Desperate Housewives recap: Judgment Day

Well, Desperate Housewives TV Watchers, you can tell we’re just about up to sweeps. How? Because the folks who make DH are clearly saving their best stuff for the coming weeks — and they totally scrimped on giving much verve to last night’s episode. For the most part, the snoozy hour of Housewives — packed with super-super interesting story lines like a killer monkey at a Juanita’s birthday party, Bree chatting for hours with the housekeeper at her sinful motel, and Mrs. McCluskey’s boy-toy Roy disrespecting Lynette — seemed to just be filler before we get to what should be a rather explosive November. (Remember, we’re supposed to be treated to a catastrophic plane crash here before long!

The best story line of the show remains the conflict between Katherine and Susan, and last night, things only got worse between the pair. About that promise in last week’s teaser that someone on Wisteria Lane would be shot in this week’s episode? Yup, that someone ended up being Katherine at the hand of Susan, who shot her nemesis with a gun that Julie had procured from her former lover’s son, Danny. (Julie told Dominick that she wasn’t going to cavort around with him anymore when he approached her at her welcome home party. But, I don’t think the fat lady has sung yet for this relationship.) Luckily for the show (it cannot afford to lose Dana Delaney!), Katherine was just grazed and the scorned woman decided not to call the police, opting instead to take the high road on advice from Angie Bolen. The new housewife, however, was just trying to cover her own but: It turns out that the gun was registered under the Bolens’ real family name, so it behooved Angie to calm Katherine. Because if the police got involved, the Bolens might be discovered for… For what? We still don’t know! Seriously, this secret better be damn good or there are going to be some mad viewers (read: me!) out there.

Despite it intersecting with the going-nowhere Bolen story line, the Susan-Katherine storyline yielded some of the funniest lines of the nights. ”What is she patrolling for?” Angie asked, after Susan and Mike made out during the Neighborhood Watch meeting. ”His tonsils?” And at the same meeting, I loved when Susan asked if anyone could take the Thursday evening, 9 p.m. to 12 a.m., patrol shift. Lee’s hand shot up, just before Bob looked over at him with fire in his eyes and said: ”Project Runway!” Oh, the gays are stereotyped, per usual, but it still made me chuckle.

Then, when Susan was insisting that she and Mike have a happy marriage and was trying to fend off Katherine’s remarks about where her hubby ran off to, I couldn’t help but snicker at this cheap laugh: ”He’s snaking a ladies’ drain, okay?” she explained of the plumber. ”And yes, I realize how that sounded. Get your minds out of the gutter.” And, one more! And this time, from Orson, who hasn’t been funny in a long time on Desperate. It was classic when all the folks from Wisteria Lane were gathered in Susan’s yard after she shot Susan and Orson decided the gun should be unloaded. So he says: ”Perhaps we should unload this before someone else gets hurt,” and then looks at his wife: ”Bree dear.” Hehehe. Of course, I just gave Orson the props with that funny, but I think it’s actually more to Bree’s credit. Of course that crazy bitch would know how to unload a gun without question! It’s been a while since the show’s revisited her gun-enthusiast history.

NEXT: Gaby’s killer partyDespite brief flashes of decency, the rest of the show’s story lines were so bad. Bree was seriously spending her time talking to some housekeeper about whether she feels guilty for cheating on her husband Orson? I don’t believe that she’d do that for a moment. No way. Also, did anyone else notice that Bree’s motel housekeeper friend was none other than Aisha Hinds, aka Miss Jeanette from True Blood? Even though I didn’t like her story line — it just felt so totally random and Bree would be the last person to entertain the opinion of a housekeeper — I like Aisha as an actress. She’s good.

Gaby’s story was similarly snoozy and didn’t further her in some larger way either. Gaby’s a bad mother? Shocker! She’s throwing a lavish birthday party for Juanita? Another shocker! The other mothers don’t like her? No way! No, but, really, Gaby’s whole arc last night was just not there. But I suppose it did provide some good lines — all from the divalicious Gaby of course. My favorite one: ”Come on, Juanita,” she told her daughter, while trying to make the other children want to come to her birthday party. ”We gotta buy bananas. The people at the party are gonna want something to feed the monkey.” Hehe. What a devious lady! Her shallow flaunting worked, though, of course.

One question on the Gaby front: Where was Ana? I thought that the introduction of Ana this season was going to be sort of this ongoing thing and that maybe there’d be some sort of delicious mystery or larger story going on with her, which would give the Solis family some purpose. (Otherwise, they honestly are just there to provide most of the show’s comic relief.) I guess I’d probably complain if Ana was in every episode, doing the same old rebellious-teenager thing, but I just feel like the producers should be using this new character to stir up some serious problems on the Lane. And who knows, maybe that is the plan coming up.

Finally, we got to Tom and Lynette, who were — oh, you guessed it! — totally snoozy, as well. I get it: Tom and Lynette have a great marriage! They’ve figured out what works for them! We found that out, yet again, after Mrs. McCluskey’s boyfriend Roy invaded the Scavo’s life and stirred up some trouble between them by ignoring Lynette’s repair requests and consulting man-of-the-house Tom instead. Turn out, as Tom told Roy after Lynette fired him for his disrespect, he simply lets Lynette wear the pants in the relationship so that she can feel in control. He wants to make her feel safe. Blah blah blah. I just dozed off… My big question here: What’s going on with Lynette’s pregnancy? That’s what I wanted to know. Is she really going to be able to deliver two healthy babies at her age? Let’s explore that a little bit, maybe, instead of digging into random story lines.

NEXT: Mrs. McCluskey’s sagging love lifeBut, at least there were a few redeeming, funny moments with Lynette — especially in terms of dialogue. ”He says I’m keeping him,” Mrs. McCluskey explained to Lynette about her strapped-for-cash boyfriend Roy. ”Hell, at this age, he should be glad to have something keeping him besides formaldehyde.” And this McCluskey gem, too: ”When Roy’s spirits are drooping, the problem is global. You get the picture?” Ewwww. Which is why I couldn’t have agreed more with Lynette’s hilarious response: ”Getting the picture isn’t the problem, it’s getting rid of it.”

I feel a tad bad for complaining about the show for most of this TV Watch, but it’s just how I felt. This won’t be remembered as one of the show’s best episodes. I’m ready for something to happen this season. Even though I’m sort of anticipating the whole plane crash thing, I have this sinking feeling that that’s not really going to do it for me, either. Won’t it all just feel like the tornado from two seasons ago? Won’t it feel stunty?

What I don’t like most about this season so far — and I blab on about this quite a lot — is that the ladies feel disconnected. Last night, we saw them all together at Julie’s welcome home party and then outside of Susan’s house after Katherine got shot. But even then, it was just for a few seconds and there wasn’t much happening between them. I love the episodes from season’s past when the ladies played poker and shared stories. I loved their reactions to what was going on in each other’s lives and just their funny banter. Correct me if I’m wrong, but have the five main housewives had a poker game yet this season? I suppose you could say that with Lynette and Bree working (and Katherine, before last week), it’s not like they’d have time. But screw that: This is make-believe TV world. Give me some housewives interaction! I need them to booze-it-up together and dish.

Anyway, that’s what I think. But what about you, TV Watchers? What’s on your mind in terms of Desperate Housewives? Was I too hard on Bree’s, Gaby’s, and Lynette’s story lines? Was there something redeeming in them that I missed? Do you also feel like the housewives feel especially disconnected from each other so far this season? Are you thinking the impending plane crash may bring everyone together?