Okay, I'm just going to come out and tell you that I'm getting started late on this, my third season finale this week, because my best friend got married tonight. So I stand before you tired, overdressed, throatsore from singing karaoke, and possibly legally shitfaced. But my friend and I are happy, so I'm ready to wrap this season up if it takes me until dawn.
Mary Alice talks about how Lynette may not actually be the world's greatest mom despite what it says on her coffee mug. She's making breakfast for her teeming brood, which includes waffles -- Kayla's favorite. When she goes to answer the doorbell, a couple of women from CPS are there, and you'd think that Lynette of all people would be familiar with the initials of Child Protective Services by now, but they actually have to tell them who they are. They've heard from Dr. Dolan the family shrink about Kayla's complaint that Lynette's been hitting her, and what's more, they've seen the department store security tape of Lynette actually smacking Kayla. Instead of asking for a copy of that tape so she can watch it over and over again at her leisure, Lynette tells the women to have a seat and she'll be with them in a minute. When she returns to the kitchen to pull a waffle off the iron, Kayla appears with her patented evil smirk. So Lynette tosses Kayla's waffle into the sink. Well, now they're even.
After the credits -- truncated even tonight, with two hours ahead of us, which does not bode well for me -- Mary Alice tells us about the significance of names. Lynette means "pretty one," Katherine means "purity," Gabrielle is Hebrew for "God is my strength," and Bree means "power." Mary Alice doesn't say so, but "Mary Alice" is ancient Latin for "smug singsong narrator." So now we catch up with Mike and Susan, trying to decide on a name for their new son and not having much luck. Inspiration strikes when a Dr. Conner is paged. Meet little Doctor Conner Delfino, everyone.
At the Solis house, Ellie is off to the mall. She invites Gabby along, but Gabby says she has to ride herd on the "handyman," a heavyset doof who's standing right there. As soon as Ellie's gone, however, the "handyman" turns out to be a surveillance guy from the police. They break into Ellie's room to plant some bugs, but when they hear Ellie returning, Gabby jumps on the guy and tackles him onto the bed. Which, considering she's about a tenth his weight, is quite a feat. Unless he's helping, for which I couldn't entirely blame him. But when Ellie walks back in, she's only horrified that Gabby is having an affair with her handyman in her room and not shocked at being under surveillance by the cops. Well, whew, that was a close one.
Bree's at church, and there's a returning pastor who's played by Bill Smitrovich from Life Goes On, so I think he's going to have some more stuff to do later on. When he tells everyone to offer each other peace, Bree turns to find Orson in the pew behind her. She tells him to quit stalking her, and he begs her to let them get past this. Their discussion really goes on a lot longer than any "peace" bit at any church I've ever been to, but then I'm not Presbyterian. Maybe they're just really peaceful. When the pastor, Reverend Green comes to greet Bree, she tells him not to give Orson peace. So Green gives Orson the hairy eyeball instead. Can they do that?
Wayne walks right into Katherine's unlocked house to ask her about Dylan's missing scar. Katherine claims she took Dylan to a plastic surgeon in Chicago years ago to hide it. Wayne gets in her face and is about to grab a strand of her hair for a DNA test, when suddenly Bob and Lee show up at her front door, begging Katherine for help. It seems they have a commitment ceremony coming up in five days, and their caterer just canceled. So, they ask, is Katherine up for it? They come inside to discuss, and Wayne says he'll come back later. This is neither the first nor the last time Katherine has been saved by the timely arrival of a neighbor. Maybe the suburbs aren't the cesspits of iniquity some TV shows try to make them out to be.
Lynette and Tom are sitting in their kitchen with the family shrink, discussing the situation with Kayla and CPS. Pretty much all you need to know is that there's a chance that CPS could take all the kids if there are any more problems between Kayla and Lynette. That's all Kayla needs to know, too, because after eavesdropping o this conversation, she heads into he bathroom and contemplates Lynette's curling iron. The evil smirk she gives herself in the mirror means either "I can fake more abuse" or "Why does Lynette need this if she's wearing a wig?"
Bree and Katherine are discussing Bob and Lee's shindig at the gun range. Katherine turns out to be a pretty good shot -- let's just say I'm glad that paper target she's using isn't me. Bree suggests using hollowpoints, and they move on to discussing desserts.
At the hospital, Mike comes into the neonatal ward with the news that his grandfather just died, and he wants to name their kid after him. Susan quickly agrees, before realizing that it isn't Mike's grandpa James that just died, but his grandpa Maynard. But she's already committed, and Mike takes her up on it. I'm sorry, but I have to insert a "good stuff, Maynard" reference here. It's a legal requirement.
Gabby tries to explain to Ellie why she's having an affair with Roy, despite Carlos being the love of her life. "Sometimes you get bored, and a big, greasy, disgusting handyman really hits the spot," she flusters. Ellie doesn't seem convinced, but what's she going to say?
Katherine, coming home to find her front door ajar, reaches for the gun in her purse just as Adam pulls open the door from inside. He was lucky not to get some hollowpoints in a nice, tight grouping pattern through his shirt pocket. He's heard that Wayne is back, and is offering to help out by scaring Wayne away from Dylan. When Katherine tells him that won't work, Adam brings up the idea of a trip he promised Dylan, and suggests that maybe they won't come back.
Gabby, Lynette, and Bree are visiting Susan and Baby Maynard in the hospital, and they don't love the kid's name any more than Susan does. Upon hearing about Mike's grandfather, Lynette deadpans, "How did he die? Was he beaten to death because his name was Maynard?" They strongly advise Susan to lean on Mike to change the name. But why would Susan do that when she can hatch a harebrained scheme to get her way in a sneaky, yet ridiculously ill-advised manner?
When Lynette comes home, the CPS ladies are back, and this time they have a cop with them, since Kayla showed them her burn marks. Despite Tom rushing out to defend Lynette, she ends up cuffed and stuffed into the back of a squad car while her kids watch from the windows. From the upstairs window, Kayla's evil smirk is once again in evidence. I really hope this storyline has a satisfying conclusion, if only so we can see whether Kayla has another expression.
Bree's at a dinner with Reverend Green at Scavo's Pizzeria. Apparently they're discussing some kind of function that Bree wants the reverend to address, but it's really so we can learn that the reverend is now separated from his spouse as well. And then Orson shows up, so Bree asks the reverend to take her hand. Seeing this, Orson bails, and Bree is glad to see it worked. I don't get why Bree isn't alarmed to discover that she's apparently slipped into some kind of alternate Sweet Valley High universe, but there's a lot about Bree I don't get.
Tom visits Lynette in the pokey, promising he'll have her bailed out in a couple of hours. She insists that Tom fix this.
The reverend drops Bree off at her house, and of course he puts the moves on her. When she rejects him, he gets kind of upset and starts yelling at her in Korean. Did I not mention before that he was a missionary in Korea for several years? If not, please see above regarding my aforementioned shitfacedness.
Carlos spills his milk, and instead of crying over it, he calls for help from Ellie. While she wipes up the mess, Carlos tells her how guilty he feels about Gabby having to put up with this. "She's a saint," she says. "Yeah, well..." Ellie says. Carlos senses that something's up. Besides the fact that it's not exactly Gabby who's dealing with this right now.
Cut to Gabby coming home from the grocery store. "Hey, whore!" Carlos greets her, telling Gabby that Ellie told him everything. Gabby is just glad Carlos let her know. She's irritated with Ellie for tattling on her, and when Carlos gets angry about the whole cheating thing, Gabby tells him about the fake affair she made up to hide the bugging. When Carlos voices his doubts, she informs him that she doesn't have much choice but to believe what she tells him, about this and pretty much everything else that ever happens. Okay, it's important to have ground rules in a marriage.
Orson arrives at church (how many times a week do these people go to church, anyway? Being a Presbyterian looks hard, dude) and gets word that Reverend Green is going to be talking about sexual promiscuity and some "red-headed temptress." So Orson goes into the reverend's office while he's putting on his lavalier microphone and tells him to back off. When Green tells Orson to mind his own business, Orson shoves him against the wall, causing the microphone to go live and broadcast their argument to the waiting congregation. Bree's just attempting to make a discreet exit when Orson's voice rings out through the church, saying, "I am not going to let you go out there and declare that Bree Hodge is a slut!" There's a burst of feedback, and when Bree turns around and goes into the office, she finds the Reverend standing over Orson, laid out unconscious on the floor. Wow, I've had some embarrassing experiences in my life, but I can say that at least I've never been knocked out by a clergyman.
Susan addresses the Maynard situation: she decides to go out to the charge nurse to get her to change the name on the birth certificate. But the nurse it not about to do that without Mike's signature, but when that nurse is relieved by another nurse named Griselda, Susan senses a potentially sympathetic party.
Bree stops by the hospital to check on Orson, who's still unconscious, although apparently there wasn't a concussion. After peeking in at her glass-jawed husband, Bree asks the nurse to take extra-good care of him, since he's a good man. And also really fragile, it would seem.
Ellie wants to talk to Gabby, who tries to shut her out as punishiment for snitching on her to Carlos. But Ellie gets through to Gabby by telling her a sob story about how her dad walked out on her and her mom after catching her mom cheating. Gabby is moved by the story. As this happens, a guy in a sports car pulls up to the house, and the cops in the surveillance van outside figure this is Ellie's supplier. One of them calls Gabby to tell her to get out of there before they arrest both Ellie and her supplier. Gabby hangs up, and when she goes to hug Ellie, like this has been an emotional discussion between close friends, she warns Ellie to skip out through the back before the cops come in. Ellie takes off, even as her supplier is cuffed on Gabby's front porch.
We're apparently at Dylan's senior recital. She's happy to see Adam there, and even happier when he alludes to that trip they're going to be taking. Because she is stupid.
Tom visits Kayla in her bedroom and breaks the news that she and Lynette can't live in the same house together any more. Kayla asks where Lynette is going to be living, then, and Tom says that Lynette isn't going anywhere. It's Kayla who's going to have to leave, if only to keep her safe. So Tom gets up to leave the room, and Kayla desperately says she made it all up. So can she stay, then, right? Tom tells her no, so Kayla says she plans to keep lying until she gets her way. Tom picks up the cell phone he left on Kayla's side table and asks, "Did you get all that, Dr. Dolan?" Kayla's busted. So, just to recap: Kayla repeatedly outmaneuvered Lynette, and Tom just outmaneuvered Kayla. I hope Lynette is duly ashamed.
Dylan's string quartet finishes a piece. Adam heads out for intermission, and Wayne shows up, asking him for help with a flat tire, just one proud musical parent to another. Adam doesn't recognize Wayne, and when he goes out to help, he ends up getting Wayne's tire iron upside the back of his head. I resolve to forget how to change a tire immediately.
Susan and Mike are getting ready to leave the hospital. Mike ducks into the bathroom, and a nurse comes in with a wheelchair for Susan with balloons that read "Bon Voyage Conner." Susan tells the nurse to get the balloons out of there, making up a story for her about Mike being terrified of balloons due to having been molested by a clown (which, looking at Susan, is not entirely inaccurate). Susan pops three of the balloons before Mike comes out asking what's going on and why that last balloon says (pop!) -- excuse me, said -- Conner on it. Susan chases the nurse away and comes clean about wanting the kid to have a great name, which Maynard is not. Did she really think that if she just got the kid out of the hospital, this wouldn't come up again? Wouldn't Mike notice that nobody else called the kid Maynard, and wonder who this Conner kid is that everyone would be talking about? Anyway, Mike sits Susan down and says that his grandpa Maynard started the first integrated elementary school in Tennessee, and took Mike in when his dad went to prison. So, hearing that, Susan is on board with Maynard. That was good stuff, after all. Sorry, by the way. That was all me.
Tom and Lynette are sending Kayla off to live with her grandparents, with Tom promising to visit all the time. Lynette tells Kayla she's sorry how it turned out. "No, you're not," Kayla says. "Okay, then," Lynette agrees. Exit Kayla, desperately apologizing to Tom through the back window. He has nothing to say to Lynette after that.
In the wrap-up, Mary Alice goes on about names, as Susan paints "Maynard" on the wall of the baby's nursery while Mike holds the poor, cursed tot. Kayla rides in the backseat of her grandparents' car as Mary Alice asks if saying someone is a child makes her innocent. Ellie is on the street alone as Mary Alice asks whether calling someone a drug dealer means she's evil. "Will a man known as preacher always practice what he preaches?" she asks, as Reverend Green contemplates his Bibles. "Can a man branded a villain possess the qualities of a hero?" she wonders, as Orson sits in his hotel room gazing at a photo of himself and Bree. Mary Alice says that "a name can never really tell you who someone is, or what they're capable of." And with that, Adam, tied to a chair, is rudely awakened with a splash of water in a windowless room as Wayne tells him, "I'm Wayne Davis, and we're about to have some fun." Well, as long as somebody is.
The season's not over yet! To read the second half of tonight's two-parter, click here!
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, or just e-mail him at m.giant[at]gmail.com.