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Previously: Carlos tampered with Gabrielle's birth-control pills, Mike found Paul's name on a list of toy-chest buyers in Deirdre's police file, Edie and Susan narrowly avoided getting busted breaking into Paul's house, Rex gloated to George that beautiful, classy ladies such as Bree tend to end up with doctors, not pharmacists, and George swapped Rex's heart medication for something decidedly less beneficial.
MAVO: "Since she was a little girl, Susan Meyer wanted to be a mother in the worst way." Flashback to a Susan with younger hair fussing over a baby on the couch, and in the second it takes her to turn and grab a bottle, baby Julie has rolled off the couch and onto the floor. "And from the first day she brought Julie home from the hospital, she was [a mother in the worst way]." Flashback to Susan rushing around in a dither and racing out of the house laden with baby supplies. The second the door shuts behind her, we hear a cry and Susan bursts back in, babbling apologies to the forgotten baby Julie. "Despite her desire to do well by her daughter, Susan suffered through countless failures." Flashback to Susan wearing some really unflattering Uncle Jesse overalls. She's pushing a little-girl Julie on one of those park sandpit merry-go-round things that seem specially designed to drag and maim children. Round and round Susan pushes young Julie, until the go-round comes around...empty. Wah, wah. Patented Oopsie Shocked Susan face! "Of course, it took Susan a few years to realize even the best of parents make mistakes now and then." In the now, Susan is sitting in bed reading. "But now that Julie was a teenage girl," a rat-a-tatting gets Susan up and over to the window, where she spies Zana tossing pebbles at Julie's window. "Susan had started to realize there was no room for error." Mary Alice? Listening to you talk is simply exhausting. Just the way you pronounce each word as though it were the most precious and profound thing ever uttered, it just...hurts me. You transform listening -- usually such a passive, restful thing -- into something very much like work. And you know something? I already have a job.
Julie is lying in her bed with a pillow stuffed over her head when Susan bursts in, wondering why Zana is outside, throwing rocks at Julie's window, considering that Susan very clearly forbade Julie from seeing him, just like a real parent! "I'm not," Julie explains. "That's why he's throwing gravel at my window." Susan decides she's going to handle Zana once and for all. She marches over to the window and opens it wide the very second, of course, that Zana launches an entire handful of pebbles, earning Slapstuck Susan an eyeful of rock.
Cut to Susan lying on couch, flushing her eyes clear with a monster bottle of eye-flushing fluid, croaking and acking in pain. Zana is apologizing, insisting that he's going to make it up to her. "Oh, how?" Susan yells. "You gonna gimme your corneas?" But Zana just wanted to talk to Julie! She hasn't been returning his phone calls! "Well, I'm here now," says Julie. "What do you want?" Well, he wants to, you know, talk, hang out, perhaps hide away in her bedroom -- is that so wrong? Julie thinks that maybe they should just cool it awhile, which Zana doesn't get at all. "Well, you just threw rocks in her mother's face," Susan suggests as a potential reason for some alone time. Zana looks mollified -- like, okay Julie's mom, point taken -- and he leaves, his head hung low and his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his forty-something-divorc� khakis. Without even pausing to make sure he's out of voice range, Julie gushingly thanks her mother: "I have been trying to find a way to break up with him for weeks -- you finally gave me an excuse!" MAVO: "Yes, Susan had failed many times as a mother. So she took her victories where she found them." Credits!