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Previously on Desperate Housewives: Oh, just an entire season's worth of misunderstanding, misery, and murder!
MAVO: "My name is Mary Alice Young, and before I died, my life was filled with love, laughter, friendship, and, sadly, secrets." We see a framed photo of all the Desperates, including Mary Angela, clumped together in a big group hug. "The secrets had begun fifteen years earlier when my name was Angela Forest and I was living a life of quiet desperation." Flashback to Angela taking out a very ominous bag of trash. "I'd feel it every morning as I made breakfast for my husband." Mary Angela sashays out of the kitchen hefting two truly glorious plates stacked high with pancakes -- I'm guessing that back when she was still alive, Mary Angela gave Bree a real run for her housekeeper-of-the-year money. "And during the errands I ran in the afternoon." We see Mary Angela tipping the bag boy at the grocery store. "Even at my work every evening." Mary Angela walks into some kind of medical facility, wearing those terrible, terrible patterned scrubs that so sadly have taken the place of the awesome zip-up A-line nurse dresses of yesteryear. A younger-looking Felicia with unexpected Nancy Reagan hair is chatting with another woman about an image found in a calendar that they're both examining. The woman wonders if the photo was taken in the area? "Oh no," Felicia says, "that's way out in Fairview. I have family there." You know, just passing the time, chit-chatting about real estate calendars! Could anyone possibly be that boring? To have to resort to calendars? ["No wonder Mary Angela was so desperate." -- Wing Chun] MAVO: "To me, each day was grey and meaningless. And then one day, there was color." Back to the night of Mary Angela and the ominous bag of garbage. Mary Angela is bringing out the trash when she runs into a sunken-eyed, red-nosed Deirdre, who is doing the patented junkie "twitch and scratch" dance. She is also carrying a baby. "Deirdre, what are you doing here?" Angela asks. Deirdre: "I need some money."
Inside the house, Angela gives Deirdre a glass of water as CreePaul hovers nervously in the background. Angela notes that Deirdre is back on the drugs again, which doesn't exactly take a rehab technician to observe because seriously, Deirdre is not behaving even slightly normal in this scene, and yet still she denies that she's using, insisting that she just needs cash to feed her baby. "If the baby's hungry," Mary Angela offers, "we can go to the market and I'll buy food." Deirdre yells that she can shop for her own baby! She then snaps a "quiet!" at the mildly squawking baby -- who is very cute, by the way, all big-eyed and footy-pajama-ed. Then Deirdre tries to sell Mary Angela her watch. CreePaul tells her sternly that Mary Angela is not giving her any money. "Do you mind?" Deirdre yells at CreePaul; then immediately she downshifts to wheedling, saying that in rehab, Mary Angela was the only one who treated Deirdre like a person. Mary Angela holds firm and tries to show Deirdre the door. Deirdre blurts, "I'll sell you my baby." Wow, you'd think there'd be some intermediary step between trying to sell her watch and trying to sell her baby -- a car maybe? Sexual favors? Deirdre: "I heard you talking, and I know you can't have your own. It's been killing you." Appalled, Paul tries again to get Deirdre to leave, but she argues that it's for Dana's sake, and that the baby will be better off. And to prove the point, she hushes the baby again in a very edgy, I'm-about-to-snap kind of way. To CreePaul's shock, and Deirdre's excitement, Mary Angela actually begins to consider the offer. Deirdre asks how much money they have in the house, and slowly Mary Angela closes the door.
Rex is huffing and puffing and thumbing through his chart. He grabs a notepad from his bedside table and, his breath getting rougher by the second, he writes: "Bree. I understand and I forgive you."
Bree is at home, polishing silver, which when looked at in one way -- the "my husband is in the hospital and I am at home doing this insanely low-priority task" way -- is totally insane, but considering what we know of Bree -- she takes great comfort in cleaning and she has particularly fond, family-bonding memories associated with polishing the wedding silver -- it makes all kind of sense. The phone trills. It's Dr. Craig, calling from the hospital with some bad news. Bree: "Oh?" Dr. Craig: "Rex passed away about ten minutes ago." Bree, looking shocked and confused and yet also robotic: "But his operation, it's not until tomorrow." Dr. Craig: "I know, he just...didn't make it. I'm so sorry. We did everything we could." Bree stands there, staring blankly off into space, as violins gently start to strum in the background. Dr. Craig: "Bree?" Bree: "Yes, of course you did. Well, thank you very much for calling." Bree puts down the phone and slowly walks back to her silver, which she finishes polishing mechanically. After she returns each piece to its place in the box, and after she returns the box to its place on the shelf, Bree sits back down. Only then does she allow the tears to come. As her crying graduates to full-tilt sobbing, Bree grabs hold of the sides of the table, like she has to hold on to something otherwise the earth is going to spin her off into space, and she just cuts loose and really starts to wail. Slowly, the camera moves off her, the music swells, and the camera stops on Bree and Rex's wedding photo. And scene.
All in all, it's a super-sad and moving scene, and Marcia Cross does an amazing job with it. But even with all that talent, and the fabulous hair and ridiculously gorgeous skin, I still think a great deal of Bree's appeal came from her chemistry with her Rex, and I don't know if she's going to be nearly as interesting without him, especially since I hardly care what happens to George anymore. I mean, yes, I'd like to see him die -- a very public autoerotic asphyxiation mishap, maybe? But I think Rex and Bree's marriage had more anecdotal potential than any other couple on Wisteria Lane. (Carlos in prison? Shh, I'm trying to sleep. Tom as househusband? I'm sorry, did you say something? And what else do Mike and Susan have left? A very special wedding? Oh my god.) Without Rex, I think the show's really going to suffer, and in my opinion it was struggling plenty even before he died. Of course, the ever-hopefuls out there will argue that doctors just don't tell people things like that over the phone, and that until we see a body, there's still a chance for Rex to return. And maybe he is faking his death. Maybe he is simply trying to flush out George. But Bree would never, ever forgive Rex for doing it this way, and neither would the viewing audience. It's lose/lose, either way.
“ MAVO: 'It's an odd thing to look back on the world, to watch those I left behind.' Mary Angela's sing- songing is kind of chilling now that we've seen what she's capable of. ”
Back in the now, we see a very stunned and also possibly sunstroked Mike, who is still standing there in the desert, with CreePaul still on his knees, looking up at Mike with puppy eyes. "Deirdre...had a baby?" Mike says in a way makes it seem that he's already thinking Zana might be his son (even though, as multiple people pointed out on the boards, Mike was supposedly in prison when Zana was conceived). CreePaul says, "Let's get this over with," and Mike puts the gun up to CreePaul's head, and he stands there, frozen for a few moments, and then he just walks away, leaving Paul in the middle of the blazing desert with his hands cuffed behind his back.
MAVO: "It's an odd thing to look back on the world, to watch those I left behind." Mary Angela's sing-songing is kind of chilling now that we've seen what she's capable of. "Each in her own way so brave, so determined, and so very desperate. Desperate to venture out, but afraid of what she'll miss when she goes." Lynette looks in on the sprawled forms of her sleeping children. "Desperate to get everything she wants, even when she's not exactly sure of what that is." Gabby, wearing a very cute pink satin nightie, sits in a chair, gazing at her empty bed. "Desperate for life to be perfect again, although she realizes it never really was." A very disheveled looking Bree stands to her bed, trying to select a tie to go with the suit she has laid out for Rex. Aw! "Desperate for a better future if she can find a way to escape her past." Susan gazes at a tired-looking Zana with drooping gun. "I not only watch, I cheer them on, these amazing women. I hope so much they'll find what they're looking for" -- we see the same photo of all the Desperates that we started out with -- "but I know not all of them will." Mike's truck pulls up to his house. "Sadly, that's just not the way life works." Oblivious, Mike opens the door on the waiting trap that is an armed-and-crazy Zana. "Not everyone gets a happy ending."
And that's it! The end of Season 1: it came in like a lion and left with kind of whimper, but who knows? Maybe season, Betty Applewhite will find a way to return Wisteria Lane to its former mysterious splendor. Until then: have a nice trip, all you fluffy little cheek pockets, see you in the fall!