Paul throws some kind of timely Schiavo fit about Beth, who is on life support, but eventually -- after speaking to Felicia about how they are to blame for Beth's crazy actions -- Paul decides to give Susan Beth's kidney after all. Sadly, Felicia gets random probation, proving once again that no good deed goes unpunished in Fairview. Mike spends the whole time trying to convince Susan to fight Paul for the kidney, because this show's only moral is that everybody else is an asshole, so you might as well screw people whenever you can.
For e.g., Tom gets offered some major awesome job out of nowhere, but wibbles and wobbles about it because this would mean screwing over Carlos, for whom apparently he works. Lynette, jizzing over the idea of money all of a sudden, does about a thousand gross Lynette-type things to get him to take the job, and eventually I guess it works. You know how the Scavos are gross? Well, now they are gross with money. (Although it must be said that Lynette's rockin' quite the bod and apparently has given herself a rich-lady makeover for the foreseeable.)
Meanwhile, Renee refuses to let a little thing like yet another wife of Paul Young blowing her own head off interfere with her annual Spring Fling party. Because Wisteria Lane has class occasionally, nobody actually wants to attend, so she invites like pool guys and college kids, and it's really kind of sad. Eventually Gabrielle figures out that Renee's being even more vicious than usual about Beth's suicide because her own mother did the same, so I guess they're friends now or something.
McCluskey calls Bree over because apparently Andrew got crazy drunk and broke into her house last night. Andrew's husband reveals he's been drinking for awhile, and then up and leaves him, causing the spiral to keep spiraling, so Bree fools Andrew into going to an AA meeting. (That was weird, because the guy leading the meeting is played by Lee Tergesen? Who played Bree's AA sponsor that Andrew slept with, like a million years ago, but it's not him? Am I making this up? Why would that happen? Why have the same actor in a similar storyline with the same characters?) Anyway, Andrew and Bree end up bonding over how they are total drunks who can't keep a man.
In two weeks, because why on earth should this show have any schedule at all: Felicia's back on the murder trail, Susan sadly will not be dying, Andrew may be taking AA so seriously that he confesses about killing Carlos's Mom, and people maybe go camping or something. Maybe Paul Young will meet a lady and marry her and she will shoot her own head off, that would be novel.
Watch the episode below, discuss it in our forums, then look back on last season's most outlandish moments!
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Medical personnel: "Dear Susan and Paul. It's so crazy I have to tell you this over the phone, not to mention illegal, but Beth blew her head off right in front of a bunch of people."
Susan: "Awesome!"
Paul: "So?"
Medical personnel: "I don't know if you understand what I'm saying. A woman committed suicide in front of little kids in the Emergency Room. They were already having a shitty day, and then a lady's brains was in their frozen yogurt."
Susan: "I know! It's great!"
Paul: "I was just sitting down to three courses and a bottle of wine, because I threw Beth out into the street and became my own wife, so unless this is relevant..."
Medical personnel: "Well, she's an organ donor. Her organs could save a life."
Paul: "The fuck you say."
(Paul goes running to the hospital to stop Beth's organ donation to any person even before the doctor can even illegally tell him that it's Susan getting the kidney -- the knowing of which would lend him the speed of Mercury such that all you would see is feet-fire skid marks à la Back To The Future.)
(The ladies all run to meet Susan at the hospital so they can trample the braindead body of Beth Young and rifle through her belongings some more, and Gabi doesn't know quite how to congratulate Susan on the beautiful miracle that is a lady blowing her own head off, and Renee's just pissed because it means Susan -- being in ICU, having a crazy woman's organs put inside her -- won't be attending her annual Spring Fling.)
Doctor: "Sorry you guys are so happy this lady blew her head off."
Ladies: "That's not even really the gist of how self-centered and awful we are."
Doctor: "Okay but do you like have even one ounce of sadness?"
Renee: "Yeah, not really. It's more like, 'One less brain-dead bitch at my party.' You know?"
Susan: "That's hardly fair!"
Everybody, even Mike: "Well..."
(Not even Susan knows yet that Beth blew her head off downstairs, so in fact it's just the painful death of an unknown stranger they've been celebrating. The doctor gets over being grossed out by them long enough to explain that it's Beth's kidney that will be going into Susan, where hopefully it will not be menaced by her remaining deformed, mutant kidney or wandering, loitering spleen.)
Doctor: "For no narrative reason and completely out of character, frankly, Paul Young looks likely to pull some kind of Terry Schiavo shit."
Bree: "I can't believe it! All I did was go over to her motel and talk her into committing suicide, despite her desperate and obviously pained cries for help."ibid., verbatim: "I mean, she seemed off, but she always seemed a little off."
(True enough. She did seem forever poised to murder herself in a particularly gratuitous, drama-queen fashion. Anyhow, that's how I'd like to remember her: Always on the brink of annihilation, a human embodiment of desperation, one cockeyed pupil forever blasted, like a puppy that gets off on being kicked.)
McCluskey: "Bree, come get your drunk gay son. He broke into my house and is sleeping on the couch looking, nevertheless and as usual, like one billion US dollars."
ibid., verbatim: "If I wanted a drunk homo on my couch, I would have married my college boyfriend."
Andrew's husband: (Exists. For now.)
Bree: "I think maybe you have a problem with alcohol, due to breaking into old ladies' houses. Also, apparently you were getting blitzed on mai tais, which is the saddest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life. This happened when, while you were eating cheesecake out on the lanai?"
Alex: "It's true, mai tais are not a real thing. My porn career did not prepare me for this amount of humiliation."
Andrew: "I'm not an alcoholic! Other clichés! All the clichés!"
Bree: "Alex, let's gang up on your husband."
Alex: "Done."
Andrew: "You guys SUCK."
Bree & Alex: (Decide essentially that Alex will leave Andrew to Bree, like a dowry in reverse, for no real reason than the fact that this show is unable to take gay relationships seriously -- if only Gabi were here to save the fags from themselves! -- and pops them back and forth between committed and uncommitted states the way most shows used to do straight people; the way observation does to the qualities of a photon.)
Bree: (Readies her womb for a return-to-sender situation.)
Renee, verbatim: "Tables and chairs go out back, chafing dishes and flatware in the kitchen, and eyes off the boobs, but thanks for noticing."
Everybody on Earth: (Is amazed they're finally using Wilhelmina Slater properly, as well as the overall quality of this episode. It kind of makes the rest of this shitty season even worse by comparison, is how relatively un-terrible this episode is.)
Gabi: "Hey, person on this show I've never once interacted with but is suddenly my best friend, are we still throwing this party?"
Renee: "Why would Beth Young's horrific public suicide be a problem?"
Gabi, verbatim: "Unless the theme is Neighbors Who Blow Their Brains Out..."
Renee: "That is always the theme on this show. It should be called Desperate Housewives Who Steal Each Other's Babies & Then Blow Their Brains Out."
(We revisit the fact that among these ladies, all of whom are just terrible people that you wouldn't ever want to meet or interact with, Beth Young was still unacceptable even though every year they pull this scapegoating shit and every year the new, scapegoated Housewife ends up dragging them all through hell.)
Gabi: "Well, I already [shopping shopping shopping] so maybe we could turn it into a tribute to Beth or whatever her name was."
Renee: "I like that. Only instead of being a tribute to Beth or whatever her name is, it should be a tribute to us, and to your [shopping]. Now, go tell everybody else on our horrible street about the party!"
Gabi: "Okay, but only because I don't have any other friends, my suddenly BFF."
(And just as you're thinking, What's the worst goddamn thing Susan can do at this moment?)
Susan: "Paul, whom I tried to murder with a caveman club a few months ago and then blamed for the riot in which my one good kidney got kicked out, I just wanted to pretend we're friends."
Paul: "Susan, who married my son's father and then mailed him to Abu Dhabi when shit got real, I just wanted to tell you to eat a dick."
Susan: "It's not like she's using her kidney!"
Paul: "She's using it to torment you."
Susan: "But I have six hours of dialysis three times a week!"
Paul: "Jimmy crack corn, Susan. Jimmy crack corn."
Susan: "You're right. I wasn't ever very nice to Beth, because she pointed a gun at me for trying to murder you after you caught me prostituting myself on the world wide web."
Paul: "And because I have spent this entire show trying to destroy your life for no reason whatsoever, yes. But that doesn't change the fact that I have like this one scruple."
Susan: "I have to go to dialysis now. And feel sorry for myself."
Paul: "Hey as long as the kidney's in play, can I just remind everybody that I wasn't the cause of the riot? That was Lynette. My plan was just kind of random chaos with a charitable edge."
Susan: "On this show, even the barest hint of charity proves that you can't be trusted. Look at that plastic-faced mannequin from Torchwood. Look at Beth."
(Or at least the location where her face used to be.)
Mike: "Susan, you know how we talked about your terrible judgment and how whatever you think you should do, we should just plan to do the opposite?"
Susan: "Yeah, but this is different."
Mike: "How so?"
Susan: "Because martyrdom."
Doctor: "I don't give a shit what you do. Just get out of my office and stop talking about yourself. You're making me hate sick people."
(Bree tricks Andrew into going to an AA meeting. It's not hard to fool Andrew because he is drunk. When they get there, the leader of the group is Peter MacMillan, the AA sponsor whom both Bree and her son fucked back when this show was awesome. But apparently now his name is Tommy and he's a different guy, because this show's ADD and total opposition to continuity or quality have just reached a new low.)
Andrew: "My name is Elvis, and I am the son of a monster."
AA: "Hi, Elvis!"
(About five seasons' worth of characterization, not to mention a five-year jump within the narrative, all go flying out the window as Andrew and Bree's relationship history goes up in smoke and they both turn back into how they were when he was in high school. When this show was good.)
Glenn Morris, CEO of Morris Technologies: "Tom Scavo, that was some fun golfing we just golfed. Do you mind if I steal you out from under Carlos Solis, for whom you -- apparently -- work?"
Lynette: "That sounds great! I love being a stay-at-home mom who used to be an interior designer, so the fact that I'm a much better businesswoman doesn't enter into this conversation at all. Remember how Susan used to be a highly paid graphic artist?"
Everybody: "Nope!"
Glenn: "Anyway, Tom, would you like to be super rich?"
Tom: "We were just talking about that during the abandoned plotline with Lynette's mom. But no. No thank you."
Lynette: "If only there were a way to manipulate this situation while also undercutting my husband's masculinity at every turn. I sure hope I can teach him a lesson for his own good!"
The Universe: (Provides, with a single caveat: In the end, Lynette will be shown the error of her ways and once again learn that she is a useless bitch and only men matter.)
Glenn: "I am done being unmemorable and now, having cast disorder into your house, will be vanishing again. Don't forget to screw over your friend!"
Lynette: "Tom, I'm warning you now, if you don't take this job I am going to cut off your testicles with safety scissors."
Tom: "You can try, but there's really nothing left down there at this point. I'm as emasculated as the gay idiots scattered all over Wisteria Lane, with their musical numbers and intense moisturizing regimens."
Lynette: (Physically threatens her husband.)
Tom: (Is meek and clueless and, like all men, completely unaccountable.)
Lynette: "I am a harpy!"
Tom: "No, just a woman with common sense, opinions of her own, and valuable skills."
Lynette: "Same diff on this show."
Tom: "True. Please start acting creepy and horrible, like you do every episode around this exact time."
(The lesson, as every week: Neither Lynette the beast nor the three-beer queer they call Tom should be married to anybody. The fact that they stay married to each other is an indictment of them both.)
Tom, né Pete: "Elvis, would you like to bitch about your mother?"
Elvis, né Andrew: (Goes totally Catskills on her ass.)
Bree: "Stop laughing! Just because every word he says is true doesn't mean you're allowed to hear it with your ears!"
Elvis: "I thought this was a safe place. You said I could talk about anything."
Bree: "This is the one time my self-absorption does not come in handy!"
(But also, the reason he drinks is not his mother but the fact that he is turning into his mother which, of all the creepy mother/son sub rosa Nurture Over Nature bullshit this show has perpetrated about gay people, this might be the crowning achievement. This show always tries to have its cake and eat it too, when it comes to despising and simultaneously "tolerating" gay folks, so this should come as no surprise, but it's still a little unnervingly oblivious about itself, in that naïve way where a little kid might tell you their dream that involved obviously sexual metaphors and you have to be like, "Well, what an interesting dream you've had." Which is to say: The show never really knows what it's actually saying -- because it's working too hard to form basic sentences -- but this example renders the others irrelevant because it's so masterfully ingenuous. And they'll say, "Don't overthink it!" and then call you an elitist for saying, "Um, maybe you should try and at least fucking think period.")
Tommy: "Let's all hold hands and say the Serenity Prayer, now that your trashy mother/son BS has ruined yet another interaction among people."
Andrew: (Rejects the entire notion of "serenity," because his ass is just getting started.)
(Gabi visits and appalls the entire street trying to canvas for Renee's ill-advised Spring Fling; there are several zingers typical of this show, like, a joke about Hurricane Katrina, already hilarious of course, only gets funnier in 2011. Like aging, racist cheese.) Actually, this part is funny:
Mitzi: "Are you nuts? In case you haven't heard, our friend across the street, Betty Young, just blew her brains out."
Gabi: "Beth Young."
Mitzi: "Oh, I got her name wrong. How disrespectful. Hope you don't tell that story tomorrow at your party!"
(Gabi comes back to tell Renee that she has horrified the entire Lane, once again, but it's ironic because for once it's not because she is herself insane. Somewhere Juanita is eating her feelings and a family is getting deported and a blind masseur is out of work.)
Renee, verbatim: "Well, they can all go to Hell, we're still having the party."
ibid., verbatim: "...Nobody even liked her!"
ibid., verbatim: "For ten years I've had my Spring Fling the first Sunday of April. Not the second Sunday, not the third, and not when a bunch of wimps decide they're ready to stop moping."
ibid., verbatim: "My social life is not gonna come to a stop just because some Cuckoobird decides to clean her ears with a handgun."
Wilhelmina Slater: (Can finally rest.)
(We pretend that either of MJ Delfino's parents can read.)
(Lynette literally whores herself to her own husband to take this job -- rocking a bra and BOXER SHORTS, which is the even sadder part -- and says shit like, "I see you're already in the upright and locked position" and possibly more things I didn't hear because I was too busy barfing everything I have ever eaten or even thought about eating.)
Felicia: "Welcome to the chapel in my prison. Sorry I am working on getting your wife's life support cut off, but it's the only way I can get out of jail and finish the job she never quite started."
Paul: "Are we being honest right now?"
Felicia: "Totally. You have to let her die and give Susan her kidney, because it's the right thing to do, and also because they will let me out of jail because Fairview has a made-up retard legal system where shit like that happens constantly, and then I will come kill you."
Felicia, verbatim: "My daughter's dead. Your wife is dead. And we both know what killed her."
Paul: "Um, ouch."
Felicia: "No, it wasn't just that we both iced her out. Although that didn't help, and I'm going to get to the mean part in a minute. What I mean is, we've been using Wisteria Lane in a chess game for the last seven or twelve years, and finally it hurt somebody besides Susan."
Paul: "If only it could have hurt Susan."
Felicia: "For real."
Felicia, verbatim: "You refused to believe she loved you, I turned her away because she did."
Paul: (Suddenly comprehends the entire plotline leading to Beth's suicide and that he is fully culpable, for not believing her; somehow this means Susan gets the kidney. It is touching to the precise degree that you like Paul and/or want to make out with him, meaning that it is actually quite touching.)
Bree: "Remember how I dragged you to an AA meeting under false pretenses and then made sure you were completely paralyzed and unable to talk or share your feelings in any way whatsoever? Because I'm selfish in a way that only addicts can be?"
Andrew: "Sure do."
Bree: "What say we do that again?"
Andrew: "Nope. But I will describe my Betty Draper existence in a way that is insulting not only to you but to any homemaker, the reason being that women's work is fine as long as you're a woman, but even a fag deserves better."
Bree: "You're right, women are the worst."
Andrew: "And now I am one. Also, Alex left me. I'm going to say the word 'marriage' as though it applies to our relationship, so the gross old hags that still watch this shit can fan themselves scandalously."
(Having once won a GLAAD award is not at all the same thing as continuing to deserve a GLAAD award.)
Bree: "So how about that meeting? I'd love to sabotage your recovery further."
Andrew: "No thank you, farewell."
Bree: "Wait just a minute. This is about me! I talked a weird woman I barely knew into committing suicide last night, while trying to bribe Jesus into liking me. I'll will be damned if you queer my deal with Jesus again. I'm gonna help the shit out of you."
Andrew: "Can I at least have a drink first?"
Bree: "Sure, and then we will create our own AA meeting, because that's how it works. Much simpler to get you off track and talk about myself when it's just the two of us."
Andrew: "Are you sure this is what AA is like?"
Bree: "I'm starting my own twelve-step program right here in your living room. Consider me the Bill Henrickson of recovery."
Carlos: "Glenn? Trying to steal you? Are you sure this isn't an April Fool's joke?"
Tom: "I find myself talking to you about this because my wife gave me a sad handjob."
Carlos: "I'm afraid I can't give you more money, but how about a new fake title?"
Tom: "I'll take it!"
Carlos: "...Are you sure this isn't a joke? He's not actually going after your wife, the talented businesswoman?"
Tom: "Remember when Susan was a successful graphic designer?"
(Tom runs to Lynette to tell her the fake news; she pulls out her safety scissors.)
Lynette: "I bet he offered you a fake title."
Tom: "Are you psychic?"
Lynette: "No, just emasculating and awful. Allow me to demonstrate."(She does; it is epic.)
Tom: "Wow, that's what you really think of me?"
Lynette: "What, in the history of this show, would make you think otherwise?"
Tom: (Physically threatens his wife.)
(Gabrielle takes out the garbage herself, sparing us one of those awful scenes on this show where the woman bitches at her husband about taking out the garbage and then segues into talking about meatloaf, meatloaf, always meatloaf.)
Gabi: "Renee, this party I just noticed is rocking!"
Renee: "Fuck dead ladies. Woo-hoo!"
Gabi: "Wait, these people are poor."
Renee: "What do you mean?"
Undocumented Pool Guy: "¿Senora, por favor puedo trabajarlo el swimming-o pool-o en Domingo más que Miercoles?"
Gabi: "I don't understand what you are saying. I'm one of the good ones."
Renee: "Sometimes I hang out with poor people, what's the problem?"
Gabi: "No, you don't. None of us do. This is the sign of a mental breakdown that you would even do this. Did your baby get switched at birth, because that's the only reason we would ever hang out with these people. What's this about?"
Renee: "Women who commit suicide deserve to be killed! I have pain inside my heart!"
Gabi: "Did your mom commit suicide after being sold into marriage to a serial killer and embroiled in a confusing pointless, real estate scheme?"
Renee: "...Yeah. Wow, when you're on you're on."
Gabi: "When the plot demands it, sure."
Renee: "That's why I wanted a baby for five seconds."
Gabi: "Do you want one of mine?"
Renee: "Yeah, because fat Mexican lunatic children are the new Hermés Birkin. Don't forget, I gave the last one to a busboy."
Gabi: "That's kinda my endgame."
Gabi: "Not to get too Susan on you, but I lost a parent too. My dad. And then -- not to compare stories -- my stepfather molested me like a million times. So maybe you should stop bitching. Again, not to compare."
Renee: "I am not interested in having this conversation."
Gabi: "If you ever want to talk about it, or not have this horrible party, let me know."
Renee: "Here's the thing: I've actually done the work you're trying to force me to do."
Gabi: "I am the least introspective person in the universe. Explain in detail, using small words and helpful diagrams."
Renee: "I will never forget what my mother did. I think about it every day. But I refuse to let it be what defines me. This Spring Fling might seem shallow and insensitive to you, but it's my way of saying I choose life over death."
Gabi: "That sounds vaguely insightful, in an Eat Pray Love kind of way. Count me in."
(Lynette takes a Lotus out for a test drive, then parks it in front of Carlos's house, then winds Tom up about how Carlos has a Lotus, then goads him into accepting the job from Glenn. Tom goes haywire and storms towards Carlos's house to yell at him about the Lotus, so Lynette comes clean about the obvious fact that she's been screwing with his head this whole time. Tom physically threatens his wife, then they go for a joyride in the Lotus. Even though Tom has this massive mythological dick, he is not immune to the power of the Lotus. It thrums beneath him; he decides to be a rich person and fulfill the prophecy from Lynette's whore mother storyline where they talked about how money makes you shitty. The Scavos: Have not so far to fall.)
Paul: "Hey, Susan. I've never seen your shitty apartment before except for when I watched you in your webcam porno."
Susan: "Hey, Paul. You're the only thing that makes me bearable, once again."
Paul: "Can I please come inside, or should I break down on your porch in a way that is both pathetic and strangely alluring?"
Susan: "First one, then the other."
Paul: "I would like you to have my wife's kidney. I have it here in a brown paper bag."
Susan: "I mean, but you were right: We were horrible to her, for no real reason, same as we're always being horrible to you for no reason. What changed?"
Paul: "Basically I realized I was acting like you. Getting in everybody's way for no reason, taking ludicrous moral stands, and generally being a pill."
Susan: "Hold on, I'm sure I can find a way to be ungrateful about this..."
(...But she doesn't! It is shocking! She is totally gracious and sweet about it, and gives him a much-needed hug, and he cries on her shoulder, and for a second you could be fooled into thinking that this show has any class whatsoever. It is awesome.)
Warden: "Felicia, your daughter is dead. And because victimhood trumps everything on this show -- even, as here, the reflected halo of somebody else's tragedy -- you magically get out of jail. I hope you were serious about burying the hatchet and not just playing poor Paul for a sucker."
Felicia: (Creepiest motherfucking smile of all time.)
The End.