By Evany
Well, this is going to be a short one, considering that exactly zero happens in this episode. Watching it was like listening to the deathly high-pitched beep of a heart monitor with no beat to track -- only for a solid hour. You think I lie?
Katherine and Bree cross rolling pins over...? Who has the better lemon meringue pie recipe. And things get even crazier when Katherine swaps her own pie for Bree's at a cheer-up lunch the Ladies throw for be-chemo-ed Lynette. When everyone compliments the not-Bree's-pie as "the best pie [Bree's] ever made," Bree spirals into a panic that her identity as the neighborhood's party planner and pie-wielder is in danger of being usurped by the might of Katherine's pie. I think Bree lost her rep as the M. Stewart of Fairview seasons ago -- passing out drunk on the front lawn and accidentally stabbing her pregnant belly with a fork can do that. Nonetheless, she tries to wheedle the recipe out of Katherine, and by way of a bribe, Bree hand-delivers her own recipe for mincemeat pie (key ingredient: crow) to Katherine's doorstep. But Katherine meanly IDs Bree's recipe as straight out of a Betty Crocker cookbook, and Bree leaves in a huff with a lame barb about how Katherine is sour like the lemons of her pie, or something.
Susan's still pregnant, but no one seems to know about it, which seems highly unlikely. Either that, or no one really cares. (Aye!) The only real nod to the pregnancy is that they have her gobbling a gigantic mound of pancakes floating in an ocean of syrup. "I'm eating for two," she explains. Mike: "What, and both of you want to be fat?" Yeah, if she got any fatter, we might actually be able to see her when she turns sideways. Another proof of pregnancy: her knockers are gigantic, like Tomb Raider huge (Mike: "Especially the right one."). The way we know so: she straps herself into a corset for "sexy date night" with Mike, which we know is sexy date night because Mike is eating strawberries in bed, and strawberries in bed are television code for "marrieds keeping the spark ignited via sexy date night."
And then stuff happens, and a bunch of high-school boys mistake wacky emaciated melon-ious Susan for a pregnant MILF stripper. Specifically [and feel free to skip ahead here, because really, this is just one more wacky "Susan gets trapped in her own web of lies" storyline]: in the beginning of the episode, Mike daddily advises Julie not go to a twelve-kegger, based on his first-hand memories of what goes on at those affairs. (Speaking of which, where is real-dad Karl in all this? Lord, this show just doesn't give a dental damn, does it?) Susan pretends to buy into Mike's advice, but then she, of course, goes behind his back and tells Julie to go to the party anyway. Mid-sexy date night, Mike mentions that he sure is glad Julie didn't go to the party, because he just drove by the address, and there were lots of drunk topless girls running around -- total topless mayhem. Ah, Fairview. Susan stops suckling Mike's torso and, under the always good excuse of "going to buy whipped cream," races off to rescue Julie, of course not bothering to cover her heaving bosom before doing so. The birthday boy who answers the door at the party thinks his pals have all chipped in for a stripper. While flattered, Susan opts not to dance for the lads, and instead, she and her impossibly round breasts trip around the party until they finally stumble upon Julie. Susan grabs the archetypal plastic red keg cup out of Julie's hand and takes a swig to test its contents -- isn't she supposed to be pregnant? Susan is an awesome mom. Luckily, it's only soda, but even still, the party's over for Julie. They all head home to find Mike waiting for them -- apparently a friend of Julie's called to see if she got home okay after being snatched by this skanky whore stripper, a.k.a. Susan. So the beans are out of the bag, and yet again, Susan agrees not to lie anymore. (Liar!) She and Mike retire upstairs for some sex.
And that's not all. Eva Longoria Parker is forced to do some Acting when Lynette asks her to keep her company at the hospital while she's getting her chemo drip. Gabby is very reluctant at first, but when the head-scarved Lynette pushes the issue, Gabby spills the news that her own dad died of cancer when she was just five, and during his last days, her mother forced to her to smile whenever she visited him so as not to bum him out. But despite all the practice, Gabby just cannot keep her frown upside down over the idea of losing Lynette. Because Gabby and Lynette are best friends, it turns out? I don't remember them having an especially strong bond, but whatever. They hug, and Eva pinches off some Emmy tears. And I know she supposed to have cancer and everything, but would it kill Lynette to put on a little lipstick?
And Edie just continues down her complete self-character-assassination spiral. First she tries to get Carlos (who's still sleeping with Gabby, you bet; I'll spare you the details about the long and not-funny sequence where Edie knocks on Gabby's door just as she and Carlos finish bumping and Carlos is forced to make a bumbling run through all the neighbors' backyards to beat Edie home, whee) to pay for a Bentley that she drives home for her birthday. He convinces her that, despite that $10 million he has salted away in an illegal offshore account, the IRS might have some trouble turning a blind eye to unexplainable outlays of $80k (remember Al Capone?), so she agrees to return the car. Do fancy car dealers take returns? But then she pulls a bait-and-switch, and instead of a car, she asks for his hand in marriage for her birthday, making sure to drop heavy hints about how she may have to tell the authorities about his fishy finances if he doesn't say yes. And yes he says!
Also, somewhere in there, we see a flashback to the day Katherine and Dylan moved away. Mary Alice and Susan (in a strange Egyptian Keely Smith wig) stop by Katherine's house to ask why there's a moving van out front. A very harried Katherine squirrelly tells them that she's suddenly landed a job in Chicago, and the family's moving...today. They all hear the sound of something breaking upstairs, and Katherine tries to pretend its just clumsy movers. Susan and MA look suspicious and concerned, and Katherine tells them that Dylan won't be able to say goodbye to Julie -- she's too busy packing. Then she quickly shuts the door in MA and Susan's puzzled faces.
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At the forty-eight-minute mark, I asked my boyfriend, "Is it me, or has absolutely nothing happened in this episode?" And by way of an answer, he just snored softly, his head lolling back onto his shoulder.
And then, almost as if the writers had the same realization, they tack on this scene with Carlos and a craggy-faced man at a bar. Carlos slides the man a fat envelope full of bills, and the man agrees to "take care" of Edie, thereby character-assassinating all the nice-guy goodwill Carlos built up over the last two seasons. Also, I wouldn't have thought Fairview was a big enough town for two hired killer storylines? Oh, Fairview.
Bree is still, still, frantic to get her hands on Katherine's pie, and then she remembers that she still has the keys to Katherine's house in her vault of all her neighbors' keys (as evidenced in Season 2, Episode 14). The key she selects is marked "Delfino," which I guess means that Katherine & Ko. moved into Mike and Carlos's old bachelor pad? (Which in turn means that the old Mrs. Simms Edie manipulated into evicting Carlos from Mike's old house is Katherine's ailing aunt, the family's beard for returning back to Fairview. And the very fact that I remember all these Desperate minutiae makes me feel the sore need to get out more, maybe volunteer at a soup kitchen -- just like the one where Andrew ate when he was homeless in Season 3!
Bree lets herself into Katherine's house, and while she's trying to cut the "I Just Knew Bree Would Try This" lock off of Katherine's recipe box, Katherine and family return home, and Bree overhears a nasty three-way family battle. Dylan is steaming about a tidbit Mrs. McCluskey dropped for no earthly reason other than to midwife this plot along, about how Dylan's bio-dad used to visit her when she was little, which apparently contradicts the story Katherine's been telling her daughter all her life about how Daddy is a monster who took off when she was a baby. Katherine Dynasty-slaps Dylan across the face, and Dylan and her sexy post-slap mussed hair go stomping off. With Bree still listening in, Kath hisses at husband GynoMal that it's time they start coming up with better lies to feed Dylan about her dark, forgotten past. Really? Another amnesia storyline? Great. Bree scampers off to dish to Orson that she's unearthed Katherine's secret ingredient, and it has nothing to do with pies.
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Back in the now, Susan asks Katherine how that job in Chicago went, and Katherine has no idea what she's talking about. And once again, we have a mystery I don't really care all that much about unfolding at an inexorably slow, millimeter-by-millimeter pace.
And that's one more hour of my life that I won't be getting back!
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