DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES 6.9 - "Would I Think Of Suicide?"

WRITER: Jason Ganzel
DIRECTOR: Ken Whittingham
GUEST CAST: Julie McNiven, Lamont Thompson, Michael Worth, Maria Cominis, Mason Vale Cotton, Kendall Applegate & John Sanderford

[SPOILERS] This week's visit to Fairview was a prime example of the pleasure/pain principle. Don't panic, I'm not going to get all psychoanalytical on you, I simply mean that the characters had to deal with their fair share of pain (what else were we to expect with a title like that?), but we, the viewer, could derive from this a great deal of pleasure. Dark yet humourous, snappy and shocking, well-written and above all entertaining: "Would I Think Of Suicide?" was a stunning return to form for Desperate Housewives.

Following waitress Emily Portsmith's (Julie McNiven) murder at the close of "The Coffee Cup", nervous residents were drawing parallels to Julie's (Andrea Bowen) strangling at the start of the series. Her attacker is still out there, and he has struck again. Julie Mayer is a mystery to me: half the time she is -- justifiably -- despondent following her attack, while the rest of the time she is happy to rebel and tease her mother, Susan (Teri Hatcher), about possibly still seeing the married man who may-or-may-not be her attacker, but definitely is Nick Bolen (Jeffrey Nordling). This seems like a rather brainless and immature choice for an otherwise smart young woman, but it did yield a heart-wrenching exchange between mother and daughter: "Sorry I grew up" / "Me too".

To allow Julie some freedom without the fear of her attacker following her car, Karl Mayer (Richard Burgi) agrees to switch cars with his daughter. This generous offer, however, leads a snooping Susan to spot Julie's car parked at a seedy motel, only to spy through the window and discover.. her ex-husband getting intimate with her best friend. I think the word is "busted". Watching Susan chokehold Bree (Marcia Cross) a tad too tightly during the housewives' self-defence class was a delight -- and no doubt wholly cathartic for Susan, who soon cooled off and gave the odd couple her blessing, especially after Bree exclaims that she loves Karl. This would probably explain why she is trying to blackmail a clueless Orson (Kyle MacLachlan) into accepting her affair by asking his former prison inmate (Lamont Thompson) to pay the Hodge household a visit and invalidate the terms of her husband's parole. What a tangled web these people weave!

Meanwhile, Susan’s second husband (or third, if you acknowledge the fact they divorced then remarried), Mike Delfino (James Denton), literally put the "snap" in the episode by flying off the handle at his jealous/depressed/bonkers ex Katherine Mayfair (Dana Delaney) for offloading her issues to Mike and Susan's six-year-old son MJ (Mason Vale Cotton). Katherine clearly needs medical help getting over Mike, and she reacts badly when he threatens her -- by kidnapping MJ from a birthday party. Laying out some blunt home truths to Katherine, she asks Mike to stab her with a cake knife if he truly means what he said. "I don't care enough to kill you" is Mike's cold-but-frank reply, and Katherine's reaction is truly shocking and distressing, confirming the agony behind her suburban smile.

Another Wisteria Lane resident in need of medical attention this week was Danny Bolen (Beau Mirchoff), who, having been absent from the screen for a few weeks, took centre stage again by overdosing on pills after being rejected by Julie Mayer. Quite why he would want to be with a girl who has slept with his father is beyond me, but clearly he is serious. I suppose it didn't help his mood when he returned home to find his parents, Nick and Angie (Drea De Matteo), arguing furiously about Nick's phone-call to the FBI, but it did allow us the precious insight that the family have been on the run for 18 years -- because Angie killed a man. All these weeks I've been blaming Nick. Regardless, there's still something about him which I don't like. Upon waking in the hospital, a delirious Danny tells neighbour and Nurse Mona Clark (Maria Cominis) that his name isn't Danny, but Tyler. It won't be long before the Bolen's secret is uncovered and my suspicions about Nick will be answered.

Elsewhere on the street, pleasure turned to pain and friends turned to enemies as Carlos (Ricardo Chavira) continued to play hardball regarding pregnant Lynette's (Felicity Huffman) "promotion" to Florida. If she refuses to take it, she can either quit or have a new office -- in the stationary cupboard (!) Gabrielle Solice (Eva Longoria Parker) also remains hurt that the Scavo's didn’t trust her enough to reveal their big news, but just as the Solice's start to soften, the Scarvo's serve them court papers for unfair treatment at work: this means war.

With both sides refusing to buckle, Carlos hires a lawyer and gives Lynette two days worth of work to complete in one evening -- the evening of Penny Scarvo's (Kendall Applegate) school pageant. Sigmund Freud would have had a field day with these people, but for the time being I'm more than happy to keep myself entertained with their myriad of problems from the comfort of my own couch.

24 MARCH 2010: CHANNEL 4 (HD), 9PM