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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