Goodbye For Now

Previously: oh you know, everybody's rotten and no one can be trusted. Also, Gabby is totally pregnant.

MAVO: "Edie Britt's favorite moment of every day was her arrival at the construction site of her new home, because she knew what was about to happen. Her sudden appearance was always sure to generate a few appreciative glances, a few lascivious looks, and some downright ogling." MAVO calls it exactly like she sees it: Edie pulls up to the construction and does indeed get glances, looks, and ogles. "Sadly for Edie, the one man she wanted most to notice her," as across the way Mike comes out to pick up the paper, "paid her no attention at all." Edie waves, but Mike doesn't see her, and Edie lowers her waving arm in sad, sad disappointment. Huh. Edie doesn't really strike me as the pining sort. But if you say so, MA. "Yes, Edie needed attention to feel good about herself. And she was determined to get it."

Edie -- wearing a shirt so small that it would reveal half of the bra underneath it even if it weren't absolutely see-through -- pulls her convertible up to the construction site. A goofy construction worker hems and haws and pants and then finally manages to ask her out. Edie: "Oh honey, you are so far out of your league that you're playing a completely different sport." Ouch. Edie steals a box of doughnuts and walks them over to Mike's, leaving a very crushed-looking goofy construction worker in her wake.

As she climbs Mike's steps, we get a blinding eyeful of Edie's cleavage, which is looking positively Benny Hill-ish in magnitude. Seriously, for the duration of this scene, whenever Edie speaks, imagine her head perched atop two huddled bald men. Mike opens the door wearing a faded tee. "Nice ensemble," Edie says, though she pronounces it the French way, "ahn sahm." I'm not so sure what is so noteworthy about Mike's outfit -- it's not sloppy enough to deserve sarcasm, nor tidy enough to deserve a compliment -- but okay. "You busy?" Mike overreacts weirdly with a laughing no, oh no. Edie tells him that she bought her workingmen some fresh doughnuts (lies!), and that there was a surplus and would Mike maybe want to...? And then out from underneath Mike's arm pops Susan, wearing nothing but her bra and panties (Cute! Pink! Matching!) and a shorty robe. "Susan!" Edie says, understandably surprised. "Well, what..." Edie stutters. "Mike and I got back together!" Susan says brightly. Edie, recovering fast: "Super!" Susan: "I knew you'd be happy for us." Susan wonders what Edie is doing there. Edie: "Free doughnuts. You want 'em or not." Susan suggests that Mike go put them on a plate, yelling after him to save her one with sprinkles. She's smiling giddily in this scene, and understandably so: based on what I just saw of her itsy bitsy body, Susan hasn't eaten a doughnut since 1983, so clearly this is going to be a big, dear-diary kind of day for her.

The second Mike is out of range, the smile cracks off Susan's face. Susan: "I cannot believe you are still coming on to him." Edie: "You said you two were finished. You thought he was a murderer." Susan: "And that was your cue to come over and flirt? You wasted your time. And your doughnuts." Edie, hissing: "Not if you choke on them." Edie walks off, and Susan tells Mike that she's going to run home to get some milk to go with those doughnuts. Mike says it's a shame Susan has to keep crossing over to her house. "Well, I can't have doughnuts and juice," says Susan. "It's unnatural." "No," Mike clarifies, "I mean we should move in together." Susan's face explodes into fireworks of glee. Mike asks her what she has to say, and she kisses him and says "ooh" and "umm," and then "hold that thought," then she runs after Edie, who's driving away in her convertible. "Edie, Edie!" she yells. "Stop!" Edie asks just what is it now? Grumpy, grumpy! Susan says that she wants to apologize for gloating back there with the doughnuts. Edie thanks Susan -- pretty sincerely, I think -- saying that it's very big of Susan to apologize. Susan: "And on a completely unrelated topic, Mike and I are moving in together. See ya!" And then she skips and hoots back up to Mike's. Huh, that was kind of mean, Susan. Edie does a "wow" sort of look and drives off.

MAVO: "Yes, Edie needed the attention of men to feel good about herself." Edie pulls up to the construction site. "Hey Cyrus!" she yells to the goofy construction worker. Does he have plans for lunch, she wonders? He does not. MAVO: "And even she was amazed how far she was willing to go to get it." "Ellsburg Hotel. Half an hour. Welcome to the majors!" And she drives away, leaving a very stoked looking construction worker in her wake. Roll the credits!

MAVO: "Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Mullens were finally leaving Wisteria Lane." A older couple I don't recall ever seeing marches out of a house with a "for sale" sign plunged into its front lawn. "In the past year, their street had played host to arson, violence, blackmail, and murder." The Mullens look decidedly harassed, as though they expect a drunken youth to run them over with his brand-new car, or a man to jump out and bash their heads in with a blender. "Fearing they too would be infected by this moral decay, the Mullens felt it was time to say goodbye. Strangely enough, none of their neighbors even noticed they were moving out." As they get into the kind of generic large, blue, and boxy American car favored by nervous parents, we see why the neighborhood is so distracted: a shirtless hot male torso enters the frame, looming large and in charge. The Mullens pulls away, and Gabby comes out of her house to offer Justin, who is mowing the lawn, a bottle of water. Justin declines sullenly. Gabby asks how his roommate is doing, and Justin laughs like "what do you care" and says, "He's hanging in there," no thanks to Gabby -- who, by the way, is wearing a turquoise halter jog bra and fitted black running pants, as if she were anticipating some sort of aerobic workout. Perhaps the selfless act of bringing someone else water is indeed a heart-rate-raising strain for the likes of Gabrielle? She tries to explain the situation with Gardener John while keeping things as vague as possible, saying how she recently had to deliver John some...upsetting news. "Yeah, no kidding," Justin scoffs. Gabby is all, "Excuse me?" Justin: "Where do you get off telling John he's not good enough to raise that child? That kid could be his." Gabby scolds that theirs is a complicated situation. The situation, however, seems pretty clear to Justin: "You're an unfeeling bitch!" Gabby: Slap! Cut to Carlos, watching the whole scene from inside, with a face that is all question marks. Gabby stomps inside, slamming the door behind her. "Why'd you hit the lawn boy?" Carlos says. Gabby, clearly surprised by the sudden appearance of Carlos, quickly recovers: "Well, if you saw what he did to our begonias, you'd slap him, too." And up the stairs she goes.

Later that night, Julie and Susan sit in their car, watching Mike's house. Julie: "Mom, stalking? Are we really doing this? You just made such a huge deal to your friends about how much you trust [Mike] now." But that was before Susan found Mrs. Huber's journal! You see, Julie, trust is only something you have until something -- anything -- comes along to make you question it. Julie wonders what's in the journal, and Susan says, "It's not about what's in it; it's that he had it at all." Meaning Susan hasn't even bothered to read it. Even though she is a colossal snoop and the journal of a murdered woman neighbor is surely of no small interest. Then again, she managed to leave Mike's tell-all letter unsealed, so apparently she is capable of random acts of restraint. I don't see why she can't join forces with Mike: I could get behind them as a team of bumbling PIs whose investigations keep getting derailed by his accidental shootings and her endless naked pratfalls and their endless need to stop everything and start making out. Julie: "Mom, if you don't trust him, why are you moving in with him?" Exactly. Sweet Julie, you are a burning ray of reason, especially in comparison to your mother. Susan: "I don't have time to explain adult relationships to you. Oh! Duck down!" Mike is getting into his car.

Cut to Julie and Susan on the road. Julie thinks Susan's lost him, but Susan insists that Mike's just six cars ahead; if they get any closer, he'll see them. Julie points out that they can't see him either, and maybe Susan isn't so good at the art of tailing? Susan: "Oh yeah, when your father was cheating on me, I used to follow him all the time. I know my stuff." Susan? Shh! Your daughter can totally hear you! The truck turns off the road, and Susan follows it into a deserted park. Someone gets out of a car and slides into the passenger seat of the truck. Susan decides to go over there and find out what's what. Of course, she yanks open the truck door and...it isn't Mike! It's just some guy in the middle of a tryst with an ample-busted woman who's already stripped down to her bra. Wow, they sure do work fast! Susan runs off, and the woman in the bra asks the man if that was his wife. "If that was my wife," he says, "would I be here with you?" I think he's implying that Susan is more attractive than his date, which is a truly chivalrous thought, but maybe he's saying he just likes random, impulsive, paranoid women such as Susan. And is that so wrong?

Meanwhile, at the hall of justice, Gabby is looking at a police sketch that is a dead ringer for Carlos. "They're charging you for a hate crime?" she asks, incredulous. Carlos asks her if she remembers how their cable guy was attacked. Gabby -- wearing a silver leather space blazer which I kind of like but which is maybe an odd choice for visiting someone in jail -- nods that, yes, she remembers. Well, Carlos confesses, that was him. Gabby sits there, staring. Carlos: "I thought you were cheating with him!" Gabby: "With our gay cable guy?" But Carlos didn't know the guy was gay! He didn't know Justin was either! That Carlos, he really does let his fists do the thinking. Carlos: "Now the cops think I'm some kind of serial gay basher." Gabby: "Well, you sort of are." Ha! Carlos yells that Gabby provoked him: "You pretended to have an affair just to punish me." Gabby -- clearly amazed by the windfall of that "pretended" -- stutters that, well, of course, yes, pretending! She was only pretending! Carlos tells Gabby that he needs her to lie again -- tell the cops that she was, indeed, having an affair, but that Carlos just beat up the wrong guy(s). Oh sweet irony! But you know something, Gabby is not going to lie for Carlos! Carlos: "Gabby, if this charge sticks, I get sent away for eight years." Gabby, not at all impressed, counters with the fact that, thanks to his little stunt with her birth-control pills, she's lost her freedom for the eighteen years. And she walks on out of there. Wow, a silver space blazer, black micro-mini, and patchwork stack-heeled boots. Gabby is looking kind of nuts.