The women of Desperate Housewives are a bunch of jealous ladies. Bree's book is released, and her big, fancy publicity blitz has her friends in a tizzy. Not helping matters is the fact that Bree is named Businesswoman of the Year and writes the same inscriptions in all of their copies of the cookbook.

Jealousy is the theme of the whole episode of Desperate Housewives. The women are jealous of Bree's perfect life, Mike is jealous of the new man in Susan's life, and Orson is jealous of his important wife. Underneath the seemingly happy lives of suburbia, everyone wants to keep up with the Joneses because the grass is always greener on the other side.

Bree (Marcia Cross) learns that Orson was fired from his job, which he hid because he's jealous of his wife's ability to earn money. Orson (Kyle MacLachlan) has a brilliant solution: becoming business partners in Bree's burgeoning empire.

Lynette (Felicity Huffman), jealous that Bree is working, tries to take over the publicity for Bree's business, but it ends poorly when Bree doesn't like Lynette's marketing ideas. The result is Lynette getting drunk at Bree's party for being named Businesswoman of the Year. Things get worse when she realizes the man in charge of Bree's publicity is Lynette's old assistant.

Drunk Lynette slurs out another ad campaign idea to Bree before confessing how she feels like Bree looks down on her now that she's famous.  The next day she apologizes, leading to yet another Wisteria Lane reconciliation.  Lynette opens up about feeling upset about being jealous of Bree's success.  However, Bree admits she's not so successful because Orson has moved into the guest bedroom.


On parents night at the kindergarten, Mike (James Denton) is shocked to see MJ's drawing of his family includes Susan's house painter boyfriend Jackson instead of his real dad. He gets jealous, so he tries to buy his son's love with a new bike. Unfortunately, Jackson teaches MJ how to ride the bike before Mike gets a chance to do it.

Susan (Teri Hatcher) then bribes her son to pretend to fall so Mike can think he taught his son how to ride a bike. Mj stops, pauses, then takes a dive, which actually hurts him. Now I have to rethink which woman on Desperate Housewives is the worst mother, because while Lynette cyber-flirted with her son, Susan just tricked MJ into hurting himself.

MJ outs Susan's treachery to the doctor, and also keeps describing Jackson as the guy who "has sleepovers with mommy, and they drink lots of wine."  For anyone who watches The New Adventures of Old Christine, Susan is exactly like Julia Louis-Dreyfus' character on that show.


Gabi's jealousy over Bree's perfect life leads her to force her fat daughter Juanita to make friends so that Gabi (Eva Longoria Parker) and Carlos (Ricardo Antonio Chavira) can have a little afternoon delight. Curious about her husband's blindness, Gabi and Carlos engage in some blind sex by blindfolding Gabi during the act. Things end badly when the blindfold comes off and Juanita is watching her parents do it. I'd say the emotional scars will force her into a dangerous addiction, but it looks like Juanita is already addicted to Ding Dongs and Ho-Hos.

Gabi's brilliant excuse is that they were wrestling, and Juanita begs her daddy not to hurt mommy. Carlos wants to tell Juanita about the birds and the bees, but Gabi doesn't think she's ready to know about riding men like mechanical bulls in exchange for jewelry. Carlos wins, but things go poorly when Juanita starts telling all her friends about sperm.


In mid-life crisis land, Tom (Doug Savant) and Dave (Neal McDonough) are auditioning other house husbands for their garage band. Rather than accept other random guys, Dave is obsessed with getting Mike into the band, so he breaks a pipe to lure Mike the plumber to his house for some manipulation.

At home, Dave gets angry at Edie (Nicollette Sheridan), causing him to seek out his secret breifcase full of pills so he can self medicate his rage. After calming down, Dave apologizes by agreeing to buy the old Mary Alice Young house for Edie to flip, but only if Mike can stay there first so he's close enough to join the band.


-John Kubicek, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image courtesy of ABC)