Desperate Housewives – Recap & Review – Down the Block There’s a Riot

photo: abc

Desperate Housewives
Down the Block There’s a Riot

Original Air Date: Dec 12, 2010

Annette – Associate Staff Writer
annette@thetwocentscorp.com

Chaos has irrupted on Wisteria Lane. Paul Young has put his plan in motion and the neighbors do not take it well. Lynette (who appears to be the Homeowners’ Association president) is desperately trying to stop the plan for the halfway house, but she doesn’t have much luck.

Meanwhile, Bree has to deal with Keith and his botched attempt at a proposal; Gaby is still suffering over the loss of Grace; and Susan isn’t sure what to do with her knowledge of Renee and Tom. Chaos indeed…

Paul, through some more manipulation, convinces Bob and Lee to sell him their house (they think he already has enough houses for the majority vote and he’s just trying to help them since most of the neighbors are mad at Lee). With Bob and Lee’s house he has the majority vote, so he goes ahead with the halfway house plan. Now the mayor is going to give him an award for community service. The neighbors (with the help of a somewhat vigilante group of neighbors on Hydrangea Circle), plan a protest.

Gaby can’t stop crying over Grace so she goes to Lynette for advice since she’s the only other housewife to have lost a child. Lynette tells her to write Grace a letter (that she’ll never mail) telling her how much she loves her. While writing the letter, Gaby gets interrupted and leaves the room. Juanita finds the letter and discovers the truth. When she confronts Gaby she tells her that Gaby isn’t her mommy. She then runs out of the house right into the protest starting out on the street.

Susan tells Tom that she knows about his past with Renee and tells him that Renee is still in love with him. She says she’s not going to tell Lynette but that Tom should tell Renee to leave town. He does, and Renee goes looking for a fight with Susan during the protest.

While planning for the protest, Parker, Lynette’s son, is the only voice of reason. He wonders where the ex-cons are going to live and he doesn’t understand why no one wants to give them a chance. This gets Lynette thinking for a second, but she still doesn’t want them on the street.

Keith attempts to propose to Bree once again, but she offers him a compromise before he can pop the question. She asks him to move in with her. He readily agrees but dear old dad throws a wrench in the works. He tells Keith that if Bree really loved him, she would marry him. When Keith pushes the issue with Bree she says she’s not ready so Keith says they shouldn’t be together and moves out before fully moving in. Richard comes over to help Bree around the house with the jobs Keith left and rescues her from a scary situation with one of the new ex-con neighbors. He pushes himself on Bree while trying to comfort him and she tries throws him out of the house but he won’t leave until he finishes the work. Creepy – seriously creepy. Bree calls Keith over and explains what happened with his dad. Keith gets irate and punches his dad, starting the Wisteria Lane riot.

When the protesting neighbors see Keith hit his dad, they assume he’s one of the ex-cons (because of the tattoos and ratty tank top I guess) and they start beating him up and the other neighbors start fighting each other. Keith’s getting beaten pretty bad until Bree comes out with a gun and fires a shot in the air to get them to stop. This causes full on panic with the rest of the protestors who all start pushing and shoving.

Susan is caught in the mess and gets knocked down and trampled. Too her credit, Renee realizes that Susan is nowhere to be seen and frantically starts looking for her because she’s afraid she’s hurt. She and Tom find Susan, but she’s unconscious.

When Juanita ran out of the house, she hid in the back of Bob and Lee’s car. They are trying to drive out of the neighborhood, but a few realize they are the ones that sold their house and they start rocking the car and smashing the windows and attacking Bob and Lee who are frantically trying to protect Juanita. Gaby sees Juanita and runs to help (when Juanita sees Gaby she screams “Mommy” which was very sweet). In the best moment of the whole episode, Gaby yanks the leg out of under a guy standing on Bob and Lee’s car before he can hurt the guys or Juanita – don’t ever mess with a Mama.

Juanita is safe, but Bob and Lee are still getting messed up by the neighbors. When Lynette sees what’s happening to them, she runs to their aid even though she was one of the first neighbors to get angry with them when she found out they sold their house. Lynette also confronts Paul and blames him for the riot. His response – it’s your neighbors who started this.

By nightfall, the riot is over and the streets are empty but the Lane is pretty much in ruins. Paul goes out to pick up the award he dropped earlier and while he’s gloating, he gets shot in the heart (I totally called that right before it happened). He dies with a smile on his face.

Lee was shown packing a gun while he and Bob were leaving, but I don’t think he’s the one who shot Paul. My money is on wifey-poo Beth. We know she’s knows how to handle a gun (she pulled one on Susan during Halloween), plus she was sent by her mother to kill Paul anyway. My guess is she would not have liked what happened on the lane and would have blamed Paul.

I thought this whole riot thing was going to be cheesy when I saw the previews last week, but it was actually kind of scary. My heart was pounding throughout the whole thing. It was an interesting display of the mob mentality. Now of course, the question is “Who shot Paul?” Maybe we’ll find out when Housewives returns on Jan. 2. Leave me your two cents!