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Monday 31 December 2012

Desperate Housewives 8.17 "Women and Death" Review

Mary Alice: "Everyday on Wisteria Lane, women face their share of problems.  Like a paper boy who's off the mark...these everyday problems can seem like matters of life and death but then something truly horrible comes along and we rush to hold onto what really matters...before it's gone forever."

Mary Alice: (Brenda Strong) "When a loved one dies, certain decisions have to be made...preparing a body for burial is never an easy thing to do, but unearthing one can be even harder."
Gaby (Eva Longoria) has a flash to Carlos (Richardo Antonio Chavira). She's a mother, her wedding dress and agrees to quit his job.  Mike (James Denton) tells him he's a great man if he feels he needs to do this to be happy, then he should.  Mike helps Carlos out in rehab.  He doesn't want Gaby here cos she'll be ashamed to see him like this.

Mary Alice: "As she arrived at Mike's funeral, Gaby considered what her friend, Susan (Teri Hatcher) must be going through, after all Mike was the love of Susan's life and that got Gaby thinking about the love of hers."

Bree (Marcia Cross) is questioned by the police.  They caught  Mike's killer and Bree talks Renee (Vanessa Williams) into attending Mike's funeral.  It's not about heh guilt but it's to honour Mike.
Lynette (Felicity Huffman) sees Tom (Doug Savant) turn up with Jane (Andrea Parker), cries on his shoulder but Jane doesn't let her have her moment.

Mary Alice: "As Lynette looked at  a wedding photo of Susan and Mike , she thought about the tragic end of their marriage and that started her thinking about the beginning of her own."   Haggles over a cheque at a restaurant with Tom. Which means there will be a second date.  Lynette didn't want children or a ring but likes white picket fences, she plans to become VP of the company. Tom buys the house for her on Wisteria Lane but she doesn't recall the fence.  Mike helps Tom move out and tells him he should fight harder for his marriage since Lynette and Tom are meant to be together.  Which is apparent and they do get together eventually.  The time apart won't help them since they'll grow further apart whilst they are waiting.  Someone has to make the first move.  "Hope it's not too late for either one of you."

Karen (Katherine Joosten) tells Lynette she shouldn't be bothered about Tom bringing Jane.  Mary Alice: "Bree Van de Kamp found herself helpless in the face of a powerful man and this got her thinking about the ways she handles powerful men before and how she'd learned to do it." Bree learned to cook from her mother.  How to handle questions and wear a mask to conceal emotions.  If she knows what a man is thinking they won't have power over her.  Her father cheated on her mother.  Rex (Steven Culp) thinks he can read Bree which Bree knows and puts on her her 'plastic' face.  Bree doesn't think it's safe feeling every emotion she has.  Rex complimented Gaby and was hurtful to Bree when he tells her she's the most gorgeous model he ever met.  It was insightful of her mother as she serves his favourite waffles for breakfast.

The detective asks if she knows Ramon but Bree has never met him.  They have a tip that Bree killed him.  He also tells her she's hard to read which she takes as a compliment.   Her mother raised her to be graceful.

Mary Alice: Susan and her wedding day.  Mike is happy and wrote her a poem.  Bob (Tuc Watkins) writes a will for Mike and Susan, she thinks they are being jinxed.  Mike tells her it's not doing it that will jinx them.  Mike: "If something happens, there's nothing more important than knowing you're taken care of."  MJ (Mason Vale Cotton) mentions getting killed, has questions on death, heaven.  Susan says he's in heaven with the people they love.

Susan speaks at the service and says they didn't talk about what he wanted for the funeral as they didn't talk about it much.  She realizes he's in a better place, "in a diner eating cheeseburgers with his family...fishing at a waterfall and watching football with his son."  She will say goodbye now and reads Mike's poem: "I love you once, I love you twice, I love you more than beans and rice.  Renee sings.

Mary Alice: "Yes, as much as death takes from us, it also gives.  It teaches us what is truly important, like giving back after a lifetime of taking...going after something we should never have let go of..but sometimes the lessons learnt after a person's death aren't the ones we expected."

Where were Lee and Roy at the funeral?  Not much of a proper send off for Mike, since the episode was meant to be about him and his funeral, instead we get kind of a selfish look at the women's past and their lives, reminding them of what they're missing out on in their lives.  Aside from Susan and her recalling his poem and Renee's singing, everything else revolved around the women, as said.   Lynette seeing Tom at the funeral with Jane.  Should he have brought her considering she didn't really know him and especially after the flash we had with Mike helping Tom move out and telling him he and Lynette belong together.

The flashes to how Mike affected the women and men's lives reminded me of 5.13 episode The Best Thing That Ever Could Have Happened, the show's 100th ep and which guested Beau Bridges as the handyman, Eli Scruggs, who suffers a heart attack and dies, and the women have flashbacks to how he affected their lives, whilst playing poker.
The title of the episode is a Steven Sondheim song from the score to the film  Stavisky.

1 comment:

Vinyl Fences said...

They are all awesome fences! I really like the same one you do.

White Picket Fence