'Desperate Housewives': Effective Assertiveness
Susan Learns A Clue To Mary Alice's Suicide
Melissa Harrold, Staff Writer
Whether it was dealing with a shady neighbor, a snoopy
mother-in-law, a snotty school play director or a surly
husband, the women of Wisteria Lane practiced the art
of meditated assertiveness to manipulate situations to
their advantage this week.
The biggest conflict on Wisteria Lane -- aside from the
rivalries over attractive single men and covert extramarital
stealth operations -- exist in the Young household. Since
Mary Alice Young's suicide, her son, Zach, and husband,
Paul, have been acting very strangely. Now, Zach has
disappeared altogether, leaving Susan Mayer to take it
upon herself to investigate.
"Mary Alice was a wonderful person and now all anybody
thinks about her is that she went off the deep end and did
this selfish thing," Susan said.
Susan wanted to save her friend's good name, and never one
to disregard any convoluted scheme that enters her head, she
took matters into her own hands. Susan tailed Paul in a
borrowed car to the Silvercrest Juvenile Rehabilitation
Center, where Paul is keeping Zach under orders that the
doctors "forget the Freud; let's stick with the drugs."
Susan continued to do the sensible thing by sending Julie
to the juvenvile center undercover.
"Pretend to be bulimic. Gag a little!" Susan dictated.
The one piece of information Julie gleaned from the
drugged-up Zach is that the bad thing he did to cause
his mother's suicide had to do with someone named Dana.
Whether or not Dana is the key to the puzzle of Mary
Alice's suicide or not, at least Susan's snooping didn't
land her naked in any shrubbery this time. Live and learn.
Gabrielle knows all about sneaking, but she doesn't seem
to have learned from her mistakes yet. When a friendly game
of poker revealed Mama Solis' gambling addiction, Gabrielle
decides to stoop to new lows (even for her) and use it to
her advantage by stealing some quality time with John while
Mama Solis loses $15,000 at a casino.
What Gabrielle doesn't count on is Mama Solis' keen eye.
Instead of helping Gabrielle to hide her affair, Mama Solis
ends up figuring out that John the teenaged gardener has
been busier around the Solis home than Carlos suspects.
Gabrielle's alternate world appears to be closing in on her.
Will John feel the brunt of Carlos' anger? Stay tuned.
Lynette was a bit more successful with her assertiveness.
When a snobby mother, Maisie, wanted to give Little Red
Riding Hood, the play at Lynette's twins' school, a
politically correct ending, Lynette put her foot down.
"To hell with political correctness. Let's kill the damn
wolf and put on the best show that we can," Lynette said.
After winning the support of the more timid women previously
suppressed by Maisie's totalitarian school play regime, and
popping a few of her kids' ADD pills for extra energy, Lynette
had had it with Maisie's "alpha mom" routine, and
asked her to take it outside.
When Maisie backed down, Lynette knew she had won. "Just
so you know, next spring when we do Bambi, his mother's going
to take a slug to the heart and you're going to like it,"
Lynette said.
Although it probably wasn't as bad as Bambi's mom dying,
Bree and Rex didn't have such a happy ending this week
either. After their therapist suggested the help of a
"sexual surrogate," or a woman he described as
a sort of sex coach, to improve intimacy, an indignant
Bree (Marcia Cross) decided to take her marriage into her
own hands.
So, she put on her sexiest red lingerie under her best fur
coat, and marched to Rex's hotel room to get her husband
back. And it would have worked, too, if it weren't for Bree's
tragic flaw: obsessive cleanliness. A dripping burrito on the
night table distracted Bree, and Rex (Steven Culp) threw her out.
While her efforts didn't work, at least this episode gives
us some glimmer of hope that Bree is human underneath her
squeaky-clean Stepford exterior.
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