REVIEW: Desperate Housewives “Finale”

So it looks like I was wrong about how the troublesome and often exasperating season seven of Desperate Housewives was going to play out. And while some of what happened on Wisteria Lane this week came as no surprise to anyone it didn’t make it any less upsetting or emotional. With season eight looking like it might be the swan song for these housewives I am feeling a twinge of sadness over the whole thing. The end isn’t here yet though, so grab a glass of bourbon and meet met at the mailbox because we have some things to talk about. We’ll take it one episode at a time, and be careful…thar be spoilers here.

“And Lots of Security” kicked off with Susan (Teri Hatcher) in jail for poisoning Paul Young (Mark Moses). Thankfully the whole affair involving her poisoned pot pies was wrapped up before the first commercial break thanks to a last minute confession from Mike that Felicia had offered him 10K to kill Paul. But someone bonks him on the head with a frying pan before he can leave town. I wonder who? Lynette (Felicity Huffman) and Tom’s (Doug Savant) romantic weekend at a bed and breakfast backfires when they immediately slip back into the passive aggressive and manipulative behavior that threatens to end their marriage in the first place. Gabby (Eva Longoria) is still worried about the strange man in the hat who has been following her around. After she catches him lingering in the front yard again she asks Bree (Marcia Cross) to loan her a weapon from the Van De Kamp arsenal. Bree sends her to a gun safety class first which does not go well at all. An episode in the grocery store reveals that the man is actually her presumably dead stepfather Alejandro (Ugly Betty’s Tony Plana). This new information changes Gabby’s mind about gun safety class and she is suddenly Jackie Bauer, bad-ass.

Gay Lee (Kevin Rahm) drops in on Bree to dish about her hunky new man after he recognizes him as someone who frequented Fairview’s one and only gay bar. Bree doesn’t believe Chuck (Jonathan Cake) is gay but Lee has a “homopathic” memory. Some very Bree-esque investigating reveals he is most decidedly straight. Oh, they also find out that Steve and Fat Steve broke up and Fat Steve is now Angry Steve.

Loony Felicia (Harriet Sansom Harris) resurfaces with devious plans for Paul Young. When he regains consciousness she has tied him to a chair and has him on an antifreeze drip. With less than an hour to live Paul uses his time to let Felicia know exactly how much he enjoyed killing her sister and how much he hates her. Felicia gets the confession she wanted and settles in to watch Paul die. Her plan is foiled when Susan returns to deliver MJ’s toys to his old room and scares her into thinking the police have arrived. Before Susan can free Paul she is attacked by Felicia and her enormous syringe. Paul manages to get free and chokes Felicia, intent on killing her. Susan talks him out of it and Felicia escapes. When the cops arrive Paul confesses to killing Martha and is led off to jail. As Felicia heads out of town, no doubt plotting a new way to exact revenge on Paul Young she loses control of her car and is hit head on by a semi truck. We can assume she did not survive this accident, but this is Desperate Housewives. Don’t be surprised if she comes rolling down Wisteria Lane next season in a motorized wheelchair she steers with her mouth yelling about Paul Young and her dear departed daughter Beth.

The second episode, “Come On Over For Dinner” celebrated the triumphant return of Susan and Mike to Wisteria Lane after a season in exile in the poor part of town. Susan fully expected to step right back into her life cavorting from door to door with coffee cup in hand but she is shocked to find out that her friends all have too much drama going on to welcome her back. The girls feel bad of course and show up with muffins baked with care and love by Bree. A progressive dinner party is planned to welcome the Delfino’s back to the lane which involves enjoying a different course at each house.

In between muffin baking sessions Bree is consumed with her fiery loins and frustration over how slowly Detective Chuck’s divorce is proceeding. Hoping to put his future ex-wife Doreen (Anita Barone) in a good mood she enlists Renee’s help and sets off to spend lots of money at Doreen’s sassy boutique. The clothes are not exactly Bree’s style and she manages to reveal her plan to Doreen, who then makes even more demands on Chuck in the divorce. This angers Chuck and he gives in to her demands in order to be rid of her and allow him to focus his energies on Bree’s fiery loins…which he does immediately.

Someone else with a fire in their loins is the now armed and dangerous Gabby Solis who lures Alejandro into the woods where she intends to kill him for reals this time, but not before she forces him to admit that he raped her. I though Eva Longoria played this scene amazingly well even if I thought she should have shot him instead of letting him walk. This is a decision she will come to regret.

As the progressive dinner party gets underway Renee (Vanessa Williams) finds out that her ex-husband has remarried which sends her into a drunken stupor during which she climbs on the piano to sing and then seduces the bartender Edgar (Jason Winston George). Lynette leaves to prepare the salad course and finds Tom has left. When he returns later from a shopping trip they discuss their estrangement again and Lynette delivers the death-blow, telling Tom she was relieved when she thought he had left her. I’ll admit I was a bit relieved as well. This has been coming for a long time and I applaud Tom for having the guts to walk out. That having been said…the unraveling of this relationship on screen during these final two hours was heartbreaking to watch and when Lynette admitted she was relieved to have him gone I may have choked up a bit. Does this mean Renee will put the moves on a newly single Tom in season eight? She did have a thing for him after all.

Bree’s main entrée course goes awry when she’s too busy tending to her fiery loins to tend to her Cornish hens. The neighbor’s arrival and the ensuing awkwardness that followed was a great scene and provided some much needed lightness to the otherwise emotion-heavy hour. The relief was short-lived though, for when Gabby heads home to prepare dessert she finds Alejandro waiting for her. He gets nasty with her, calls her a slut and makes a move. Gabby, convinced her stepfather has her gun is helpless and doesn’t want to kiss, don’t wanna touch, just wants to smoke one cigarette and hush. (Sorry, couldn’t resist a Gaga reference). Lucky for Gabby her husband Carlos returned early and killed Alejandro in the living room with the candlestick.

The final few minutes of season seven plays out like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope. The girls arrive to help Gabby prepare dessert and find Gabby and Carlos fussing with a dead body on the floor. As they watch the others come down the street Bree steps up and decides to help them cover it up to save Carlos from going to jail for killing an unarmed man. They stuff Alejandro in a trunk and continue the dinner party without so much as a second glance. There was a great moment where Bree notices blood on the candlestick while talking to Chuck over cheesecake. She quietly wipes it away and smiles.

And so season seven comes to a close and I for one am relieved. After starting off in a very weird place I thought it ended on a high note. It was good to see Paul Young somewhat redeemed in the end. He seems to have made peace with his creepiness and genuinely wanted to make it right again. I do wonder what will become of poor, troubled Zach who we can only assume is still off at rehab. I really thought Paul be dead by now though instead of rotting in jail. I suppose this leaves the door open for his return next year but if Mark Cherry is smart this will mark the end of Paul Young. However, it would be poetic to end the shows run coming full circle back to Mary Alice, Paul and Zach who were at the center of the season one mystery. As for the mostly wasted Renee, it was nice to see her get some screen time at the end. I hope they do Miss Williams justice next year.

So what can we expect next year? Well the word on the street is that Susan Lucci will be joining the cast which is just FABULOUS. I hope the rumors are true, but after seeing how they wasted Vanessa Williams I worry a bit about bringing a daytime diva like Lucci to the lane in what could be the final season. Maybe Marc Cherry has a grand plan in mind for Williams that has yet to be revealed. He certainly pulled things together for the last part of season seven so I have high hopes. Seeing how the separation and possible divorce of the Scavos affects the lane will be interesting for sure. As for Bree, I’d like to see some resolution between her and Andrew and it is nice to know that Carlos no longer hates her now that her penchant for deception has saved his ass. Hopefully they will give Lee and Bob some screen time as well, including their invisible adopted daughter. Join me back here in the fall and we’ll watch together.

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