By Evany
Holy shit, you guys. So okay, first the boring stuff: Carlos uses a recording of his sex session with Gabby to get a bigger settlement out of the divorce; now Gabby gets nothing but the house, while Carlos gets every item within the house and he no longer has to pay alimony. To retaliate, Gabby starts breaking everything that now belongs to Carlos. Carlos fights back by bashing in the walls of the house. Meanwhile, Snora retaliates for Lynette's threats from last week by announcing that she and Kayla are moving to Mexico, so Tom and Lynette sue for custody of Kayla. Bree confronts Orson with those photos of abused Alma that Jackie gave her. Orson explains that it was self-defense: apparently, Alma came at him with saucepan or something? Yeah, I don't know. Annoyed at being manipulated into doubting Orson once again, Bree spitefully tells Jackie about how Harv(Gar)y cheated on her with a woman named Monique. And now here's where things start to go completely insane. Jackie loses it and shows up at the grocery store where HarvGar works and starts shooting up the place. When HarvGar holes up inside the manager's office, Jackie takes the whole store hostage and half of Wisteria Lane is caught in the crossfire. Lynette and "Art," the new neighbor who just moved into the Young's old house, are there to do some shopping. Snora is there to bitch at Lynette about the custody suit. Julie and Austin are there because even though they arrived separately, they're being detained together after idiot Austin tried to steal a bottle of booze by slipping it into Julie's bag. Edie is there because she got called down to deal with Austin. Susan was there to deal with Julie, but she briefly went outside to instruct Ian to leave for Paris without her because she had to stay in Fairview to focus on what she perceived to be Julie's sudden rebellion (even though Julie is totally innocent). Once shit starts to go down, HarvGar calls the police, and soon the there are cop cars and news vans everywhere. Hilarity ensues when Susan tries to bargain her way back into the market with a stolen police bullhorn. Back on Wisteria Lane, all of the neighborhood has gathered at Bree's to watch the news about the hostage crisis. Bree deals with the guilt she feels over her role in making Jackie snap by whipping up incredible amounts of food for all her guests. News reports about Jackie's behavior make Gabby reevaluate what she's become (a similarly jealous monster), and she and Carlos vow to stop being awful. Finally, finally, finally. Back at the super-crazy supermarket, the whole hostage crisis comes to a head when Snora and Lynette again start to bicker about the custody thing and the Tom-seduction thing. Jackie perceives that Snora is an attempted husband-stealer just like Monique, and Jackie hauls off and shoots Snora in the chest, leaving an entire viewing audience scrambling to scrape their jaws off their floors. Snora dies, and Lynette rants at Jackie. Jackie goes to shoot Lynette but Art throws a can of food at Jackie's head and the bullet goes astray and hits Lynette in the shoulder instead. Austin jumps on Jackie and wrestles with her while some random woman shoots Jackie in the head. And that's why they call it "Bang." Wow.
Previously: All the stuff from last week (Lynette threatened to snap Snora's spindly spine, Jackie gave Bree photos of battered Alma), plus Mary Alice killed herself, Susan and Ian will always have Paris, and boy does Austin sure like to take off his top and oil up his parts. (Bonus cultural learning fact: In the US, an Austin-hard stomach is referred to a "six pack," but in the lovely-chubbly UK, they call this phenomenon "chocolate bar abs." How great is that?)
Okay, as I'm sure you've probably heard by now, this is the craziest, slammingist, rock 'em, sock 'em episode ever. Are you really ready for this? I don't think you're ready. Go get some potable water, a hyperventilation bag, and a pair of elasticized pants. And a power smoothie, with a "get ready to cry like a little girl" boost. And lotion! You'll need some serious face moisturizing to ride this ride, otherwise your skin's going to crack off, what with all the jaw dropping.
Now that I've got your expectations cranked to impossible heights, let us begin.
Everything starts with a series of fantasy-flashbacks, showing what Jackie from Roseanne might have done with her day (baked a strudel, washed the dog, drowned her African violets, mail a letter), if only her plans hadn't been completely derailed by an unfortunate conversation she has with a woman holding a basket of flowers. MAVO tells us that this woman "wasn't her friend" and the thing she told Jackie was something "she wasn't supposed to hear." The way that the scene is shot, we don't see the mystery woman's face; we only see Jackie, looking like her heart is a baby seal and it's just been clubbed into a bloody pulp.
Jackie, looking a frayed around the edges, heads into a supermarket. On her way in, she absently exchanges greetings with a woman in a black dress, only we can't see the woman's face. Jackie walks up one of the aisles, past the sleeve of a woman wearing a striped men's shirt, and then up to her husband. Jackie: "I've been thinking, Harvey, that if you love this Monique woman, maybe you should be with her." Harve(Gar)y, exasperated, reminds Jackie that Monique is dead. Jackie: "I know." She whips out a gun out of her purse and aims the gun at him and fires. Harve(Gar)y makes a slapsticky run for it, and Jackie walks determinedly after him. As he's diving into an office marked "Manager," she takes one last shot and nicks the doorframe. She runs over, but the door is locked. She bangs on it a few times, and then she notices that she's surrounded by customers. She points her gun at them and tells them to get down on the floor. She's shaking and looking very much like the wheels have fallen off the wagon. MAVO says something saucy about how Jackie had planned for a regular, boring day, but "as every housewife knows, plans change."
According to a title that flashes on the screen, it's "The Night Before." Lynette is dreaming about the last time she saw Mary Alice. In the dream, MA is out in front of her house, checking her mail, and Lynette is unloading some groceries from her car. MA has opened one of her letters and it's clear that what she's reading is very upsetting (undoubtedly one of the blackmail letters from Mrs. Huber). Something inside Lynette's shopping bag starts to leak, and a slow stain starts to spread across the bag, a stain not at all unlike the pool of blood from MA's eventual suicide. Get it? Subconsciouses are deep that way. Lynette asks if anything's wrong, but MA lies that she's "fine." Looking unsure, Lynette goes inside her house, and MA heads off to go shoot herself. We hear the sound of a gunshot, and Lynette wakes up in a sweat. According to MAVO, this is a reoccurring dream. And I can see why: Lynette's hair seriously looks great in this dream world, no wonder she keeps coming back for more.
"Friday Morning." No credits this week, we're getting right to it tonight. Lynette, Susan, and Gabby are standing out on Wisteria Lane, drinking coffee, and Lynette is telling them that she had "The Mary Alice Dream" again. What, Friday morning and Lynette isn't getting ready for work? Though I'm not really complaining: the last thing I want is another illogically gross "worker-bee Lynette eats raw bacon" scene. The Ladies cluck sympathetically, soothing that there was nothing Lynette could have done to prevent MA's death.
Just then, the ladies all notice a guy coming out of the old Young house. There are a bunch of boxes piled up out front, and the realtor sign on the lawn reads "sold." Gabby coos that he's "cute," which seems weird, because he's a very regular-looking, ho-hum guy -- not Gabby's type at all. In fact, he's played by Matt Roth, also known as Fisher, Jackie's abusive boyfriend on Roseanne. Really, what is it withDesperate HousewivesandRoseanne? Is there like a rift in the space-time continuum between these two shows, some wormhole that these characters keep randomly popping out of? And if so, who from Wisteria Lane is making the swap over to the Conner house? Is John the Gardener trimming Roseanne's hedges at this very moment? Or maybe Danielle and Darlene are doing some girlish "experimenting"? And if you really want to melt your mind, then get this: the actress who plays Jackie, Laurie Metcalf, is actor Matt Roth's real-life wife. Which is so meta, and yet so meaningless at the same time. I might need more coffee.
Lynette reports that Edie says the new neighbor is single. Gabby: "Keep talking." Lynette adds that he lives with his "invalid sister." Gabby: "You can stop now." They decide to go say hello, but then Lynette -- still awash in doom from her dream -- wonders aloud whether the new neighbor knows that MA blew her brains out in that very house, and Susan and Gabby decide that maybe now's not the best time for a meet and greet. Hmm...I'm not sure how thrilled I am about this "invalid" storyline. Didn't we get enough of the mysterious housebound family member with last season's rotten Applewhite mystery?
Orson is busy staple-gunning something in the living room, when Bree comes in to confront him with the contents of her little folder, a little folder that she happens to be carrying right in front of her womb: and the official Marcia Cross "Hide the Bump" game begins! At first, Orson thinks it's the menu for the "holiday open house," whatever that is. But no, it's the black-and-blue photos of his first wife, Alma. Orson claims that "she suffered these injuries in a fall." Bree asks how it was that Alma fell. Orson, matter-of-factly and thus hilariously: "I pushed her." He goes on to explain that it was "self-defense;" they had argued over how to clean up a wine stain and then Alma started hitting him with a "sauté pan." A sauté pan? So they were in the kitchen? Are there stairs leading off the kitchen in your house? Because there aren't any in mine. Oh, maybe they had a set of stairs leading down to the basement dungeon. Orson asks Bree how she got the police file, and she confesses that Jackie from Roseanne gave it to her. Orson, disgusted over Jackie's meddling: "If she paid this much attention to her own marriage, maybe Harvey wouldn't have cheated on her." He even dishes the details: the mistress is a "flight attendant named 'Monique.'" Bree decides to believe his self-defense yarn, but not without bitterly adding, "I just wish there were fewer things for you to explain." She turns to leave, but then prissily adds, "By the way, to remove a red wine stain, you sprinkle salt to absorb it." Orson is overjoyed: "That's just what I was saying to Alma when she clocked me!" These two really are perfect for each other, if it weren't, you know, for all the murder and mayhem in his past. Though really, how sparkly is Bree's past? What with all her cover-ups and frame-ups?
Snora calls out to Tom as she and Kayla pull up in front of the Scavo's house. Lynette: "What fresh hell is this?" I love it when people say that; it's one of my pet-favorite responses. Lynette gives Snora a Joey Lawrence "whoa" and cites her for already breaking two rules of Lynette's rules: (1) talking to Tom; and (2) being within one city block of the Scavo manse. "And I'm not sure that that top doesn't make three." And really, the teensy electric orange top Snora's wearing is quite arresting, that plunging neckline alone screams "hands against the wall, feet apart." And ooh! She's wearing that necklace again, the one I've been searching for ever since she wore it in the big seduction scene last week. (The closest I can find is this openwork bird necklace, only Snora's is gold and the strand is much shorter. But still...sublimely cute, right?) Snora announces that, thanks to "lunatic" Lynette's antisocial behavior, she's decided to take Kayla and move to Mexico, where a "sweet friend" got her a job "dancing at a nightclub in Tijuana." She hands Tom her new address, so he'll know where to send those child support payments. Throughout this whole scene, Kayla is sitting in the car, with her window down, listening. Snora is an awesome mom. "Wave 'bye, bye' to your daddy," Snora tells her kid, and they drive off. We get one last shot of Kayla, her child-actor eyebrows furrowing in sadness.
Gabby, Carlos, and their respective lawyers are meeting in front of a judge, who's making a final ruling about the "division of assets and alimony." Carlos -- who is looking unbelievably well for someone who just "four days ago" fell out a second-story window -- has one more thing to add: he whips out a tape recorder and plays a choice selection of his recent sex session with Gabby, the one that she only initiated because she thought Carlos was coming into some phat money. Carlos: "It's all right here your honor. When she climaxes, she actually starts screaming out dollar amounts." The judge asks Gabby if she has anything to say in her defense. (Is he talking about her matronly shirty-straitjacket thing? With the insane ruffles? Because I don't think there's any possible way to defend that wardrobe choice.) But Gabby does indeed have a thing or two to add.
Cut to Gabby being carted away by two bailiffs as she writhes and screams that she's going to kill Carlos. Carlos smugly yells out to her to quit her whining. After all, she still gets to keep the house, she just doesn't get to keep anything inside the house. And no alimony, either. Gabby: "Just give me one clean shot at him. I'm willing to do the time!" Why didn't her lawyer warn her that this might happen when she started hinting about getting the divorce delayed? And couldn't that tape have been made at any time in their relationship? Oh, how very tired I am of this storyline.
Susan is wearing rubber gloves and scrubbing out the garbage can from underneath the sink, when she finds a beer can. Julie, wearing a very pretty blue top layered over a red tank, wanders in at just that moment to report that Susan's "totally out of toothpaste" and offers to go get another tube. Susan asks Julie to explain the beer can. Julie shrugs and tells her that Austin brought it over the night she tutored him, and she told him to throw it out, "end of story." Susan, suddenly in mom mode (perhaps for the first time ever), asks Julie in a very accusing tone if she had any of the beer. Julie rolls her eyes and stomps off. Susan follows her, bitching about Julie's terrible timing: Susan's all set to leave for Paris and now it turns out that Julie has been inviting boys over for "Octoberfest." Um, Susan? It's one beer can. And one can of beer does not an Octoberfest make. Also, was it not you who got yourself barfing, blackout drunk last week? Julie orders hypocrite Susan to her room to go finish her packing. They bicker about which one of them is the parent in this situation. Julie: "Don't play the parent card with me; I just finished packing your suitcase, doing your laundry, and balancing your checkbook. And now I'm going to the store to buy your toothpaste." Julie clomps off, and the "Finally, A Spark of Rebellion" music swells.
Bree is walking down the Lane carrying a bump-masking basket full of flowers. Off to grandmother's house she goes? Jackie rolls up beside her in a convertible, wondering why Bree hasn't returned any of her calls. "Have you told the wife beater you're leaving him, yet?" Jackie asks. Bree gives her the brush off; Orson explained everything. Jackie scolds that "there's never a good reason for hitting a woman." Bree, brightly: "I used to think that, too, and then I met you." Jackie, with faux concern, tells Bree that she's living in a "fool's paradise." Bree: "I guess that makes us neighbors." Jackie falters, "What's that supposed to mean?" Bree: "It means you should stop worrying about my marriage and stop worrying about your own." Jackie gets out of her car and they square off, and now we're back in the scene we saw at the beginning of the episode. Bree asks Jackie whether the name "Monique" rings any bells, and Jackie's face gets that clubbed-baby-seal heart look that we saw already. Bree sure does delight in telling wives about their husband's cheating ways, doesn't she?
Tom is online, looking up flights to Mexico. What, already? Didn't Snora leave, like, only an hour ago? Lynette strolls in, and he asks her whether it's a smart move, flying down to Tijuana. Lynette thinks that it's a fine idea, just as soon as he "figure[s] out a way to leave [his] genitals" in Fairview. I'm not sure I get that comment. Does she mean Tom would be nothing but a whipped, nub-crotched Ken doll if he goes chasing after his daughter, or does she mean that she's fine if he goes traveling just as long as he leaves his equipment behind for Lynette to make use of at her leisure? Feisty Lynette thinks that they should stop pussyfooting around; she suggests they go for gusto and sue Snora for full custody of Kayla. Unlike almost every single other plan Lynette has ever cooked up, this actually makes sense to me. I'm not really up on custody laws -- especially when it comes to the lawless state that is Eagle -- but I'm guessing that even if Tom and Lynette don't get full custody (which they probably won't), they'll at least get awarded visitation rights, which would keep Snora in the country. Maybe? Then again, how much sway would a court order hold over Snora, especially once she's in a different America, shaking her moneymakers in time with "You Can Leave Your Hat On"? Tom, who looks as though he's fallen in love with Lynette all over again: "I didn't think you'd want a fifth kid." Lynette: "I don't. But I didn't want the first four, and they're starting to grow on me."
Casa Never-ending Story. Crabby Gabby is home after her little tantrum down at the courthouse. Carlos makes some crack about "plastic handcuffs," and with nary a word, Gabby heads into the kitchen and starts systematically breaking everything in the house. Carlos chugs on back there and squeals, "What the hell are you doing?" Gabby sweetly explains that she's "helping [him] pack." Again, I'm no lawyer, but I think Carlos could probably get the police involved here, since Gabby is destroying his property. But really, would the police even come anymore, after all the wolf-crying 911 calls that have been made from this house? Carlos doesn't call the cops. Instead, he grabs a sledgehammer, which he just so happens to have handy (dumb!), and starts blasting holes in the walls. Carlos: "You're helping me pack my stuff, I'm helping you remodel my house."
Down at the grocery store. Julie is browsing the toothpaste aisle, when Austin appears. "Toothpaste, mouthwash," he says, observing the items in her basket. "Did somebody get an anonymous email?" Julie: "Says the boy with the economy-sized acne cream." Austin: "There you go again, checking out my basket." Julie does some more eye rolling, her specialty in this episode, and snarks at him for getting her into trouble, re: his beer can. To make it up to her, Austin convinces her to let him carry her basket. Which has nothing in it besides toothpaste and mouthwash, so it it's not like it's this huge burden she needs help with, so I find it hard to believe that she'd hand it off to him. But okay, she gives him her basket. Then as she turns to take a closer look at something on the shelf -- upon rewinding, it appears to be diapers -- he slips a bottle of whiskey out of his back pocket and into her backpack. Wait, is he framing her? And why is Julie shopping for diapers?
Jackie, sitting at home and deep into a bottle of wine, calls Harve(Gar)y. He's working at the same grocery store where Austin and Julie are now. In fact, as we discover later, he's the owner of the store. It must not be a very profitable store, if Jackie has to help make things meet with her job as a bank teller, which must be mortifying in this town of clubby, non-working housewives? So Jackie calls her husband and confronts Harve(Gar)y about Monique, and he lamely tells her that Monique isn't really a concern anymore: she disappeared eight months ago, and now she's dead, so clearly the affair isn't going anywhere. Jackie sourly notes that eight months ago was when he slipped into a big depression, and now she knows the reason for it. Then Jackie asks that deadly "what if" question: "Who would you be with [if Monique weren't dead], me or her?" Harve(Gar)y, after a long, lame pause, just repeats, "She's dead." In the foreground, we see Julie and Austin in line at a checkout stand. Julie digs into her backpack for her wallet and Austin's booze comes clinking out. Austin: "You couldn't keep your wallet in your pants?" What girl keeps a wallet in her pants? Especially when she's got a bag with her? Austin is a remorseless idiot. The checkout lady calls Harve(Gar)y over to deal with thieving Austin and Julie, and he hangs up on Jackie. Jackie walks over to a drawer and gets out a gun.
The three Scavo Ps form a cheerleading tower out on the Scavo front lawn, but Lynette's too busy to look: she has a date with the grocery store. And destiny.
Edie is in the midst of jogging -- and wearing an amazing pair of white short-shorts -- and gets a phone call: it's the grocery store, they need her to come down and deal with her shoplifting nephew.
Behind Edie, we see Ian getting out of a limo. He's there to pick up Susan, who's still packing for their flight. Ian urges her to get a move on; their flight leaves in two hours. Susan's just waiting for Julie to get back from the store with her toothpaste. I'm pretty sure they have toothpaste in France. Also, Ian reports that he has a tube of his own that she can use, and floss. She gives him a look and he makes a joke about everyone being so surprised when they meet an Englishman who loves to brush. They do a whole scene where Susan sits on her bag and Ian tries to get it zipped. He asks her what all she's bringing, seeing as they're "not emigrating." But Susan needs accessories! Ian offers to buy Susan whatever she needs while they're in Paris, seeing as he has an "expense account." I'm not sure how you explain expenses like "ladies shoes" and "tampons" on an expense report, but okay. Energized by the idea of spending all of Ian's money on Parisian accessories, Susan leaps off her suitcase and starts unpacking. Susan, by the way, is wearing a very pretty black little dress with lots of quirky folds and ventilation triangles; perfect for a nice dinner, though entirely less than ideal for an international flight. Didn't Susan learn anything from the High Flying Fashion episode of Project Runway? The phone rings: it's the grocery store, she needs to come down and deal with Julie.
Down at the store. Lynette is making small talk with the new neighbor, Art (Jackie's real-life husband). He's just explaining his sister's ailment -- "She has this rare, degenerative..." -- when Lynette, distracted by the sudden appearance of Snora, interrupts. "Oh, that's rough. Excuse me." Lynette says, and then rolls her cart away. Snora has changed out of her sexy orange and into an insane Tyrolean outfit, with two braids, little shorts, and knee-high argyle socks. She looks like a pornographic Ricola ad.
Susan, Harve(Gar)y, Edie, Austin, and Julie are in the Manager's office, and Susan is having a meltdown, yelling at Julie, talking about how crazy Julie's been lately, what with "having boys over" and "drinking beer." Austin, sarcastically: "And soon she'll be listening to that rock and roll music everybody's talking about." Edie flicks his head hard enough to make a tuft of his long, coiffured hair go flying. Susan excuses herself to go talk to a "friend who's late for a flight." Julie tries to stop her, but Susan interrupts her to say, "I am so disappointed in you." And then she leaves.
As Susan's walking out the front door of the market, she passes Jackie, and we see that same casual greeting we saw earlier in the episode, only this time we know that the woman in the impractical black dress is Susan. So, it's alllll falling into place.
Harve(Gar)y, Edie, Julie, and Austin file out of the office. Edie is bargaining with Harve(Gar)y, offering a free month of Austin working as a stock boy. Austin, appalled: "A month? It was a ten-dollar bottle of whiskey!" Edie, nastily: "Exactly. You weren't even smart enough to steal the good stuff." Harve(Gar)y, distracted, sort of starts wandering away, but Edie calls him back and either says "let's sort this out" or "let's flirt this out," I can't quite tell. I, of course, am hoping it's "flirt," because that would classic.
Lynette is moving as quickly as she can in the opposite direction of where she last spotted Snora, but Snora finds her anyway. Lynette: "Hey, Nora. How's tricks?" Apparently, Snora spotted Lynette's car out in the parking lot, which is how she knew Lynette was here. Which is highly coincidental, but I'll allow it. Much less believable: Snora has already been contacted by the Scavo lawyer about their bid for custody of Kayla. How they managed to get a legal action in motion in less than one day is totally beyond me. While they battle, Jackie walks by. Lynette pede-argues with Snora around the corner into the aisle, but we can still hear Jackie saying, "I've been thinking Harvey, that if you love this Monique woman so much..." This is just like the twin "Everybody be cool, this is a robbery" scenes in Pulp Fiction!
When the shots start to fly, Harv(Gar)y makes a run for the Manager's office, and this time we see that he pushes Edie in front of him.
With her back to the office, Jackie tells everyone to get down on the floor. This is now officially a hostage situation, and we are now officially all caught up in the ripple-time shift device of this episode. And here's where everything starts to get good.
Out in the limo, Susan tells Ian to go on to Paris without her, apologizing that "Julie picked a lousy time to rebel." Ian offers to bring Julie with them, but Suddenly Mom Susan balks that a trip to Paris isn't exactly punishment. Ian: "Once we get her on the flight, we'll make her fly Coach. Middle seat. No mercy."
A checker makes a run for the door, and Jackie shoots him in the shoulder, and he staggers through the door. Everyone starts to scream, and Snora and Lynette, who are at the front of the store, roll around on the floor together in a scramble to get out of Jackie's sightline. Jackie: "Attention shoppers, we're having a special today on not getting shot, but it's only available at the back of the store." Oh shit! Shoppers start moving to the back of the store, but Lynette and Snora stay put. Jackie recognizes one of the shoppers, a non-descript blonde woman; apparently, the woman's son, Jordan, is in the Sunday school class that Jackie teaches. Jackie: "Oh, a great little boy. So don't do anything that will make him wake up tomorrow without a mommy."
With everyone (aside form Snora and Lynette) cattled into the back of the store, Jackie explains that they're all going to have to sit tight until she gets a chance to "talk" to Harv(Gar)y, and when she says "talk," she wiggles her gun suggestively. "Harvey," she yells, "You're inconveniencing your customers. Now GET OUT HERE!"
Harv(Gar)y, watching this display through the security cam from inside the office, is understandably reluctant to go out there for that "talk." Instead, he's on the phone with the police. Edie, noticing that both Austin and Julie are out there, commands Harv(Gar)y to go outside. Edie, all mama-bear crazy: "She has got ten innocent people out there. Sometimes you got to take one for the team."
Up at the front of the store, Lynette for some reason tries to call Tom. Not the police, but Tom. Why? I don't know. Also, where is Kayla? Out in Snora's car? What? Huh? Grr. Instead of answers, all we get this whole super-annoying scene where one of the Ps answers the phone but he won't hand it off to Tom because he wants to tattle on his brothers for not leggo'ing his Legos, blah, blah, blah. By the time Tom makes it to the phone, Jackie's got a gun to Lynette's head. Lynette hands over the phone, and Jackie folds it shut pointedly. Really, it's a miracle Lynette hasn't found herself in this position before now.
Ian's limo pulls away, and Susan heads to go back into the market. But now she's noticed people ducked behind cars, screaming that there's a "crazy woman with a gun," and then an ambulance rolls up. Hmm. Susan runs past the kid with the bullet wound in his shoulder, up to the supermarket. She gets there just as Jackie's locking the door. Susan screams at her to let her in, that her daughter's inside. Jackie: "Sorry, store's closed." Susan: "But there's a crazy woman in there!" Jackie, holding up her gun: "Yeah, I know."
Mrs. McC stops by Gabby's house. "Quick, turn on your TV," Mrs. McC says. Gabby, baseball bat in hand, says that her television's "kind of on the fritz." Mrs. McC rushes to explain the hostage crises down at the market. Everybody's gathering to watch the news over at Bree's house. Just then, Mrs. McC gets an eyeful of the interior the house; it's totally trashed, like the post-party scene in Sixteen Candles, maybe even worse. Gabby shrugs and tells Mrs. McC that she and Carlos are having a "little squabble." Right on cue, Carlos comes into the foyer with a chainsaw.
Over at Bree's house. People are gathered around the television in the living room, and there are plates of freshly baked cookies and hors d'oeuvres. "If you prefer to watch the coverage on channel 9," Bree announces, "it's on in the den." The doorbell rings, and as Bree walks over to get it, she notices that "Greta" needs a coaster. Orson, who already has a coaster in his hand, is totally on it. Ida and her friend walk in. They're keen about the awfulness of the situation, and Bree immediately offers everyone a deviled egg. "I told you she'd have food," Ida whispers to her friend. On the boards, quite a few people complained that they felt that the party atmosphere in this scene was inappropriately gross, that people wouldn't or at least shouldn't want to sit around eating and gossiping while watching this tragedy unfold. But, as I said on the boards, I was in the big Los Angeles earthquake, and the San Francisco earthquake, too, and also my college was on evacuation alert for the Oakland hills fire, not to mention I was in L.A. when OJ went on his bizarre low-speed drive throughout the city. And for all four of those news-breaking events, my friends really did gather over at one particular person's house or dorm room to watch disaster updates on television together. And we ate and ate and ate a lot of food. So much food! So I'll vouch for Bree's impromptu gathering as being realistic. The idea that all these people would be home on a Friday afternoon, however, is slightly less believable.
Down at Meltdown Market. Jackie has opened a bottle of wine and is holding forth. Her captive audience remains...captivated. "First he cheated on me with a stewardess named 'Monique.' How cliché is that? And then he told people about it. Now there are news trucks out there." The whole world knows! But...really, that's only because Jackie went crazy and took a grocery store hostage. It's entirely possible that no one would have known otherwise.
Inside the office: Gary, puzzled, tells Edie, "I only told one person." Edie: "Clearly it was the wrong one." I wonder how long it's going to take before Harv(Gar)y puts it together that Orson screwed him?
Back to Jackie. Her phone rings: it's Tish. Apparently, Jackie had volunteered to be somewhere, and now Tish is calling to read her the riot act. Jackie starts apologizing and wanders away from the hostages.
While Jackie's otherwise occupied, Julie asks Austin how he can be "so calm." He says some encouraging but entirely empty words that he's not going to die, and neither is Julie. He puts his arm around her, and she totally lets him. My boyfriend, Marco, summed Austin up nicely: "He should be cute, but he's...not." Exactly.
Jackie, yelling: "Oh Tish, for god's sake, turn on your damn TV."
Out in the parking lot. The police are out in full force. Susan sneaks past the barricades and taps a cop on the shoulder: "I would like to trade places with someone inside. Don't you do that?" The policeman sarcastically says,"Oh, you mean our hostage exchange program." Susan scolds him. Her daughter is inside that store! He gives her the blah, blah, and she walks away. But...what's this? A bullhorn? The "Oh God, Susan You Idiot" music fiddles into life.
The cops are busy strategizing their move -- the sarcastic guy says something about getting a direct line to the Manager's office, which is I guess something more official than the phone dialoging that they've been doing with Harv(Gar)y up until this point -- when the bullhorn chirps into life. Susan has selected a hiding spot behind a big delivery truck, so the cops don't find her right away. Which means she has plenty of time to embarrass herself, apologizing to Jackie for calling her a "crazy lady," and promising to be a "model hostage" if Jackie will only let her swap places with Julie. The cops do eventually subdue Susan. Inside, Julie does her biggest eye-roll yet.
Bree's Disaster Relief Party. The on-the-spot newscaster announces the identity of the hostage-taker as one Mrs. Bigsby. Bree's face crumbles into a (still very attractive) mask of guilt and worry. She mutters something to Orson about running into Jackie this very morning, and Orson gives her a look of ghastly understanding. Andrew tells Bree that Edie just called to tell them that she's locked inside the Manager's office, but that Lynette and Julie are out with the hostages. Bree looks quadruple-inverted-triple-twist guilty. Just then, the doorbell rings: It's Tom, and he's got all the wee Scavos in tow. He's late for a doctor's appointment, because Lynette is "taking her sweet time at the market," and is wondering if Bree could watch the kids. Hmm, I didn't think Tom and Lynette were using Bree as a go-to babysitter anymore, what with her passing out and losing the kids like she did last time. Tom notices the gigantic crowd, staring at him in silent horror. Tom: "I'm sorry, are you guys having a party?" Poor Tom.
Later. Everyone is still gathered around the television, watching the news. A grim melancholy has fallen over the crowd, and the glimmer of excitement that comes when bad news happens to other people has completely died away. Orson notices that Bree's not among the crowd and he finds her in the kitchen. He tenderly asks how she's doing, and Bree, who's determinedly slicing bread, dryly says: "I'm running out of food, and it's not as if I can go to the grocery store." She babbles that the loaf is stale so she's going to make bruschetta, and then perhaps she'll defrost some shrimp and make her rice thing. A Bree Van de Hodge Cooking In A Crisis cookbook, perhaps? Bree, near tears, confesses how worried she is about Julie and Lynette, and how guilty she feels for lashing out at Jackie and putting this whole grisly bus into motion. But hey, look at Orson: he's the one who started the Monique leak in the first place, and he doesn't seem even vaguely gutted. But he does seem to care very much for Bree: He asks her what he can do to help, and she bitterly, tearfully asks him to "peel a clove of garlic." And that's exactly what he does.
Hostage Ho-down: Hour Three. Jackie is gorging herself on cookies and slugging back Chardonnay. She tells everyone how badly she wanted kids, but Harve(Gar)y had two kids via his first wife and he just didn't like how it made his ex get fat. So Jackie's remained childless, and dieted and exercised frantically, throughout their entire marriage. Jackie over-shares that she runs four miles a day, and that this is her first cookie in six years. Harve(Gar)y is a monster. Seriously, six-plus years of no-cookie-dom? Forget the cheating -- that's grounds for climbing a clock tower in and of itself. Over the phone, the police advise Harve(Gar)y to tell Jackie he's sorry, and then get her to release the old folks and kids. So Harve(Gar)y gets on the store's PA and baby talks about how much he loves Jackie. Unfortunately, while he's trying to sooth Jackie, Edie pipes in, reminding him to ask about letting the kids go. Jackie loses it, screaming about how Harve(Gar)y has another one of his whores in there with him. She checks her gun, and reports that she's got enough bullets left for both him and his whore. Edie: "Oh, fantastic."
Let's pause, shall we, for a bullet count. According to the word on the boards, the gun Jackie is carrying is a Smith & Wesson or a Taurus, and apparently all of those brands' "hammerless revolvers" are "five shots." So we've got the two potshots that Jackie took at Harve(Gar)y, plus the bullet for the checkout guy who made that mad dash. So: Jackie's right, she's got two bullets left, one for Harve(Gar)y, and one for his "whore," Edie. And of course, Edie's still wearing those jogging short-short shorts, which are almost anatomically tight. If Jackie ever gets a look at Edie in that getup, it's all over.
And then Jackie just shoots Snora right in the heart.
It is so abrupt, so wildly unexpected, the first time I saw this, I just squealed like a little pig, a pig that had just been violently goosed. Holy shit! Really, that's all you can say about this scene, just...holy shit. Shitty-shitty shit-shit! The hostages scream. Edie, watching the whole thing on the monitor from inside the office, gasps. The crowd out in the parking lot murmurs.
Can someone just clear this up for me? I'm still trying to figure out why they called this episode "Bang." Anyone?
Inside. Lynette, shaking and weeping, tries to help Snora, somehow, anyhow. She reaches out to put her hands over the wound, but then she jerks them away. Yeah, I'm guessing it'd be pretty difficult, as someone not trained in the medicinal arts, to know what to do with a heart wound. I mean, it's not like you can apply a tourniquet or try to elevate a limb or anything. Jackie, who seems to have turned some horrible corner and become a deadly ice person, says to Lynette, "I believe the phrase you were looking for is 'thank you.'" Lynette stares at Jackie in horror.
Outside. Susan stands there, panicked in the wake of the scary sound of that shot. She's looking vacant and slightly crazy in her little dress. Just then, Ian pulls up in his stretch limo; he saw the story about the hostage situation on the news at the airport. (The airport being a favorite spot for catching local news, apparently.) Susan leaps into his arms, weeping: "The last thing I said to her was that she disappointed me!" Despite myself, I feel the first faint tendrils of a big weep coming on. It's probably just the shock. I know it's not quite as startling just reading about it here, but please believe me when I tell you, that Jackie shooting Snora thing, it was truly shocking. BANG! Like that.
Back at Bree's. The newscaster announces that a female hostage has been shot. All the Wisterians gasp, and Danielle even goes so far as to do a sort of Blanche DuBois décolletage pat. Joy Lauren is a great, great actress. The Ps come down from upstairs to ask, "When is mommy's going to back from the store?" Wait a second, these people have left the kids upstairs? By themselves? What?! Bree hustles them past the doom-crammed television and into the kitchen for some cookies.
Mayhem Market. Lynette has a wad of paper towels packed down on Snora's chest, and she's begging Jackie to let them call an ambulance, but Ice Jackie just says, "No one's leaving." Snora, with "looming death" voice: "Well, I guess the good news is that you won't need that lawyer now." Lynette, in total adrenaline-crazy-pumped-weepy-freak-down mode, tries to lie that Snora's going to be JUST FINE! Snora, struggling now, says to Lynette, "Listen, about Kayla..." Lynette brusquely tells her to "forget it;" together, they'll all "work that out later." Snora: "I don't have later, you stupid bitch." Aw. And now for the death speech: "Kayla was the only good thing that I've ever done, in my whole life. I need you to really take really good care of her, okay?" Lynette doesn't answer immediately, so Snora says, "I don't have all day, come on." Lynette bursts out with a stream of "okays" and "yes"s and "I will"s. (And by the way, I'm totally crying as I type this, it's really sad! And the sadness is so unexpected, considering how grating I found this character to be! It's the shock, I tell you. And my weak eyes. And my lady parts. And maybe the booze.) Right in the middle of Lynette's litany of assurances, Snora's head just slips back and that's it. She's dead. Holy fucking shit!
Lynette, weeping and vein-glorious and covered in blood, looks up at Jackie with a face of total disbelief. Jackie: "Don't look at me that way. You know you wanted her dead." The "Danger, Danger!" music swells. Lynette: "How could you say that?" Jackie: "Well you told me about her and your husband after I made it pretty clear where I stand on whores."
Are you ready for this? Here comes Felicity Huffman, with the full force of her Oscar-nominated acting genius 100% focused on this moment. She yells and rants, and she just looks gone. Her eyes are black. She doesn't really seem to be cognizant of what's going on here anymore. It's like, Lynette is not here right now, please leave your message after the beep. She yells that "everyone in here has pain," but they've all found ways to process it without "shooting strangers." Jackie, yelling now: "She deserved it!" Lynette: "Well maybe you deserved to be cheated on!" Oh SHIT.
Lynette: "I-I-I-I-I-I'm sorry. I sh-sh-sh-shouldn't have said that." Ice Jackie: "Yeah, you shouldn't have." Jackie raises her gun and pulls the trigger, but just in time neighbor Art throws a can of food, and it hits Jackie right in the head. The bullet goes wide and hits Lynette in the arm. Lynette goes flying. Jackie goes flying.
Bullet watch: at this point, Jackie has used up her last two bullets, meaning she's moved way beyond the craziness that drove her to want to kill Harv(Gar)y and maybe Edie, and she has now entered some new, terrible realm of unthinking, white-hot rage.
Jackie, not knowing that she's used her last bullet, scrambles frantically to get back to her gun. But then Austin races over and tackles her. They struggle. Many grunts can be heard. The rest of the hostages look on, frozen, their mouths open in perfect sex-doll-mouth circles. And then the non-descript blond woman from before, the one whose kid Jackie teaches in Sunday school, she picks up the gun and shoots Jackie in the head. And...whoops! It looks like there was one extra magic bullet in that gun, after all. Also it appears that this woman isn't all that concerned about Austin's health, because wasn't shooting Jackie while the two of them were mid-scramble pretty risky? More to the point, why shoot Jackie at all? Once they had her gun, there was no reason to kill her, right? But these are questions for bigger, stronger, richer men than I. By which I mean Marc Cherry.
Outside, everyone is hugely relieved. So relieved that the camera has been downshifted to full-time slo-mo mode. The "Haunting and Sad" music swells, and then just keeps on playing as Julie comes out of the Market and hugs Susan tightly.
Back at Bree's. Everyone is watching the news, which is tightly focused in on the hug of Susan and Julie. Bree is relieved but still worried about Lynette. The many neighbors cheer and toast. Gabby and Carlos hug.
Edie and Austin slo-mo out of the store, and Julie runs over and hugs Austin. (They are so totally going to do the dirty.) The Sad and Haunting music is still going strong. Lynette gets wheeled out on a gurney, and for a second, Tom hangs back, totally petrified, and then he runs over and they exchange words that we can not hear, due to the Sad and Haunting music. (Evany = crying again!)
Back at home, Bree sees on the news that Lynette has made it out alive. She hangs her head in relief.
And now for the MAVO signoff. In the hospital, Lynette dreams that same reoccurring dream of Mary Alice. "But this night," MAVO tells us, "something changed." In the dream, Lynette doesn't walk away from MA this time. Instead, she goes over and talks to her, asks MA to tell her what's wrong. "Let me save you," she pleads. Dream MA says to her, "We can't prevent what we can't predict." Mary Alice, just so you know, is eight feet tall (just like they said she was on Sports Night). Seriously, she is an Ent, and Lynette is a hobbit before her. Lynette, weeping: "Isn't there anything I can do?" MA, with her soothing midnight-radio voice: "You can enjoy this beautiful day, we get so few of them." Dream Lynette, with he dream Lynette hair, looks up at the sky and smiles.
And that, MAVO tells us, was the last time Lynette ever dreamed of Mary Alice. "And for her sake," MAVO tells us, "I am grateful." And that's it. Bang indeed!
WEEK: Julie goes on a date with Austin, and Gabby tries to go back into modeling, but they put her in old-lady clothes!