After the tornado that blew through the last episode, night has fallen on Wisteria Lane. And so have lots of other things, obviously. In the midst of the floodlit mayhem, people do nice little things for each other as Mary Alice VOs about the kindness of disaster survivors. One of these is Bree, bringing a paper cup of coffee to Lynette. The little group also includes Susan, Edie, and Mrs. McC, standing behind the yellow caution tape separating them from the pile of rubble that used to be Mrs. McC's house, which presumably still has Lynette's family under it somewhere. A stressed-out Lynette needs to look on the bright side and realize that at least her kids won't be wandering off again this way. We learn that Gabby's at the hospital with Carlos, who you may recall got pole-axed by flying debris moments after Victor's death during the storm. Lynette starts to freak, and Susan bucks her up and sends her under the tape to go have the paramedics take a look at her facial cuts. Edie questions the wisdom of giving Lynette false hope, but Mrs. McC says that it's easier to believe that God answers prayers when you get to be her age. "So if you can just hang on for two more years," she tweaks Edie. A moment later, all five Scavo kids are pulled out of the wreckage, alive and apparently unhurt. After a suspenseful moment, Tom follows. While everyone is still smiling over this happy reunion, Mrs. McC asks Tom where Ida is. Tom just shakes his head. As Mrs. McC's face falls, Edie comes around and quietly takes her hand, just to give Mary Alice an excuse to wrap up the teaser with another remark about kindness.
The morning, it's cleanup time. Bob finds a bit of his fountain in the street, for anyone who blinked when it got taken out by the tornado last month. Other significant finds: Sylvia's corpse in a tree.
Adam and Katherine are the ones who go to the morgue to identify the body. Adam figures that with Sylvia dead, it's all over. Katherine's like, yep. By which she means their marriage.
Lynette and Mrs. McC are over at Ida's, cleaning out her house. Lynette learns to her amazement that Ida was a pro baseball player, A League of Their Own-style. She even made the only unassisted triple play in league history, over at the baseball field where she wants her ashes scattered. Who knew there were that many small sixty-year-old ballparks in this country? Besides Sars, I mean. ["I assume that here, M. Giant is saying that Sars would know there were small sixty-year-old ballparks, not that Sars is a small sixty-year-old ballpark. I say this to save you the embarrassing moment of total confusion I experienced for a moment myself." -- Miss Alli] Parker comes in, offering to help. It seems that Ida saved the kids' lives; when Tom was passed out from his asthma attack, she sent everyone under the stairs, and she stayed in the corner because there wasn't room for her. Which is why she's dead now, and Lynette's family isn't. Mrs. McC assigns Parker to deal with Ida's uneaten ice cream, while Lynette starts guilting herself despite Mrs. McC's crusty reassurances. Lynette glances over at Ida's urn on the mantelpiece, looking with new respect at an artifact she almost knocked on the floor while vacuuming a minute ago.
Bree and Orson are temporarily moving into Susan's place while their house gets patched up. While they move into an upstairs bedroom, Susan and Julie have a quiet but desperate conversation about how awful this is going to be. Bree assures Susan that Bob and Lee introduced her to a great contractor, so they won't be staying long. Julie tells Susan to be strong, but the thing Susan knows, she's agreeing to let the Hodges rearrange furniture. Uh, doesn't Mike have anything to say about this going on in his house? Oh, that's right, he's in rehab.
It's Victor's funeral, and Gabby sits alone in the front pew with Victor's father, Milton. They quietly spar a bit over Gabby's emotional state (apparently chipper, despite her claims that she's a wreck inside), and then Milton reminds Gabby that the reading of Victor's will is today. And he's got some advance word on Gabby's share: she will be inheriting precisely dick. And even if Victor had wanted to leave her anything, it's all in Milton's name, and Milton knows all about Gabby's affair with Carlos. And to add insult to insult, Milton tells Gabby to leave the church. When she bristles at being kicked out of her husband's funeral, he informs her that he'll be delivering the eulogy, and if she's still there, he'll tell everyone, "You are a cheating, lying whore." Advantage: Lang. Gabby leaves, defeated. And stared at. A lot.
Bree arrives at Bob and Lee's with one of her trademark baskets of muffins. The contractor who's fixing her house, Walter, is also there, and they're all looking like somebody died. Walter says it's not that, but he claims that he's not going to be able to fix Bree's house. Bree angrily tells Walter he can't abandon her, but as Walter gets into his truck, he emotionally says that people do that sometimes. Ah, I think I see what happened here. Bree turns to Bob and Lee, who flinch at her glare. They reveal to Bree that Walter's ex-boyfriend just moved in with someone else. Bree tells them to fix him up with one of their friends, but Bob and Lee can't help, what with Walter being a three and Bob and Lee having friends who are all nines. "And in the gay world, three does not go into nine," Lee explains. There's an off-color square-root joke in there somewhere, but I'm not sure I want to go after it. Bree, of course, is not ready to give up on her new roof. Which means that Walter's broken heart just became her top priority.
Susan is trying to do three things at once: carry an armload of groceries, get into her house, and have a cell phone conversation with someone about trying to get in to see Mike while he's in rehab. Eventually she gives up on the conversation. She also gives up on not crying, until she finally gets through the door. Inside, the place is transformed, with classical music playing and candles everywhere and clean laundry and dinner in the oven. "This has just replaced your birth as the best day of my life," Susan tells an equally excited Julie. Bree arrives in the kitchen, adjusting the set-for-four table and mentioning that she fixed a hem on Julie's skirt. "She's like the mother I never had!" Julie gushes to Susan. Does Bree just, like, hang the baby in the closet or something?
Carlos is in the hospital with bandages around his eyes. When Gabby shows up, he sets up for an imminent bit about how the button they gave him to administer his own pain medication makes him a little too mellow. Gabby arrives with the news that she's been shut out of any inheritance from the Lang family. Carlos holds out his hand and says, "Good thing you hooked up with another rich guy." Carlos can tell from Gabby's reaction that something's up, so Gabby clicks Carlos's pain button over and over again as she tells Carlos about how the only copy of the account paperwork blew away. Carlos starts to freak, but the narcotics flooding his system do their thing, and he all but passes out. As Gabby leaves, he threatens/slurs, "If we can't find those papers, so help me..." One more click of the button, and Gabby's out.
So Gabby goes over to Al The Accountant's house to try and see him. The woman at the door invites her in, where Gabby learns that Al is dead. How inconvenient for her.
Ida's horrible nephew and niece have shown up to pick up Ida's stuff. At least, that stuff of Ida's that's of any value. Like her pearl necklace, which she promised to Mrs. McC, but since Mrs. McC doesn't have that in writing, she's out of luck. As Ida's relatives get ready to hit the road, Lynette recommends a diner near Granville Field, where, you'll recall, Ida wanted her ashes scattered. But that's kind of out of the way, and the kids just want to rush home to Omaha and stick Ida in the family plot. Lynette protests, but the relatives are adamant. They won't even let Lynette spread the ashes for them. So when Lynette goes inside to get the urn for them, she dumps Ida into a freezer bag and replaces her with dust from the vacuum cleaner. She then sends it off, with them none the wiser. I hope that cremains switcheroo works out better for her than it did for Nate on Six Feet Under. Because I don't yet hate Lynette as much as I did Nate. Give me time, though.
At Al's wake, Gabby comforts the widow as a transparent subterfuge to find out where Al's files are now. Whereupon she ends up in the garage, surrounded by stacks of boxes not unlike that scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. She ransacks the place for a while, then spots a box marked "Current Accounts M-Z at the bottom of a stack. Hauling it out, she accidentally hits the button for the garage door opener, revealing herself to the family and pallbearers loading the coffin into the hearse immediately outside. So in an attempt to cover, she throws a huge, fake grief-hissy. I don't think it works.
Bree and Orson have invited Walter over to Susan's for dinner, sending Susan and Julie excitedly upstairs with dinner trays to eat in their rooms. Which is nice. They're also planning to set up Walter with Andrew, which is less nice.
Dylan finds Adam in the guest room of the Mayfair house, packing. Adam explains without explaining, and Dylan's pissed that Katherine has won once again. She storms out. Adam bends down to pick up the rolled-up pair of socks Dylan threw, and in so doing, he finds the crumpled up note that Aunt Lily wrote and dropped way back in 2007. Because Katherine is just that sloppy a housekeeper.
At the dinner party, Andrew has figured out Bree's agenda. Which is not surprising, since Bree's agenda is visible from space. After he drags Bree into the kitchen with him, he demands, "You're pimping me out for a new roof?" "And windows!" Bree corrects. Besides, she doesn't actually want Andrew to have sex with the guy; just get his hopes up. "I've done it all my life," she breezes. Andrew agrees to flirt with Walter, in exchange for a 60-inch flat screen. Bree agrees, and she's willing to throw in surround sound if Andrew can get Walter in on time and under budget. I'm so glad these two have worked out their issues and can function as a normal mother and son at last.
And it turns out that Julie overheard the whole thing from on the stairs. She goes running to Susan, who isn't ready to let Bree leave, and she's prepared to sabotage Walter's emotional well-being to prevent it. Susan goes scampering down to invade the little group and yammer about Andrew's past, as well as the age difference between Andrew and Walter, and the likelihood that Walter's friends will see Andrew and assume he's paying for sex. Literally, she says this, and nobody slaps her. But that's only because I sit too far away from the TV. Andrew and Bree and Orson desperately try to smooth things over, Orson telling Walter, "[Andrew]'s got a mesh tank top that would bring tears to your ex's eyes. "But Walter has decided that Susan is right, and he's out. Her work done, Susan prepares to head back upstairs with pie for her and Julie, but Bree tells her she's not going anywhere.
Lynette and Mrs. McC arrive at the baseball field, which is locked up tight. Fortunately, Lynette thought to bring a set of bolt cutters.
After seeing Walter out, Bree returns to Susan's living room, imperiously commanding, "Leave us!" Andrew and Orson scatter. Susan wilts under Bree's glare and confesses that she doesn't want Bree to leave and stop taking care of her. "It's helping me feel like I'm not just about to fall apart," she says pathetically. So, after Susan confesses that she sabotaged the repair of Bree's house so that Bree could continue her domestic feats for her -- while also taking care of a newborn, I hasten to remind you -- Bree offers to make Susan some chocolate chip cookies. Bree is a much nicer person than I am. This week.
Lynette and Mrs. McC carry the Ziploc bag of Ida to a spot on the infield. Mrs. McC recites "Do not stand at my grave and weep," and they head to third base to begin the dumping. While Lynette is tipping out Ida's mortal remains, Mrs. McC remembers that Ida was actually shortstop. Before this can go on much longer, the lights come on and the cops arrive. Lynette runs from them, ashes billowing out behind her the whole way, long enough for the bag to be emptied. She and Mrs. McC. get hauled off the field, pleased that their work is done.
Gabby is in Carlos's hospital room, breaking the news that there are no other copies of the papers she lost. But they agree to stay together no matter what. "For richer or for poorer," she says. "In sickness and in health," Carlos adds with secret (for about ten more seconds) significance. At the end of this happy scene, Gabby says hi to Carlos's doctor as she leaves the room. And once she's gone, we learn that Carlos is not going to be getting his sight back, not that Carlos has worked up the nerve to tell Gabby yet. The doctor doesn't think Gabby will leave Carlos because of that. "You don't know Gabby," Carlos sighs.
Lynette and Mrs. McC apparently got to go home with a warning, much to Mrs. McC's relief. "I was this close to my third strike," she says. Gazing across the street at the pile under which Ida gave her life to save Lynette's family, Lynette realizes that fulfilling Ida's last wish wasn't enough. Mrs. McC says that's why we have to appreciate people while they're still around. And with that, Lynette is suddenly interested in hearing all about Mrs. McC's first two strikes.
Katherine comes home to see Adam's suitcases by the front door, and Adam himself sitting by the fire. She wonders why he's still there, and he tells her that she can't fire him; he quits. Or something to that effect. He shows her the note he found on the floor, and accuses her of blaming "what happened" on her ex-husband, when all along it was Katherine's fault. So he thinks they're even, betrayal-wise. "In fact, I think you win," he says as an exit line. Katherine is left standing there with tears in her eyes. At least once an episode, Dana Delany gets to do this. She hurriedly shreds the note and throws the scraps in the fire. Dylan comes down the stairs. How much of that conversation did she hear? And since we didn't actually learn anything from it, does it really matter?
Mary Alice VOs that it's been a week since the tornado, and people are still cleaning up. One of them is Dylan, who sweeps the ashes out of the Mayfairs' cold fireplace into a pan. Somehow, a few scraps survived, and as Dylan assembles them, Mary Alice says, "And then, there was one girl who stumbled upon the truth she'd long been searching for. Only to wish she hadn't." And Dylan commences freaking out.