Even for a show as notoriously uneven as DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, Sunday night’s episode left us feeling more than a little annoyed. Why? Well, here’s a few reasons. Five, to be exact!
Oh, look, another neighbor with a secret that has absolutely no impact on the neighborhood. Who cares if Angie and her clan get blown to bits? As is usually the case, the new family on the block had very little meaningful interaction with the people we actually care about. What a waste to have John Barrowman play a boring madman with baggage. And not for nothin’, but in this day and age, how did it take him nearly two decades to track down Angie and Nick? Sorry, not buyin’ this sad mess.
It was bad enough that we spent an entire season on a so-called mystery only to have the show turn an under-five into the serial killer. It was kinda cool revealing that Susan, not Julie, was her intended victim, but that was about the only payoff. Having Lynette suddenly develop an interest in the kid and have him move in was just plain moronic. Building the penultimate episode of the season around a very pregnant Lynette being held hostage by a B-lister? Downright mysogonistic.
Enough already. Maybe it’s time for Marc Cherry and company to admit they don’t have a clue what to do with Susan and cut their losses. They screwed up the Mike/Susan romance ages ago and haven’t recovered from that fiasco since. Now, she’s relegated to one silly subplot (Susan and Gaby try to crack the grading code!) after another (Susan breaks all the sinks in the neighborhood so Mike can fix them!). Turning her into a figurine-juggling loan shark was cute, but why hasn’t the character had an actual interesting plot? For the love of God, bring Katherine back! She and Mike had some actual chemistry!
Did this show really need another unbalanced person? Eddie, Patrick and now, just for the hell of it, Bree’s kinda stepson? It’s beginning to look as if the writers only know how to tell two kinds of stories: One-off plots that have no real impact beyond the episode in which they are played out, and psychos. If three psychos wound up on my street in a single year, I’d totally move. I’m just sayin’.
We’ve complained before about this show’s lack of exciting cliffhangers, but that doesn’t mean at least a few of the major storylines don’t continue week after week. So what the hell was with the “To Be Continued…” card at the end of Sunday’s episode? Of course it’s to be continued! It’s a primetime soap! 
