Desperate Housewives – Recap & Review – Epiphany

photo: abc

Desperate Housewives
Epiphany

Original Air Date: Apr 25, 2010

Annette – Senior Reviewer
annette@thetwocentscorp.com

Last week we discovered that the Fairview strangler was Eddie, friend of Preston & Porter and some of the other Fairview teens. When I wondered at the choice by the writers someone kindly pointed out that Julie has insulted him in the first episode after his comedy club act, so it was starting to make more sense.

We saw in last week’s previews that Eddie is not done killing, so who else is going to die? Let’s get right to it…

Of course Eddie lives in a dump – the house is completely rundown and the yard is full of weeds. Inside his mother is on the couch and she’s drunk. She needs more booze so she ransacks Eddie’s room because she thinks he’s stealing it. Instead she finds the scrapbook we saw in last week’s episode. It’s full of newspaper clippings of various murdered women. Seriously people, stay far, far away from Fairview!

Mary Alice introduces us to four year old Eddie. He’s sitting in his front yard when she goes jogging by and hears his parents arguing. His dad is walking out on them and saying that he never wanted to have a kid. Mary Alice brings Eddie and his mom (Barbara) some mac and cheese and they talk. When Mary Alice returns with a teddy bear for Eddie, she realizes he is home alone. She finds his mom in a bar and drags her home with a big lecture. Barbara then tells Eddie it’s not his fault she ruined her life. Nice.

Gaby met Eddie on the day she moved to Wisteria Lane when she found him playing in the bathtub in the master bedroom – he looks like he’s around ten years old. She kicks him out of the house but reconsiders when he calls her beautiful. He comes over every day to help her with things around the house. When he walks in on Gaby and Carlos naked in the bathtub, Carlos thinks it’s inappropriate that they’re “friends.” He wants Gaby to stop spending time with him and make some friends. When Gaby breaks the bad news to Eddie he goes home where his mom is making out with some guy on the couch. They don’t even stop when he comes through the door. He goes to his room, finds a B.B. gun and goes outside and shoots a bird (I guess we’re to assume this is his first kill).

Bree hires teenage Eddie to paint. She tries to give him advice about meeting girls, but the girl he likes is Danielle. Bree goes to Eddie’s house to gently tell him that Danielle doesn’t feel the same way, but he’s not home. She tries to explain to his mom instead. When Eddie comes home, Barbara tells him that Bree is there to stop him from stalking Danielle. Then she belittles him and laughs at him. Bree is appalled by her behavior. He eventually returns to continue painting Bree’s house and it is obvious how hurt he is by the neglect he has felt his whole life – you can’t help but feel sorry for him, until he hires a hooker. He tries to give the hooker flowers, but she laughs at him. He becomes enraged and kills her.

Susan’s interaction with Eddie begins at the coffee house where he works. He’s sketching a picture of a girl and Susan is impressed. She offers to help him work on his technique. A few weeks later Susan signs him up and pays for a seminar at an art institute. After the seminar Eddie goes to Susan’s and finds her in her wedding dress – it’s the day she’s remarrying Mike. When Eddie tells her not to marry Mike and him instead, she laughs at him because she thinks he’s just trying to settle her nerves. That night he’s lurking outside of Susan’s house and he sees a woman come out of the house to put the garbage out. He never sees her face and he walks up behind and strangles her. So he was after Susan and not Julie! He visits Julie in the hospital and tells Susan that whoever did this wasn’t a monster – it was someone weak and insignificant and he should just do the world a favor and kill himself. Susan says that someone who could hurt Julie would be too cowardly to go through with it. Eddie says “you’re right.”

It’s Lynette’s turn. We start off with Eddie at the Scavo’s playing charades. Barbara shows up and drags Eddie out of the house accusing him of stealing her alcohol. Lynette is also appalled by Barbara’s behavior. We’ve caught up to the beginning of the episode and while Barbara is ransacking Eddie’s room he’s at the Scavo’s fixing Lynette’s car. Lynette is upset that they haven’t done anything to help Eddie’s situation with his mom. Eddie goes home and sees his mom with his scrapbook. She asks him if he was the one that hurt those girls and he admits it. When she tries to call the police he hits her with a liquor bottle and then strangles her to death. Lynette picks that moment to show up at his house and tell him that she and Tom want him to move in with them. That’s when she sees his mom on the floor but wrongly assumes she’s “dead drunk.” Eddie agrees to move in.

Our parting shot: Eddie wrapping up his mother in a shower curtain and throwing her body in the back of his car.

I’m not usually a fan of these episodes where they tell someone’s history through their interactions with all the different housewives. It worked great with the handyman episode and I thought it was being overdone, but maybe the writers have just decided that this is their MO. Anyway, it definitely worked in this episode and I think it was one of the best of the season. I kept being torn by being disgusted by Eddie’s evilness one minute and feeling sorry for his pitiful situation the next. In the previews for next week we see that Eddie is hurting someone and Lynette is trying to stop him and also somebody gets hit by a car. Can’t wait! Leave me your two cents…

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