Previouslies: Susan had a dad, Lynette got hired by a man named Ed (the boss of Bossy Boobs), Carlos promised to change his ways, and Bree dumped George.
MAVO: "Anyone who'd ever been to a party at Bree Van de Kamp's thought of her as the perfect hostess, because Bree knew how to take care of her guests." Over a flashback of dinner parties, we see a parade of people I don't recognize having a ball at Bree's dinner table. MAVO: "Her dinners all were served promptly, her liquor always flowed freely, and her anecdotes were always enjoyable." Though I'm not entirely convinced about the "enjoyable anecdotes" part: certainly the sausage dinner (where Bree blurted to her son and the minister that Rex was into S&M) was a shade uncomfortable, as was the famous "Rex cries after he ejaculates" dinner party.
In any case, back in the now, Bree is serving coffee at the end of one of her triumphant dinner parties, and she is looking fabulous in pearls and a coral, fitted, lacy cocktail dress with spaghetti straps. MAVO: "But on this night, the perfect hostess was about to find herself in a very imperfect predicament." A woman -- who (like all the other guests at this dinner) I don't remember ever seeing before -- shushes the table and tells everyone that she hears strange music. Bree puts down the coffee pot and heads over to the window to check it out and...uh oh. It's George, out on the lawn, standing in that particular wide-legged musical-theater stance, and singing "Don't Give Up On Us, Baby" into a microphone. Apparently, George has some kind of karaoke rig linked up to a huge speaker propped on a van behind him. Bree's face screws up in fury...
...and then Bree turns and smiles at her dinner guests and excuses herself as she dashes outside to confront George. George, still amplified: "We had a tiff, I upset you, now I'm just trying to make things right again!" Bree: "It was not a tiff. We broke up. It's over." George, singing again: "We can still pull throughhhhh!" Ha. Bree threatens to call the police and stomps back inside, and George yells that if she calls the police, he's going to come right back and start singing again because he wants her to hear the "whole medley." Uh oh. Inside, all of Bree's guests are up form the table, standing in the foyer and looking at Bree inquisitively. Bree shoos them back to the table with a promise that "dessert is about to be served." Her guests heading back to the table, Bree lurches upstairs, pulls a gun case out from under her bed, feeds a bullet in to the shotgun and then loads the chamber with one hand. Hot! Outside, George is singing, "I really lost my head last night, you got a right -- " but just then Bree leans out the upstairs window and shoots George's speaker into oblivion. George, who clearly isn't sure if the bullet was meant for him or the speaker, looks up at Bree in hurt confusion, but Bree smiles back at him with satisfaction. MAVO: "Yes, Bree knew how to take care of her guests, especially those who weren't invited." And roll the truncated credits!
“ There's something particularly emasculating about that helmet on George -- it's like the second he put it on his penis melted into a Ken nub. Not that I thought he had a penis before! ”
We see two boys with guns stalking each other around some flora in someone's yard on Wisteria Lane. One of the boys is wearing a black hat, one white. MAVO (yes, more MAVO): "Good guys where white hats, and bad guys wear black. This is how children distinguish between good and evil." The boys fire their cap guns at each other, and Black Hat falls to the grass, slo-mo style. MAVO: "But they soon learn that bad guys don't always look so bad." Up rolls George in his helmet on his big blue bicycle. The twisted pharmacist smiles and waves at the boys, and the boys smile and wave back. MAVO: "In fact, sometimes they even seem downright friendly. That is...until you get to know them a little bit better." George pulls up at Bree's car just as she's getting in. George pulls a "fancy seeing you here," but Bree totally calls him on it: "Don't lie to me, George, you've been riding up and down this street for the last hour." Didn't The 40-Year-Old Virgin race around on a big-boy bike just like this? And, really, there's something particularly emasculating about that helmet on George -- it's like the second he put it on his penis melted into a Ken nub. Not that I thought he had a penis before! But, well...now he doubly doesn't have one. George tells Bree that riding around on his penis-remover is a last resort, what with Bree refusing to return any of his calls. Bree: "So stalking me is Plan B?" Bree gets in the car and slams the door, and George sweatily pushes his bike over to her open window. George, desperately, weepily: "Bree, I know I messed up, I know I've got some...issues to work on. But I'd be willing to see a therapist if that's what you want, I'll do anything, but how can I show you that I can change if you don't give me a second chance?" Oh, but Georgedidsee a therapist, and then he tossed him off an OVERPASS. George, still pleading, tells Bree she knows he's not a bad person. Bree: "I do know that. But I'm just not sure you're a good one, either." Oh, I'm pretty sure George is bad, bad person. Just ask Dr. Goldfine! And with that, Bree peels right on out of there, leaving a deflated-looking George in the middle of the street with his bicycle.
Lynette is at work, pitching a poster covered in running panthers for some company called "Hinterland," and babbling that they "integrated the corporate logo into the jungle background, creating not only an ad for the clothing, but for the company itself." She smiles proudly at the assembled group of suits, and Ed (remember, he's the guy who hired Lynette) says, "I don't get it." Lynette, clearly thrown, asks Ed to clarify what it is that he's not getting, and he tells her, "The whole idea just kind of makes my head hurt." While Ed lets this drop, Bossy Boobs is sitting to him, smiling to herself. Ed asks if he's alone on this, and Bossy agrees with him that Lynette's pitch "stinks." Ed tells everyone that it's "back to the drawing board" and then takes off, mentioning his "tickets to a game." On his way out, Ed mutters to Bossy that she has to do whatever she has to do to keep the campaign afloat.
“ Sister Mary Bernard tells Gabby, 'To satisfy your materialism, he ended up breaking the law. To deal with your adultery, he resorted to assault. As long he's with you, he will never find what he's looking for.' Whoa, harsh. And yet... somewhat true! ”
And who's standing right outside Ed's office, sipping a glass of wine? A very relaxed-looking Bossy Boobs. Bossy cheerfully offers Lynette her congratulations. Lynette tells Bossy that "this" (everyone losing their jobs) isn't at all what Lynette wanted. She just wanted Bossy to be nicer! Bossy: "You know what? I used to be nice. But our boss -- I'm sorry your boss -- is incompetent, and selfish, and has the attention span of a poodle. I mean, from day one I've been the only one around here keeping this place from crumbling around his stupid ears." Lynette tries to interject with some murmurs of disbelief, but Bossy just keeps rolling: "Nice is a luxury that I gave up along with vacations and relationships and eating at home. This job sucks you dry. You better kiss those four little kiddies of yours goodbye, because you have just adopted [Nina points toward Ed's office] the neediest little child in the world." Bossy takes a big swig of wine, and Lynette gives her an icy look. Abruptly, Bossy hands the glass of wine over to Lynette: "You're going to need this more than I do." Bossy winks and goes back into her office to pack up, and Lynette shoots a panicked look toward Ed who, as we can see through the glass of his office walls, is sitting at his desk with his head buried in his hands. That Lynette, she sure has done it this time! So, so satisfying.
Done with marking Carlos as her own, Gabby comes downstairs (wearing nothing but a cream-colored robe) to inform Sister Mary Hotpants that she and Carlos have had an "intense...talk," and that Carlos is upstairs resting. ["And now we know why Gabby decided not to go the withholding route: nailing Carlos knocked him out, so that Gabby could get rid of the nun." -- Wing Chun] SMH confesses that she overheard some of Gabby and Carlos's "talk." Gabby, with supreme insincerity and a big, big smile: "I'm sorry. He's such an animal!" Then Gabby motions SMH out front for a chat. As soon as they're out of potential-Carlos-hearing range, Gabby informs SMH that with Carlos home, Carlos and Gabby need to concentrate on getting back into sync. "And we can't do that," Gabby says, "if he keeps running off to church and charity bake sales. We need 'us time,' do you know what I mean?" SMH smiles and tells Gabby she understands exactly what she means. And yet Gabby feels the need to make it perfectly clear: "So it would really help our marriage if you just backed off for a while, okay?" SMH smiles for a second and then says, "No." Gabby's self-assured smile evaporates. SMH: "Carlos is a diamond in the rough. A flawed man to be sure, but someone who is desperately searching for something to believe in. To satisfy your materialism, he ended up breaking the law. To deal with your adultery, he resorted to assault. As long he's with you, he will never find what he's looking for." Whoa, harsh. And yet...somewhat true! Gabby says that maybe Carlos should have thought of all that before he got married, and SMH shrugs and drops this bomb: "Some marriages were meant to be annulled." Can...can they do that? Gabby, downshifting from sickly sweet to full battle stance: "What the hell kind of nun are you? Look, if you try to come between me and my husband, I will take you down." SMH just laughs and tells Gabby, "I come from the South Side of Chicago. If you want to threaten me, you're going to have to do a lot better than that." Gabby, getting right up in that nun's face, spits, "You listen to me, you little bitch; you do not what to start a war with me." SMH laughs again and tells Gabby, "I have God on my side. Bring it on." Gabby glares and SMH smiles unnervingly for a few beats, and then the nun walks off. Ohhh, fight, fight, fight!
Bree gives George a sort of disgusted once-over look, and then she slowly, meticulously pulls up a chair and sits down: "I want to help you, but in order to do that, I need to forgive you. And I can't do that until you admit what you've done." George gurgles that he didn't push Dr. Goldfine, but Bree whispers, "Yes, you did. But that's not what I'm talking about." George acknowledges this new development by cracking his eyes open, so he gets a nice view of Bree's tear-contorted face as she says, "You killed Rex." George delivers a scoffing sort of burp and then turns his head toward the phone. Bree tells him that it wasn't "totally" his fault, that he's "not well." Bree pleads for him to "just be honest" with her, and then she can forgive him: "It'll be the hardest thing I've ever done, but I will do it. But you have to tell me the truth." George turns his head back to look at Bree, and says in a small, fading voice, "Look, I'm in trouble here. We need to call someone." We get a very tight shot on Bree as she tells him, "Not until you admit what you've done," and she is kind of scary here! George, in a sighing little croak of a voice: "I love you. I think I may have done it for you. Because you wanted me too. You know you did." Bree looks shattered and revolted and disgusted and frightened by this revelation, and the music shifts from eerie tinkling to a sort of Jason-esque menacing "CHA-Chah-chah." George's eyes close, and Bree looks at him like...well, like she's finally seeing George for the monster he truly is. But George isn't dead yet. He sucks in another big breath and his eyes open once again. "We need to call an ambulance," he pleads, and Bree sits there, and then her face shifts a bit, like clearly she's made some kind of decision, and with a tearful smile, she lies that she called the ambulance while he was asleep, and that they're already on their way. George gazes up at her with the innocent smile of a baby, and Bree smiles back, and slowly George's eyes flutter closed. Bree takes a big breath, and...the MAVO summary kicks in!
"It's not always that easy to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys," MAVO tells us. We see Gabby, in bed, glaring at Carlos as he kneels alongside it, deep in prayer. MAVO: "Sinners can surprise you, and the same is true for saints." Sister Mary Hotpants, still with the loony god-infused smile, is kneeling by her bed. She crosses herself, and then licks her fingers and singes out a huge candle with a cross on it, a simple little act that she manages to infuse with an impressive dose of menace. MAVO: "Why do we try to define people as simply good or simply evil?" Bossy Boobs packs her stuff into a box at work and weeps quietly. Sad! MAVO: "Because no one wants to admit that compassion and cruelty can live side-by-side in one heart." Carol sits holding Papa Prudy's hand, and they sigh and turn away from each other. MAVO: "And that anyone is capable of anything." Meanwhile, over at OD Hotel, Bree returns the chair to its original location, gives George's room one last look, and then walks out of there with her head held high. Whoa...ladies and gentlemen: Bree "Judge, Jury, Executioner" Van de Kamp! What the hell was THAT? What happened during those missing minutes in the elevator? Did Bree call the police and they fitted her with a wire -- was that why she was gunning for George's confession? If not, then why, knowing George's monstrous side as she does now, would Bree ever go to his room unarmed? Also, I thought for sure we'd have a few more juicy episodes out of this, where George tried to frame Bree and Bree got to...bust out the guns and a snug safari outfit and hunt him down like a dog. This is all just happening too fast! Or maybe! Maybe George is faking? Anyone? Hello?
week: Andrew's back, and Carlos wants to be one of God's soldiers!