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Sunday 17 June 2012

Desperate Housewives 8.23 "Finishing the Hat" Review


Mary Alice (Brenda Strong) takes us back to how it all began, at least for her and how Martha Huber (Christine Estabrook) realized she was keeping a secret.  Mary Alice wasn't a convincing liar for someone with a secret.  Martha was so insistent and she just couldn't handle her.  Mary Alice: "This is how it started; the woman who had lived on the street for years came outside and introduced herself to the woman who was moving in next door...and just like that, Martha Huber figured out I was hiding something...and my new neighbour made it her mission to find out what my secret was...and this was the beginning...of the end."  (Also for the show, ha.)

Flashes back to 8 years of episodes and gunfire from Mary Alice et al.  "It was just after breakfast when Susan Delfino told her friends she'd soon be moving from Wisteria Lane.  They were shocked their old friend was already leaving...so shocked it took them a moment to notice another had returned."
Katherine (Dana Delaney) returned only to offer Lynette (Felicity Huffman) a job as CEO in New York.  Her pastry company is going great.  Bree (Marcia Cross) comments on how Katherine mistakenly thought her croissants were best on the Lane.  Renee's (Vanessa Williams) wedding dress was ugly, as she tells Ben (Charles Mesure) "beauty is suffering."  Ben now realizes why it's bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding.

Carlos (Ricardo Antonio Chavira) tells Gaby (Eva Longoria) the gardener quit as one of them was too hard to please.  Gaby just tells him to find a new one and gets promoted to new Head of VIP Sales.  Gaby worries she'll mess up.  Notice how the men's roles were all reversed at the end of the show.  The women were all working and in charge.  Susan (Teri Hatcher) pushed Julie (Andrea Bowan) on a date with her obstetrician, Dr Baily (Wes Brown).  Julie reminds her she found Mike (James Denton), which Susan replies made her lucky.

Karen (Kathryn Joosten) wants Bree to find the Johnny Mathis song, Wonderful for her the record and she needs a record player too.  Trip (Scott Bakula) calls Bree who isn't interested.  At least he didn't give up on her.  Bree liked him but can't trust him.  Karen wants Roy (Orson Bean) to get his number as it's "fun to screw with peoples' lives one last time."  Lynette tells Katherine she and Tom (Doug Savant) are back together and she can't take the job.  Katherine thinks Lynette won't be happy just sewing buttons and okay she was right but that's not exactly the way you recruit someone.

Gaby returns home late and Carlos ate her steak, he asks if she lost her phone?  She gives him an expensive watch and he likes it but then recalls that's what he used to do to her.  He used to buy her jewellery for being a lousy husband and Gaby also quotes him too.  Carlos should have paid more attention to her.  Gaby: "you're sexy when you're angry."
Carlos: "that's mine too."

Lynette bumps into Natalie (Nike Doukas) who makes Lynette realize she misses work.  That meeting looked like Katherine had planned it.  Carlos hires a new gardener, a woman, just like Gaby and John were floozing.  Renee's dress was horrible, as I've already said and that hat, what was with the hat?  The second one was much better and more her style.  Bree checks on Karen before she leaves for the wedding and Roy tells her Trip found the record for her and a record player.  Karen was happy.  He tries to convince Bree that Trip's a good guy and he didn't even drop by Bree's either.

So anyway what was Julie even doing in the limo?  Gaby and Renee go to the store to get a new dress for Renee after Julie's water breaks.  Suppose that scene was one last funny piece of action in the show when Susan steals the limo and Gaby and Renee run off without paying for the dress and shoes and run all the way to the wedding.  What no taxis?

Renee taking the dress from the woman was how she typically shopped in New York as she mentioned to Bree a few eps ago.  Gaby and Renee's escapade on the street, where else would you see such a scene and the passer-bys didn't even notice Renee having a shouting fit at Ben.  Oh and Gaby needing to pull her dress up every second!

Lynette wants the job and Tom claims she was negotiating her salary with Katherine.  He would go anywhere with her if he "believed it would finally make her happy."  But nothing will make her happy and complete.  Ben invites Trip to the reception and Bree just happened to be standing by the cake and the door.  She thanks him for helping Karen and he replies, "once helped out a client of mine."   He asks if she's got anything else to say to him - like giving him a second chance.  He wants her and Bree asks why?  He knew everything about her.  He won't beg for her and she thinks he manipulated her when he kissed her so he knows all her flaws.  He explains everything she did only makes her human and he doesn't want to "love an ideal."  Of course panning in on the cake signified a wedding for them too.

Carlos is sorry for the joke with the gardener and Gaby admits that was a shameful thing in her life, having the affair and it was for Carlos too since he neglected her.  There Carlos says what I said earlier on, "our roles are reversed now."  Gaby has grown up since then and they do the Tango.  Susan tells Julie she may have one torrid affair left in her but if she feels lonely, she'll have all her memories.  Lee (Kevin Rahm) and Bob (Tuc Watkins) toast the couple and Lynette makes a speech about herself, well it was about herself really, as everything always was. Bree has her make up done at this point after making out with Trip!

Lynette was already happy and toasts "to remembering" - the show no doubt!  Tom agrees to go to New York with her and Karen passes listening to her song.  Julie gives birth, which was a tribute to Karen, as one life ended another began.  That's the cycle of life.  Roy calls Bree, but no one else.

Mary Alice: "Susan Delfino moved from Wisteria Lane on Thursday..."  The women play poker for the last time and know Gaby's tell of tapping the side of her glass.  Bree says it is the last time they will play and Gaby used to have a fantasy of them staying here - of how she stays gorgeous and they all age.  Lynette adds she's dreamed about that.  Mary Alice: "It was a promise made in all sincerity but sadly it wasn't meant to be."

Susan drives around the block one last time.

Funny Bree had to go to Kentucky to get elected!  The new home owner, Jennifer (Lindsey Kraft) has a secret of course cos that's how Mary Alice started out too and she looks like she'll be boring.  But we don't get to see what's in the box she hides.  Appearances by Mike,  Rex, (Steven Culp) George, (Roger Bart) Karl, (Richard Burgi) Martha, Mary Alice, et al, as Susan drives away. Including: Lillian (Elle Geer), Alma (Valerie Mahaffey), Ellie (Justine Bateman), Juanita Solis (Lupe Ontiveros) and an uncredited one by Vance (Jonathan Cake).

Bree didn't have a relationship with her lawyer as Mary Alice says in the opening, since they only kissed and she didn't see him again after that.  Ben and Renee never got a mention at the end and neither did Lee, Bob or Roy.  They weren't members of the cast proper but could have had a line about them, it would have been fitting.  It's as if they weren't even part of the Lane and especially Renee, she wasn't an original but deserved a mention.  Oh and Paul appeared at the end too as a ghost, so take it he's dead now too. It was Paul. I had a feeling Susan was going to drive into Mike as she wanted to drive round the block. Oh and what happened to Orson too?

So ends an era. The title of this episode was a song title from the Stephen Sondheim musical Sunday in the Park with George.  Marc Cherry had the idea for the ghosts of Wisteria Lane since season 1.  Also Mary Alice killed herself on a Thursday and Susan leaves the Lane on a Thursday when she moves away.  Roselyn Sanchez auditioned for the part of Gaby.  Marc Cherry also wanted Nicholette Sheridan back as Edie but that wasn't possible cos of the court case which led to both fans and critics complaining of this.

Lynette also met Natalie at the store in the Pilot and there were more references to season 1, such as Lynette being married to Tom and still being married to him at the end.  Bree was a conservative in the first season and she goes back to being this again at the end.  In Ah But Underneath in season 1, Carlos lavished Gaby with gifts, which is what Gaby was doing for Carlos now.  Susan was single when she moved to the Lane and single when she left, albeit with her children and grandchild in tow.  Katherine returned as she first arrived in season 4's Now You Know, with the camera showing her heels.

It's a shame that after being through so much together, none of the women kept in touch in the future.  Though it's understandable, I know people like that who used to be my friends.
As for the wedding cake reference as I pointed out between Bree and Trip, Mary Alice called Bree and Orson the "perfect couple" in the episode It Takes Two.  Bree was married to Rex, then Orson and now Trip.  As for her career in politics, would these conservative women really have accepted her with background of indiscretions, okay it's nitpicking, but still.  No wonder she ended up in Kentucky.

In the Pilot, Lynette, Gaby, Bree and Susan were introduced in this order and that's how they were shown in the end too.
Mary Alice and Paul Young kept their secret hidden in the toy box (as shown in One Wonderful Day) and the newcomer, Jennifer keeps hers hidden in a small box. "No secret remains Buried..."  it's as if the Wisteria Lane curse will continue for whoever moves in, though it wasn't like this for every resident.
Mary Alice: "Even the most desperate life is oh so wonderful..."

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