The law may have let Mrs. McCluskey off the hook (after fining her for nothing more than the improper disposal of a body), but the whispering Wisterians aren't ready to move on yet, and gossip reaches a fevered pitch. Loyalty-free Lynette hires a new babysitter, and Parker, who misses Mrs. McC, convinces her to come clean with her story. And it's basically as we all suspected: she was keeping her husband on ice so that she could continue getting his pension checks, which otherwise would have gone to Gilbert's long-long-ago-ex wife. (He somehow failed to find the time in the 30+ years he was married to Mrs. McC to alter his pension paperwork in her favor.) Lynette has been coming home later and later from the Scavoria and spending more and more time with Tootie after hours, sampling his raviolis and so on. Kayla puts two and two together and devilishly passes her observations along to Tom. Tom tests Kayla's theory by announcing that he's coming back to work at the restaurant, and hey, good news: now they can let Tootie go! When Lynette does some serious tapdancing about the necessity of keeping Tootie on staff, Tom does some serious staring off into the mid-distance with a knowing, flinty glitter in his eye. Edie tells Gabby about her Carlos fling, somehow thinking that Gabby will be thrilled by the news simply because she herself has found love elsewhere. And yet...no. Gabby, not satisfied with simply hating Edie on her own, forces Lynette and Susan to give Edie the cold shoulder in solidarity. Edie strikes back by having Lynette cater Travers's birthday party, and having Susan come to sign a bunch of her books for the kids. When Gabby oh-so-inevitably catches Lynette and Susan at the party (after they first try hinding out in the party entertainer's snake-and-spider van, with creepy-crawly results), she pitches a big festivities-derailing fit. Carlos -- not wanting Travers's party to be ruined -- bodily removes Gabby from the premises. They have a little heart-to-heart (Carlos's being big, soft, and squishy and Gabby's black and hardened), and it comes out that Carlos doesn't see himself getting serious about Edie. Gabby's anger instantly evaporates, so pleased is she to learn that Carlos still safely belongs to her, even though she's totally moved on. Poor Carlos! Susan is still steaming mad at low-down dirty poker-playing dogs Ian and Mike. When she takes out her mad on some random guy over a parking spot, the police get involved, and Susan's instructed by the court to get some anger-management therapy. The puffy feather-haired therapist works her brain magic, and within one session, Susan realizes that she wants to be with Ian. Ian is ecstatic. Mike is slightly less so, and he leaves a sad, sad message on Susan's machine telling her so. When Ian catches Susan listening to the message not once, but twice, he realizes that she'll always be a little in love with Mike, and that Ian deserves more than that. So he up and moves to England. Just like that! Meanwhile, it appears that Mike has also packed up his broken ticker and hit the road. Destination? Unknown!
Previously on Desperate Housewives: oh, you remember all the stuff that didn't happen last week, right?
Okay then. MAVO starts by dropping us into the middle of Gabby's big engagement fete down at the Scavoria, and we see that Gabby has somehow managed to cut her hand. Then, in a temporal inverted backward flip, MAVO goes back in time (crazy, I know) to show us the events that led up to the injury, by way of a Mutual-Of-Omaha-style montage of all the almost-could-have-been-injurious moments in her day: Gabby just misses getting her paw slammed in a limo door, Gabby barely avoids having her fingers trod upon while she's picking up her napkin, a waiter drops a gigantor steak knife and it thunks into the table one red hair's breadth away from Gabby's wrist (red hairs being the urban-legendarily scantest of all, at least according to certain gutter-minded thinking). This trail of non-events leads us, finally, to What Really Happened. "Gabrielle's injury," MAVO tells us, "came about in a more [patented Mary Alice irony-rich pause] unexpected fashion." And here it is: Edie finally tells Gabby that she and Carlos are dating, and Gabby responds to the news by squeezing her wine glass so tightly that it shatters and slices her hand. Wah-wah. Was anyone in any way, shape, or form surprised by that reaction? We all knew that chances were fair-to-guaranteed that Gabby was going to slip a cog when she found out about Carlos and Edie, so I'm not exactly sure what MAVO is talking about when she deems this the most "unexpected" explanation for Gabby's wound -- personally, I think the steak knife falling from the sky and plunging into her wrist would have come out of much deeper in left field. (And, in a collective sigh coming from the entire recap-reading audience: "You know what would have been even more unexpected, and delightfully so? If Evany had just let the MAVO intro lie, un-nitpicked to death, for just once...for the love that is all that is holy?")
In short: Gabby pretends to be so totally blissed out over her looming nups that she's unfazed by the news of Carlos pairing up with Sloppy-Seconds Britt (first Susan's ex Karl, then Susan's ex Mike, and now Carlos?), but secretly she is totally hot and bothered, and in an "around the collar" sort of way as opposed to the bathing-suit-area kind. As MAVO puts it, "Gabrielle had been cut much, much deeper than anyone could see."
Oh and lest I forget: this party scene also features a welcome reference to Bree, who managed to send Gabby a celebratory basket of moist muffins despite being thousands of miles of way at "the top of a Swiss Alp." It's an inane story, and it feels ultra-tacked on, but I'm glad for the mention: it was getting kind of eerie, not having even a whisper of Bree lo these multiple episodes. And to celebrate this welcome moment of our lives, here's a topical joke for you to share with you coworkers and parole officers. Ready? Okay: Two muffins are in an oven. One muffin says to the other, "Man it's hot in here." The other muffin goes "Oh my god, a talking muffin!" You like that? Because apparently, this little joke is also the inspiration for a T-shirt. And an awesomely heated debate.
Right, so anyway, there's this show? Called Desperate Housewives? When we return from the credit sequence, MAVO gets us right down to this week's topic at hand: and the topic is gossip. We're treated to a series of extreme close-ups of babbling house-mouths, cutting loose with a stream of scuttlebutt. We get Ida jawing about some neighbor being shut in with the mailman for a salaciously suspicious length of time, then Jordana Geist (Lynette's Ritalin supplier from Season 1) reappears to wag her tongue about the reek of booze on so-and-so's breath, then Edie cats about some Fairview foe's breast augmentation. And then over to Lynette's big mouth, which is currently fixating on the cold case of Mrs. McC. The camera pulls back to reveal that the ears she's bending belong to Susan and Gabby, and the three of them are rubbernecking in front of Mrs. McC's house of frozen treats. Through their back and forth we learn that hubby Gilbert has been on ice for ten years, that Mrs. McC is now home after being charged with nothing more than "improper disposal of a corpse," and that Lynette has tried knocking on Mrs. McC's door but to no avail. Also Lynette is just a shade creeped out by the fact that her kids have been the recipients of an untold number of corpse-tainted frozen novelties. "I mean, jeez," she says, "if you want to keep your husband on ice, at least have a dedicated freezer." Another tip for my new book, From Dismemberment to Deep Freeze: A Fairview User's Guide to Hiding the Stiff! Parker overhears them gossiping about his pal Mrs. McC, and his favorite look of consternation washes over him. Lynette shoos the worried little boy off to go play.
Meanwhile, Gabby excuses herself to go talk to Edie, who is taking out the trash wearing a huge, black, depressing fur coat and looking very much like she's just tumbled out of bed -- it's very Hibernating Bear Meets Courtney Love. And guess what? Gabby, it turns out, is not actually okay with Edie dating Carlos -- she calls it "awkward" and likens it to giving a dress to charity only to discover a friend wearing it at a party -- and she commands Edie to cease and desist, like pronto. Edie: "And what if I don't?" Gabby: "Then be prepared to suffer the consequences." Edie, with a dismissive, growling laugh: "Oh please. You are as tall as my legs." And it's true, Edie and her insane fur coat totally tower of Gabby, the Shortest Runway Model That Never Was.
And over to Susan's Two Men Too Many storyline. Ian's come a-knocking at Susan's door, bouquet of roses in hand, but she is deliberately not answering. Julie (well hello there, our long-lost level-headed friend!) tries to talk Susan into reasoning with Ian and/or Mike: "There are only two guys in this world who know all your flaws and have still found a way to love you; you're just going to...toss them both away?" Yet Susan refuses to listen to this incredibly persuasive reasoning. Mike joins the party and, with weird vindictiveness, starts taunting Ian to "give it up," etc. Ian, peevishly: "I preferred you when you were comatose and pooping in a bag." Yes, he actually says that: "pooping in a bag." And then Mike says, "Well, lucky I don't have that bag right now." Because...he would throw it at Ian? A bag packed with his very own fecal surprise? That seems a little extreme. Ian throws down the gauntlet, and also his bouquet, and fisticuffs look inevitable. But then Susan sends Julie to the door to tell both men to keep away, and they both wander off, looking dejected.
After hours at the Scavoria. Rick hands Lynette a plate of duck raviolis in a thick extramarital sauce and asks her what she thinks of the dish. Lynette flirts that she thinks "it's a shame" that he didn't make any for himself, and she coyly makes a grab for his plate, too. Why you piggy minx! Just then, Tom calls to say how much he loves her, clearly just a butter-up for wanting her to come home and convince the 8 million Scavolettes to get into bed, because they refuse to listen to Tom, which is totally pathetic -- is it too early to send the kids off to Camp Cognac for some reprogramming? Lynette lies and says she needs to stay at work to do "inventory," and then later tries to pretend to Tootie that she feels guilty for doing so. Tootie ulterior motivates her by telling her how very much deserves a break from her family, read: her ROTTEN OLD HUSBAND.
Later, a cane-enabled Tom hobbles out in front of the house to find Parker standing there with his basketball and staring over at Mrs. McC, who's scrubbing the eggs off her front door: apparently, the local kids have been showing their appreciation for her ice work by throwing things at her house. Mrs. McC spots Tom and Parker staring at her, and without so much as a friendly wave, Tom hustles Parker inside under the guise of it being too late to "bother" poor, lonely, ostracized Mrs. McC. Argh, if only Tom had reached out to Mrs. McC in this scene! A bond between these too could have been a might powerful element if and when Lynette's affair with Tootie takes off. But instead, Tom just lurches inside the house, leaving a crushed-looking Mrs. McC sadly scrubbing her front door. And with that whimper of a moment, the show lurches into...
...COMMERCIALS! Oh, Spiderman. Did you see that scathing review in The New Yorker? Which described Peter Parker's new bangs as making him look "like the bronze medalist in a teen-age Hitler-impersonation contest"? Zing! POW! Bam.
Gabby, looking fine with a P-H (i.e., "phine") in a hell-O-yellow satin top with cute puff sleeves, has invited Susan and Lynette over to enlist them in operation Eradicate Edie. For some reason, the ladies are weirdly reluctant to join up. Lynette, I can sort of understand -- Edie's never really run afoul of her. But still, they're not exactly super close. But Susan! Why is Susan fighting for her right to keep talking to Edie? Gabby reminds Susan that Edie turned her exes (Karl and Mike) into sexes, too. But Susan is apparently so femiNazied over her recent turn in the poker pot that she isn't mad at all at Edie for those slipups; rather, it's the men who should be despised! Lynette and Gabby exchange uneasy glances over Susan's crazy-harsh man bashing. Which...okay, fine, I sort of understand? Except no! Edie burned down your house, Susan. You should be happy for any request to hate her. Gabby reminds the ladies of all the times she took their sides: apparently, Lynette had some property dispute and Gabby weighed in on her side, and she's still boycotting the salon that gave Susan her "botched bikini wax." As Susan starts shifting her legs uncomfortably, Lynette says, "Oh my god, how do you botch a bikini wax?" Gabby: "SHE WILL SHOW YOU LATER!" Finally kowtowed by Gabby's browbeating (or, for a more titillating girl-on-girl option, with Lynette and Susan now in a heated rush to go show each other bikini scars), Lynette and Susan agree to shut out Edie.
Casa Devil Inside. Lynette comes home to find Kayla in the middle of putting together a puzzle on the kitchen table. Kayla immediately opens fire on Lynette with a calculated guilt trip about how she's never ever home these days and how she makes Tom do everything now. If I were Lynette, I'd be stoked by the news that Mr. Full-Service Me is actually doing stuff around the house. Lynette lies that she's just been super-busy at the Scavoria, capping the lie with a weirdo nervous "he-he-he" that sounds kind of like the androgynous alien chertle of Pat. Kayla, who's every inch her mother's daughter in this scene, brats that Lynette always seems to laughs that creepy laugh when she's trying to cover up a lie. I don't know...we've heard Lynette lie a lot over the years, and I don't really remember that off-putting chuckle-thing as her signature? Also: Kayla? You're an idiot. Never tell someone their tell!
Meanwhile, over on the set of Fried Green Tomatoes, Susan is waiting for a parking spot when a guy zips in and steals it right out from under her. She honks and screeches, but he dickishly blows her off, so she stomps out of her car, yelling that she waited while the guy leaving the spot "made three phone calls and flossed his teeth," which means the spot clearly belongs to her. Are parking spots really this scarce in Fairview? That seems just utterly unimaginable. The fight escalates and, and by the time the police arrive, with guns drawn, Susan's stolen the guy's keys and locked herself inside his car, and she's crushing his trachea in the crack of the electric window.
Edie "She Puts the Ex in Sex" Britt. Wearing an insanely patriotic red, white, and blue dress that's so form-fitting that it looks like a bathing suit, but a bathing suit with a long, knee-length skirt, she peers out her front curtains at Lynette, who's getting into her car across the street. In a scene lifted directly from Veronica Mars, Edie suspects that Lynette's been avoiding her calls, and she confirms it by dialing Lynette on her cell and watching as Lynette screens her straight to voicemail. Since when did Edie and Lynette's friendship escalate to just-calling-to-chat levels, anyway? Edie rants, she raves, but Carlos tells her to relax: Lynette's probably just "busy" or whatevs. Carlos, the by way, is fully dressed and lounging on Edie's couch and reading the paper, so I guess they've graduated past the "sex every second of the day" stage of the relationship and are now onto "established couple" activities like hanging out and reading the paper? Though why Edie's selected a crazy Lycra dress for Couple's Casual Day I can't really figure. Edie seethes that Lynette's cold-shouldering has Gabby's frosty prints all over it, and Carlos tsks Edie for telling Gabby about their affair in the first place. But Edie is fighting mad now, and she stomps outside to deal with the Lynette problem.
Lynette, spying Miss American Edie stomping her way over, sets her face in a funny robot clench that's supposed to read like she can't see Edie, no, not at all. Does not compute, etc.! But Edie totally has Lynette's ticket, and she delivers a blow to the one spot Lynette's incapable of ignoring: Her Money Maker. As Edie so-sweetly informs her, it's Travers's birthday this weekend and hey, maybe the Scavoria would like to cater? There'll be a lot of pizza-partying kids there -- kids who'll almost surely want to hire the Scavoria for their own birthdays, too...? And just like that, Lynette caves.
And down at court-ordered anger-management therapy, a Fraggle-haired therapist is chastising Susan for threatening to "decapitate a man over a parking space." Susan "Denial Isn't Just A River In Egypt" Mayer claims to be fine, totally fine, nothing wrong, nothing to see here! And then the Fragglrapist casually asks after the state of Susan's love life, and she semi-hilariously busts into tears. I'm usually very hard on Teri Hatcher (because she usually bugs like the seminal Bunny of WB fame), but I must confess that she's actually kind of funnying it up in this episode. I know: so weird.
The doorbell rings at Mrs. McFreeze's, and she answers already at full battle stations, only it isn't the door-bell ditching kids she's expecting; it's only Parker, wearing his favorite sad-sack face. It appears that the Scavos have hired a new sitter -- Mrs. McC is clearly stung by this news, and really, it's a hugely traitorous act, and I actually thought Lynette was a better friend than that -- and sugar-junkie Parker hates this new woman because she "thinks carrot sticks are snacks." Though why any babysitter of the Scavo brood would feed those kids anything but sedatives is beyond me. Parker encourages Mrs. McC to come clean about why her husband's been cooling his jets in the basement for the last decade, but Mrs. McC doesn't think anything she can say will stop the gossipmongers of Wisteria Lane; she just has to ride out the storm.
The Fragglrapist has canceled the rest of her plans for the day, and Susan, who we all know has been in dire need of therapy for a long time now, is officially on a tear. She hates men, she hates poker, she's all betrayed, etc.! But then, in possibly the fastest and most insightful bit of therapying ever, the Fragglrapist cuts through all Susan's noise and hits the heart of the matter: Who does Susan love, Ian or Mike? She may love both, but she can only choose one. Wow. Now...let's schedule all the other characters on this show for miracle Fragglrapy, shall we?
Scavoria. Tootie invites Lynette to come try out a sneak tasting at a "soul food place" owned by his "friend Al" -- hey, but didn't he say he didn't have any friends? Initially, she balks, citing parental duties. But when he casually mentions that she was "just the first person [he] thought of," the "Married Lady With A Big, Fat, Inappropriate Crush" fiddle fiddles, and Lynette scrambles to accept the invitation, reverse-engineering an excuse that it's all about the competitive research. Tootie: "Yeah, it never hurts to see what's out there." Did you get that? ["I don't even watch this show, and I think I got it so hard that it raised a goose-egg on my forehead." -- Miss Alli]
Travers's birthday party is in full swing, and there are a million kids running around -- quite the impressive turnout for a kid who's only been in town for a month. Susan totally busts Lynette for serving kids pizza, and Lynette admits that she's a "whore" for pizza money. Ah, but Edie's sunk her claws into Susan, too: she's there to sign books, thirty of which Edie's (I guess) purchased as party favors. Lynette to Susan: "Looks like we're working the same corner!" Lynette's not super-worried about Gabby finding out about that they've turned traitor, because she's supposed to be on a date with Victor all day. Susan sighs a huge sigh of relief that can only mean that Gabby's for sure going to spot them, and she heads off to go autograph her book, Ants In My Picnic Basket, which (as I've said before) just sounds so dirty to me. Something about that My; if it were merely Ants In THE Picnic Basket, it wouldn't sound filthy at all. Should I be worried that my brain just keeps rutting back to dirty places? Especially in the context of children's literature? Maybe I need the Fragglrapist, too. There's a huge "Meet The Author" poster with Susan's photo and the Picnic Basket illustration, which is disappointingly schlocky. There are also a bazillion balloons and streamers and a snake guy. Edie has truly outdone herself on this party for Gabby. I mean Travers! The party is for Travers, right.
Some punk kids peel off from the festivities to go paint "WITCH" on Mrs. McC's door in red paint -- a pretty tuff move for a bunch of dorks in face paint (oh, and Edie also hired a face painter). I wonder where the kid got his giant bottle of paint. Perhaps it's the same jug Mrs. Purdy used when she WHOREd up Susan's garage? Doesn't it seem a little soon to be recycling plot points from just last season? They couldn't even mix it up with a different color of paint? Epithet Ecru, maybe? Silver Slur? Parker comes running up -- his face is dork-paint free, so clearly he's the cooler customer in this showdown -- and he commands them to leave Mrs. McC alone. They accuse him of being in love with Witchy C and knock him down. Mrs. McC comes running out, and the idiots in the face paint all run away. She tries to comfort Parker, but he shrugs her off: he's mad at her for still refusing to come clean. Here's a thought: what if Parker really was in love with Mrs. McC.? After all, they do have a history: he did try to put a seed inside her to see if it would grow. The first January-December kiss! That would be huge for sweeps. The collective retinal burning on the entire viewing audience, however, would be quite the legal snafu.
As we so knew she would, Gabby shows up on the Lane: her date with Shoo-In Mayor's been cancelled. She tries calling Lynette, but she's not picking up. And yet...her car's home. And so is Susan's. A couple of kids run by, carrying balloons, and the "Suspicious Minds" violas start to saw frantically. Lynette spots Gabby on her way over and dives at Susan. They hit the grass and crawl for cover, and a P-twin spots them and asks if he can join in the fun, but Lynette just screams at him to "go ride the python" -- which sounds even creepier than Ants In My Picnic Basket, but which literally refers to the gigantic snake the reptile guy is carting around. Susan and Lynette slip into the "Rent A Reptile" van -- which, contrary to the way it sounds, is not a van full of male strippers (I know, I dirtied it again). A big hairy spider hisses at them, and they go screaming out into the street, and right into Gabby's sightlines.
Gabby makes a big scene about how Lynette and Susan have betrayed their "pact," and how they have to leave with her this very second, blah, blah, blah. Gabby is kind of an idiot. Mid-rant, Carlos -- intent on not letting idiot Gabby ruin Travers's party -- sweeps in, throws Gabby over his shoulder, and carries her off the premises. They bicker for a while -- how could she announce her engagement on the news without telling Carlos first? how could he start dating Edie without telling Gabby? -- but then Gabby smugs that she's head-over-high-heels in love with the Shoo-In Mayor. The sad "So Not Over It" synthesizer swells, and Carlos sighs and says, "It must be nice." As in, he's totally not in love with Edie! More precisely, he says that they're "having fun together, but it'll never be serious." Aw, poor Edie.
Out of nowhere MAVO busts in, and for a split second, I think WRAP-UP TIME! But no. We've actually got a long, grim twenty minutes of airtime to go yet. You know, I really liked this episode the first time I saw it, but now it's just drag-assing under the weight of Gabby being a totally irritating shrew. Right, so MAVO: "And for the first time, Gabrielle was willing to let Carlos be with someone else, because she knew he still belonged to her." Her face stretches into a revoltingly smug smile. See? Gabby's awful.
Edie, Lynette, Susan, and -- weirdly -- Jordana Geist again (are they trying to make her one of the Wives or something?) are all cleaning up after the party when Mrs. McC walks up. Lynette super-awkwardly offers her some cake, but she's not there for "sweets." No! She's there to put an end to the mystery of her frozen husband. Aw, Mrs. McC only got a two-episode arc of a mystery? And it's ending before it even got a good head of steam going? That's really disappointing. Anyway, just as everyone predicted (snore), Mrs. McC put Gilbert on ice so she could keep getting his pension checks. They confuse the story a bit to explain why she doesn't receive the checks automatically like most widows do: apparently, he was married to another woman before Mrs. McC and neglected to change the name of his beneficiary from the ex to Mrs. McC in the 34 years they were married, which multiple people on the boards, including Retirement Experts, have called bullshit on, but what can you do? Mrs. McC ends her confession by giving the Ladies permission to start spreading the news. "Not," she says scornfully, "that you ladies need [permission]." Mrs. McC heads back home, pausing to wink at Parker. Awwww, it is ON! Ew.
Is that really all the story Mrs. McC is going to tell? If so, why didn't she come clean with the story from the get-go? Or maybe this is just a cover story! For some much darker secret! I totally wouldn't be surprised -- I suspect Mrs. McC's still waters run Loch-Ness-deep. Also, if this whole pension story is true, shouldn't Mrs. McC be in the pokey for fraud? Oh man, what if the reason they didn't arrest her is that she was within her legal rights to cash those checks? How awesome if the writers let her discover that she'd frozen Gilbert for no whatsoever! Hello? Is anyone listening to this?
Susan shows up on Mike's doorstep and confesses that she's been in therapy ("sort-of-a-court-ordered-thing, anyway..." she mutters hilariously), and she has an announcement. And if you thought her announcement is that she's going back to Mike (like I totally did), you thunk WRONG! She's sticking with Ian! Bizarrely enough. And I'm shocked to say that this news actually made me feel a bit melancholy, which is so weird; after spending a year looking at Mike's slack-jawed zombie face, I would have thought for sure I'd be celebrating the day Susan finally closed the chapter on Mike. But I'm kind of sad! Maybe it's because James Denton has been letting actual emotions through these last couple episodes? Or, more likely, maybe it's lingering Season 1 affection? But it's true: when Susan tells him how sorry she is, and he tells her, "At least I have my memories," I actually sniffled. So there.
Lynette and Tootie are juuuust about ready to leave on their big date, a.k.a. the "competitive research analysis," and Lynette's hair is down, just like Tootie likes it, and she's wearing a really cute little top that shows off her arms, and we even catch her putting on a little perfume. But just then, Tom rolls in with all the kids -- he's taken a bunch of extra pain pills and put all the kids in a cab, just to surprise her. And even though Tom's been so awful as of late, I instantly feel sorry for the guy. Especially when Lynette lies about how her perfumey smell is just the "basil" which has a "sweet smell." Dude, why not just lie that you had to cover up the sweaty stench of restaurant with a strong perfume? That lie is worrisome. Though not as worrisome as the fact that she actually purchased a new perfume for this date. Lynette sneaks back to tell Tootie that their date is off, and he readily volunteers to cook for the family, which is nice, and also makes me wonder if he's nearly as crushed out on her as she is on him? Maybe she's just one of the few people he can talk to, now that he's sober? And maybe he's just one of those confusing men who say stuff like "you look beautiful with your hair down," but don't actually want to throw you down on a table and put ants in your picnic basket? Whatever his actual motivation, though, Kayla spies a suspicious-seeming moment between Lynette and Tootie: when he offers to stay at the restaurant and cook, she pats his chest and sort of rubs it, which is...pretty intimate. Kayla's eyes narrow evilly. And then later...
...when she's tucking her dad into his hospital bed, she "casually" mentions, without the slightest attempt at sugar-coating the news, that she thinks Lynette "likes" Tootie. Like, LIKE-likes. Tom looks stunned, and Kayla smiles hugely. Bleh, she's so monstrous, it's actually getting hard to watch.
Susan and Ian are making out and walking, making out and walking, making out and walking all over her house. There is also some cooing. I take it he's heard the news that he's the lucky winner of the Susan prize? Ian unlocks lips long enough to say, "You do realize we're going to be blissfully happy, don't you? I mean, it could actually get a bit disgusting. People might throw fruit!" And the way he says "fruit!" is so fittingly fruity. Susan sends Ian upstairs to "warm up the bed" while she stays downstairs to lock up, which feels sort of manufactured to me...I hesitate to say that it's usually the man's job to lock up, but it does seem weird that, given all the kissing and the romance of the moment, they wouldn't, say, check the perimeter together. Or be so swept up in the moment that she'd forget all about the deadbolts? Though...maybe this is a sign of her general lack of passion for Ian, that she can think of something so mundane on the very night of her thrilling re-engagement? In which case, delightfully subtle character development, writers!
While Susan's turning off lights, she just happens to notice that she has a message on her machine. Of course, it's from Mike, and it's a super-sad message, all, "You will always be the best thing that ever happened to me and, well, I hope you find the happiness you deserve." And he ends this heart-squeezing goodbye message with, "Oh, this is Mike," which is super-endearing. Now, unbeknownst to Susan, Ian has reappeared behind her, so he's witnessed this poignant little scene. And you can tell that he sees that Susan's moved by what Mike had to say, and that he's actually okay with it because he's now secure enough in his love to recognize how Susan might be a little wistful in this situation. And he's moving in to give her what looks like a comforting hug, when? She hits "play." Again. The death blow! Ian's face goes blank, and he looks shocked and resigned and sad all at once. And then the smallest, saddest smile flickers across his face, and he heads upstairs to pack his things. He explains that he doesn't want her to be with him just because she feels obliged to honor her promise to marry him. Susan: "Ian, I love you." Ian: "I know you do. But you love him a little bit more, don't you? I can't live a life where every time I see you with a faraway look, I'll wonder if you're thinking of him." Susan: "I'm so sorry." Ian: "You deserve to be happy. So do I. Goodbye, Susan." And he just walks right on out of her house, off Wisteria Lane, out of Fairview, out of the Eagle State, and back to England. Eek! That was so unexpectedly sad. And Teri Hatcher looks so unexpectedly hot these days. I was wondering upstream why I gave this episode an A-? And now I remember. This scene was really, truly awesome. (Note to Susan: Invest in a voicemail box, especially if you're going to be falling in love with two men and listening to one's messages when the other one's around.)
Traitor Lynette walks up to Mrs. McC as she's checking her mail and offers her old heinous babysitting job back, without so much as a "sorry" or a "whoops" for not even bothering to inform Mrs. McC that her services weren't wanted in the first place. Mrs. McC: "Are you sure you want the Wisteria Witch looking after you kids?" Lynette assures her that all the little Scavos know that Mrs. McC is no witch. To which she responds, "Too bad. I could use the leverage." Lynette tells her how much she was missed, and they share a nice quiet moment. And then Mrs. McC asks for a raise; with the pension gone, she's "kinda strapped."
Lynette comes inside to deliver Tom the happy news about Mrs. McC's return as babysitter. Tom, fresh from his Kayla scare, has some good news of his own to report: despite it only being six weeks since his surgery -- only that long? That means it's only been six weeks since Lynette cried over Tom's maybe-dead body? Which means, wow, that Tootie crush has come on fast -- and even though the doctor said it would be five months before it was safe for him to return to a standing-heavy job like running a restaurant, Tom's totally coming back to work! More good news? They no longer have to pay Tootie's salary, since they can let him go! Tom watches Lynette closely to see how she takes the news, and the results of his test aren't encouraging. She strenuously argues that they keep Tootie on staff -- though, to her credit, Tootie did just get the restaurant a great review just one scant week ago, so it'd be idiotic to let him go now. Lynette: "He's got a lot of fans out there." Tom, looking glum: "Does he really?"
Ida stops off at Susan's house to deliver some misdirected mail, and also the big gossip that Mike's moved! And he left no forwarding address! Huh, do you think Carlos will just take over the lease, or will they return him to the condo that's supposedly been under construction all this time? Or, wait! Did Carlos just make up that story so he could live on Wisteria Lane and be near to Gabby! Ohhhhh.
And now, finally, finally the MAVO WRAP-UP! And again, this week's secret ingredient is GOSSIP.
MA tells us about the "careless talk that deals in polite fiction" down at the Scavoria, where two employees dish about how they'd love a promotion, but apparently it takes flirting with Lynette to land one. Tootie, who overhears the comment, looks ill.
Then there's "nasty speculation that's based on not-so-polite fact": Jordana (again!) and some other Wisterian power-walk down the Lane, wagging that "he may be dating Edie, but everyone knows he's still in love with Gabby." And sitting, reading a book behind a bunch of foliage but well within earshot, is none other than Edie. Aww, that stinks. I still think Edie's treatment of Mike was the pits, but if Carlos is indeed still in love with Gabby as MA has just confirmed, then Edie needs to move on and find someone that's truly deserves her and is in a position to act on it.
MAVO: "How do we protect ourselves from the venomous sting of such idle gossip?" A kid rides up on his bike and stops to Mrs. McC, who's sweeping off her front walkway, and he stutter-asks if she's the old lady who kept a body in her freezer? MAVO continues: "The best way is to just tell the truth." Mrs. McC semi-sadly confirms that she's the one, all right. And then she leans in and whisper-yells, "SCARY, AREN'T I?" The kid jumps and rabbits off. MAVO: "And wait for people to start talking about someone else." And with the apparent close of Mrs. McC's arc, and Wisteria Lane virtually mystery-free for the first time in I think ever, I'm guessing we'll be meeting that gossip-churning "someone else" soon enough, yay!
week: The Shoo-In Mayor becomes the Actual Mayor, and Susan follows Mike into the woods and does a lot of tripping and falling. Wait a second, isn't Felicia living off the grid in some woodsy spot these days? Oh boy!