In the first hour of the two-hour finale, resolutions are made to several dangling plot threads, most excitingly in the Paul/Felicia/Susan storyline that's been the most consistently enjoyable thread throughout the season. Mike helps Paul understand that it's been Felicia poisoning him the whole time, and like magic Paul's able to get Susan out of jail. Felicia disappears, and Susan and Paul have another of their heartwarming moments, and everything's fine...
Except of course, Felicia's been in town the whole time, waiting to get her revenge. Susan walks in on Paul, tied up with an antifreeze IV, and once the fighting's all over Felicia's once again run away with Beth's ashes, leaving a repentant Paul to finally confess for his Season One murder of Felicia's sister. Which is not the resolution Susan, or your recapper, would have been happiest with. Of course, the fact that Beth's ashes immediately tip over in Felicia's getaway car, blinding her just long enough to swerve into the path of an eighteen-wheeler, provides enough of a relief that we'll let it slide.
Otherwise, you've got the Scavos at a B&B "working" on their "marriage" and horrifying a cute young couple with the depths of their misery. Tom eventually produces their original modest engagement ring, which he's had set with the tackiest of gigantic Danielle Steele diamonds, which causes Lynette to freak out more on him. By the halfway point of the two-hour event, the Scavo divorce slash murder-suicide is looking more likely than ever.
Gay Lee convinces Bree that Dreamy Detective Chuck Vance is secretly gay, and it's offensive but not really that offensive. Turns out that he was really close with his partner, who was in turn really close with Chuck Vance's wife, if you know what I'm saying, and his success in their divorce is contingent on not sleeping around, or something. Fairview legal matters are not something I'm qualified to speak about. Anyway, he's not gay, and finally ends up heavy-petting Bree in a cop car just to prove it. For this show, it's a relatively tolerant little plot that only contains about fifty anachronistically horrible jabs. So that's a comparatively good score.
And finally, Gabi manages to catch a glimpse of Juanita's boogeyman and, as presumed, it's her stepfather we were told was dead. While originally skittish about getting a gun, once she realizes who she's dealing with Gabi strides to the head of the gun safety class, although given this show, it's most likely she'll end up shooting Paul Young, which is generally what happens when anything happens.
An exciting little hour, all told, with lots of room left for the final episode of the season to bring up new mysteries and show us where it's all heading, now that this show's been renewed, over Brothers & Sisters and about ten other ABC shows written for -- and by -- human beings, rather than intolerant, drug-addicted macaws. Oh, NBC. Get your shit together already. This kind of filth is why you exist.
It is creepy to be on Susan's side, especially for this long of a stretch, but maybe that was the point of this little exercise in kidney deformation. Nonetheless, as Mary Alice was saying the following, in her smug way, I felt myself getting a little offended. (This feeling will quickly go away, I just thought it was worth noting.)
Mary Alice: "Susan Delfino had always played by the rules. She obeyed every label [hackneyed joke about not cutting off cushion tags that still manages to land because of her hilarious expression and the generalized cartooniness], she performed her civic duty [some kind of grownup activity I didn't quite understand], she respected all legal boundaries [Please Do Not Walk On Grass]. So when she was questioned about the poisoning of Paul Young... Susan was more than a little upset."
Susan: "Why should I tell my investigating officer something secret like my name or age? I'd better lie about my age. That's what stupid women do, in this parallel universe."
Dude: "Right, Susan Delfino. I have a post-it on this file that says you'll act like a goon this whole time."
They discuss, circuitously, in a way that both exposits and makes fun of that exposition, what has brought us here: She was accidentally poisoning Paul Young and then the PTA, and at some point yes -- I wasn't sure about this -- realized it was Felicia doing it.
Dude: "But you totally hate Paul Young."
Susan: "No. Not hating Paul Young is the finest thing anyone on this show has ever done. Especially me. Apparently not being a selfish monster comes with Beth's kidney. I wish everybody could have some of her kidney and then this show wouldn't be so gross."
Mary Alice: "...And so, she must be punished. Harshly."
SCAVO CHARNEL HOUSE
Lynette: "God, I hate you."
Tom: "I hate you too. Just... So very much."
Lynette: "Let's go lock ourselves in a quaint B&B until we end up murdering each other."
Tom: "I can only hope a fresh-faced young couple will be there and we can ruin their marriage too."
Lynette: "That is exactly what this show would do."
CHUCK VANCE / BREE-FRIGERATION
Dreamy Detective Chuck Vance: "I have to leave now that you've cooked me dinner, because I can't do any adultering."
Bree: "As a Christian, I don't see why cheating on your wife would be a problem."
Detective Chuck Vance: "What an amusing reversal of expectations and/or total hypocrisy on your part. Luckily, there's more to the story -- as we'll learn -- so your gross lack of respect for the sacrament of matrimony will actually be validated."
Bree: "That's the funny thing about the horrific abortion that is my religious life. It's always validated by the even more fucked-up morals of this show."Belabored but cutely rendered boner joke.
SUSAN VS. THE CONCEPT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT
Susan: "All I did was poison a dude until he shit out his heart on my kitchen floor, and then try to kill a room full of rich bitches who have tortured me all season, and then they found a bunch of syringes and antifreeze in my house, and then I confessed to poisoning everybody. Why are you on my case?"
Mike: "See, but this is how cops work. This is literally all cops are about."
Susan: "Not hearing you."
The Okay Gay One: "What you really need to do is prove that Tillman's framing you."
Susan, verbatim: "The woman hacked off two of her fingers to frame someone else. She's a framer."
Bob: "You're still not getting how this works."
Mike: "What if she called me from jail and offered me ten grand to murder him?"
Susan: "You never told me that!"
Mike: "Time and place, Susan. Time and place please."
Susan: "I am going to be so weird about this later."
Mike: "Obviously. In the meantime, yes, I thought about it. Firstly we were so poor that you became a pornographer and brought shame to our whole family, and secondly, it's Paul Young. Killing him is like my only hobby, I do it ten times every season."
SOLIPSISTIC SOLIS SOLECISMS
Gabrielle: "Your dad, he wants to talk to you."
Juanita: "Too busy 'playing on the computer,' as the old people that write this show would call it. I ain't talking to him."
Gabrielle: "Irregardless, here's the phone and now go take a bath."
Juanita: "Between you and I, Daddy, Mommy's going bonkers."
Gabrielle: "Whom is that man in our yard wearing the sombrero?"
(There's a part where both Juanita and Gabi get off the phone with a "Buy me something!" signoff, but honestly that is so gross on so many levels that we won't be talking about it.)
BREE TICKETS TO THE GUN SHOW
Bree: "Your husband said we can't be doing it anymore."
Gabi: "I'm not here to pretend we're best friends, I'm here for a gun."
Bree: "Um, that sounds like a bad idea of Real Housewives proportions."
Gabi: "Juanita's Lurking Sombrero is real. I saw him."
Bree: "Did you call the police?"
Gabi: "No, and I shan't be doing so. For no reason other than the very end of this two-part season finale, where I won't be able to show due diligence and thus all four of us enter a conspiracy of blood."
Bree: "No gun for you. But let me set you up with a gun class so you can be a licensed and responsible gun owner, like we're pretending gun owners always are."
Gabi, verbatim: "Great, so in the meantime if skulking guy breaks into my house, I'm just gonna yell, Freeze! I'm taking a class!"
(Even if they used Renee properly -- which in these two episodes they basically do -- Eva Longoria and Gabrielle would still be the best part of this show, on every level.)
THE HOUSE OF SAND & FOG & ASHES & FINGERS & ANTIFREEZE
Officer Mister: "Felicia, what is your crazy ass up to?"
Felicia, and I'm not kidding, it's amazing: "I am painting my remaining fingernails."
Officer Mister: "Can we ask you some questions about how you keep poisoning people all the time?"
Cut To: (Just like a spinning chair and a zooming sound and some papers see-sawing down out of the air, in the wake of her vanishing.)
BLED & BROKEFAST
Lynette: "Turns out a B&B is just a place to slowly die in the arms of someone you hate."
Tom: "Great idea, asshole."
Lovely B&B Couple: "Isn't romance delightful?"
ibid., moments later: "[Gurgling, bleeding.]"
PAUL'S HOUSE OR I GUESS WHOEVER'S HOUSE
Paul: "OMG, Mike! I haven't seen you since we put our son in rehab. How have you been? Just kidding, get the fuck off my porch."
Mike: "I know I only get a couple of lines an episode, so I'm going to make them count."
ibid., rapidly: Explains the entire storyline in clear, concise language.
Paul: "Wait, and hired you to kill me? How did that go?"
Mike: "Clearly, I did not kill you."
Paul: "Thanks. I wish we could just hang out on this porch forever talking like this. We are really very interesting chaps when you think of it."
Mike: "Well, you certainly make my wife bearable. Something I have never ever pulled off."
FELICIA'S HOUSE OR I GUESS WHOEVER'S HOUSE, LIKE ANYBODY CARES
Paul & Mike: "The flaming skidmarks left in the driveway would suggest that Felicia left here with a quickness. Perhaps it was to go to the cops, but I doubt it."
Mike: Is like the one person I don't feel the need to impute having a pretend sexual encounter with Paul. It would just make me kind of sad to think about that.
CONTRIVANCE DE KAMP
The Awful Gay One: "Hey, I saw Dreamy Detective Chuck Vance leaving here last night, looking blueballed."
Bree: "How do you know him? He's my boyfriend."
Lee: "Yeah, don't you know that all gay people think everybody else is gay? He's gay. Here is an entire gym bag full of hoary clichés about that."
Bree: "You said the same thing about Tom Scavo!"
Lee: "The fuck makes you think that's a point in your favor?"
WRONGERS OF WRONGS, SWINGERS OF SWONGS
Lovely B&B Couple: "Thanks for dinner! Please don't make us have sex with you!"
Tom & Lynette: "Oh, we don't want to fuck your bodies. Just your marriage."
Lovely B&B Couple: "We have a strict No Hanging Out With Unpleasant Bastards agreement."
Lynette: "If you don't provide a buffer, I will fucking kill him where he sleeps. And it doesn't stop there, either. How much pressure do you think those quaint antique doorknobs upstairs can really take? I am pretty much a bull moose of a person. I kick and I spit."
Lovely B&B Couple: "Is it that you two have such an amount of total asshole in your marriage that your marriage itself can no longer contain how horrible you are?"
Tom: "You'd really be doing us a kindness by absorbing some of our incredibly toxic psychic barf."
THRTY-FOUR HOURS LATER
Lovely B&B Couple: "Nope. Kill us if you want, we're done. You people. You people."
Lynette: "Honey, maybe we should reflect on our behavior and what it means."
Tom: "Maybe you should reflect. On my butthole."
Lynette: "Gross, dude. I'm going to bed. If you come upstairs, I will deny you sex and act bitchy."
Tom: "Fresh concept. I'm going to sit down here, sulking alone and stewing in my resentment like a roast in creep sauce, until God finally grants me the aneurysm I've been praying for."
Lynette: "Fresh concept."
Tom: "Freth thonthep, Jerkoff."
Lynette: "Meff monmeff, Barfbag."
Tom: "Durr dur-dur, Fnurburr."
Lynette: [Faces.]
CRUISIN', PART I
Bree: "Wow, your police department is a really masculine environment. Maybe I am a beard after all."
Detective Chuck Vance: "Um, after you leave I'm going to have to explain that you're not a drag queen, so..."
Random: "Hi, stranger. Would you be interested in some information about one of the detectives here at the precinct?"
Bree: "I need to know if Detective Chuck Vance is gay."
Random: "I can't tell you that. But I can tell you a bunch of vague shit that makes it seem like he is."
Bree: "Hmm. Do go on."
In Brief: Chuck and his old partner Pete went on a camping trip, and when they came back from that camping trip they couldn't look each other in the eye.
Now, if you've ever seen this show, you know "camping trip" is code for "gay sex, just kidding." Pretty much all comedy relies on this tension/release tactic, so it's nothing new, but it's especially characteristic of this show that you knew "gay/just kidding" would be the punchline even before they mentioned the camping trip -- since nothing is scarier than Gay, and therefore nothing is funnier than Just Kidding -- so this just confirms it.
SEE?
Lee: "See? They're gay."
He describes a fairly gross gay-seduction Flipper Scenario with his hands down his pants, like gay folks often do with their friends.
(Actually no, to be fair, it is incredibly hilarious -- but only because of Kevin Rahm's nuanced and brilliant delivery. I like that guy so much, I really do. I like both of them. Just wish the show did.)
Bree: "Then I'll just have to fuck him."
Lee: "Like you were already trying to do? Remember how you're not the problem here?"
Bree: "No, any ounce of class regarding his marriage or my own values is out the window. Somebody has to save him, and it's going to be me. I will no longer pretend to have any respect for the vows he took."
Lee: "But how does that... Oh, whatever. I'm barely a person anyway."
(He leaves -- and I'm not making this part up -- with a photo of Chuck & Pete so that he can masturbate himself to orgasm while looking at it. This goddamn show.)
GUN CLASS
Instructor: "[Boilerplate safety lesson.]"
Gabi: "[Wiseacre remark.]"
Instructor: "...[Boilerplate safety lesson.]"
Gabi: "[Wiseacre remark. Quickly losing popularity with fellow students.]"
Instructor: "You're here for protection? Got a Sombrero Lurker?"
Gabi: "Yeah."
Instructor: "Are you capable of pulling the trigger and shooting a person?"
Gabi: "Yes. Wait, I mean no."
Instructor: "The Second Amendment not only guarantees the right of citizens to carry guns [psst, it doesn't] but also means that you must shoot people whenever possible [psst, not really]. Get out of my class."
Instructor: "A gun in the hands of someone who is afraid to use it is the most dangerous weapon in the world."
Yeah, second only to a gun in the hands of someone who's not afraid to use it.
PAUL'S LATEST GETAWAY
Paul: "Sorry I pushed you around and crapped out my guts on your kitchen, but I was being poisoned."
Susan: "I just wish we were friends."
Paul: "I guess we are. But I have to leave town."
Susan: "But you just got here! And caused a riot! And ruined my life eighteen times in a row! Please do not leave."
Paul: "Susan, I have been the Number One Creepy Person on this show since the first season. I get that you have ADD and we're friends now -- and thanks -- but nobody on Wisteria Lane will ever like me as much as you, because nobody on Wisteria Lane will ever be as dumb as you. That is just a plain fact."
With some foreshadowy talk about how the past will always catch up with you -- Oh yeah, that's right: Susan still doesn't know about the actual Martha Huber truth -- Paul gives her the keys to the house and a bunch more money and they are super sweet with each other and then he packs his car and stands around looking wistful and sexy and then bam: Conked on the head. Possibly with Beth's urn.
MANHOLES & PROFITEROLES
Bree: "Dinner was great. Do you like apples?"
Detective Chuck Vance: "Sure, I like apples."
Bree: "Let's go fuck at my place. How d'you like them apples?"
Detective Chuck Vance: "Those are some uncomfortable apples. Plus we talked about this. How about we hit some neutral ground? I know a fabulous [sic] place..."
Bree: "Fabulous, you say."
Detective Chuck Vance: "Walked right into that one."
Bree: "Let's go to a gay bar."
I'VE GOT SOMETHING TO PUT IN YOU
Detective Chuck Vance: "Why are we at a gay bar?"
Bree: "I'm outing you."
Bar Full Of Stereotypical/Minority Twink Meat: "Hola, Papi!"
Detective Chuck Vance: "I'm afraid there has been a terrible mixup."
Bree, verbatim: "It's okay. My son is gay. I have lots of gay friends. I love the gays!"
Anybody who in 2011 says they Love The Gays: Is selling you something.
The Deal: Chuck & Pete were like brothers but then they went camping and it turned out that Pete was sleeping with Chuck's gross wife Doreen so then they broke up and came home and Chuck broke up with Doreen and filed for divorce so the real reason he can't sleep with Bree is that she'll use it against him in the divorce. Because marriage is a holy sacrament between one man and one woman. Except when it's not.
GROCERY STORE OF DOOM
Gabrielle, buying food she will never cook, is haunted by a Sombrero. She runs all through the store like a crazy person and eventually ends up in the security office, where it's kind of awesome:
Security Dude: "You say someone took your pocketbook, but isn't that your pocketbook?"
Gabi: "This is my purse. Men."
Security Dude: "Sorry. I do the same thing to my wife. I say 'nice shirt,' she says 'it's a blouse'; I say, 'I like your trousers,' she says..."
Gabi: "OMG! Enhance image!"
Security Dude: "Sure, because I can do that."
It is her dead stepfather Alejandro, clearly, and he is not dead, clearly. She heads immediately to gun class and graduates with one hundred A plusses in murdering.
BARFBAG & BROKEBACK HIT THE SKIDS
Lynette: "I am a grasping harpy!"
Tom: "I am a childish, broken idiot!"
Lovely B&B Couple: Spinning chairs, zooming sound, papers floating slowly down.
Lynette & Tom: "But Lovely Couple! Come spend some time with us! We're so much fucking fun to be around!"
Lovely B&B Couple: "You know what, we've had it. You two are the grossest things we've ever seen in life, and we know you're just using us to prolong the magic before the inevitable murder-suicide. Well, listen to this. We don't care if you kill each other. In fact, if we were a part of it they would probably make a statue in our honor just for saving the idea of marriage from extinction. Whatever sick bullshit you guys are into, leave us out of it. We've done our civic duty, and it's managed to make us question our own relationship. We're getting out while we still believe in love."
LATER; AND BTW SO WELL-ACTED THAT IT MAKES YOUR TUMMY HURT
Tom: "I can't believe you chased off that nice couple."
Lynette: "I can't believe you don't want to fuck me right now."
Tom: "Are you saying you want to..."
Lynette: "No, I want you to want to so I can shut you down. I want things back the way they were."
Tom: "I long for death."
Lynette: "You're not even trying! I'm trying to meet you zero percent of the way."
Tom, producing the most grotesquely huge diamond you've ever seen: "How about this vulgar demonstration of wealth that means nothing?"
Lynette: "You had my engagement ring reset, just like you promised back when we were in love and you were fucking Renee?"
Tom: "Because that's how gross people express their feelings, I bought you this. Please don't be ungrateful or crude about it..."
Lynette: "-- I liked it better before."
Tom: "FFFFFFFUUUUUUUU..."
But it's a compelling argument nonetheless, so he does stop murdering Felicia, which means that Susan has made him a real person just like Beauty & The Beast, which is the one good thing this season's had going on the whole time. Felicia escapes somehow -- just runs the hell out the house as the cops are driving up -- and Paul explains to Susan that, while yes he is not a murderer-of-Felicia, he was once a murderer-of-Martha, and thus her faith in him is slightly misplaced. (Wrong; that's not how it works, but in terms of his redemption he needs to think this.) Anyway, he offers himself to the cops and gets total redemption, which is actually quite wonderful to see.
Paul: "Officers, I have a confession to make. My wife stole a baby from a drug addict and then stabbed her to death and then got blackmailed until she blew her own head off, so I kind of lost it on her blackmailer, who was a terrible woman. The rest of the things, I didn't do. But that one thing is pretty major."
GETAWAY CRUISER
Felicia: "Oh, Beth's Ashes. I'm so glad we got away scot-free."
Beth's Ashes: "Bitch, this is all your fault. What's this 'we' bullshit?"
ibid., immediately: Comes open in the car, flying all around in a cloud of Beth.
Felicia: Drives into an oncoming eighteen-wheeler, amazingly.
IN SUMMATION
Susan: The hero of this episode in every single way. Still weirded by that.
Paul: Will be missed.
Felicia: In a different way, but ditto.
Gabrielle: Has spent all season dealing with her abuse and is now armed and prepared to fight the Boss at the end of the level. Just thinking about this is inordinately satisfying, honestly, for a lot of us. Not pretty, but there it is.
Bree: Got to third base using gay panic, like short-sighted self-hating asshole women have done forever. Ew, and there's this gross thing where Mary Alice tries to bring the title concept around to somehow link Gabi getting a gun with Bree getting a married man to touch her boobs, like, she actually equates those things in her gross little singsong, getting your vanity stroked and being willing to kill a man so that he won't assault you. Fuckin' Mary Alice, man.
Renee: Where are you?
Tom: The sad state of the American male is not this bad, you guys.
Lynette: Still to blame for the riot, by the way. And all things wretched.