As much as I hate ratings and what they stand for, I wouldn’t mind knowing how Desperate Housewives did in the ratings last night. They had the two hour premiere of 24 and The Golden Globes to contend with; two highly anticipated programs that could have easily knocked a new episode of Desperate Housewives out of the consciousness of TV viewers. (Then again, I didn’t know the Golden Globes were coming on tonight myself…) Why do I care about this war for ratings from three surefire ratings winners? Because Desperate Housewives could have been pre-empted, because again, like last week, we were offered almost nothing new in “must see” shock factor. Does that mean the show was boring? Not at all. Just could have been held over a week or so is all I am saying. We did see the return of Katherine (sane Katherine, not that psycho Glenn Close clone) and we saw some improvement in the Lynette/Tom storyline, but the rest? Fluff.
Again, I ‘blame’ Dollhouse.
*Sigh*…
But the one storyline that looked like fluff on the outside is actually something serious going on in schools today if you pay more attention to the grouping of students. That is reason alone for me to wish that last night’s DH could’ve been placed with less stiff competition.
Susan and Gaby
It’s Juanita’s first day (week?) of class at Oakridge Academy and Gaby stops by to have chat with Susan, who asks Gaby which group of students Juanita belongs to: Giraffes, Chipmunks or Leopards. When Gaby announces that Juanita is a Leopard, Susan shows signs that Leopards are not advanced at all. Susan says that M.J. is in the Giraffe group, which she makes sound as the advanced group. No one truly knows the actual level each group represents, because the school officials keep it secret so parents won’t get soccer mom-ish and go on a rampage in high competition form. But Gaby is not one to just brush this to the side.
After a unsuccessful attempt at trying to get the principal to squawk, Gaby does some detective work on her own. Juanita has two friends already and each girl is in separate groups, one being a Giraffe and the other a Chipmunk. Gaby takes pictures of each girl’s homework and “breaks the code” by noticing that each girl’s math homework is a different level of math. She gloats to Carlos that M.J. is actually in the slow group and Juanita is actually in the advanced group. Later, Susan arrives with old math books of M.J.’s that she wants to give to Juanita so she can “catch up”. With a simple greenlight from Carlos, Gaby fills Susan in on the code and that M.J. is actually in the slow group.
Susan takes this info home and watches M.J. eat with food on his face. She realizes that M.J. doesn’t really know his rights from his lefts and she panics. Mike comes home and Susan explains the whole grouping system to him, but Mike doesn’t think its all that bad. That is until they witness M.J. having trouble getting his hand out of his glass. They watch from afar and hope that M.J. learns how to free his hand. M.J. eventually does and Susan is determined to prove that her son is smart.
The next day Susan talks to one of M.J.’s teachers, who claims that M.J. is a good student, but it looks like a forced lie to Susan. So Susan blurts out in front of other parents that Gaby broke the code and she now knows the order of the student placement. This infuriates the teacher, who reports this to the principal.
A day or so later, Gaby and Susan wait to see the principal and while doing so they come to a truce that both of their kids are bright no matter how society labels them.
AMEN!!!!!!!
Lynette
During a slightly tense dinner with Bob and Lee, Tom thinks that he and Lynette should try counseling, which Lynette think is for the weak and helpless. Tom does go to counseling and mimics the same journal keeping that Lee does, which irritates Lynette to no end. So to find out what Tom has been saying about her in counseling (since Tom won’t let her see his journal), Lynette visits Tom’s shrink (guest star Jane Levees) to see what Tom has been saying about her. The shrink won’t disclose that information, but works on Lynette enough for Lynette to reveal that she likes to be in control of things in her life and when she can’t she gets mad (which we already knew). The shrink deduces that Lynette couldn’t control the death of her baby, which is where the “Aha!” moment comes into play. Lynette has a seat to talk to the shrink. Later she reveals to Tom that she will be joining him in therapy and will also be keeping a “feelings” journal.
Bree
Bree has her hands full with Orson and I swear to God I kinda wish he would’ve took Karl’s place in death…
Bree tries to get Orson to take a bath, because he hasn’t taken one in over a week and his physical therapist (and Bree) shouldn’t have to smell his funk. Orson doesn’t want to and demands that Bree go to the store again even though she just got back from running errands. Orson’s blatant attempts at slowly propelling Bree into a nervous breakdown make Andrew’s bratty ways back in earlier seasons of DH seem like child’s play. But Bree soldiers on until Orson demands that his waffles have strawberries and whip cream on them. Bree fixes them, but doesn’t give them to Orson until he says “please”. When Orson gets really nasty, Bree leaves the food on a high shelf and leaves the house. The physical therapist arrives and Orson acts like he fell out of the chair reaching for the waffles. Bree comes home and gets an earful from the physical therapist, who accuses Bree of starving and not taking care of Orson.
Later, Bree tries to get Orson to take a bath again, but he still refuses and calls her a whore after she tells him he stinks. He explicates that while he can get clean, Bree cannot wash away her whorish ways. Bree has had enough and rolls the SOB outside, douses Orson with dishwashing liquid and puts the hose on him. She does this until she gets Orson to say, “Please”. He does this, but explodes about how he hates having to rely on someone else to help him, especially Bree, who wakes up an hour later than he does in the mornings. Because of that, he has to lay awake until she comes check on him and he wishes he can do stuff on his own. Bree, feeling his pain I guess(?), tells him she is sorry and to please forgive her.
BULL. CRAP!!!!!! Boo Hoo, sniff-sniff, wah-wah and all of that. No tears here, buddy.
Angie
Angie immediately doesn’t take a liking to Ana, who is now dating Danny, after the young girl doesn’t eat the food Angie cooked, makes big plans for Danny, and knows more about Danny than Angie does. After talking with Lee, who tells Angie that she better accept Danny’s happiness and Ana or lose him forever, Angie tries to get to know Ana a bit more and tells the girl to not lead her son on. Ana explains to Angie that she would never do that, because she and and Danny share a common bond when it comes to having troubling backgrounds. Ana claims that she was drawn to that aspect of Danny and knows how to deal with it. Oh, and she tells Angie that she isn’t going anywhere so get used to her. Hmm…
Katherine
While talking to a shrink of her own, Katherine reveals how she descended into madness. It was all because of how lonely she was and how the man she loved lived across the street from her in another woman’s arms. Katherine claims that she went mad due to only accepting her delusions over reality, because in her delusions she wasn’t alone. But when the shrink tells her that it’s great that she is progressing, Katherine declares that it’s not, because now she has to deal with what she did to her friends, who she doubts will ever forgive her. Reasonable assumption, but boy is Katherine wrong…
Mrs. McClusky comes to put that nonsense to rest and tries to get Katherine to open up to her, but Katherine thinks that Mrs.McCluskey is crazy if she thinks the residents of Wisteria Lane would accept her back with open arms and even goes as far as
saying that she won’t return to the block.
But Mrs. McClusky is the neighbor that people wish they had, because she represents the model citizen and friend. She doesn’t give up on Katherine. So later she comes back to the hospital with Gaby, Lynette, Bree, and Susan. The women all hug and Katherine is happy again and we leave the six of them gossiping and catching up.
The Wisteria Lane Ledger
– Gaby and Susan’s storyline was about educational tracking and how it separates smart students from slow learning students. I was a victim of educational tracking and wrote a research paper, as well as a proposal, to eradicate the practice from my local school system. A lot of school systems will not tell you that it exists, because it can lead to angry parents in the long run as this episode suggests. So I applaud DH for shining a light on another problem that plagues the school systems and doesn’t get much focus or discussion.
– Orson. I do no care if he is helpless now. Orson drove Bree into the arms of another man, he technically caused the accident that killed Edie Britt and he wants to whine about his needs? F’ you, Orson.
– It is sooo good to see Katherine back from Insanity Lane. Missed ya, babe!
– Lynette finally opening up about her problems? Nawwww…. How long will it last though?
– Ana and Danny? I must’ve missed something last week, because it looked as if Danny was going to play Ana and not the other way around…
It seems that we back on hiatus. So see you guys until next time!
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