sexist old woman in charge of her sleep schedule, but doesn't make the connection between those things and Treetrunks's indulgent, horrific parenting. I mean, Lynette is crazy neglectful, but at least it's for honest reasons, like her own selfishness and the fact that she is married to a powder keg. She notices that Gramma's hoarding jars upon jars of China Hand Stuff, and figures out what has been clear since the second Gramma showed up.
Of course, now she has to take this to Tom, who is going to get shitty about it with a quickness. It's a funny little thing with Lynette, because she's motivated mostly by being a naturally suspicious and judgmental person, but then her paranoia is always right, so she's like this Cassandra That Cried Wolf. Tom's like, "So the old thing likes hand cream? You like hand cream, does that mean you're fucking crazy, too?" She makes a big, resentful list of all the nutty things Allison's been doing, and of course to Tom it sounds like her usual MO -- which is, after all, making big, resentful lists.
"No, this time it's different! Just like every time, I shall eventually be vindicated!" Just once, Tom thinks, I'd like to be the one who patronizingly crushes your worldview and ends up getting a tearful thanks. But not today. Nobody's comin' after Momma today. "She's away from home," Tom illogically explains: "She isn't used to all this chaos." The chaos is in her mind! Lynette, sensitively, does not say. Although what she does say, with a condescending little hair-ruffle, is in some ways barely better:
"Okay, I get it. She's your mom, and you love her, and you can look for an excuse for every one of these things. But I think there's more going on here than just her being a little forgetful." It's a nice twist on the whole Tom/Lynette thing, which is that she's so Forest she drops stitches and goes insensitive, while he's so Trees that he gets his feelings hurt all the time and can't remember -- or string together patterns from -- events in even the recent past. So what she is saying is exactly right -- a syndrome is a collection of symptoms -- but all Tom ever sees are symptoms. And she knows that, because all she ever sees are syndromes, he's under no obligation to believe her.
After a sleepless night of wondering if the obviously true thing could possibly be true, Tom decides to broach the concept of senile dementia over breakfast. It's sad. His mom's like, "I'm not scattered, but thanks for worrying. Remember all these minute details of your childhood and how you hated summer camp and called me on the phone?" Of course, things take a turn for the weird: It seems she didn't really put his puppy on the phone, just barked a couple of times. Then she demonstrates what that was like. An elderly woman at your breakfast table, barking like a dog, in her housecoat. Yeah, she's doing great.
Tom points out to the creeping, eavesdropping Lynette that everything is clearly fine. Lynette, though, has been visiting with her version of Dr. Feelgood, WebMD, and has learned about this thing "sundowning" where people with dementia sometimes only get confused at night. That is very scary and something I didn't know, so thanks for that horrible concept in my head, show. Tom turns it around on Lynette, pointing out that she's wanted Allison out of the house since she showed up.
Instead of pointing out that he totally ambushed her by bringing his awful mother to come live with them, and meddle with Lynette's semblance of a parenting system, and cater to his every whim, and that they have a super creepy relationship that somehow traverses the innate shittiness of Baby Boomer guys and heads into Coming Of Age In Samoa territory, Lynette just makes more lists. "You think this is a tactic? The other day she made tea, then left the stove on for an hour!" Lynette points to the mounting tea-related evidence and suggests taking his mother to a doctor, which is where Tom draws the line.
"We will be denying my mother the urgent medical care she needs, and we will continue to endanger our children! End of discussion!" Which, first of all Lynette does not end discussions, ever, and secondly: You just ensured that if the evidence doesn't suffice, Lynette will totally end up framing Mommy with some kind of Gaslight scenario. Then, once she's made grandma look pathetic and crazy as possible, she'll wash her hands of the whole thing and demand some gratitude for once again helpfully ruining your life. Obviously. Maybe Tom's the one with early-onset, because that is clearly the only option he left his wife.
Sexy Mimi offers Bree some tea for her walk of shame, and Bree gets really aggressive with her in return, all butter-wouldn't-melt and so-I-heard-you-fucked-my-poolboy. Mimi is offended, because she never slept with Keith, and Bree's like, "That was just a cunning test to see how you reacted to my wild imaginings." Instead of slapping her across the face, Mimi's like, "Well played, you old bat." They drink their tea and Mimi's like, "He never stops talking about you. Hey, I'm going to leave you alone with our mail so you can get super suspicious and read our mail and discover some troubling facts." Bree's like, "One step ahead of you. Could you hand me that teapot? I've got some letters to steam open."
Keith's on probation for assault, apparently, so instead of talking to him about that like a grownup, Bree heads on over to Renee's house to chat and gossip and generally involve Renee in the relationship she stole from Renee. But since Renee is awesome, she only says one or two mean things before hand-waving the whole thing away: Apparently, the scuttlebutt she got from the bartender -- at that place where Bree put her dress on backwards, speaking of senile dementia -- is that Keith only got nicked because he was defending his girlfriend.
Best line in the episode so far is Renee, on the concept of vetting one's one-night stands: "Don't wanna end up handcuffed to my bed for three days... Again..." And also, let's not throw stones in the crazy house, considering Bree's already sabotaged her own sprinkler system and activated her army of little people in order to get this guy in the first place. Comforted by the Keith part -- and breezily unaware of the serious nature of her own problems -- Bree's like, "Thanks for calling me a 'bony old white lady' and giving me this news, friend." Renee then snottily counsels her to start a fight to see if Keith slugs her, which is such a killer end line that you almost feel bad for Bree having to come up with a rejoinder: "Whoever left you handcuffed to the bed for three days? He has my respect."
Does Grace love the princess costume that Gabby's been slaving over all week? She does. In fact, Grace crows, Gabrielle is the coolest mom ever. To prove it, here's what else is going on the whole time: Poor Juanita dressed like a puppy going, literally, "Look, Mommy! Woof! Woof! I can wag my tail!" It's bruuuutal. Gabrielle, I love Eva Longoria's acting, she's honestly into Juanita, like, they are buds. She loves her daughter, she tells her she's adorable, and giggles with her, but the second Grace comes in she drops that mess and starts styling her hair around the tiara.
Juanita asks for a little coiffure attention of her own, and she's like, "Sweetie, it doesn't even show. But I am gonna go over you with a lint roller!" I love how that is the same thing in her head, complete with a little affectionate chest-poke. Juanita decides she would rather be a princess, too, she doesn't want to be a puppy anymore, and Gabrielle goes, "Sorry, you're either going as a dog or a little Mexican girl. And in this neighborhood, we both know which one's getting more candy." (NICE.) Gabrielle's always been my favorite -- honestly, she's the only one that's ever made any sense to me -- but this time jump has made her entire journey toward having a soul quite fascinating, in addition to being funny. Lint roller!
Susan is dressed like a total asshole. (This Halloween I'm going as myself!) She's got a big bushy black wig in pigtails, an elaborately large little-girl clown dress, cheeks tarted up with rouge, the whole thing. She looks somehow deranged and stupidly innocent at the same time. And a quick second later, she is terminated as a teacher at the Oakridge School. Her only crime? Finally acting as dumb on the internet as she does everywhere else.
When she gets home, Mike is looking delicious and their kid is dressed as an annoying caveman saying annoying things, and once MJ is gone she admits she got fired. Of course, this is Mike's cue to start planning Paul's murder again, but stupid fucking Susan is like, "I'm sure this has nothing to do with him." Paul's like, "Well, now I have to go to Alaska, because that's where all jobs happen." It's all very vague, this Alaska thing, but I guess that's not unrealistic. I just want the deets: Will it be like Ice Road Truckers, losing it on the icy roads and living every moment like their last? Or that one with the lobsters and crabs that kill you? Or will it be one of those lumberjack camps where they all wear suspenders -- possibly, I admit, I have imagined this employment opportunity -- and grow bushy beards and forget women altogether and it's just a never-ending Jack London Scout Jamboree?
Whatever it is, Susan thinks it's totally selfish of Mike to leave their son in the care of someone so dazzlingly incompetent. Maybe if Julie were still around, but with just the two of them it's going to turn into Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead within, like, minutes. The last thing he'll see in the rearview mirror is their house catching fire and falling in on itself in one final conflagration.
Mike offers the opinion that Susan wasn't exactly thinking about her son when she was whoring it up on a webcam, and Susan's like, "Valid." Mike goes, "No, Susan, you don't get to make the decisions about what's best for this family anymore. I do." Which normally, that's way paternalistic and disrespectful and hateful towards women and I couldn't bear it, but luckily he's married to the one woman on earth who honestly should never have any options at all. Your marriage is feminism-exempt.
Coming home from their second date, Beth is a little sparkly and happy. Turns out Paul acted normal at dinner and told her stories about his childhood. Before the Dark Passenger or whatever the fuck is wrong with him inside. "Can I give you an odd compliment? When you talk about the past, it changes how you look. You're not so... Intimidating." Note to boys: That is not a romantic thing, it's barely a nice thing, to say. Do not go in for the kiss when a girl tells you, "You seem like marginally less of a serial rapist right now, baby."
But you know, I've always liked Paul, and I love what he says here: Now that he knows she's a virgin and she's finally confirmed that their entire marriage was just her sad fantasy of the ultimate unavailable man, he needs to explain basic shit to her. Like, sex with your wife, for e.g., is not just about fucking. "I'm not some kind of animal trying to satisfy its urges. If I was, I could've gone to a bar, or any street corner, weeks ago." (Um, Paul? You better steer this boat into port with a quickness, because that's not the phrase you want echoing in the silence.)
Having a real marriage, he explains, is about being on a team. "With what I've been through, I need a partner by my side, someone that I can trust. I think you can be that person. The question is... Do you?" I know I do, speaking personally I think he'd make a great husband and I don't know what the damn holdup is, but since Beth's clearly running some kind of long con -- and is no doubt bughouse crazy also -- she slaps him in the face for trying to kiss her again. So then he kicks her out, because for real. Who needs it? He has no idea of her agenda: The facts on the ground are that they are married, and she's making it weird and fake. On the surface, she's just playing games and/or is not ready for a relationship. Setting her free is not only kicking loose of drama, but a favor to her. If we're not actually married in any way, why are we married? I'm with Paul, as usual.
Renee is half-hot/half-weird in her Marilyn Monroe costume. Because Keith is some age, he doesn't recognize Marilyn Monroe and when she sings "Happy Birthday Mr. President" he thinks she's supposed to be Michelle Obama. (Do you have to pay the license for that song if you do it in a Marilyn costume?) Renee loves that Keith is stupid, because he is sour grapes to her. Also, he is dressed as a biker douche, and Bree is looking lovely and sorta creepy as a cheerleader. Also, how the fuck you don't know who Marilyn Monroe is? Brian Austin Green is one hot near-forty, but no matter how old the character is supposed to be, he'd have to be a toddler -- or really unrealistically Susan amounts of dumb -- to make that joke work.
Bloody Mama is wearing fairy wings, maybe even because it's Halloween, but because the sun just set, she's losing track of things like the Bonkersness Werewolf she is. She screams, "WE'RE OUT OF CANDY! I'M GOING TO THE STORE IN MY MODEL T! I CALL HER CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG! DARBY O'GILL WAS MY BOYFRIEND! HE USED TO BRING ME LAVENDER MINTS AND WE'D SIT IN THE PARLOR!" Tom is like, "No, oldie, we totally have plenty of candy stashed all over the house in absurdly hard-to-find places like 'the cupboard' and 'my golf bag.'" None of this information registers, of course, and then they make out a little bit in that horrible way they always do.
Juanita: Still fat and way too smart for this shit. Celia: Still stupid and way too funny to always get shoved to the back of these storylines. She's dressed like a cat, but she won't stop mooing, and Gabrielle is like, "I hope both of you got switched at birth." Then she puts Grace on her shoulders and parades her through town like the queen of the universe, tossing down rose petals and diamonds in her path. Juanita has just about motherfucking had it. At one of the houses, when the woman says that Grace is as pretty as her mommy, the worst line of the episode happens: "No, my daughter's a dog. The dog! That dog," she says, before shoveling chocolate into Juanita's face: "It's cheaper than therapy!"
Man! When J-Dawg finally blows it's gonna be crazier and awesomer than both of Bree's kids put together. They're gonna have to lock her in the basement. Send Alfre Woodard down with pudding pops.
Speaking of kids who are set to explode in about a minute: Treetrunks immediately starts worrying about the Scavo candy supplies again, and when that long-suffering daughter of theirs reminds Grandma that they're fine, she completely breezes past her, into the night. Still wearing those fairy wings. Whatsherface is like, "What, now I gotta babysit my grandmother, too? Fuck that, I'm watching TV. This will sort itself out."
One of the gay ones shows up in a Marilyn costume and there's a moment of bitchery with Renee at the door and then, further inside, this total skeeze in a football uniform starts in on Bree about "the big game" and how he scored the winning touchdown, et cetera, and gets in her area. Bree finally realizes she can get rid of this guy and also find out if she's dating a violent maniac, which she has paperwork to prove anyway, by starting a big fight. Of course, when Keith meanders over he doesn't notice the guy Tex Averying with his tongue out, so Bree has to explain to him that football guy needs intimidating.
Keith scares the jerk off, but just as Bree's delivering a great little monologue -- "That was very gallant, not to mention sexy! No one's ever defended me like that before. Orson once threw half a diet soda at a man, but we were in a moving vehicle, so I don't..." -- Keith goes off and tries to beat the guy up. It gets intense, but not that intense, and Keith pulls it together, gets really embarrassed and leaves.
Now, the best scene of the episode. Bree chases Keith down in the yard asks him what's up, and he screams, "An idiot pushed my buttons, and I went off!" Bree's like, okay, but why are you yelling at me about it? Um, because you set the whole scenario up instead of being honest? "Because it's who I am! I've been arrested for this before! You know, I kept trying to convince myself that it wasn't a problem. Until the second time that I got arrested, then I realized it was. So feel free to break up with me, because you know you want to!"
No, she doesn't. Her first husband was into bondage, despite being married to a functional dominatrix. Her second husband, I don't even know. Her boyfriend in between those slept with her teenage son, not that you could ever blame anybody for that. Bree's like, "I like 'em fucked up, you're hot trash and my last husband was fancy, so let's do this." Keith talks about her perfectly trimmed, um, lawn, and how her face never moves, and she's like, "Wanna talk about my perfect lawn? Nine years ago, my son found me facedown drunk on it. It's true! He had turn the sprinklers on to wake me up. Did you not know you were dating the biggest lush in Fairview?"
Keith falls in love all over again and she's like, "We all have baggage, and you and I have reached that point." Very forthright, she asks if there's anything else -- he says no -- and she's like, "Nothing I can't handle. We good here? Think you can deal with a control freak with a drinking problem?" and then they make out and it's sooo cute. I mean, for this show, it's really cute. On another show it would be a murder-suicide in embryonic form, just red flags everywhere, but you know Bree is going to stay in charge of this. And like either of them would want it any other way. ("Fuck me on this placemat?" That's a keeper.) Well, and the fact that she never comes clean about purposefully pushing his buttons -- in order to embarrass him/get a man killed -- just so she wouldn't have to ask an honest question. But that's the most lovably Bree part of all.
Tom and a twin or two are watching scary movies and completely ignoring the fact that Treetrunks has been missing for hours. The doorbell rings and he summons his mother like a servant -- of course -- and then gets pissy when she doesn't immediately hop to. Then Penny points out that she's been gone pretty much all night, on a fool's errand, and that she's been pretty nonfunctional since oh, about sundown, so Tom resentfully heads out to comb the streets for his mother, who has totally just ruined his night with her old-lady bullshit. So annoyed is he, in fact, that he totally misses the old lady in fairy wings crouched against a picket fence doing her best impression of Lucille Ball in the classic Daphne Zuniga TV movie Stone Pillow.
Gabrielle approves of Grace's haul -- "You worked that sidewalk like a Milan runway!" -- and notes, again, that Celia is a weird little nugget. "How did you get so much of this in your fur? This is why cats do not chew gum." Grace, who is just sort of unctuous so far, offers Gabby some peppermint because it's her favorite, and Gabby leaves her in the hands of Juanita while she gets the gum off Celia. Juanita grabs some scissors and cuts the tiara out of Grace's hair with a quickness. Swish, swoop, slice.
In the bathroom Celia tries again to meow like a kitty; when she oinks instead, Gabby's all, "I really hope you marry well." (Good momming, Vietnam.) Then come the screams! Juanita's standing out there with this chiller of a smile and Grace's hair in her hands and the coldest voice of death: "She was having a problem. I fixed it."
Lynette tells whichever gay one that he looked better as Marilyn than Renee did, which is a damned lie although her followup line is good -- "JFK would be all over that!" -- and then her phone rings. It's Carlos, all, "Did you lose an old person?" She's so distracted -- I rewound it several times to make sure -- that she puts her phone in her purse and then hands her purse to Lee before heading over there. Isn't that odd? Why would you hand your phone and purse to somebody and then go tearing off in your flapper dress? Does she think she's going to have to tackle Fairy Grandmother to the ground? And how much would you pay to see that?
When Lynette arrives Chez Solis, she does another weird thing, which is pet Carlos like a cat without saying anything. I mean, it's a natural response to Carlos, but two odd moments in a row. As the preeminent actress-actress of the show, maybe this is just her craft in action, like, those little twists she gives you every take to keep it fresh. I mostly just want to pet Carlos like a cat, but I can also see it being an acting choice.
Gramophone is sort of lucid, in that she recognizes Lynette by name, but then she's like, "WELL BACK IN THE AUGHTS THAT WAS THE GENERAL STORE RIGHT THERE WHERE THE PARK IS YOU COULD BUY CANDY FOR A PENNY, WE CALLED IT PENNY CANDY, AND A PICKLE FOR A NICKLE! AND I THOUGHT I SHOULD JUST BUY SOME CANDY THERE AND THEN STOP BY CLAIRE GRAHAM'S HOUSE FOR SOME SWEET TEA AND A LITTLE QUILTING! BUT THERE IS NO STORE AND MAYBE CLAIRE GRAHAM IS IMAGINARY AND ALSO THIS WAS FIVE HOURS AGO."
Lynette tries to explain that parts of this story are crazy and made-up, and Grams decides to punch her in the face for framing her for crazy. "THIS IS JUST LIKE WHEN WE KILLED THE BLACK DAHLIA, LYNETTE! IT IS A FRAME-UP! THEY TOLD ME IT WAS JUST SOME RUM-RUNNING BUT I KNEW, GOD SAVE ME, I KNEW WHAT THOSE BOYS WERE UP TO. SHE WOULDA TOLD! I AM NOT YOUR PATSY!"
Tom walks up just as his mother is rabbit-punching his wife in the face like a million dollar baby, and his very sad face is very sad. Allison sets up the whole Gaslight scenario -- "You're making me feel crazy!" -- but at this point her credibility is shot. She begs Tom to tell Lynette how she's sorry and never punches flappers in the face, but he can barely speak.
Since Beth's whole thing is a mystery -- and having forgotten so much of the Paul Young/Felicia Fingers/Mary Alice/Dana/Toybox/Mike/Other Old Lady scenario, probably even more of a mystery to yours truly -- I'll just transcribe her tearful conversation. Remember that the last time we saw her, Paul was throwing her virgin ass out of his house for not actually being his wife in any way. Also, note that the first shot in the scene is of a goldfish swimming around in an empty bowl, just like Beth is swimming around in the house of horrors that is Paul's life thanks to his condescending smarmy dead wife.
"It's okay, Mom, I'm here. Mama, that is what he said: 'I want you gone.' Those were his exact words. I am. I am trying to make it work, I swear! I do everything he asks of me. Maybe I should come home... But yes, I know I made a commitment. But I am so unhappy... Of course I want you to be proud of me! Okay, uh, I'll... I will, I'll try. Bye, Mama."
The gay one runs up yelling about his gay stilettos, and asks for the eleventh episode running if maybe this week Susan is interested in selling her house to Paul Young. I appreciate the attempt to be topical, but it seems really unsympathetic to make Susan the subprime storyline, because I mean of course... Well, we won't get into that, but you know what I'm saying. Don't buy things you can't afford. Don't be Susan in any other way either, but especially that. Susan is like, "Actually, I kicked him up out of there due to thumbtack violations. Well, and my innate need to bearbait everyone that could possibly hurt me." While they are having this conversation, in fact, Susan somehow manages to lock herself out of her house naked, stumble into a rose bush, and lose fifty more pounds. Just how she rolls.
Finally the obvious sinks in -- that Paul Young got her fired -- and Susan tosses her phone, and MJ, into her purse, and tosses the whole kit and caboodle at Lee before heading off at a clip. So now he's in drag as Marilyn Monroe, stumping around on stilettos, and carrying everybody's purse on Wisteria Lane. Luckily Mary Alice has exactly the retarded iambic monologue for this situation. "Purses: Every woman carries one, whether big or small, and they contain so much. Phones, children. Regret. Memories... But one thing you can count on in Wisteria Lane? The gay one's probably holding onto yours... And that's the kind of friendship you can't keep in a purse forever." Just nonsense, that woman. Utter goldbricking nonsense.
MJ's at McCluskey's now, but Susan's got his caveman club. Which, since she gave it to her child to handle, probably weighs about thirty pounds and thus is worth threatening a grown man with. She yells at Paul about how she gave him the benefit of the doubt when he moved back, which is not entirely untrue, and then starts smashing all of his shit up. It's really amazing, like, she's out of control in this delicious way: First the Halloween candy and then everything else. Right when she's about to do for him, Beth threatens her with a gun. Paul's wife shouldn't ever have a gun. Or a knife. Really anything for killing.
Point being, Susan tries to explain why she, a fucking grown woman, is standing over Beth's husband with a giant Flintstones club while dressed as a little girl clown. Which, no doubt this would be a good story. But Beth doesn't care, because he is her damn husband and she married him thinking he was a serial killer, anyway, so some idiot's job history is not really a big deal to her. Susan leaves, at gunpoint, and then with the gun still in her hand Beth throws her arms around Paul and kisses him. Which is creepy, but not as creepy as the fact that she's only doing this for her mommy and her scary agenda. Paul Young just cannot catch a break.
Gabby bitches at Juanita awhile for pissing off Grace's mom, and in an aside tells us that Grace actually took full responsibility for the hair-cutting, which... I really, really don't like it when adults and kids ally themselves against the other parent. It gave me the creeps when Gabby started that shit with the necklace, and I don't like it now. It's one of the yuckiest things in the world to me. It breaks boundaries that absolutely need to stay intact, and I would think that Gabrielle, of all people, would understand why it's automatically a problem.
Anyway, Juanita doesn't give a shit about the Sanchezes, and has already made that clear, so her reiteration of this is just more grounds for Gabby to shove the whole "but Grace is your BFF" thing down her throat again. Juanita points out that it's not even true and that Grace is not only an asskiss, but also Gabby's stupid friend, anyway. "You're always talking to her, kissing her, staring at her. You like her better than me." Gabby is like, "Don't be, um, silly." Juanita goes right for the jugular: "You don't even let me touch your jewelry. What's so special about Grace?"
Gabrielle just about stops crying right then, because she realizes she's being an absolute lunatic, but there's not really a way out of this one. As crazy as she's acting, I think they're doing a great job with this story. I mean, it's predictable, but it plays into so much of Gabrielle's stuff, her history and her family and her own need to succeed and her wish to somehow time-machine back to when nobody would help her out... I don't know, it's heartbreaking. It seems like this storyline would be the dumbest one right now but they're just doing it so right somehow that it means more than it actually does, or even should.
Juanita is somewhat less sympathetic, but then we only have to deal with her psycho mom once a week and she's there 24/7. And lurking Carlos is immediately like, "You need to stop cheating on our kids with other kids, because Juanita is full-on a genius and she has got your number for real." Gabrielle knows he's right, but she also knows there is no way she's actually going to back off obsessing on Grace, so when he reminds her they need to protect their daughter, she's all, "They're both our daughters." She promises to be careful, which somehow is the saddest part.
Susan watches Mike pack and pretends like she gives a shit beyond, like, who's going to give her backrubs or laugh at her jokes, and Mike is like, "A, this ridiculous story about the house and renting needs to be over with and that is going to take money, and B, I am like this close to killing Paul all the time, anyway." So it's north to Alaska, in his cutest purple plaid shirt, with just an ax and the stars to guide him. And the memory of the fool he left behind. How will MJ live? "Mommy, little boys can't eat the leftover paper inside a holepunch for lunch."
Allison's hollering about how the assisted living facility inevitably kills people, so Tom's handing her a death sentence. Tom's point is that she is not safe on her own and that he and his siblings have decided they don't want her anymore. The actual point is that she needs to be taken care of, and the best way to do that is not in the house where they already have 50 neglected children, most of them miscreants and deviants. I don't even remember what happened to the other twin. And there was that serial killer kid Lynette was hanging around with, too? Did I make that up?
But I think the secondary point is that Lynette never hated her at all, but she gave her so many constant reasons to hate her, even before she started messing everything up, that you could barely blame her if she did. And also that once you've had the "I fixed the boy you broke and now you're fucking him up again" conversation, no matter how satisfying it was (and it was), you can't go back from that. So don't ever have that convo with your own MIL, because now you've created three problems.
But also, it's not the nursing home that kills you, it's the fact that you are wicked old. Symptoms, not syndromes. She tries to set up this false parallel with summer camp, which is more than a little manipulative on the face of it, but really it's just super sad, because the only answer to "When do I get to go home?" is: Not really ever. And this storyline has a lot of dignity in it, on balance, because it's just one more thing of the many Tom/Lynette things where there's no winner, just loser after loser, and I have always loved how they're able to stay married no matter what. They're the only ones that are obnoxious because they're too real.
Mary Alice wraps it up for ya: Tom's Halloween fear is that Allison won't ever forgive him for taking care of her the best and strongest way he can, while Lynette's is that a life without a nanny is worse than even an addled one (which, get ready for a nanny that makes Treetrunks look like Nanny McPhee).
Gabrielle's is that Juanita, whom she's always treated as a stepchild for being fat and is now getting shoved out for not even being legitimately her daughter, will figure it out one day and blow everybody to hell, and she'll be right to do so, because they are screwing that awesome little girl over with both eyes open.
Beth's fear is that Paul Young will murderize her or kick her out of the house before she gets to do whatever Hard Candy situation on him. And Susan's fear is partially that Mike will realize how wonderful life is, several thousand miles away from Susan, and never come back. Yes, Susan is afraid of the world, which is a lonely place, without Mike or Julie to tie her shoes, or a job, or school for MJ now that he's not on teacher-tuition, or a basic understanding of physics. Susan fears many things, because she does not understand many things. But the number one thing Susan fears, deep down where nobody can see it? Megatron, currently hiding on Wisteria Lane in the form of Mrs. McCluskey's sedan.
week: When she decides to let Susan supervise her children, the ladies realize that Lynette is back on drugs and stage an intervention. Gabrielle sells her stupid fat children to gypsies and uses the money to go on the lam, once she kidnaps Grace for good. Tom's post-mommy depression and his post-partum depression team up into a super-depression, causing him to rocket past marijuana and straight to the hard stuff: China Pearl Hand Cream. Andrew sleeps with Keith and takes over his mother's company, causing her to rip off her wig. Somebody opens a restaurant, somebody burns that restaurant down. Renee throws a party for SF Giants pitcher Brian Wilson at which he gets wasted and cries about our breakup, promising to never leave again; Carlos takes to cleaning house in a wrestling singlet for a surprisingly large webcam fanbase; and Susan manages to get her head stuck in her own steering wheel for an entire episode.
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