TV-Reviewed

Advancing time by five years on Desperate Housewives has proven to be a good formula. By advancing time though, you have to create new storylines, because five years is too much time to really continue any of the previous storylines. At this point, we get what the overall plot is, which is Edie’s new husband Dave and what his agenda is. Things are developing slowly on Desperate Housewives and this episode simply wasn’t anything special.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t remember Desperate Housewives dealing with so many frivolous problems amongst the characters themselves. We’ve had some serious storylines like teen pregnancy, murder (of course), and cheating. All of the seriousness seems to have taken a detour from this season, maybe it’s due to the writers saying hey we’ve been there done that, but without anything serious, the show is starting to feel like some sort of a sitcom to a degree.

Gabrielle’s life has really taken a turn this season and we find out exactly how far when we see that the Solis’s have to sell their car to pay the mortgage. I don’t know how they’ve gone through all the drug money that they got at the end of last season, but apparently they didn’t invest it very well. When they sell their car, they buy a new one from the newly successful Andrew. It seemed like Andrew had turned over a new leaf and wasn’t his old evil self anymore, which is true, but apparently he still has a little of the evilness left in him as he sells them a car that has its fair share of problems and when the radiator goes bad, he refuses to pay for it himself. It’s nice to see that there is still an evil side to little Andrew, even if it’s not as out there as before.

Susan’s son MJ, who is probably the cutest kid on the show, is having problems with a bully and won’t tell anyone who the bully is. Susan found it surprising that MJ didn’t want to talk to her about the whole bullying thing, but it’s not all that surprising. Most boys want to talk to their dads about these types of things. Susan and Mike find out that it’s Gabby’s daughter, Juanita who’s the bully. The moment that MJ didn’t want to tell anyone who was doing the bullying I think we could all put it together that it was Juanita. I can see why the writers gave Gabby Juanita as a daughter, because she’s technically everything that Gabby isn’t, but Juanita doesn’t really bring anything to the show… well, nothing good at least. It looks like next week, Juanita is going to be involved in another mishap with Gabby and it’s just unfortunate that it feels like she’s getting too much time.

It’s quite sad that Susan and Gabby don’t handle it very well; more Susan then Gabby though. Gabby seems to encourage Juanita’s behavior and Susan makes the mistake of letting herself get drawn in also. The best cause of action probably would have been letting the kids work it out themselves and why is it that we never get to see Gabby and Carlos’s other daughter?

Teri Hatcher as Susan and Mason Vale Cotton as MJ

Bree probably had the most interesting storyline which had Danielle come back, bringing the now six year old Benjamin. Things have changed with Danielle, she’s married, Jewish, and a vegetarian, all things that Bree doesn’t accept. It’s been three years since the last time they saw Danielle and it’s taken them a lot of time to just get them down here. Bree is usually the smartest and most rational housewife in the bunch, so why wouldn’t she know that giving meat to a vegetarian child would have a bad reaction. Sure we know Bree is traditional, but it felt out of character for her to do something stupid like this. You can’t disagree with Bree though about Danielle home schooling him, because she was definitely not the best student. Danielle having Benjamin call her by her first name does show the disconnection that Danielle has with her son and the question is brought up this episode whether Danielle really even wants Benjamin or if she’s just trying to punish her mother. This was just another problem to add to Orson’s and Bree’s troublesome relationship this season too.

Then we had Edie’s new husband Dave, who seems to be charming the pants off of everyone except Mrs. McClusky. Her not so subtle attempts at trying to get information on Dave were horrible to watch because she was so obvious about what she was trying to do. Edie realizes that she doesn’t know anything about Dave either and it was sort of interesting to see her push him about where he went to school. Dave isn’t stupid though and manages to come up with the best story about having to support his family making her prying seem kind of foolish. The best thing about Dave in this episode was the way he was able to manipulate Lynette into letting Tom play his bass guitar. This was one of those times where you rooted for Dave because Lynette was being a pain to Tom about what he hasn’t been able to do. Dave seems to know how to push the right buttons on everyone though and if you can pull one on Lynette, then you’re good.

It was almost scary at the end when Dave realizes that it’s Mrs. McClusky who’s looking up his background and talking about her having dementia seems to foreshadow that there might be more in store for Mrs. McClusky than she knows.

This was okay, but most of the situations in this episode didn’t feel important and there felt like some plots didn’t get enough time when they should have like it would have been nice to see more Danielle, when this could be her last time on this season. It was cool to see Susan and Gabby together drinking, but the bond between all of them has really been lost.

This episode had its moments, but it wasn’t anything special. I want to see the situations be bigger and not as petty as bullying. It feels like there’s too much comedic stuff and not enough of the danger or suspense that we’ve had in previous seasons. Things are going to have to change on Desperate Housewives. The show has done a good job of recreating this world five years later, but now it’s time to fill this world five years later with some new drama and not the stuff we got in this episode.

Rating: 6.5