Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Mens InZana In Corpore Sano
By Jacob Clifton | Season 7 | Episode 14 | Aired on 02.13.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.In the awesomest storyline of the week, Paul goes looking for Zach, because it turns out the gun that shot him was in fact the same one Mary Alice used to shoot herself at the beginning of the show. Mike knows where their son is -- as we learn, he was the accidental catalyst for the shooting itself -- but hates Paul too much to tell him that Zach is a crazy drug addict now (albeit in that TV way where his hair still looks fabulous). By episode's end, the two men have arrived at Zach's place, presumably to talk him into rehab.
Second-best, of course, goes to Gabrielle, who does more tricks than a circus pony trying to get out of having to actually talk in therapy -- per their agreement, after she nearly got herself and Carlos killed for pretending her doll was a baby, that she will stop being insane. Of course, the Grace/Princess Valerie storyline takes a hard left into Gabrielle's childhood, which even Gabi understands is about protecting children in the ways she was not protected. Touching stuff -- and handled elegantly, especially for this show -- and of course Eva Longoria knocks it out the park. I'm actually pretty impressed with the way they got us here, which is all the more impressive considering it involved magical talking doll ladies.
Bree continues to hide the facts about Keith's son Charlie, paying off his mom and even getting roped into some babysitting. Of course Keith meets Charlie in the most contrived way possible, and they instantly bond, which means nothing to Keith and everything to Bree, so she finally tells him who that little boy actually was.
Susan's got a kidney donor, but it turns out to be Dave Foley playing the typical creepy loser/stalker character he's been doing in the last few years. Apparently he's been obsessed with Susan since they were in high school together, because she was not as insufferable back then. Of course, he immediately wants to make out with her and get an apartment next to her sad apartment and take creepy pictures of her from the bushes, so she has to explain that kidneys don't come with strings attached, and he ditches her, kidneyless once again. Somehow, because it's Susan, she manages to make herself the asshole in this situation.
Speaking of assholes, Lynette's mom and her new husband, racist JR Ewing, are all kinds of assholes. They bribe Lynette into posing her family for a portrait that makes it seem as though he is a part of their family -- to piss off his three other families, naturally -- and then he dies in the middle of the portrait. Since the new version of the will, in which Lynette's awful mom gets everything, doesn't go into effect until midnight, so the Scavos hold a disgusting, ghoulish night vigil with Larry Hagman's corpse on the couch. And by the next day, Lynette's awful mom has become a controlling, horrible monster.
So for our first episode back, we end up with a bunch of question marks and cliffhangers and not very much else memorable, but the dialogue was clever and it's all in all an exciting return to Fairview. Next week: More Zach, more therapy, more kidneys, more Lynette's mom, and maybe a little Renee.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!So I wasn't around for the last time Zach showed up, when Carlos saw his wang, and maybe he already had the slicked-back hair and the limo champagne thing happening at that point, but I'm glad we only get a tiny shot of it tonight as we talk about and, perhaps, learn for the first time that Zach is now a massive cokehead whose many Noah millions have gone up his nose. And since he was already crazy and super-weird to start with, the drug thing hasn't exactly contributed value to his personality. Luckily, he is still adorable. That will help once he hits rock bottom and needs to find a new cul-de-sac of people to bother and act weird around.
Speaking of Paul Young, he is on the hunt for little Zana, because the gun that was used to shoot him the night of the riot -- and subsequently hidden in Bree's house for no good reason -- was the same gun that Mary Alice used to blow her own head off. I can't imagine what that would be like if the cops showed up with a gun that somebody used to shoot you, okay, already freaky, and then you saw the gun and you're like, "Right, that's the same weapon my wife used to shoot herself in the head after being blackmailed for murdering the mother of our son, from whom we stole him." Goosebumps, am I right?
So Paul goes to see Mike, who is looking very muscled today, and Mike tells him to fuck off and the usual Mike gruff stuff, and Paul's like, "Listen, our son is in trouble. His mansion is in foreclosure, he's shooting people with his mom's suicide gun..." Mike pretends he doesn't know where Zach is (somewhere in Idaho) but of course he does (somewhere in Fairview, duh). And so Paul runs off to be weird somewhere else but not talk to Beth, Beth whom we miss. (Also, this episode has zero Bob. Or Renee, unless you count this highly unlikely scenario later where Lee and Renee hang out with fucking Susan, in her squalor apartment, on purpose, as though they are friends.)
Mike calls Zach, but Zach is crashed out on the couch in a sad little split-level duplex you wouldn't even want Susan Delfino to have to live in, vertical blinds, the whole thing. But it's odd, because he's a cokehead and there's like five rails on the table beside him but instead of snorting them or acting very lively, he just kind of drools and refuses to answer the phone. Dana! The only upside of a speed addiction is that your place will be sparkling. You are doing this wrong.
"It doesn't matter where we're going, it doesn't matter how quickly we try to get there, it doesn't matter that we never look back. The past we left behind will still find a way to catch up to us." Pithy, no? Mary Alice Young, my friend, is dust in the wind. (Literally.)