The Ladies get together to gossip about the Applewrongs at the traditional Wisteria Lane Blood Drive (where, incidentally, Zana discovers that he shares the very same rare blood type Mike has). Together, the Wisteria Women decide that Bree should ask her good friend Detective Barton (you remember, the one who thought she murdered Rex?) to do some Betty-and-Matthew snooping, so Bree invites him to lunch. Unfortunately, Barton gets the wrong idea about the invite, and when Bree informs him that the date isn't a Date, he gets grumpy, and then Bree gets tipsy. Driving home, vengeful Barton pulls Bree over for driving under the influence, and when she protests, he cuffs her, puts her in the slammer, and impounds her car. Later that night, Bree is finally free to leave, but she's too proud to call a friend for a ride home, so she decides to hoof it. Betty just happens to drive by, and stops to offer Bree a ride. When Bree's lies about automotive difficulties turn awkward (with Betty's repeated offers to call her auto club, et cetera), Bree blurts out what really happened. When Betty seems unwilling to believe that Bree's DUI was a fabrication (and really, Bree was pretty tipsy at lunch, so maybe the DUI was valid?), Bree lashes out at Betty and tells her that the whole neighborhood has been whispering about the Applewrongs. Bree stomps off into her house, and Betty immediately places an "I think I need to sell my house" call to Edie. Nude pictures of Gabby (property of a boyfriend) appear on the internet. Carlos the transformed good Catholic is reluctant to heed Gabby's wishes for him to go rough up the offending site owner. Instead, Carlos simply decides to chat reasonably with the man. And Gabby's ex turns out to be more than willing to pull down the images because, he confesses to Carlos, Gabby isn't really "internet hot" anyway. Carlos disagrees (he thinks Gabby's body is "perfect"), and he expresses this difference of opinion by throwing the man through a window. On an excruciating blind date, Susan conks her head and winds up in the hospital, where she develops a crush on a cute, young doctor. To secure a second visit with Dr. Young, Susan lies about her symptoms, and he spends a sleepless night trying to track down the cause of her mysterious ailments. When she confesses that she made it all up, he gets mad, and yet? He still wants to take her for sushi! When the Scavo kids get chicken pox, Mr. Mom Tom is girlishly afraid to go anywhere near them because he's worried he'll catch sick and wind up infertile. Lynette is puzzled by this phobia, seeing as she and Tom don't plan to have any more children. Tom explains that if Lynette ever dies, he'd like the option to start another family with someone new. Jealous of this fictitious future wife/life, Lynette demands that Tom get a vasectomy. Tom agrees, but then at the last second he balks. Being a househusband, he tells Lynette, is emasculating enough; snipping his parts would be the last straw. In short, the Scavo marriage is now, suddenly, on the rocks. Mike visits Noah (Deidre's dad), who's not looking well (i.e. he's dying). Mike tells Noah a fat lie about how Deidre's killer was, oh, just some low-life drug dealer, whom Mike has killed, per Noah's instructions/payments. Noah seems to believe Mike's story, and yet...what's this? His new nurse is the beloved Felicia Tillman! Methinks Mike's beans (about Deirdre's true killer) are about to be spilled!
Previously: PI Ironside is dead (and everyone suspects the Applewrongs), and Deirdre's dad Noah is slowly dying.
MAVO: "Jim Halverson was aware that he had little to offer a woman: he was neither rich, nor smart, nor handsome." Jim (who is played by Greg Germann, better known as sleazy Richard Fish on Ally McBeal) is waiting at the bar in a nice-ish looking restaurant. "So when his friends set him up on a blind date with a beautiful stranger," Susan walks up to Jim, and he says, "Wow, you're so much hotter than Vicky said you'd be! So how old are you?" Smooth, very smooth. Also, who's Vicky? Susan has a friend named Vicky who sets her up on dates with terrible men? Who knew! Susan, flirtily: "How old do you think I am?" MAVO: "Jim made the tragic decision to try to be funny." Jim: "Not a day over fifty!" Jim laughs at his quip, but Susan doesn't join him, no, not at all. Icily, she suggests they head over to their table, and Jim makes matters worse by trying to explain that he was just kidding. Just, just kidding. Jim, trailing after Susan: "See, that was funny because you're so obviously not fifty, that's why I said 'fifty' because that's absurd..."
As the two dig into their dinners, MAVO takes us on a tour of Jim's conversational failures: "Jim did everything he could to get Susan Mayer to laugh. He tried racial humor." Jim: "So guess what time Chinese people go to the dentist?" Susan looks at him blankly. Jim: "Two-thirty." Susan makes a lame effort to smile. Jim: "Get it? Tooth hurty? Tooth hurty!" And the second "tooth hurty" he delivers in a "wacky Asian" voice. Susan squeezes out an anemic smile. (FYI and FWIW: Jokes on a first date -- I'm not talking "joking around," I mean actually reciting scripted jokes -- are a big red flag. Racist jokes? A deal-breaker.) MAVO: "He tried to be engagingly risqué." Jim: "Rectum? Damn near killed 'im!" Ah yes, that old saw. Susan raises her eyebrows a centimeter and then re-concentrates on her dinner. Jim: "Ahhhh...you know what a 'rectum' is, right?" Susan chokes on her food and then shoots him a "what the hell's wrong with you?" look. MAVO: "He even tried gentle teasing." Jim, clearly already deep into another terrible conversation mistake: "No, no. You see, by comparing you to a Nazi, I was making the point that you're so...not a Nazi." Susan is yet again under-thrilled. MAVO: "And just when Jim thought the date couldn't get any worse..." Jim accidentally tips over his napkin, which is still folded into a tent beside his plate (and not in his lap where it should be), and it falls to the floor. Susan reaches over to pick it up just as Jim does the very same thing. And...CRACK! They knock heads. Jim collapses unconscious to the floor, while Susan manages to stay upright, but she's holding her head, clearly in pain (and/or in colossal disappointment over the date itself). The MAVO continues: "...It did."
Cut to the hospital. A young doctor shines a light into Jim's eyes and tells him to look up, down, et cetera. Dr. Young asks what, exactly, happened, and Susan jumps in to explain that it was "an accident." Jim: "Oh, I don't know about that: in some cultures head-butting is a mating ritual." Susan shoots Jim him a disgusted look. She asks "Dr. McCreedy" if she can "talk to him...away from [she looks over at Jim] the...draft." He tells her to call her "Dr. Ron" as they retreat into a corner. Susan begs Dr. Young to admit her for the night...anything, everything, whatever it takes to get her out of this, the worst date of her life. Dr. Young looks over at Jim, who's talking to a nurse while pulling the fingers of an inflated rubber glove. Susan, begging now, grabs Dr. Young by the lapels. She tells him that her "mental health" is at risk, and she reminds him that he "took an oath." He asks her to unhand him, and she looks down at his crumpled lab coat with surprise. "Sorry," she whispers as she pats and smoothes his shoulders. He tells her that as sorry as he is to hear that her date is a disaster, he still can't admit her. Dr. Young heads back over to the exam table to check Jim's reflexes. Jim tells him a joke (clearly Jim is socially broken): "What is the correct medical term for the circumcision of a rabbit?" The doctor cocks his eyebrows in the barest hint of a "go on," and Jim delivers the punch line: "Hare cut." Susan closes her eyes like, "Oh god, make it go away," while Dr. Young gives Jim the same blank look Susan wore throughout the date. Dr. Young: "Jim? I'm going to need to keep you here awhile...run some tests." But Susan is free to go. Susan looks so obviously happy to hear this news that even Jim catches wind of it, and his brow darkens into a "hey, wait a second" little furrow. MAVO: "And though it only lasted a moment, Jim caught the look that passed between his date [Susan smiles warmly at Dr. Young] and his doctor [Dr. Young winks back]. And [Jim] suddenly got the feeling the joke was on him." Yes, yes it was.
Ahhh, the full credits. Oh how I missed you! (It's been nothing but Credits Lite for so, so long now.)
MAVO: "The annual blood drive was a tradition on Wisteria Lane." Wow, fun! MAVO continues: "Most residents came to help promote health and well-being. But my friends turned up for a different reason." The camera pans across a lawn full of neighbors sipping juice and holding their bent arms gingerly. We zoom in on the Ladies, who are sitting on some benches off to the side. Lynette is in a business suit, so I guess she's there on her lunch break (unlikely, but I guess plausible). Edie is sitting on a bench and wearing a...wow: a teeny, tiny white dress styled in what I can only describe as "Back-Alley Sex Goddess." The dress is either hiked up or slit all the way up to HERE because her legs are 98% exposed, not to mention expertly positioned for maximum sexiness. She is also wearing super-high and strappy heels -- perfect for traipsing around on grass, while giving blood, on a lazy afternoon in the suburbs of Fairview! MAVO: "They were growing increasingly concerned that their street was infected with a dangerous kind of sickness, and they came to consult with one other about a possible cure." Susan furtively looks over at Betty, and Betty waves back. Smooth Susan returns the wave half-heartedly and then her waving hand crumples into a cringe shield over her eyes as she whispers to her friends, "Oh great, she caught me staring." Gabby points out how nice Betty's been since dead PI Ironside was found out in front of her house. Edie: "I don't trust friendly women." Gabby: "That's okay, they don't trust you either." Hee haw! They speculate about the body, but no one knows anything because the police, it appears, are withholding details. (Aww, Bree and Susan are dutifully wearing their little heart-shaped "I gave blood" stickers!) Gabby: "Bree, maybe you should call in a favor from your police detective pal, have him poke around?" But Bree doesn't think that's the best idea: she and Detective Barton really aren't that close, what with him suspecting her of murdering Rex.
Just then Betty and Matthew stroll over, and Gabby warns the others about their approach by yelling "Betty!" super-obviously. Betty says that a "little birdie" told her that Susan's birthday is coming up, and she suggests they all go out to celebrate! They all smile and tell Betty what a great plan that is, and that they're all totally THERE. As the Applewrongs beat a retreat, Matthew whispers to Betty out of the corner of his mouth, "So why are you everybody's best friend all of a sudden?" Betty: "If ever there was a time to be neighborly, this is it." Matthew complains that he and she are "idiots" for hanging around Fairview: "I mean, how do we know [Monroe] didn't tell Foster where we're hiding?" Betty insists that if dead PI Ironside had spilled, they'd have heard about it by now. Besides, all their money is sunk into the house. Plus, running right now would look suspicious. Matthew still thinks they should just sell the house and leave. Betty: "What we need is a story, a reason for us to move."
Back at the bloodletting booth, Zana signs up to donate. The nurse exclaims over Zana's blood type: it's AB negative! Yup, the "rarest of all blood types," as Zana not so subtly forth-comes. Huh, I wonder if someone else will have the same blood type as Zana? Someone like...his bio-dad? His bio-dad MIKE??? (Throw another clunker on the ever-mounting pile of expositively awkward dialogue!) Nurse Predictable points out that, coincidentally enough, Zana is her second AB negative of the day. Zana is all, wow, really? Who's the other guy? The nurse points over to Mike, who's strolling up the street, absently touching the recently vented vein on his inner elbow. Ah ha, et cetera!
From Mike we cut to an extreme closeup of a snail crawling on a rose bush. Is this supposed to mean something? Like Mike, too, has a hard, crunchy shell? Or Mike leaves an undeniable trail in his wake? I don't get it. A huge purple-gloved hand appears and plucks the snail from its happy mooring. Bree drops the snail in a bucket full of sudsy water just as Betty strolls up. With almost medicated glee, Betty thanks Bree for her advice with the azaleas. (But wait, I thought Bree's advice was about hydrangeas?) Betty lowers her voice melodramatically: "Too bad I may not be around to enjoy them..." A meandering and semi-endless conversation ensues, wherein Betty explains that her mother has taken ill, that she and Matthew may or may not be going to pay said mother a visit in Chicago, and that they might or might not have to go live with her. Bree sympathetically asks if the illness is serious, and Betty awkwardly explains she doesn't really know yet, seeing as she hasn't spoken to her mother's doctor just yet (which makes Betty's confession of a looming move somewhat premature, no?). Bree, reaching out to squeeze Betty's hand: "If there's anything I can do, anything at all..." Betty responds, "Thank you, you've already done so much," which somehow reads more sarcastic than it sounds when Betty says it. Looking thoughtful, Bree watches as Betty slowly walks away.
Susan's house: Susan rips off her blood-donation band aid with an "ow!" (And really, the Foley people went a little crazy with the flesh-tearing sound effect here -- what did the nurses use to tack down that cotton ball, duct tape?) Julie walks in and tells Susan that Dr. Young called, and he needs to see her for a follow-up exam. Susan: "He 'needs to see me' or he 'wants to see me'?" Julie: "Jeez, Mom. How cute is this guy?" Susan: "Oh. He could be cuter...but I don't know how!" Mom and daughter giggle girlishly. Julie encourages Susan to ask him out, but Susan says he's too young. Susan: "Let's just say, if I was a senior in high school, I'd be saying, 'Wow, you're a hot fifth-grader.'" Julie scoffs. Susan role-plays how it would go down: she'll tell Dr. Young he's hot and he'll call her "ma'am" and change the topic to Susan's "hip replacement." Julie: "Mom. You're hot and funny and nice and...clearly desperate. And guys are into that. Play to your strengths." It's really true, guys love women who are desperate. LOVE THEM.
Lynette pulls up at home, and before she can even get out of the car, Tom (looking tense, tense, tense) scuttles out to meet her. Lynette frantically asks him what's wrong, she got a message that there was an emergency, and she called and called but only got the machine. Lynette rushes toward the door, but Tom doesn't follow her: He refuses to go inside. Apparently the boys were sent home with chicken pox, and the way he says it, it's clear he thinks he's delivering some scary, scary news. Lynette: "Chicken pox? That's the emergency?" Tom: "They're CONTAGIOUS!" (As someone who actually contracted chicken pox as an adult, I actually sympathize with Tom's fears. Adult chicken pox is so ferociously bad, oh my god. I had pocks in my hair, on the palms of my hands, the soles of my feet, all over my gums. EVERY-where. I couldn't count them all, but on my face alone I had twenty-six. Twenty-six oozing, pus-filled nightmares. And they were huge -- I called them "my candy corns" -- and the heinous red marks they left behind took six months to fade. So if you ask me, Tom is brave for even standing anywhere near that house of infection. Really he should miles away, taped off in a bubble, and scrubbing himself clean with bleach and sandpaper. The end.) Tom explains that since he's never had the pox upon him (meaning he's susceptible) and she has (meaning she's immune), that she has to be the one to take care of the kids, "just for a couple of days." Lynette: "It is not the Ebola virus, it's chicken pox. Quit being a baby." Tom stubbornly reminds her that if she thinks he's "being a baby now," then clearly she doesn't remember how bad he is when he gets sick. A look of dawning horror crosses Lynette's face. Tom: "Remember that time I had strep throat? We ended up in marriage counseling." Lynette relents. "I'll call the office," she says as she heads inside the house. Good thing Lynette's Bossy Boobs got the ax, because she would have freaked out if Lynette had stayed home from work to look after her sick kids.
Gabby is sitting on her veranda, reading a magazine. Ralph the gardener appears, but he's almost unrecognizable, as for once he's wearing a shirt. Gabby: "Ralph, if this is about Luis over-watering the hydrangeas again, I told you, no one likes a tattletale." But no, Ralph is there to tell Gabby that his wife left him because of his "illness": he likes looking at "pretty ladies on the internet." Ralph: "Sure, they're not always dressed and sometimes there's more than one. But I only go to the classy websites." Gabby urges him to get to the point. Ralph tells her that last night, he found a picture of a "lady sitting on a bearskin rug with nothing on except for a little, pointy elf hat: very festive." Gabby gives him a look like "annnnd?" Ralph hands her a folded sheet of paper (a printout from the website), and she opens it and screams. Apparently nude photos of Gabby have found their way onto the internet! It's amazing it's taken this long. Clearly Ralph misunderstands her distress because he tries to cheer her up by saying how great she looks, how usually with the girlie photos you can't see anything "good" without squinting, but that's not at all a problem with Gabby's picture. And then? He asks her to sign the photo. He came to her today not to give her a friendly heads-up, but to get her autograph? That's...well, that's totally unbelievable. Did an eighth-grader write this? Finally Gabby puts the scene out of its misery by glaring at Ralph so long that he scuttles off.
Noah, who is not looking at all well, is lying in a bed stacked high with pillows. A nurse is there beside him, and she's trying to reposition the IV on his inner elbow. She tears off the tape -- and again we hear the super-amplified sound of nuclear-strong tape (you don't know how long I labored to try and get "Brenda-Strong tape" to work here instead) being ripped off of flesh -- and Noah groans in pain. So this is a leitmotif, this "ripping off the Band-Aid" thing? Perhaps it's some kind of metaphor, a nudge-nudge about how certain characters need to stop dragging things out and just get the unpleasant, painful things in their lives over and done with? (I'm thinking too much, aren't I?) The camera pulls back to reveal Mike, sitting in a chair at the foot of the bed. Noah crankily asks him where he's been all this time, and Mike lies that he's been there every Sunday, Noah was just "too out of it" to notice. Noah: "I think you're lying. Then again these days I think everyone's been lying to me." But whatever, the only thing Noah really cares about is whether or not Mike found out who killed Deirdre. Mike looks at him intensely for a few seconds, and then he launches into this huge honker: "It was a guy named Todd Forest, a low-life drug dealer. He got [Deirdre] hooked again. She tried to steal from him and he killed her. And I killed him." Noah stares off into space for a few seconds, and then his face falls. Mike: "I thought hearing that would make you happy." Noah: "I thought it would too. But it doesn't." The nurse returns and tries to reinsert the needle into Noah's arms, and he cries out in rage/pain. She winces and apologizes, then explains that his "veins are kinda bad." Noah, with unexpected friendliness, offers to help her, but then -- holy crazy -- he takes the needle and jams it in her arm! The nurse screams that he's "crazy." Sounding bored, he informs her that she's fired and then tells her to get out. After she leaves, he turns to Mike and picks up right where he left off: "So I guess we're done then." Mike turns to leave. Then Noah, suddenly pathetic, asks Mike if he plans to visit again. Mike: "You planning on having an open casket?" Oohh, good one! Noah smirks, and Mike gives him an eighth of a smile.
At Casa de Pox, Tom's out front, putting golf balls as Carlos looks on. Carlos, incidentally, has an iPod earbud plugged into his right ear, while the left earbud just dangles at his waist, which is kind of random. Maybe he's mid-jog and his visit with Tom isn't going to be long enough to merit full removal of his sound system? Lynette comes out and greets Carlos with noticeable uncomfortable-ness, which makes perfect sense in light of Carlos's recent proposition. (Yay! Two points for Team Continuity!) Lynette is wearing what appears to be a pair of her husband's jeans, so baggy and low are they. (Two more Continuity points -- those are the exact comfy pants a mother stuck at home nursemaiding itchy kids would throw on!) Lynette hands Tom a Reuben sandwich, and even though it is possibly the saddest, flattest Reuben I have ever seen, Tom is very, very stoked: "How sweet is that? Lunch brought right to the golf course." He smiles hugely and leans over and kisses Lynette. Carlos says he hears that Lynette has "some pretty sick kids." Lynette scoffs: "Oh, it's only chicken pox, but Braveheart here [she points at Tom] will only come in to sleep and shower." Carlos: "I can't say I blame him. I wouldn't want to be shooting blanks either!" Lynette gives a confused laugh, and Carlos claps Tom on the shoulder and takes off ("Be well, my man," he says...Carlos is such a dude). Lynette asks Tom what Carlos meant by "shooting blanks." Why do I know that adult chicken pox can make a person sterile and Lynette of The Four Kids doesn't? For some reason that surprises me. In any case, Tom lets Lynette in on the secret: "There's just a small chance of sterility if a grown man gets chicken pox." Lynette remains confused: she and Tom don't plan on having any more kids, so what's the big deal? Tom says something about "survival instinct," and Lynette laughs: "So that if you're the last man to survive a nuclear holocaust, you could repopulate the planet?" Still laughing, she turns to go inside. And if only Tom had let her go! But instead he keeps talking: "God forbid something were to happen to either one of us, I'd want us to have, you know, options." Oh Tom. Lynette, no longer laughing: "So...you're saying that if I died, you would want a second wife? And a family?" Tom, clearly realizing he's stepped in something foul here, stops chewing his sandwich. Lynette tells him how upset she is that he's even thought about this. Tom: "Haven't you?" Lynette: "Thought about who I'd marry if you died? Hmm...NO!" Tom hastens to explain that this is just a "backup plan." He tries to explain what he means by giving her some story about a door, in a room, and how he doesn't want to use the door, regarding how very happy he is in the room, but "in case of fire or flood, it's comforting to know that the door is unlocked." Happy with the grace of his analogy, Tom takes a big bite of Reuben. Lynette grabs the sandwich out of Tom's hand and drops it onto the lawn. When Tom protests, she suggests that he have his "second wife make you lunch." Oops!
Bree and Detective Barton are at lunch, a nice place with white tablecloths and flowers. Barton, who's wearing a coat and tie, smiles hugely and tells Bree how happy he is that she called, especially considering how awkward things have been between them. Bree, uncommonly animated: "Oh, you mean your having suspected me of murdering my husband? Detective, that is all water under the bridge now." And then she takes a big swig of white wine. Bree is tipsy, maybe! She confesses that she has an "ulterior motive" for calling and inviting Barton to lunch. She tells him about the Applewrongs, how something about them is just "off." Barton explains that he can't "run a background check" on her neighbors just because they're "odd." Bree gives a not-too-disappointed little "ohh," like maybe she expected she might get this answer. Barton asks her if the Applewrongs are the only reason she asked him to lunch. Bree innocently tells him yes, that was pretty much it. Barton laughs, and then confides, "During the investigation I just thought there was kind of a...spark between us. You know, I thought this might be a date." Bree looks blindsided, but she recovers well, and regretfully informs him otherwise. Barton pretends this is fine, and tells her, "When do I ever get to have lunch with such a lovely lady anyway. Date or...no date." By the time he makes it to the end of this sentence, he's looking glum indeed. Bree tries to push the Applewrong issue again, claiming she knows there's something wrong with them because has a "sixth sense about people." Barton: "And yet you got engaged to the man who murdered your husband." Wow, Barton sure is crabby about his Date getting demoted to date. And yet...well played. I'm glad someone finally said it!
At the hospital, a nurse okays Susan's blood pressure and tells her she's free to go. Susan is thrown. Isn't Dr. Young going to come in and [open perv-quote]examine[close perv-quote] her? The nurse explains that the good doctor only participates in the follow-up exams if something turns out to be wrong. Susan gets that "crafty imbecile" look of hers. Uh oh.
Cut to Dr. Young, who asks Susan, "You're experiencing nausea, chills, and tingling, huh?" Susan: "Yeahhhh. But now that I think about it, I bet it's just all the coffee I drink. I drink way too much coffee. Do you like to drink coffee?" Run, Dr. Young, run! Dr. Young, who doesn't like coffee, tries to steer things back to talk of tingling. Susan: "I should switch to juice. I know the best juice place, you would love it. Do you drink juice?" Ugh! But Dr. Young isn't even listening. He's reading her chart and looking very concerned. "Wow, Susan? How often have you been having these involuntary muscle spasms?" Susan hems and haws and says something about just needing a "good massage." Dr. Young grabs Susan's chin and looks deep into her eyes. She swoons, and he tells her he's going to schedule her for an MRI. Susan blusters that she doesn't think that's necessary. Dr. Young: "You a doctor?" Susan: "I got high marks in math and science..."
At the date that never was. Bree knocks back the last of a glass of wine just as the check arrives. Barton reaches for it, but Bree tsks him slurredly and tells him she's going to pay, "given the misunderstanding." Barton insists, so Bree agrees to go Dutch (like in Solvang!). Bree drops her wallet and Barton eyes her suspiciously, then offers to give her a ride home. Like a teenage girl wasted on her first go at wine coolers, Bree ham-fistedly flirts: "Detective Barton! Is this some sort of high-school ploy to get me back to your place?" Barton smiles and says he just doesn't think Bree should be driving, given how much she drank at lunch. Bree, indignant: "I had two glasses of wine." "Three," Barton corrects, "plus the tawny port with dessert." He points to the bill as evidence. Bree, nastily: "You know what? I politely rejected you, and now you're getting your revenge by embarrassing me." Still, he insists that Bree give him her keys. Bree: "I am not giving you anything, except the bill." She leans over and scoops up her money from atop the check and stomps off. So not only is Bree a drunk now, but she's a mean drunk?
Driving home, Bree hears a police car chirping its siren behind her. She looks in her rearview and sees the flashing lights, so she pulls over. Detective Barton gets out of his car and primly walks over to her. Bree gets a load of the man who pulled her over and her mouth drops open in indignation. Barton tells her she was weaving all over the road, and asks her to step out of the car. "Detective, I am not drunk, and I am not stupid," Bree slurs. Barton insists that Bree take a sobriety test. Bree yells that she's "not taking any sobriety test," but then she notices that she's attracting the notice of people walking by, so she lowers her voice. Bree: "This behavior stems from a man with very low self-esteem. The world is a big place, and I'm sure there's a woman out there who will respond to your macho posturing." Barton: "Well. Here's hoping." And with that he takes out his cuffs and puts Bree's arms behind her back. Bree looks shocked, almost as though she's never found herself in restraints before -- I guess the cuff play with Rex was pretty one-sided.
Gabby stands in front of a laptop and preps Carlos for what he's about to see. Over Gabby's shoulder we can see part of the screen, which features a cute photo of Gabby in a Santa hat, looking at the camera flirtily over her naked shoulder. You can also just make out a big pile of navigation buttons -- labeled with some cursive-y font -- running down the side of the screen (I think that's what Ralph meant when he described the girlie site as "classy"). Gabby: "What you are about to see will most likely shock and upset you." Ha! She sounds like the narrator of a dramatic crime re-enactment. Gabby refreshes Carlos's memory about "Scott," the guy she was dating when she met Carlos, whom she dumped just as soon as she started dating Carlos. Gabby hesitates, heaves a big sigh like she's going to go for it, but still she stalls: "Oh, Carlos. I love you so much." Carlos impatiently scoots her aside and sits down at the computer. Carlos: "What is this?!" Gabby, wringing her hands: "Scott's website! With pictures of me on it!" Carlos leans in for a closer look. Gabby urges him to "say something!" Carlos: "Oh. My. God." Gabby does some verbal tap-dancing, explaining that the photos were supposed to be "funny," a "naughty little Christmas gift" for her then-boyfriend. Carlos clicks around the site, and each time he clicks on something, a little chirp-bell sounds, which is kind of an annoying interface feature? But, maybe when combined with an endless stream of naked, holiday-themed Gabby photos, the bell creates some kind of positive Pavlov link in the site visitor's mind. Carlos comes across a particularly provocative shot, and yells, "OH MY GOD!" Gabby, turning her head to the side: "I know. I was...freakishly flexible back then."
Gabby asks Carlos what they're going to do, and Carlos sighs and says he guesses he'll call his lawyers. Gabby: "I gave the pictures to him as a gift, he owns them!" Carlos: "Then I guess we're screwed." Gabby tells Carlos her plan: Carlos should go over to Scott's and rough him up, then "he'll take the pictures off the website like THAT [Gabby snaps her fingers]." Carlos: "I'm sorry, but this is your mistake. You have to fix it yourself." Gabby: "And I would love to, but I have the upper-body strength of a kitten, I need a brute!" Carlos informs Gabby that he's only now getting his "rage issues under control," and Gabby needs to find some other brute to do her dirty work. Gabby: "When you left prison, did they leave you a contact list?" Whatever. This whole subplot is dumb: it's not like finding someone to force Scott to take down the pictures is going to make a difference. Doesn't Gabby realize that once something's on the internet, it's always on the internet? Those original images have multiplied, and those multiples in turn have spawned duplicates. And so on, and so on, and so on.
Oh, right, back to Susan the Waster of Medical Resources (and the Reason All Our Insurance Rates Are So, So High). A technician comes into the MRI room, takes the cover off the machine, folds it, and drapes it over a chair. A few seconds later, Susan walks in, and the tech shows her a hook on the wall and tells her to get her "stuff hung up and just get comfy" because Dr. Young is on his way.
Cut to Susan, wearing nothing but a very cute matching bra-and-panty set, desperately trying to figure how she's supposed to wear the MRI machine cover, which she clearly thinks is a robe. The technician is in his booth, watching the fun, when in walks Dr. Young: "Is she trying to put on the dust cover?" Technician: "Yep." Dr. Young: "How long were you going to let this go on?" Tech: "Juuuust a few more minutes." Dr. Young gets on the intercom and tells Susan that actually it's okay if she wears her clothes during the procedure. Susan, startled, hides herself behind the dust cover and stutters, "Oh, uh, ah...then why did you put out a gown?" Dr. Young informs her of the true nature of the "gown," and Susan's face falls. Is everybody in full cringe position yet? Well, then, get comfortable!
Clothed once more, Susan gets maneuvered into the MRI machine. Over a built-in speaker, Dr. Young tells her it's going to take about 45 minutes, and then he sympathizes that "this whole process must be troubling." Susan yells out that indeed it is. Dr. Young: "Well, we're going to get to the bottom of this. I'll be here for you, okay?" Susan smiles to herself, and then yells out that she has a "feeling that everything is going to turn out fine," and that once she knows she's okay, she'd like to take him to dinner. And she doesn't stop there! Susan: "I was thinking maybe Italian! Oh, what the heck. Maybe we can call it a date. If you like..." No response. Susan: "Dr. Ron?" Technician: "Um, he left awhile ago. He got a phone call from his girlfriend." Susan: "Oh. Okay. Thank you." And then in a small voice, she says, "I'd like to get out now." Tech: "Try not to move." Okay, everybody, now you can stop cringing.
Oh, but wait! This scene is pretty brutal, too. Ralph and Luis are out trimming the hedges in front of the Solis house. Carlos comes out to pick up the paper, and Gabby follows closely on his heels. She greets the gardeners, then she says hello to Carlos. Carlos points out that she's speaking to him again, and she contritely tells him that she thought about what he said, and he's totally right: the nude photos are her problem, not his, and she's going to have to learn how to live with it. Carlos smiles walks into the house. Gabby goes off to the side of the veranda, rolls out her yoga mat, takes off all her clothes, and gives the sun one peach of a salute. Carlos looks up and notices Gabby's birthday suit, and he yells through the window: "What the hell are you doing?" Gabby: "I'M LIVING WITH IT!" Carlos runs outside and snaps at the gardeners to turn around. He hands Gabby her top and commands her to get dressed. Gabby: "Why? You either care that men leer at me or you don't." Huh? This really is one of Gabby's more high-concept plans. As Carlos and Gabby bicker, Ralph and Luis creep closer and closer, their hedge-trimmers still powered up so it sounds like they're still working. Gabby tells Carlos that if he doesn't help her get her pictures back, then their neighbors are going to be seeing a "lot more" of Gabby. And with that, she walks over to where the gardeners are huddled. Gabby: "Ralph, Luis? Feast your eyes!" And indeed they do. But...whoops! Ralph leans in for a closer look and saws off Luis's finger. Wow, harsh toke, dude. (Seriously, though, this scene really bummed me out. The sound of the cut itself was particularly gross.) Luis screams and screams, Ralph scrambles around and tries to find Luis's finger, and Gabby and Carlos stand there, doing nothing. The worst!
Over at Coop de Chicken Pox, Lynette broods on the couch as Tom comes down the stairs. He's wearing a surgical mask and rubber gloves. Good news: Penny has stopped screaming when Tom comes into her room. Tom: "I think she's getting used to the mask!" But Lynette's mind is on another topic altogether: "I don't want you to have options, Tom. IF I die? I want your life to be over. I want you to spend the rest of your life screaming, 'It should have been me on that plane!'" Nice attitude, babe! Lynette: "I couldn't imagine my life without you. You are my everything!" Tom: "Honey, you're my everything!" Lynette thinks that's easy for Tom to say, but what she really needs is for him to show her, i.e. she wants him to get a vasectomy. Tom: "Can't I just get you some flowers?" Lynette lays out her argument: a) they don't plan to have any more kids, and b) the pill makes her "bloat." Huh. I think Lynette could have come up with way more compelling anti-pill arguments than just "bloat" here. Imagine how much more compelling she would have sounded if she'd told Tom that her many crazy bouts of jealousy and paranoia were all just side effects of the pill? Tom: "This is crazy." Lynette: "Oh, I know! I KNOW! But. It is what married people do. They go out of their way to calm each other's irrational fears. Come on, Tom, I really need you to do this!" Tom, looking sick, finally gives in and agrees to make an appointment with the penis snipper.
Bree sits in a jail cell along with another woman. The woman is wearing a small, short dress and high, high hooker heels (basically the exact same outfit Edie wore to the blood drive). The woman gets up and sits to Bree, and then she asks Bree how she got "started." As in, started in the "escort business." Bree is horrified. Hooker: "I bet the guys go crazy with your whole 'classy repressed thing' you got goin' on, huh? I mean, your skin has got, like, NO pores." Bree: "I'm not sure, but I think there was a compliment in there somewhere, so thank you. But I am not an escort." Hooker, leaning in: "How much you charge a night?" Bree revs up, like she's really going to give this woman a piece of her mind, but then she just sighs and says, "Five thousand." The hooker is impressed. She asks Bree what she has to do for that kind of money, and Bree just smiles. Ha ha! Just then, a uniformed policeman comes and tells Bree that her bail cleared and she's free to go. And she can pick up her car at the impound lot in the morning. Bree asks how she's supposed to get home, seeing as she doesn't have any money. The cop tells her to "call a friend." Bree: "I have been through enough humiliation for one day. I hope you have a better suggestion than that." Cop snottily tells her to hoof it home.
Cut to Bree, in her nice "fancy lunch" heels, walking home. And? Her heel breaks off! Just then, Betty drives by. She honks at Bree and pulls over. The street they're on is super-busy, with lanes and lanes of cars and lots of shops and a movie theater, which throws me a bit because I've always imagined Fairview as a much smaller, sleepier town. Betty asks Bree, who's now barefoot, if she's okay. Bree: "Oh! I'm fine, I just had a flat tire." Bree gestures at some vague point in the road behind her. Betty, super-enthused: "It's you're lucky day: I'm a whiz at changing tires, hop in." Bree: "You know, thank you. But I think it's actually something more mechanical, my car has been making just a terrible noise." Betty: "Well, I have auto club!" Finally Bree gives in: "Actually, my car has been impounded by the police!"
Betty and Bree pull up in front of Bree's house. Bree thanks Betty sincerely, and asks her if she wouldn't mind staying mum. Betty promises to keep quiet. Bree: "Well, that's good to hear, because most people on this street couldn't keep a secret if their lives depended on it." And yet, wasn't it just last week that we discovered Gabby's affair with John the Gardener had been somehow kept under wraps for months, up until the point when Bree herself spilled it to Lynette? Betty assures her that even if the secret did get out, it wouldn't be that big a deal. Betty: "Lots of people have DUIs." Bree: "Yes, but the difference is most of those people were actually drunk when they were arrested. I was not." Betty nods unconvincingly, and Bree accuses her of not believing the "Bree wasn't drunk" story. Betty explains that she knows Bree has gone through a lot lately (which is true), and that it would only be natural if Bree opted to "self-medicate." Bree, her face stony: "I'm sorry, since when do you know so much about my personal life?" Betty: "Bree! It's like you said! People on this street are not great at keeping secrets." Bree: "Except for you. You're really good at it." Betty begs her pardon. Bree proceeds to list all the secretive things Betty has done: "You moved into the house in the middle of the night, god knows what you moved in that you didn't want anybody to see. People hear sounds coming at all hours from there. And oh, what was the last one? Oh, right, they found a dead body in front of your home." Bree goes on to tell her that "everybody talks about the Applewhites," even though no one can figure out what Betty and Matthew are hiding. Bree: "So congratulations. Your secrets are safe. For now." And with that, Bree gets out of the car, her head held high, leaving a completely shell-shocked Betty in her wake. Wow, Bree sure is a bitch when she has a hangover!
The second Bree leaves, Betty tears into her purse, yanks out her cell, and dials up Edie. After apologizing for calling so late (and really, it looks like it's maybe 3 AM...which begs the question, what was Betty doing out at that time of night?), Betty tells Edie that she wants to put her house up for sale. And really, Edie ought to have no trouble: nothing attracts buyers like a built-in basement dungeon!
The morning, over at Susan's House of Lies and Crushing Embarrassments, Dr. Young knocks on the door, and a bed-messed Susan opens the door wearing slippers and a cute kimono-style robe. Dr. Young tells her he needs to talk to her, and "it's not the kind of talk you can have over the phone." Susan: "Are you sure? 'Cause I would look a lot better over the phone right now." Dr. Young, with ominous nervousness, tells her that her test results came back. Oh my god, is Susan really sick? I knew it! Irony loves opportunity, and Susan could not have tempted fate more, lying like she did about having those symptoms! Except...no. It turns out that the real reason Dr. Young came over so very early in the morning was because her MRI came back clear of any troubling data, and he's been worrying and worrying about what else could have caused her symptoms. Wow, is it possible that he likes her? Because what other reason is there for a doctor to make a house call when he basically has zero news to report? Sigh. Finally Susan's guilt kicks in, and she confesses that she faked all her symptoms just to get more face time with the good doctor. Dr. Young is suitably irritated. Susan tries to explain: "I'm just not the best at meeting men, and I thought you were cute, and I sort of thought you thought I was cute. And you're a doctor, and that's sooo sexy..." Dr. Young, yelling now: "So I was up all night, worried sick, digging through medical books. Trying to find some mysterious disease that doesn't really exist?" Oh, the disease does exist, my little Dr. Young, and its name is "Susan Mayer." Selective-hearing Susan hones in on the "worried sick" sliver of Dr. Young's tirade, and her heart-cockles start to warm. "Really?" she asks. "You were up all night?" Dr. Young, still yelling: "Yes! I don't enjoy telling people I think they're going to die, especially people I like!" Susan: "YOU LIKE ME?" Oh Lord. Susan asks, "But what about your girlfriend?" But Dr. Young doesn't have a girlfriend. The woman who called during Susan's MRI was just someone he went on one date with, and she was calling to get a "referral to a dermatologist: she's got eczema!" Huh? What?
Dr. Young stomps out to his car, and Susan runs after him: "Maybe we could go out some time?" Wow, ballsy! And also? Needy! Dr. Young spins around, nostrils flared, and he sure does look like he's going let her have it. But no! Instead he asks, "Do you like sushi?" Psych! Susan, of course, loves sushi; in fact, she's available tomorrow night! Dr. Young: "No, no, no. Tomorrow's no good, I'll still be angry." Ha! But he "should be cooled down by Friday." Susan deems it a date! Before Mr. Young toots along, though, he informs Susan that her MRI did reveal one thing: she has a "wandering spleen." Clearly the playful Dr. Young is revenging himself upon Susan by feeding her a made-up ailment to worry about. But...wandering spleen? That's a little "eh." I think the doctor (by which I mean the writers) could have come up with something more compelling than that. But anyway, Susan and Dr. Young are ON. My diagnosis? Disaster!
Oh, yay, back to the Sucky Solises. Carlos and Gabby pull up in front of Scott the ePorndog's house, though there's an odd kind of ad-hoc parking lot out front, so maybe this is Scott's' office? Either way, the scene is very "L.A. depressing." Also, there's like a Gremlin or a Pacer parked out front. Gabby (who incidentally sounds as though she's braving her way through a cold in this scene) tells Carlos, "Go get 'im, tiger!" Carlos turns off the engine and sighs. He can't go through with it. Gabby: "You promised!" Carlos: "Ever since I got out of prison, I've been trying to lead a better life. For the first time, I can honestly say that I'm a good Catholic, and I don't want to ruin that." Yeah, a good Catholic who just last week tried to swing with married Lynette! Gabby brightly suggests that Carlos beat up Scott today, and then just go to "an extra-long mass tomorrow." Carlos: "It doesn't work that way." Finally we get to the crux of Gabby's complaint: "You used to go crazy when [men] would so much as look at me the wrong way, and that's when I had clothes on!" They bicker back and forth, Gabby with the "you just don't love me as much as you used to" and Carlos with the "why can't you let me be a good person." Blah blah blah McBlah. Finally Gabby gives up, and then Carlos feels bad (or something...I'm not entirely clear on his motivations here), so he decides to go inside and "talk" to Scott (not hurt him, just talk). Gabby stays in the car, sucking on a cough drop. So I guess she has a cold? Possibly because of all her nakedness lately? Huh. It's so weird what the writers choose to be subtle about on this show.
And now, time for the MAVO SUMMARY: "Illnesses can take on many forms. Those of the body are easy to treat." Lynette dabs calamine lotion on one of the P-children. "Much more difficult are the hidden maladies that fester in our hearts." Lynette looks over at Tom, who stands off to the side, watching his family forlornly. MAVO: "The secret addictions that consume men's souls." Gardener Ralph looks at "something" on his laptop and smiles to himself. MAVO: "And the diseases we deny which affect our judgment." Bree sits on her porch, alone, sipping wine. MAVO: "To survive we need to find that special someone who can heal us." Dr. Young comes into the waiting room at the hospital and finds Susan waiting there. She's smiles at him hugely and hands him a basket of, I think, muffins (the perfect snack before sushi!). Noah, now with an oxygen tube in his nose, lies in bed while an unidentified nurse bustles beside him. He mutters, "I work so hard all my life, so hard. Now it's all nothing." The nurse inserts his IV, but Noah doesn't even notice. He just keeps on staring off into space and muttering: "I got one daughter I hate, and who hates me, and one dead before her time. No one left for me now. Oh, what did I do it for..." He finally notices the IV in his arm. "That was good," he tells the nurse, "I didn't feel a thing." And then his thoughts turn inward again: "I have enough pain. I don't need any more." MAVO: "But we can never predict who will have the cure for what ails us." A familiar, scratchy voice says to Noah, "The other nurses all warned me you were difficult, Mr. Taylor." MAVO, ominously: "Or when they'll show up." The camera pans to reveal the identity of Noah's new nurse. It's Felicia Tilman! And she has a fresh, closely cropped haircut that's very "runway mental patient." Felicia: "But I think we're going to get along just fine." I'll BET. Felicia plus Noah equals woo hoo!
week: Gabby and Sister Mary Hotpants get into a catfight and roll around on the floor while some choir kids stand around looking awkward!