Right from the start of this Desperate Housewives premiere, I was wondering why no one was feeling sorry for Katherine! And as a corollary, why everyone felt happy and nice for Susan conveniently forgetting that Katherine was distraught (I felt the same way when Meredith and Derek got back together and no one remembered that he was dating someone - Nurse Rose - on Grey's). In the final hug, though, my question was answered: it's because she's a bitch.
But there was probably nothing more surprising than the revelation about the new Wisteria Lane family. And it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the son was probably behind what happened in the final scene.
Elsewhere on the
Desperate Housewives opener, it was revealed that it was indeed Susan who Mike married - no surprise there. But just as we thought things would go scot-free, Katherine showed up and we get a flashback to eight months ago. Then flash forward and we get Susan's gown getting delivered to Katherine's, who readily wore it while cooking some soup. Nice touch.
At first, both Susan and Mike thought she was taking the "high road." Of course, she wasn't. Desperate, after all, is in the show's title.
Elsewhere on Wisteria Lane, Bree didn't want to do in a couch, but instead want to do the deed somewhere "special" - as if that diminished the wrong in the infidelity.
Meanwhile, we are reminded it is definitely on with Gaby and her niece, somehow erupting in Gaby having to go to a club to fetch her and getting booed and Ana being bodysurfed against her will to the stage - talk about textbook embarrassing mother. But things still ended well, sort of.
Lynette realized that by the time the twins she's carrying graduate from high school, she'd be on her 60s - (and on the graduation ceremony, she'd be the crazy old lady with oatmeal in her chin), while Tom rejoiced - "Eight and a half months more of that, yey!" - or something. She then had a little talk with a woman pregnant for the first time, and the discussion ended up with "there will so many moments in your life when you'll feel lonely, but you will never - be - alone."
We also got to meet the newcomers to Wisteria Lane, who didn't seem to have a problem with living in a house where someone shot herself. It's probably just me, but there was something haunting and foreboding in that scene when they decided to get the house, and the way the son looked at the just returning Julie. And while on pretense of doing tutorial with Julie, he asked her out. Angie and the housewives shared special recipe cookies, with Katherine making a surprise visit - "Hello, Susan!"
All in all, it was an awesome premiere. The final montage and voiceover sort of got back to what the show was all about - suburban pretenses and scandals couched in manicured lawns and genteel impressions.
- Glenn Diaz, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
(Image courtesy of ABC)