Mikey Likes TV

In the year 2013, Katherine is a part of the inner circle of housewives. Gabby is fat, has two fat children, and her skin does not seem to be faring well from the years and years of excessive makeup. Bree is some sort of Martha Stewart-esque celebrity with a fondness for dressing like a Victorian widow. Lynette’s children are still comically (and conveniently) delinquent. And Susan swapped Mike for another husband played by the unconvincingly heterosexual Gale Harold. Also, everybody’s hair looks really, really bad.

This is what we learned in last night’s season finale of Desperate Housewives when, as it had been speculated/expected/confirmed in the past few weeks, the last minutes of the episode took the story five years into the future. It really doesn’t seem like the best idea for the show, but it’s also too soon to tell. DH tends to cater to popular response, and if the general consensus is anything like my own, expect a bit of backpedaling come fall.

A whopping 80 minutes of show preceded this climax, and of the many revelations they brought, none topped being able to finally stick a fork in the “Why did Katherine leave Wisteria Lane 12 years ago?” mystery. Not because it was that much of a surprise, but because ABC actually showed a dead baby. As it turns out, he night before she bolted in the negative seventh season, a bookshelf fell on Katherine’s daughter (the original Dylan) at the same moment she knocked her ex-husband to the ground. Since she didn’t notice the noise, the little thing kicked the bucket long before her mother thought to check on her. Katherine’s crazy aunt told her to bury the toddler in the backyard, so that’s what she did. Then she went to Romania to find replacement child in an orphanage. (Duh!) Not the most coherent story, but it’s nice to clear all that business up.

So it looks like Dana Delaney isn’t going anywhere. And no matter where this foolish time jump takes the story, I doubt I am either. I still freaking love this show too much. I should be embarrassed.

If ever there was an opportunity for a very special ABC crossover of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and Desperate Housewives, this has to be it. But as much as I’m sure Edie Britt and Ty Pennington would probably hit it off, that is thankfully not the case. The above photograph is just the aftermath of last month’s DH tornado that left the set looking less like Northern California and more like Oklahoma and an undisclosed number of characters dead. Everything I had read about the show’s finished scripts and production schedules led me to believe that the episode was the last of the season, and I complained accordingly. Turns out that was a bluff (read: I’m retarded), so the fate of Tom, the kids and wig lady should actually be revealed this weekend.

The episode in question, “Welcome to Kanagawa,” may be an art reference or an inappropriate comparison of the minor trials of a cute, almost exclusively white, fictional suburb to war-torn Japan, but it does indeed mark the end of this commendably awesome season of Desperate Housewives. I could easily pick up my whining where I left it back in December, but I’ll take this for the gift it is: one more episode than I expected and a hopefully less cliffhangery finale. If you can’t wait to find out at least a few of those on Wysteria Lane who lived to see another desperate day, here’s a sneak preview…

I’m don’t know when my love for Desperate Housewives became such a cross to bear. Few instances come to mind where a TV backlash was so immediate, lingering and fairly unwarranted. It would make sense if the first season had set a precedent of something other than soapy antics and an almost pandering multi-demographic appeal. All the smart writing in the world couldn’t disguise what the show was – a safe bet for advertisers. Even now, with the dips in quality and the pop culture scarlet letter viewers have had to wear, DH still does remarkably well in ratings and consistently wins its timeslot. I’ll admit to feeling more guilt than pleasure at points over the last four years, but this season’s return to form is enough to make me wave my fan flag high. And, for the first time since the beginning of the strike, truly bemoan the premature death of the 07/08 season.

When Pushing Daisies ends next Wednesday, my lips well settle into a frown for at least a day or two. When Friday Night Lights goes dark early next year, I may even shed a few tears. But neither of those shows will dump me with a cliffhanger the size of last Sunday’s Desperate Housewives. The highly advertised tornado finally rolled into Fairview, and with it, an undisclosed number of deaths, two unlikely unions and the complete destruction of Wisteria Lane. Hyped as “the – best – episode – of – the – SEASON!”, it fell short of last year’s supermarket hostage triumph, Bang, but it was probably the best episode they’ve put out since.

It began with Mary Alice’s oft cliché narration, but they were rolling out the big guns, so she’s eerie with the foreboding: the tornado will take the lives of one husband and at least one Wisteria Lane fixture. The imminent spousal death she speaks of ends up being Victor Lang – Gabby’s creepy husband who garnered an absurd excess of influence and media attention for a suburban mayor. I’m pretty sure the mayor of my hometown works at a hardware store during the day.

On the non-tornado front, we probably said goodbye to new neighbor Adam (Nathan Fillion, tear…) when Bree accidentally exposed his philandering. Her immediate show of support and affection for his stoic wife (her bitchy arch-nemesis, Katherine) causes them to smile at each other and hold hands for the duration of the storm. They’re totally besties now! Trauma may also have inspired Gabby and Edie to become girlfriends, but those hints were far less heavy-handed.

The cliffhanger, if you don’t already know, is the source of Felicity Huffman’s scream that ran over and over in the torrent of commercials. It should have reached a Nancy Kerrigan level of hilarity by the time the show finally aired, but its hard to laugh at a woman whose five children and charming husband are laying under a burning pile of rubble that used to be her neighbor’s house. It’s not the kind of scene you like to be left with on the eve of an indefinite hiatus, even though the outcome won’t likely be as devastating as it looks. A show that submits Emmy entries to the comedy categories is not going to kill babies.

So there you have it: I love Desperate Housewives. You can slap a trucker hat on my head, hand me a copy of Vice and mock me for how culturally out of touch I am. If you were watching, you’d know better.

Conceiving a child while starring in your own a primetime series has got to be a pain in the ass. And when above chest shots and strategically placed pillows no longer cut it, and babies start popping out, you’re left with just one painful option – an annoying and poorly explained absence.

Marcia Cross has always had an incredible knack for adding depth and charm to hackneyed soap operas. Her turn as Kimberly on Melrose Place was well-acted, and the storyline of her going bat-shit crazy was as interesting and entertaining as the show ever got. Now on Desperate Housewives, the extremely buzzworthy, come disappointing, come satisfactory and occasionally impressive ABC show, Marcia is once again the most deserving of the spotlight. But after false rumors of homosexuality were immediately followed by the announcement of an engagement (to a dude), a marriage and then a pregnancy with twins, Marcia has spent much of the third season in the shadows before going completely MIA for the past 4 episodes.

This is particularly rough because Marcia’s absence requires that they fill her screen time with the two worst people on the show: Eva Longoria and Nicolette Sheridan. Aside from the occasional storyline involving the housewives’ angsty teens, Eva and Nicolette provide us with the least interesting moments in a show that is frequently uninteresting. When you find yourself holding your breath until the next scene with Teri Hatcher, you know you’ve got problems.

All is not lost though. Marcia Cross and that creep from Blue Velvet return from their several month honeymoon for the May 20^th season finale of Desperate Housewives. And with no real mystery left in this season’s arc, one can only imagine the kind of last minute shenanigans they have planned.