See Also: 'Children and Art' Episode Guide

Online reviewers have weighed in on the latest episode of season three of Desperate Housewives.

Here's what they had to say about "Children and Art":

• Lindsay Soll at EW.com felt the writers followed up the hostage drama well, and liked one new story in particular:

  So I didn't know how the writers were going to follow last week's episode, which went out with a bang, but I think they did a pretty good job. My jaw completely dropped at the end. It was a given that when Lynette headed into Art's house, she would uncover some kind of secret, but the whole pedophile angle blew me away. (The P on his shirt totally has a double meaning now.) I'm happy to see a new twist that has nothing to do with affairs or comas. Art seemed so genuine and decent. This just goes to show that you can never judge a book by its cover on Wisteria Lane.

  You can read her full analysis over at EW.com.

• Dave Anderson at TV Guide Online said he enjoyed the episode too, but didn't like the new story. "After going through almost the entire episode enjoying Lynette's scenes with her kids and with the man who saved her life, new neighbor Art, I knew she would eventually discover something strange about Art. I mean, it's pretty much impossible for a normal person to move to Wisteria Lane. But Lynette discovered that Art has hundreds of photos of shirtless little boys taped on a wall, in a room of trains, toys and pinball machines. Ewwww. Makes the episode's title even more fitting: 'Children and Art'."

• But Jen Creer at TV Squad said she liked the metaphors in Housewives. "Big big big to-do's about Lynette being grateful to new neighbor Art (who supposedly has a sister in a wheelchair who lives with him. Um, do you suppose that is a lie?). She goes so far as to have Art pretend to be a superhero. And boy, who would suspect that mild-mannered Art would be capable of saving someone's life with ice cream, let alone be Protector Man in disguise? Unfortunately, Lynette seems to have just handed Art a free pass to get more kids down to his creepy basement so he can take naked pictures of them. And she successfully created a world in which her kids view Art as irretrievably cool. I love the metaphor here about surfaces being deceptive until you get you get to know someone's depths (depth = basement, get it?)."

• Jeff Commings at AZNightBuzz.com titled his review "don't trust first impressions" but then seemed pretty set on Art's guilt. "To see those Polaroids of young boys in Art's basement was deflating. First of all, can we have a season where we see something happy in a Wisteria Lane basement? Second, I had hoped that Art would be the cool adult on the block for the kids. God knows the Scavo kids don't have any adult they can trust. Now, there's one more to watch out for. But didn't you know that something wasn’t going to be right in the house once Parker knocked and the door opened? If you've seen enough TV shows and movies, you know that any door that is supposed to be locked but opens on a slight touch won’t reveal good news on the other side. There are too many examples to point out."

• There is also brief recap at Television Without Pity, where visitors have so far rated it a B+.

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