Desperate Housewives – Recap & Review – Pleasant Little Kingdom

Desperate Housewives
Pleasant Little Kingdom

Original Air Date: Dec 5, 2010

Annette – Associate Staff Writer
annette@thetwocentscorp.com

All is being revealed on Wisteria Lane this week. Secret loves are coming out in the open. Confessions about feelings of inadequacy are made, and Paul Young is finally revealing his plan of revenge to the neighborhood.

For a dead lady, Mary Alice still has a lot of concern for her neighborhood. This week in particular she wonders about the neighbors themselves. Are they trustworthy? Will they be there if you need them? Well, if her husband is that neighbor, mostly likely not.

Susan is still working as Lynette’s nanny. She has taken baby Paige to the park so Tom and Lynette decide to get “romantic” in the nursery. Susan apparently forgot something and walked in on them. She is mightily impressed by Tom’s “size” and later asks Lynette why she never bragged about it. Tom overhears this conversation and is upset because he thinks that Lynette only puts him down in public and never boasts about him. When they fight about it later, Lynette says she doesn’t brag about him because the neighbors already think he’s the perfect husband and that she’s the bitch. They kiss and make up as Lynette and Tom always do.

Carmen and Grace are still living with Gaby but Carmen is making plans to head to Texas to reunite with Hector when he gets back across the border. In a misguided attempt to keep Grace for herself, Gaby calls immigration and reports Carmen. When ICE shows up, Carmen freaks and Grace runs out of Gaby’s arms and into her mom’s. Gaby immediately feels bad for what she did and passes herself off as Carmen Sanchez. Now that they’ve briefly fooled law enforcement, Carmen really must leave. Gaby finally makes the difficult decision to Grace go. But you can see her heartbreak as Carmen and Grace drive off. So is this the end of Grace? Will they ignore this story and Grace altogether just like they do Celia?

Susan finds Renee sobbing in her house when she tries to drop off a wrongly delivered birthday card (she really does need to learn how to knock). Assuming that she’s upset about her birthday, Susan offers to take her out for dinner to cheer her up. But Renee’s not upset because she can’t get a man or because it’s her birthday. Seems she had a wonderful weekend twenty years ago with a man that she still loves. Later, when she’s completely soused, Renee reveals to Susan that she is in love with Tom.

Bree is picking up Keith for their date and in walks his dad who is still squatting in his apartment. It’s the middle of the day, but he’s just getting up, wearing a bathrobe and waiting for a pizza. Guess he’s not handling his pending divorce so well. Bree feels bad, so she invites Richard to dinner with them. Keith is not as thrilled as he has the engagement ring in his pocket. After several “date” with dad along, Keith and Bree finally get a dinner alone, so Keith has the restaurant put the engagement ring in a shrimp cocktail (“I’m too nervous to wait for dessert.”). In the meantime Richard shows up at the restaurant for takeout looking all pathetic, so once again Bree’s manners get the best of her and she invites Richard to stay. To try to get Richard to move on, Bree also invites an old acquaintance that she ran into at the bar to eat with them. Tracy turns out to be rude and crass and while Keith pulls Bree aside, the shrimp cocktail shows up and Tracy announces its arrival to the entire restaurant. Keith is supremely embarrassed and grabs the ring and runs off. Bree goes to Keith’s apartment to talk to him but the only one there is Richard, who hits on Bree. She rebuffs him and leaves.

Paul has posted a sign in the yard of one of his newly acquired homes. Coming soon – a transitional facility for parolees. He wants to turn one of the houses on Wisteria Lane into halfway house. The neighbors are freaked, but momentarily revealed when they learn he needs the approval of the homeowners association before that can happen. Sure that they will have all the votes against this idea, they call a meeting. It is at this meeting that Paul reveals that thanks to his compensation from the government for being wrongly incarcerated, he has purchased seven of the fourteen homes on Wisteria Lane, meaning he only needs one more house to have the majority vote. He starts calling out the neighbors individually and revealing their financial problems then offering to buy their house at above market value. This has all the neighbors turning on each other and beginning to argue amongst themselves. Exactly what Paul wanted.

Now, I know people who have been wrongly incarcerated do receive some compensation from the government. However, I don’t think they receive enough to buy seven different million dollar homes. This is a bit unrealistic and now has gone completely too far. I’m so over this story and Paul Young. Actually, and I hate to say this, but there wasn’t a single storyline in this episode that I found remotely interesting. Renee calling Susan the “smart one?” Really? Maybe Paul’s’ evil plan will work and the whole neighborhood will go down in flames like the end of a bad Stephen King novel. Needful Things anyone?