Desperate Housewives Is a Top 3 Most Dramatic Show To Ever Exist
I'm not sure this show has been "forgotten," considering I've heard a lot of people rewatching Desperate Housewives over the years. I personally owned Season 1 on DVD as a kid, and rewatched it over and over on my MASSIVE portable DVD player in my childhood bedroom. Airing on TV from 2004-2012, Desperate Housewives was appointment TV and most people always got sucked in watching with their parents. I'm not sure how it happened, but I forgot the level of drama that comes with this show. Each season has over 20 episodes (180 in total over 8 seasons), and every single episode yields some kind of INSANE tragedy; let's break down the dramatics of Seasons 1 and 2. (Yes there will be spoilers)
FOUR Affairs
We open right off the bat with Susan (Teri Hatcher) explaining that she divorced her husband Karl for having an affair with his secretary. Kid stuff.
Gabrielle Solis (Eva Longoria) is having an affair with her TEENAGE gardener, John (Jesse Metcalfe, AKA John Tucker). Okay, underage sex, sure.
Bree Van De Kamp's husband Rex has an affair with another "housewife" in town, one who accepts money for sex and "dominates him." Once Bree finds out, she tries to get him to teach her how to be a dominatrix. It doesn't go over well.
Susan has an affair with her own ex husband, Karl, while he is preparing for his wedding to their other neighbor and Neighborhood Hussy, Edie Britt. (this will be relevant when we talk about the fires.)
FOUR Murders
Martha Huber. The first murder that occurs on the street in the show, a nosy, busybody neighbor who knew too much. Murdered by Paul Young (a real problem.)
Rex Van De Kamp. He has a heart attack while being dominated by his mistress, thinks he's being nursed back to health by Bree, but in actuality he's being slowly murdered by his pharmacist (Roger Bart), who is in love with his wife, Bree, and switched his heart medication.
Juanita Solis. She discovered Gabrielle's cheating secret, and in her haste to run and tell her son Carlos, runs into the street and gets hit by a car. She later dies in the hospital. Who was driving the car? Andrew Van De Kamp, Bree's son, who was drunk and kept driving.
"Deirdre." This is an old murder we uncover, a recovering drug addict who sold her baby for drugs to Mary Alice and Paul Young. Mary Alice stabbed her in the stomach, she and Paul chopped her limbs off and stuffed her body in a toy chest. They buried it under their pool the day before the concrete was poured. She was discovered 15 years later.
THREE Home Invasion Attacks
Zach, Mary Alice and Paul Young's son, breaks into Mike Delfino's house to hold Susan hostage. Before this, he hits Felicia, dead Martha Huber's sister, across the head and knocks her down the stairs (she survives.) Zach holds a gun to Susan's head until Mike comes home, Susan wrestles the gun from Zach and accidentally shoots it off.
Caleb Applewhite, a mentally challenged teenager who just moved into the neighborhood under suspicious circumstances (people think he killed a girl in another town, his mother locks him in the basement normally) gets out of his restraints and prison, and heads to Gabby Solis' house. She finds him in her bedroom closet, eating ice cream. She runs for her life, falls down the stairs, has a miscarriage, resulting in lifelong complications getting pregnant.
Caleb Applewhite strikes again, but this time he is egged on by his brother Matthew to break into Bree Van de Kamp's house. He is to go and see Bree's daughter Danielle, who is dating his brother. Matthew told him to "go and kiss Danielle, even though she will pretend not to like it." We later find out that Danielle and Matthew set the whole thing up so they could run away together (They are 16/17.)
TWO Fires
Edit Britt's house went down in flames after she had a billion candles burning in her living room, while having an intimate night with a mystery man. Susan, worrying that Edie is sleeping with her crush Mike Delfino, enters her house pretending to need a cup of milk. She accidentally knocks over a candle and bounces. Martha Huber later blackmails Susan over this, having found Susan's measuring cup in the wreckage of the fire. Edie finds out too, and starts sleeping with Susan's ex, Karl.
Susan's ex, Karl, has proposed to Edie. He got cold feet, told Susan he was still in love with her, and also told her the wedding was off. They slept together. Susan finds out Karl lied, and eventually tells Edie what happened. Edie breaks into Susan's house, uses a watering can to spray gasoline everywhere, and sets it on fire.
TWO Suicides
The show itself starts with a suicide, by neighbor Mary Alice Young. She killed herself to protect her own son Zach, the kid I mentioned earlier who belonged to the junkie that sold him to the Youngs. Mary Alice killed her, only to later kill herself with the hopes of keeping it a secret. The trigger was a note from Martha Huber, who was blackmailing her (Martha f'real did deserve to die.)
George the Pharmicist. After murdering Bree's husband, throwing her therapist over a bridge and assaulting her son, George took a handful of pills to manipulate Bree into coming to save him. Instead, she sits and watches him die, because he won't admit to all of the bad things he'd done.
TWO Illegitimate children
Zach. He was sold to Paul and Mary Alice... but he really belongs to MIKE DELFINO! Mike and Deirdre (murdered junkie) had sex, Deirdre lied to him and said she had an abortion.
Layla. TOM SCAVO IN THE HOUSE! The Scavos have the least amount of drama when it comes to murder, but after we were all led to believe Tom was having an affair, we find he was actually discovering he had his own illegitimate daughter Layla, who lived in Atlantic City with her insane whorebag mom that Tom slept with before he met his wife.
ONE Coma
MIKE DELFINO! Nooooo!!! On his way to propose to Susan, Bree Van De Kamp's new boyfriend hits him with his car and puts him in a coma. Technically I think Juanita Solis was in a coma for a little while too, but because she died pretty quickly, we won't count hers.
Unbelievable for two seasons of TV, right? Wisteria Lane is one of the most fucked up streets I've ever seen. CONSTANT crime, constant betrayal, a continuous thirst for revenge. I'll keep track for a final tally of all murders, affairs, stalkers and illegitimate children from here on out. I can't wait to see where we end up.