"Desperate Housewives" Recap: Now I Know, Don't Be Scared (11/4/07)

Let me begin this recap by sending a big ol' shout out to the members of the Screenwriter's Guild who are walking the picket lines.  If I could, I'd send you some Krispy Kremes and Starbucks, but instead, I'll send you my good wishes.

Hang tough guys and gals!

It's Halloween on Wisteria Lane!  Bob and Lee, the new gay couple on the block are planning a party and in spite of all that unpleasantness about a certain "work of art," they're inviting all the neighbors.

But first, Mary Alice needs to tell us a little tale about Edie as a girl.  It seems she was a scaredy cat and since all the neighborhood hoodlum boys knew that, they got a big kick out of scaring her.  Spiders, frogs, snakes, you name it, as long as it made her scream.

Many, many, many years later, in present day, Carlos knew the only thing Edie was afraid of was him leaving her for someone else.  So to keep her from screaming, he tried to ditch her when she wasn't home.  He failed.

Edie questions him, confronts him and threatens him.  But Carlos is firm.  So Edie demands the truth about why he's leaving.  Is it for someone else?   Like your ex-slut of a dipstick, two foot tall wife, Gabby?  Carlos:  No. 

Mary Alice tells us, Edie had been forced to face her worst fear, so she thought Carlos should have to face his as well:  the IRS.

Opening credits.

Who's the winner of the tackiest Halloween decoration contest on Wisteria Lane?  Why it's the new neighbors on the block, Bob and Lee.  You would think with all that spare "art commissioning" money they have lying around, they could buy some classy decorations, but their front yard looks like a yard sale at the Munster house.

When they go to personally extend their party invitations, they start with Queen Bree.  Since she has a gay son, Lee thinks she's homo friendly.  Oh, dear Lee.  Have you learned nothing yet?

He then spots a cooped up Danielle in an upstairs window and Bree covers by saying it's Andrew trying on his Cher Halloween costume.  Bob and Lee can hardly wait.  Neither can I.

As soon as Danielle hears about the party, she wants to go.  Bree puts the kibosh on that but informs an eager Andrew that she has a costume all picked out for him.

Only good ol' Gabby would think of breaking up with her husband of about six minutes via his voice mail.  He's out of town and she's packing, but she does try to be sensitive.  It wasn't working out, it's not you it's me, sorry I gave you the creepy crawly crabs, good luck, have a nice life and don't bother to call back.

Susan and Mike are at genetic counseling and listening to all the horrible diseases a woman of Susan's age can give to her newborn kid.  In response to questions about family history, it comes out Susan has  relatives with webbed feet and multiple nipples.  As Mike refers to them "carny folk."  Mike's relatives have no major medical issues except for his father who Susan thought was dead.  Why did she think that?  Because that's what Mike told her when they first started dating.  Susan has to wait to find out more because Mike gets an emergency plumbing call and escapes.

Lynette's just had a Pet Scan to see if the cancer's gone and she and Tom return home to find an evil intruder has invaded the premises.  There's a hole the size of a large cauldron in Lynette's garden and Mama Stella thinks it was dug by a possum.  Lynette immediately declares war and she's off to the local Home Depot to get fencing to keep the predator out.

Mike comes home that night wishing he had an intruder to deal with rather than Susan's questions about Dead Daddy.  No such luck.  Seems Dead Daddy's not dead, just a murderer.  Not like Mike was a murderer, all self defense and everything, but a life without parole murderer.

Susan is horrified, but she wants to meet him.  Mike is like, what the hell for?  She gives the lame excuse of finding out about getting a family health history for the baby, but we know it's another one of those situations where Susan can't bear to leave well enough alone.

Lynette comes back from Home Depot with a crazed look in her eye and all kinds of death products to put a hurtin' on a certain possum.  She discovers Parker's given him a name, Scruffles, and is this close to giving him "pet asylum status," but she won't be swayed.  Heh.  Lynette explains the little bugger got through her security fence so there's only one other way to stop such a gross, mean animal who's trying to take down the Scavo family. 

Now a word here about suburban wildlife.  I've owned my own home for fourteen years and in all that time, my run-ins with the local wildlife have been the most challenging things about owning my house.  Not shady contractors, not flooding basements, not leaking attics, but squirrels, raccoons, possums and cats.

The dead ones, the live ones, the ones that want to live in my yard, the ones that want to dig up my yard, the ones that want to dig up my flowers and fling them to the ground, the ones who try to live in my tree and the baby ones who scare me to death when I come home and find them in the garden, nose to nose with Daisy.  I don't like Lynette but on this one, we're sisters in suburban wildlife warfare.

Rant over.

Danielle's having a Halloween pity party.  She hates the baby, she wants it gone and she wants her free and easy life back.  Yo Dani, you should have thought of that before you decided to play fast and loose with the birth control.  Bree's like, don't think giving up this baby is going to be such an easy thing, if it were me it would be devastating.  Dani's like, well I ain't you so go bake some cupcakes.

Gabby comes home to find Victor's dad, Milton waiting for her.  God, Mike Farrell's getting old.  Which means I'm getting old.  Which means somehow I must stop the madness!

Anyway, Milton intercepted Gabby's breakup message and he wants to bribe her with a big fat check that's post dated thirteen months.  That's when the governor's race is over and when Gabby can cash it and leave Victor.  Gabby's intrigued.

Bad news for Edie, good news for Carlos.  The IRS can't find any secret account of Carlos' with ten million dollars in it.  Edie, correctly suspecting Carlos hid the money somewhere else confronts him about it and as Carlos makes the mistake of gloating, vows he'll pay.

Things are getting more and more dire at the Scavo household.  The possum ate around the poison and the trap caught Penny.  Lynette's only choice is to go to the local NRA advocate, Queen Bree for more fire power.  When Bree hears it's to get rid of a possum, she's more than willing to help, but those bleeding heart liberal politicians won't allow a God-fearing, red-blooded, American woman like her shoot live ammo in her own backyard.  Her advice to Lynette?  Take a trip over to Gun City next to the Baptist Church.  Tell 'em Bree sent you and get a 10% discount on an air rifle.  It won't kill the bugger, but should scare it enough so it'll never come back.

Gabby goes to see Carlos, tells him about Milton's check and suggests they wait the thirteen months.  Carlos calls that virtual prostitution and says, no way, no how.  When Gabby says they could use the money, Carlos reluctantly tells her about the ten million he skimmed from his old job and has tucked away.  The ten million is like Viagra for Gabby until she realizes Carlos had the money when they got divorced and she should have gotten half.  Now she can't trust him and she breaks it off with him...again. 

Susan and Mike go to visit Mike's Dead Daddy.  He's played by Robert Forester.  He too, is getting old.  Bleh!

For a few minutes Susan keeps up the pretense of finding out medical info and then just blurts out the question she really wants to ask.  Who did he kill?

His boss, Arnie.

Why?

Arnie went to the company head and told him bad things about Dead Daddy and because of that Dead Daddy lost out on a promotion.  Arnie got the job instead.

So you killed him?

No.

You see, Arnie walked around like he was so important, wearing his fancy ties and Dead Daddy thought he didn't deserve to live. 

So you killed him?

No.

You see, one day Dead Daddy confronted Arnie and told him what a scum bucket he was and how he didn't deserve to live.

Susan's silent

So, he killed him.

How?

With the tie.  Dead Daddy thought that was a nice touch.

Mike's like, can we go now?

Suburban drag queens from miles around descend on Wisteria Lane to haunt Bob and Lee's Halloween party.  Bob and Lee are dressed as pirates and honestly, I expected better. 

Now, Dr. Adam and Kat, they're dressed as Marie Antoinette and Frankenstein.  Whoever did Nathan Fillion's makeup, you deserve an Emmy right now.  It's awesome!

Meanwhile Lee can't resist telling Kat, "You came as "a self important queen who lost her power.  Isn't that a bit on the nose?"

Kat sneers back under her breath, "Lee making jokes about a queen, isn't that a bit ironic?"

A little soap opera shout out here.  Tuc Watkins and Nathan Fillion both played on "One Life To Live."  (In fact Tuc Watkins still makes the odd cameo.)  This is their first scene together on "DH." 

Bree and Orson are Little Bo Peep and Little Boy Blue.  Bree is Little Bo Peep, in case you weren't sure.

The only other costume to give Franken-Adam a run for his money is Andrew as Cher.  It's absolutely priceless.  He looks like Cher and Sonny morphed into one.  It's drag queenery costuming at its very best.

Last to arrive is none other than Danielle.  She's in all her pregnant glory and she came as...Bree.  She's all pink dress and white cardigan sweater and a marvelously Bree-like red, flip wig.  What a hoot!  Little Bo Bree freaks as Julie goes over to say hello. 

Dani-Bree spouts all kinds of classic Bree-isms like telling McCluskey "Really, Our Lord isn't happy when you take his name in vain, and use a coaster."  Heh.

When Little Bo Bree wants to know what the heck Dani-Bree's up to, Dani-Bree says she just wanted to make Little Bo Bree happy by being more like her.

Missing out on all the fun and madness are Mike and Susan.  They're at a Motel Six wannabe and Susan won't leave Dead Daddy dead.  He's an evil person, he's got no remorse, what if the baby gets his evil murdering genes?   Poor, tortured Mike is like see, this is why I told you he was dead.

Tom's dressed as a cowboy and finds Lynette in the treehouse dressed as a vigilante.  She's circled the wagons and armed herself with an air rifle and a John Wayne 'tude.  Tom seeing her like this is ready to call Bellevue.

"You've declared Jihad on a possum!"

Lynette then goes into this whole metaphorical, killing the possum is killing the cancer speech.  It's the evil invader that's attacking her home and her life and she won't let that happen.  Tom's like, okay crazy lady, just don't shoot me.

Back at the party Andrew's having a good time playing along and wants to know what Dani-Bree will name her baby.

"You're Not Good Enough" if it's a boy, and "You'll Always Disappoint Me" if it's a girl." Hee.

Little Bo Bree tries to get Dani-Bree to leave, but in the middle of their argument, Dani-Bree's water breaks.  Of course it does.

Little Bo Bree spouts some nonsense about it being part of the costume and she hustles Dani-Bree, Andrew and Orson out of there in a hurry.

Once they're home, Bree insists they not put Danielle on the couch because she just had it reupholstered.  Orson goes all Alexander Haig and says don't worry, I'm a doctor.  Bree reminds him he's a dentist and a drunk dentist at that, so she's off to get Dr. Franken-Adam.

Cut to the two of them running across the street to the Van De Camp house.  Bree is about to swear Franken-Adam to secrecy when he asks, "Does this have anything to do with the pregnancy you've been faking?"   See, now there's a doctor who knows his stuff.   He's green and dressed as a monster, but he knows his stuff.

Danielle's doing the fake TV labor screams we've all come to know so well, while Dr. Franken-Adam delivers the baby.  At that same moment, the Scavo brats are at the Van De Camp door looking for treats.  They get no answer but they hear the screams.  When they look in a window to see what's going on, they see Franken-Adam holding up the dripping, not yet cleaned up baby.  It's as frightening as it should be to kids that age and they run for their lives down the street.

It's a while later and Bree brings the baby to Danielle.  All of a sudden, Danielle morphs into a real person instead of her usual teen brat self and admits Bree was right.  Giving the baby up is way harder than she thought it would be.

Kudos to Joy Lauren in this one.  She went from mimicking Marcia Cross like a pro during her Dani-Bree phase to heartbroken Mommy all in one episode.  And she was believable doing both.

Gabby's going out of town and leaves a message for Susan to let her know.  She gets in her limo for the airport and there's Victor.  Evidently the maid told him Gabby had moved out and he wants to know what's up.  Gabby says she's sort of leaving him.

Victor says he wants to change her mind.  All of a sudden he clears his calendar and is all attentive and I don't want to run for governor, you're the most important thing...blah, blah, blah.  Gabby's softens and maybe she won't be leaving him after all.

Back at the jail, Susan goes to see Dead Daddy on her own.  Susan, give it up already!

Anyway, she doesn't listen and she doesn't believe Dead Daddy has no remorse.

He asks the question we all want to know.  "Why do you care?"

Susan says she's worried the baby will be born without a conscience or a soul, and she couldn't handle that.

Dead Daddy implies he is remorseful but he can't think about what he did without going crazy.  He says Mike had it tough growing up 'cause none of the other kids wanted to play with the son of a murderer.  Poor Mike. 

Dead Daddy also implies Mike's got some deep, dark demons that Susan better watch out for.  He had everything once also, and look what happened to him.

Edie pays Victor a visit and drops the picture bomb of Gabby and Carlos kissing.  She tells him to mainly blame Carlos because he seduced Gabby to publicly humiliate him.  Victor is ominously silent, no doubt thinking of all the ways he's going to have Carlos eviscerated. 

At the Scavo household, Lynette's doctor pays a visit to tell everyone the test came back.  Lynette's cancer free!

No more death, destruction and cancer wigs at the Scavo household.  Mama Stella and Tom are thrilled.  Woo hoo!

Lynette's in shock and we watch as she goes outside, breathes in the fresh air, takes in the shimmering stars, and thinks about how many more years she'll live to raise those horrible brats of hers.  Years of stepping on Tom and being the all around shrew we know and dislike.  She smiles and throws her arms wide and thanks the universe for all that is good.

That is until...she sees Scruffles belly up in the garden.  Lynette collapses to the ground and sobs her apologies to the helpless little creature whose life she destroyed.

Mary Alice tells us, "It's the thoughts in our head that terrify us the most.  What if she comes to regret her decision?"  That's Bree watching Danielle head off to school.  "What if he really is unhappy?"  That's Susan thinking about Poor Mike.  "What if the chance for love has passed forever?"  That's Edie trying to figure out another way to screw Carlos.

"How do we conquer these terrifying thoughts?  We start by reminding ourselves, what does not kill us just makes us stronger."  That's Lynette sitting satisfied on her porch.  Cancer free. 

Lynette's just had a Pet Scan to see if the cancer's gone and she and Tom return home to find an evil intruder has invaded the premises.  There's a hole the size of a large cauldron in Lynette's garden and Mama Stella thinks it was dug by a possum.  Lynette immediately declares war and she's off to the local Home Depot to get fencing to keep the predator out.

Mike comes home that night wishing he had an intruder to deal with rather than Susan's questions about Dead Daddy.  No such luck.  Seems Dead Daddy's not dead, just a murderer.  Not like Mike was a murderer, all self defense and everything, but a life without parole murderer.

Susan is horrified, but she wants to meet him.  Mike is like, what the hell for?  She gives the lame excuse of finding out about getting a family health history for the baby, but we know it's another one of those situations where Susan can't bear to leave well enough alone.

Lynette comes back from Home Depot with a crazed look in her eye and all kinds of death products to put a hurtin' on a certain possum.  She discovers Parker's given him a name, Scruffles, and is this close to giving him "pet asylum status," but she won't be swayed.  Heh.  Lynette explains the little bugger got through her security fence so there's only one other way to stop such a gross, mean animal who's trying to take down the Scavo family. 

Now a word here about suburban wildlife.  I've owned my own home for fourteen years and in all that time, my run-ins with the local wildlife have been the most challenging things about owning my house.  Not shady contractors, not flooding basements, not leaking attics, but squirrels, raccoons, possums and cats.

The dead ones, the live ones, the ones that want to live in my yard, the ones that want to dig up my yard, the ones that want to dig up my flowers and fling them to the ground, the ones who try to live in my tree and the baby ones who scare me to death when I come home and find them in the garden, nose to nose with Daisy.  I don't like Lynette but on this one, we're sisters in suburban wildlife warfare.

Rant over.

Danielle's having a Halloween pity party.  She hates the baby, she wants it gone and she wants her free and easy life back.  Yo Dani, you should have thought of that before you decided to play fast and loose with the birth control.  Bree's like, don't think giving up this baby is going to be such an easy thing, if it were me it would be devastating.  Dani's like, well I ain't you so go bake some cupcakes.

Gabby comes home to find Victor's dad, Milton waiting for her.  God, Mike Farrell's getting old.  Which means I'm getting old.  Which means somehow I must stop the madness!

Anyway, Milton intercepted Gabby's breakup message and he wants to bribe her with a big fat check that's post dated thirteen months.  That's when the governor's race is over and when Gabby can cash it and leave Victor.  Gabby's intrigued.

Bad news for Edie, good news for Carlos.  The IRS can't find any secret account of Carlos' with ten million dollars in it.  Edie, correctly suspecting Carlos hid the money somewhere else confronts him about it and as Carlos makes the mistake of gloating, vows he'll pay.

Things are getting more and more dire at the Scavo household.  The possum ate around the poison and the trap caught Penny.  Lynette's only choice is to go to the local NRA advocate, Queen Bree for more fire power.  When Bree hears it's to get rid of a possum, she's more than willing to help, but those bleeding heart liberal politicians won't allow a God-fearing, red-blooded, American woman like her shoot live ammo in her own backyard.  Her advice to Lynette?  Take a trip over to Gun City next to the Baptist Church.  Tell 'em Bree sent you and get a 10% discount on an air rifle.  It won't kill the bugger, but should scare it enough so it'll never come back.

Gabby goes to see Carlos, tells him about Milton's check and suggests they wait the thirteen months.  Carlos calls that virtual prostitution and says, no way, no how.  When Gabby says they could use the money, Carlos reluctantly tells her about the ten million he skimmed from his old job and has tucked away.  The ten million is like Viagra for Gabby until she realizes Carlos had the money when they got divorced and she should have gotten half.  Now she can't trust him and she breaks it off with him...again. 

Susan and Mike go to visit Mike's Dead Daddy.  He's played by Robert Forester.  He too, is getting old.  Bleh!

For a few minutes Susan keeps up the pretense of finding out medical info and then just blurts out the question she really wants to ask.  Who did he kill?

His boss, Arnie.

Why?

Arnie went to the company head and told him bad things about Dead Daddy and because of that Dead Daddy lost out on a promotion.  Arnie got the job instead.

So you killed him?

No.

You see, Arnie walked around like he was so important, wearing his fancy ties and Dead Daddy thought he didn't deserve to live. 

So you killed him?

No.

You see, one day Dead Daddy confronted Arnie and told him what a scum bucket he was and how he didn't deserve to live.

Susan's silent

So, he killed him.

How?

With the tie.  Dead Daddy thought that was a nice touch.

Mike's like, can we go now?

Suburban drag queens from miles around descend on Wisteria Lane to haunt Bob and Lee's Halloween party.  Bob and Lee are dressed as pirates and honestly, I expected better. 

Now, Dr. Adam and Kat, they're dressed as Marie Antoinette and Frankenstein.  Whoever did Nathan Fillion's makeup, you deserve an Emmy right now.  It's awesome!

Meanwhile Lee can't resist telling Kat, "You came as "a self important queen who lost her power.  Isn't that a bit on the nose?"

Kat sneers back under her breath, "Lee making jokes about a queen, isn't that a bit ironic?"

A little soap opera shout out here.  Tuc Watkins and Nathan Fillion both played on "One Life To Live."  (In fact Tuc Watkins still makes the odd cameo.)  This is their first scene together on "DH." 

Bree and Orson are Little Bo Peep and Little Boy Blue.  Bree is Little Bo Peep, in case you weren't sure.

The only other costume to give Franken-Adam a run for his money is Andrew as Cher.  It's absolutely priceless.  He looks like Cher and Sonny morphed into one.  It's drag queenery costuming at its very best.

Last to arrive is none other than Danielle.  She's in all her pregnant glory and she came as...Bree.  She's all pink dress and white cardigan sweater and a marvelously Bree-like red, flip wig.  What a hoot!  Little Bo Bree freaks as Julie goes over to say hello. 

Dani-Bree spouts all kinds of classic Bree-isms like telling McCluskey "Really, Our Lord isn't happy when you take his name in vain, and use a coaster."  Heh.

When Little Bo Bree wants to know what the heck Dani-Bree's up to, Dani-Bree says she just wanted to make Little Bo Bree happy by being more like her.

Missing out on all the fun and madness are Mike and Susan.  They're at a Motel Six wannabe and Susan won't leave Dead Daddy dead.  He's an evil person, he's got no remorse, what if the baby gets his evil murdering genes?   Poor, tortured Mike is like see, this is why I told you he was dead.

Tom's dressed as a cowboy and finds Lynette in the treehouse dressed as a vigilante.  She's circled the wagons and armed herself with an air rifle and a John Wayne 'tude.  Tom seeing her like this is ready to call Bellevue.

"You've declared Jihad on a possum!"

Lynette then goes into this whole metaphorical, killing the possum is killing the cancer speech.  It's the evil invader that's attacking her home and her life and she won't let that happen.  Tom's like, okay crazy lady, just don't shoot me.

Back at the party Andrew's having a good time playing along and wants to know what Dani-Bree will name her baby.

"You're Not Good Enough" if it's a boy, and "You'll Always Disappoint Me" if it's a girl." Hee.

Little Bo Bree tries to get Dani-Bree to leave, but in the middle of their argument, Dani-Bree's water breaks.  Of course it does.

Little Bo Bree spouts some nonsense about it being part of the costume and she hustles Dani-Bree, Andrew and Orson out of there in a hurry.

Once they're home, Bree insists they not put Danielle on the couch because she just had it reupholstered.  Orson goes all Alexander Haig and says don't worry, I'm a doctor.  Bree reminds him he's a dentist and a drunk dentist at that, so she's off to get Dr. Franken-Adam.

Cut to the two of them running across the street to the Van De Camp house.  Bree is about to swear Franken-Adam to secrecy when he asks, "Does this have anything to do with the pregnancy you've been faking?"   See, now there's a doctor who knows his stuff.   He's green and dressed as a monster, but he knows his stuff.

Danielle's doing the fake TV labor screams we've all come to know so well, while Dr. Franken-Adam delivers the baby.  At that same moment, the Scavo brats are at the Van De Camp door looking for treats.  They get no answer but they hear the screams.  When they look in a window to see what's going on, they see Franken-Adam holding up the dripping, not yet cleaned up baby.  It's as frightening as it should be to kids that age and they run for their lives down the street.

It's a while later and Bree brings the baby to Danielle.  All of a sudden, Danielle morphs into a real person instead of her usual teen brat self and admits Bree was right.  Giving the baby up is way harder than she thought it would be.

Kudos to Joy Lauren in this one.  She went from mimicking Marcia Cross like a pro during her Dani-Bree phase to heartbroken Mommy all in one episode.  And she was believable doing both.

Gabby's going out of town and leaves a message for Susan to let her know.  She gets in her limo for the airport and there's Victor.  Evidently the maid told him Gabby had moved out and he wants to know what's up.  Gabby says she's sort of leaving him.

Victor says he wants to change her mind.  All of a sudden he clears his calendar and is all attentive and I don't want to run for governor, you're the most important thing...blah, blah, blah.  Gabby's softens and maybe she won't be leaving him after all.

Back at the jail, Susan goes to see Dead Daddy on her own.  Susan, give it up already!

Anyway, she doesn't listen and she doesn't believe Dead Daddy has no remorse.

He asks the question we all want to know.  "Why do you care?"

Susan says she's worried the baby will be born without a conscience or a soul, and she couldn't handle that.

Dead Daddy implies he is remorseful but he can't think about what he did without going crazy.  He says Mike had it tough growing up 'cause none of the other kids wanted to play with the son of a murderer.  Poor Mike. 

Dead Daddy also implies Mike's got some deep, dark demons that Susan better watch out for.  He had everything once also, and look what happened to him.

Edie pays Victor a visit and drops the picture bomb of Gabby and Carlos kissing.  She tells him to mainly blame Carlos because he seduced Gabby to publicly humiliate him.  Victor is ominously silent, no doubt thinking of all the ways he's going to have Carlos eviscerated. 

At the Scavo household, Lynette's doctor pays a visit to tell everyone the test came back.  Lynette's cancer free!

No more death, destruction and cancer wigs at the Scavo household.  Mama Stella and Tom are thrilled.  Woo hoo!

Lynette's in shock and we watch as she goes outside, breathes in the fresh air, takes in the shimmering stars, and thinks about how many more years she'll live to raise those horrible brats of hers.  Years of stepping on Tom and being the all around shrew we know and dislike.  She smiles and throws her arms wide and thanks the universe for all that is good.

That is until...she sees Scruffles belly up in the garden.  Lynette collapses to the ground and sobs her apologies to the helpless little creature whose life she destroyed.

Mary Alice tells us, "It's the thoughts in our head that terrify us the most.  What if she comes to regret her decision?"  That's Bree watching Danielle head off to school.  "What if he really is unhappy?"  That's Susan thinking about Poor Mike.  "What if the chance for love has passed forever?"  That's Edie trying to figure out another way to screw Carlos.

"How do we conquer these terrifying thoughts?  We start by reminding ourselves, what does not kill us just makes us stronger."  That's Lynette sitting satisfied on her porch.  Cancer free.