"Desperate Housewives" Recap: Art Isn't Easy (10/28/07)
This week Wisteria Lane becomes suburbia's version of a war zone. It all begins when Bob and Lee decide Wisteria Lane needs a touch of the Museum of Modern Art. So in their front yard they install a sculpture.
As Mary Alice tells us, it took workmen three hours to assemble the piece, but "sadly, it only took fifteen minutes for the residents of Wisteria Lane..."
"What the hell is it?"
"...to become art critics."
The wives get a gander at the thing which I like to think of as a silver corn stalk with an upside down trumpet on top. Next time "Dr. Who" needs a new alien, add a high-pitched, squeaky voice, some lights and they're good to go.
Susan: "I think it's a sculpture."
McCluskey: "I think it's crap."
Our lovable Queen Bree: "Of all the gay men in the world, we have to get the two without taste."
While Gabby thinks they're being punked, Kat is ready to take action. She asks about the Homeowners Association only to be told it's been dormant since the last president blew her brains out because she murdered a woman so she could keep her child.
Well Kat says if she were president of the association, she'd "get rid of this tin foil atrocity by the weekend."
Susan wants to take the moderate approach. As long as it's not her, maybe one of the wives should talk to Bob and Lee. McCluskey thinks Bree should do it because she "can relate to them."
When Bree asks what that means, McCluskey explains, "You got a kid who came flying out of the closet and a husband who's been looking for the doorknob."
Everyone stares. McCluskey shrugs, "Well, you met him."
Gotta love that McCluskey.
Bree, Kat and Gabby go over to Bob and Lee. Bree and Gabby hem and haw until Kat blurts out the corn stalk is ugly and this close to destroying life as we know it on Wisteria Lane. It has to go.
Lee explains they actually commissioned the thing for $24,000, no less. These guys have entirely too much disposable income.
Then he sarcastically suggests covering it with a "gingham throw" to make it more acceptable.
That doesn't go over well so Susan pipes up that she once took an art class---in kindergarten I'm sure---and she learned "art is subjective" so she doesn't mind the ugly piece of tin. Susan, your pert little nose should start growing any time now.
No matter, Bob and Lee have no intention of removing their corn stalk. The ladies can like it or lump it. Lee dismisses them with, "Have a nice day, Philistines."
Mary Alice: "Art came to Wisteria Lane on a Tuesday morning."
Kat: "I think it's time to reconvene the Homeowner's Association. All in favor?"
The Wives: "I!"
Mary Alice: "War had come as well."
Opening credits.
The next morning, Susan and Mike are rudely awakened by what sounds like rain on a hollow tin roof. It turns out the tin corn stalk is not just "art," it's functional.
"Wow! It's a fountain, too!" Susan exclaims as she comes out to see Bob and Lee admiring their prize.
Susan asks if they could possibly move the fountain monstrosity to their backyard because it's really noisy. Lee's not sympathetic since he has to listen to all the noises from Susan's house like her "butchering the score to 'Brigadoon'" in the shower. I find the idea that Susan would even know the score to "Brigadoon" very funny.
The Scavo brats are in their red treehouse in the front yard of the Scavo homestead. Lynette gets a call from her doctor while serving the kids snacks and when she gets off, the kids remind her of the treehouse rule: no cancer talk. Lynette apologizes.
Bree calls the nunnery to find out Danielle was sprung by ex-Mom-in-law Phyllis. After calling the Reverend Mother an idiot, Bree leaves Phyllis a threatening message. Danielle and Phyllis play video games and ignore her.
Edie's trying to worm her way into Carlos' "golf weekend." Carlos says no way since he's really going to "tee off" with Gabby. Edie suspects and gives him a going away present: golf balls with her initials on them because she wants "everyone to know who your balls belong to." Heh.
On her way to meet Carlos, Gabby notices a "cable guy" hanging around her house and suspects Victor hired the guy to tail her. Conveniently, Gabby's getting her yard work done by a group of young boys---hasn't she learned anything---and she disguises herself as Wisteria Lane's version of a Dead End Kid and leaves with them right under the suspected PI's nose.
Gabby arrives in the hotel lobby of luuuuuuve only to come face to face with former gardener/lover John Roland and his new, knocked up bimbette wife Tammy. Of course, her name's Tammy.
Awkward small talk ensues and it turns out Tammy's Daddy owns the hotel. When Gabby remarks that Tammy's a hotel heiress, Tammy is quick to say, "Yeah but not one of the skanky ones."
Carlos sees all this, but from a distance and once Gabby escapes, she tells him the people she was talking to were an "old friend and his idiot wife."
Bree and Orson storm Phyllis' house to reclaim Danielle. "You got a lot of nerve stealing Danielle away from a convent we've prepaid for," Orson says.
Phyllis stands back and lets Danielle do all the pre-rehearsed talking. She's staying with Grandma and raising the baby herself because she's not having her child raised by a "cold, emotionally unavailable woman" like Bree. Bree might have emasculated Rex, but she's not going to emasculate her.
"You don't even know what that means, you petulant sock puppet!" Bree's more appalled by Danielle's lack of vocabulary knowledge than of her rebellion.
As Danielle leaves in a huff, Bree yells after her, "Buy a dictionary!"
Phyllis is like, so that's all settled. Iced tea?
The seeds of rebellion are also stirring on Wisteria Lane as the neighbors gather with pitchforks at Kat's house.
Lynette's across the street ignoring it all until Bob and Lee demand she take a side. "Art or mindless conformity?"
Lynette's like, one of the few upsides of cancer is being able to stay out of this kind of crap. Bob's like, yeah until Kat comes for your treehouse. Lynette's unconvinced.
Lynette: "You're comparing Kat to a Nazi?
Lee: "Then they came for my treehouse, and there was no one left to speak for me."
Back at the anti-corn stalk meeting, don't expect Ida Greenberg to march in any Rainbow Pride parades. She wants to make sure they show "those gays, they mean business." Susan points out none of this is about Bob and Lee being gay only the ugly fountain, but Ida wants to know why it can't be about both. Ooooookay.
Interrupting the ramblings of the old and homophobic is Lynette. She's there to make sure the only thing on the Homeowners Association radar is the tin corn stalk and not a certain treehouse. Well when Kat gives every indication of becoming a power mad dictator in a Martha Stewart apron, Lynette decides a challenge is required. She throws her cancer scarf in the ring to run against Kat for association president.
Tom tries to talk her out of it. Like really Hon, why don't you just fight your cancer?
But Lynette's her usual sensitive self. "Tom I don't want your opinion. Just your vote."
Tommy boy, that's how she wants you in the marriage as well.
At Carlos and Gabby's "golf weekend" Gabby entices Carlos when she parades around in a silky blue teddy. There's a knock on the door and it's Baby John. He wants to come in and not just to the room, if you know what I mean. He wants to take Gabby up on her offer of last fall to rekindle their affair. Carlos eavesdrops from his hiding place in the closet and is speechless as John describes how sex with Gabby was so good, and how, remember that time when Carlos interrupted us and I hid in the closet and you faked an orgasm while I listened? Oh yeah, Carlos is loving that.
Meanwhile at Scavo campaign headquarters, Lynette asks for Susan's help, but Susan's like, no can do, I've already promised my vote to Kat. She's anti-fountain, not pro Kat, but since Lynette won't promise to get rid of it, Susan's in the Kat camp. She says living with the fountain of death is like "living next to Splash Mountain." Heh.
See, this week Susan's not nearly as stupid as she was last week. I like her not stupid.
Baby John's still trying to get Gabby in the sack. After all he's trapped with a knocked up, dumb, selfish bimbo of a wife. Gabby's like, sorry Honey, but that was then and this is now and go back to Tammy and have a nice life.
When a pissy Carlos comes out of the closet, Gabby tells him to get over himself, 'cause he's doing the same thing to Victor now, that Baby John did to Carlos before.
Meanwhile Lynette and Kat face off on the campaign trail, bribing neighbors with cookies, foot rubs, tire changes and promises galore.
A mopey Bree is bemoaning Danielle's desire to raise her kid. Andrew's like, she doesn't want to raise her kid, she just thinks living with Grandma is better than what Bree and Orson are offering. "If you want that baby, you're gonna have to outbid Grandma."
In a genuine fit of conscience Carlos goes to Baby John and forgives him for sleeping with Gabby. Baby John's like, what are you, in a twelve step program?
Carlos says no, just that he "recently learned how loving someone makes you forget the difference between right and wrong."
Over at Kat's house, it's Election Day. McCluskey's moderating.
Lee gives the assembled voters one last warning, "A vote for Katherine is a vote for fascism."
Ida Greenberg demands,"What is it with you gays and clothes?"
"Not fashion Ida. Fascism," Lynette says.
Bob leans over and whispers in Ida's ear, "Though if you ever do want to talk fashion. We're here for you." I suggest you take 'em up on it Ida.
When the votes are counted, it's fourteen to fourteen, but Susan sneakily voted twice. Edie calls her on it, and Susan's gotta choose. She looks at the fountain out the window and she votes for Kat. Kat is thrilled, Lynette is not.
Kat immediately notifies everyone that infractions will be dealt with swiftly. That includes Lynette's treehouse.
Orson and Bree make nice with Danielle and Phyllis. They're having lunch beside the senior center pool and when Phyllis is out of earshot Orson and Bree do a number on Danielle about how she'll be taking care of a baby and an old woman at the same time. Too bad she'll miss out on the party school in Florida they were going to send her to, and the new convertible. Danielle's like, convertible, what convertible? The one Orson and Bree were going to give her for her eighteenth birthday, but which they're now going to trade in for a diaper service. But no matter, she's made her choice. Danielle's like, not so fast there Mommy Dearest. Quicker than you can say assisted living, Danielle's outta there.
Kat goes to Dr. Adam with champagne and wants to toast her victory but he's not so pleased about her victory or her making enemies of the neighbors. In fact, ever since they moved there, she's been acting like "an unhappy woman who needs to control everything."
Kat implies that when he was out of control in Chicago that's when their problems started.
Dr. Adam retorts, that's when they needed their friends the most. Not enemies.
Phyllis is depressed as Danielle says goodbye. She tells Bree how all she and the old women who live in her complex have are pictures of their homes, their youth and their husbands. All things that are gone. Bree takes pity on her and says every Saturday she and Orson go out to their club so Phyllis can babysit. Phyllis is pleased about that, but Bree adds they'll have to tell everyone Phyllis is broke and needs the money, 'cause they'll never believe Bree likes having her around.
Carlos is still on the conscience train and tells Gabby they need to feel good about being together so they should stop sneaking around and end their affair. Then they can end things with Victor and Edie and after they give them six months or so to heal, he and Gabby can get back together. Gabby doesn't want to wait six months. "Nobody takes that long to heal anymore!"
Carlos finally convinces her and they call it quits for now. They passionately kiss goodbye just long enough for the guy outside taking pictures to get some really good shots.
The Scavo brats are playing in the treehouse when Susan comes over to see Lynette. She says she won't
go along with Kat removing the treehouse. When Lynette still acts pissy, Susan actually makes an adult argument about how Lynette wanted Susan to put Lynette's kids before her own husband and it wasn't fair of Lynette to ask her to do that. Lynette agrees, but feels guilty about bringing the cancer into her kid's lives. The treehouse is the only place they have away from it.
Kat comes over while they're chatting and says the treehouse can stay. They'll tell people it was grandfathered in because she "wants to be a good neighbor."
Lynette: "You are one complicated lady."
Kat: "I've led one complicated life."
The "cable guy" is listening to Edie talk about love. She says the toughest part of falling in love isn't the pain when things go wrong, it's the hate. Edie writes the guy a check and he gives her the pictures of Gabby and Carlos.
Kat goes to Bob and Lee and tells them there's no strict deadline for getting rid of the fountain. They're like, actually there's no deadline at all, because it's not going anywhere. It seems they know all about what Dr. Adam did at his hospital in Chicago. Bob's ex is on the board of Chicago Memorial.
So, either the fountain stays or Kat and Dr. Adam will have to start looking for a new place to live. This is the first time since we've met her that we actually see Kat dumbfounded.
Mary Alice: "It's the same for all of us. We try not to get too close to the people who live next door. We keep our distance because we'd rather our neighbors know nothing about us..."
Bob and Lee wave at Kat from across the street as she gets her mail.
"...than know too much."
