Desperate Housewives -- Goodbye, Wisteria Lane

I honestly thought this show stayed on too long and should have made it's final bow a few seasons ago. I loved this show from its first episode with Gaby mowing the lawn in her evening gown. Unfortunately, things took a sour turn when the show decided to kill off Rex. The show was never the same after that and it just kept getting worse as time went on.

Susan's antics that in the first season were kind of funny, just got more and more irritating as time went by. I felt like the show was just trying to sell her as cute and adorable and I kept wishing the show would kill off the character. Lynette, who started off as the most likable housewife, ended up turning into an unlikable shrew who got her jollies treating her husband Tom like a chew toy she enjoyed torturing. Last season Bree and Gaby were the housewives that seemed to have gotten the most positive character growth, but this season that kind of got thrown out the window. Vanessa Williams added some fresh blood, but the show never really seemed to know what to do with Renee's character.

Susan was pretty much her usual irritating self for most of the season. She was just guilt-ridden about helping to buy Alejandro's body, even though the guy was a pedophile who had raped her supposedly good friend Gaby. A couple of the times the ninny almost caused the truth to come out; once by doing a painting of burying the body. Then she got obsessed with stopping daughter Julie from giving up her baby for adoption. It being Susan, she, of course, got what she wanted. Finally, Mike was killed and she had to adjust to being a single mother. Aside from giving Susan one last dramatic story, since the show was coming to an end, was there really any need to kill off Mike? Susan's big story in the two hour finale was trying to tell her friends she was moving away from Wisteria Lane.

Renee didn't really seem to have much of a story, either, this season. Her romance with Ben seemed kind of a watered down version of Connor and Wilhelmenia on Ugly Betty. Her best episode was when she stopped Bree for killing herself. In the finale, the DA blackmailed her into testifying against Bree by threatening to have Ben deported Renee was worried Bree couldn't forgive her, but since she was more of a friend to Bree, this season, then her so-called friends who shunned her and were part of the reason Bree nearly blew her brains out, she's more deserving then the Housewives of being given a free pass. The rest of Renee's finale story was turning into a Bridezilla as her wedding to Ben approached. Renee wasn't given a Where Are They Now montage amongst the other Housewives and that basically said it all. She was never really considered one of them, as demonstrated by the Housewives last poker game together that Renee also wasn't included in. Ultimately, Renee was written as Wilhemenia-Lite and the show pretty much wasted the character.

Lynette's story this season was primarily about Tom leaving her and planning to get a divorce, as well as hooking up with a new woman, Jane. That, and her and Susan fighting for Supreme Grandmother. In the finale, when Tom had broken up with Jane and was still going ahead with the divorce she had a light bulb moment that she was the reason he wanted a divorce. I don't know if that light bulb moment lasted since Tom said he thought she had moved on and that's why he was going through with the divorce and that he still loved her.

Gaby was the housewife that seemed to have the most character development, but she seemed to regress quite a bit in the last season, as she just let Bree go on trial for a crime she didn't commit. It was only when Carlos was finally going to come forward, she was going to sacrifice herself to protect him. So basically, she had no problem with Bree going to prison, but not Carlos. When Karen came forward and lied that she was the one who killed Alejandro, she let her do it, and the whole matter was settled.

I suppose one could say Bree had the best story, this season, if one calls character destroying actions good. Bree became a drunk and was sleeping with a different man every night. Before she crawls in bed with Trip she'd best get herself tested to see if she isn't a carrier for a STD. Then when she got notes similar to the ones Mary-Alice got and her so-called friends shunned her, she almost committed suicide. Thankfully, Renee found her and talked some sense into her. Of all the women, I don't think it was believable that Bree was turned into a Mary-Alice wannabe. Then Orson came back and she discovered he was the one who was sending her the notes. When she dumped him again, Orson supposedly decided to kill himself but before he did he sent a letter to the police which got Bree on the hook for Alejandro's murder. When the so-called friends unshunned her, she decided to take the fall for the murder.

After the murder mess was over, Bree wanted nothing to do with her lawyer,Trip, because he tried to prove her innocence and let the real truth out. Bree seemed like a total dimwit taking the fall for people who treated her so badly and who she easily overlooked for their disloyal behavior, But eventually she got together with him and in the Where They Are Now ending we were told she went into politics after she married Trip and moved away from Wisteria Lane. Bree getting elected to office is akin to Sarah Palin being in politics. Glad I don't live in the state she's in charge of. As someone pointed out, with Bree's past it's highly unlikely she would ever get elected to any public office.

Katherine came back to the neighborhood rich and no longer a lesbian. She offered Lynette a job in New York. When Lynette wanted to take it, Tom said no matter what she'll never be happy or fill the whole inside of her. However, while making a toast at Renee and Ben's wedding she told Tom in the toast he completes her and he urged her to take the job in New York. I thought it was pretty tacky of Lynette turning a toast at Renee's wedding into a platform for herself. Anyway, they bought a penthouse in the Big Apple and never returned to Wisteria Lane.

Gaby and Carlos seemed to switch roles with Gaby treating Carlos the way he used to treat her when she got a promotion at work. Carlos wasn't having any of it, so to prove his point he hired himself a new female gardener that Gaby didn't find an amusing blast from the past. They, however, made up and Carlos created a business for Gaby that allowed them to become rich and they moved away from Wisteria Lane to live happily ever after in California.

After Karen came home from confessing to Alejandro's murder she passed away from her cancer. Which caused the first showing of waterworks from me. The girls had helped Roy to care for her at home so she could die at home.

The last shot was Susan leaving Wisteria Lane. Before that happened the so-called friends had one last poker game promising it wouldn't be there last, but it was, as they all would move away one-by-one and apparently lose track of each other. After the way the three shunned Bree I really never bought their friendship, again. It was another waterworks moment as Susan saw all the ghosts of the dead who had died on Wisteria Lane in her time living there as she drove away to a new future.

At the beginning of the second hour of the finale we were shown Mary-Alice moving into her house and to show a symmetry in the ending they had another housewife moving into Susan's house with a secret life Mary-Alice had. Personally, I thought they could have left the Mary-Alice stuff out and the mysterious new housewife and the ending would have been more powerful.

So, I did shed tears over the ending of a show I once loved but came to loathe because it didn't end when it should have. But you can't deny the cultural phenomenon it had. If not for The Desperate Housewives we wouldn't have shows like The Desperate Housewives of Madison Country or whatever the show is called. Not sure if that's a good thing.

So the show ended with them all losing track of each other, apparently, as they all left Wisteria Lane. I heard some fans complaining about this, but after the way Lynette, Gabrielle and Susan all shunned Bree it became apparent these women were really fair weather friends, so I'm not really surprised by that. It's too bad the show didn't end before Marc Cherry destroyed the myth of the great friendship these women had together.

Anyway, farewell Wisteria Lane, it was nice knowing you. By the way, when you say all the dead standing there did you think of that scene from Rent where the people are singing, Seasons Of Love?