Susan finds a construction nail in her tire and brings it to Edie's contractor, Bill. He patches up the tire but tells her to take it in and the proceeds to ask her out on a date. She turns him down saying she's not ready to date again. At the Scavo house, Lynette and Tom are having dinner with Alisa and her husband Dennis. Lynette is disturbed when Dennis turns to her and gripes about his wife, who is in conversation with Tom and concentrating on reading his lips. Trouble is brewing at Bree's house: when she refuses to give Andrew money, he kicks her and Rex intervenes, telling him never to hurt Bree again.
Susan tells Edie that Bill asked her out, but Edie tells Susan she doesn't want her going out with him, even though she herself claims to not be interested. The dilemma eats at Susan, and she complains about it to her daughter at Juanita Solis's funeral. She isn't the only one unhappy--Gabrielle storms off when she sees that her husband has bought his mother a crypt, a purchase they can ill afford right now. She tells Carlos he need to take the plea bargain.
After the funeral, Lynette and Tom play tennis with Alisa and Dennis. Lynette takes Dennis to task for talking behind Alisa's back when he does it again. Bill asks Susan out again and this time she says yes. Carlos decides to take the plea bargain so that they can keep their house. He asks her to promise to wait for him--and to be faithful. She promises. At the Van De Camp house, Bree and Rex awaken Andrew--two men have arrived to take him to the youth detention center. He doesn't leave without a fight, and he spits in Bree's face on the way out. Afterwards, Bree thanks Rex for standing by her.
Alisa confronts Lynette: Dennis has left her thanks to what Lynette said to him. Lynette tries to apologize, but Alisa tells Lynette she didn't need to be rescued. On her date with Bill, Susan can talk about nothing but Mike. Edie happens by the restaurant and yells at Susan, promising she'll hate her forever. She then fires Bill. Susan and Bill argue on the way home--he says she invites drama into her life--just as her tire blows out.
That evening, Lynette bemoans her compulsion to involve herself in other people's business. Tom is supportive and tells her he admires her sense of what's right and her willingness to act on it. Gabrielle is summoned back to the hospital by the hospital's attorney, who offers her a settlement in exchange for her not pursuing legal action against the hospital for Juanita's fall. Gabrielle happily accepts and then calls her lawyer and learns that if Carlos doesn't take the plea, the settlement money is in jeopardy. She decides not to tell him. On the flipside, Susan decides not to learn the truth about Mike and returns the letter to him unopened.
Analysis:
I hate it when characters I like annoy me. It's bad enough when I can't stand a character and his or her very presence grates, but when a character I like behaves in a way I find inexplicable or irritating, it gets under my skin. If it's an out-of-character moment, it's just bad writing, but if it's believable for the character, then it makes me question if I really do like the character as much as I thought I did. I had the same reaction to one of the characters in a recent CSI: New York episode.
By now you've probably figured out that I'm talking about Susan. I understand that Susan is trying to get over Mike and thinks the fact that he concealed his past from her is horrible. That's fine--if she wants to break up with the guy, she's got the right. Hiding from him, while a bit childish, is a good way to avoid him. But not reading the letter he wrote her? That felt like a device intended to tease, and ultimately annoy, the audience.
What harm would have come if Susan had read Mike's note? I just didn't believe that curiosity wouldn't get the better of her. And I don't see why it would have been a bad thing for her to read the note. Avoiding him makes sense--she doesn't want her resolve to weaken, and given that kiss in last week's episode, seeing him might be a bit of a risk. That's understandable. But what flesh and blood woman could resist the temptation to know what is in that letter? Even if she doesn't intend to forgive him (and she doesn't have to), doesn't she at least want to know what's in that letter?
If she doesn't, the audience sure does. Teasing the audience isn't always a bad idea, but in this case, it seems like a device to drag out the Mike mystery longer. Sometimes attempts to draw things out work well; other times, not as much. This is one of the latter cases--it would have been better to have Mike reluctant to explain the whole thing to Susan rather than have her refuse to even read the explanation.
The burgeoning Susan/Edie friendship seems to be over before it really took off. Though her motives aren't admirable, Edie is right: Susan shouldn't have gone out with Bill. Any friend worth her salt wouldn't go out with another friend's guy without that friend's blessing, period. Edie should have given her blessing given that she wasn't really interested in Bill (or so she said--I suspect Edie wouldn't have admitted it to Susan even if she was), but Susan shouldn't have gone out with him. Bill was pretty much on target about her inviting drama into her life. It was satisfying to see someone call her out on it.
Gabrielle's fortune sure has changed in the last two episodes! She went from having no working septic system to learning she has a real friend in Bree, and this week her mother-in-law died without being able to pass on the juicy news that Gabrielle cheated on Carlos. The hospital settlement couldn't have come at a better time, either: Carlos is headed off to jail for eight months at Gabrielle's behest. It looks like things are going quite well for Mrs. Solis, meaning trouble must be around the corner.
Bree's marriage is slowly recovering: Rex did himself a world of good when he finally grew a backbone and sided with Bree against Andrew. It was probably the best thing he could have done for their marriage, and in the end, when Bree thanks him, the two share a sweet moment. There's hope for this marriage yet.
Mary Alice Young's voiceover suggests the episode is about heroes, but I think it's also about compromise. In all three marriages--Gabrielle and Carlos, Bree and Rex, and Lynette and Tom--we see the pairs disagreeing and then ultimately coming to a solution and learning more about each other in the process. There's compromise, but also a genuine attempt to understand where the other partner is coming from. It proves that the realism beneath the ironic tone is often what makes the show such a strong one.
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Kristine Huntley is a freelance writer and reviewer.
