See Also: Brenda Strong (Mary Alice Young) People Guide

On most soap operas, even if audiences saw your character die an on-screen death, that doesn't mean you'll never be resurrected. But according to Brenda Strong, that's not the way things work on Desperate Housewives.

"[Mary Alice] is really dead," Strong told the Chicago Tribune, when asked if the producers are secretly plotting to bring back her character for the May sweeps. "It's not going to be a Dallas situation, where I wake up and it's all a dream kind of thing. As far as I know, I don't think [showrunner Marc Cherry] has any intention of going in that direction."

Even without coming back to the land of the living, Mary Alice Young will remain a pivotal character on the show, thanks to the mysterious circumstances surrounding her suicide. "The first eight weeks of playing Mary Alice, I didn't know a thing and I have to say ignorance is bliss," Strong told the Australian site news.com.au in a separate interview. "Now that I know everything, it creates a certain amount of responsibility [...] and I've never been good at keeping secrets."

So far, that isn't showing, as Strong refused to say anything further. She only revealed that now that she knows why her character killed herself, she also understands her family's behavior. But it does seem that Mary Alice's reasons will be a surprise for viewers, as DH creator Marc Cherry told news.com.au the following: "I purposely made it seem like one thing and it's not."

If all this seems cryptical, Cherry also promised many of the show's mysteries will be unveiled in the first-season finale. "I won't jerk the audience around endlessly," he said. "I know exactly where this is going."

With Mary Alice's secret being revealed at the end of this season, does that mean Brenda Strong won't be returning next year? Viewers needn't worry, as Marc Cherry described Strong's voice as a "warm blanket," and said the voiceovers are an integral element of the show. "It's been really funny," Strong said. "People really tune into my voice, and I'm getting recognized a lot more. I don't know if you can hear it, but there's a certain tonality that's definitely familiar. It's happened to me when I'm standing in line at coffee shops ordering my tea, and someone will go, 'I thought that was your voice!' And I've had some people when I've been in conversation on the phone for a bill or something, they'll go, you sound an awful lot like that woman on Desperate Housewives. It's kind of exciting."

More from Strong can be found in the full Chicago Tribune interview. Meanwhile, if you'd like to read about how Marc Cherry nearly turned Desperate Housewives into a British show, head on over to news.com.au.

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