Desperate Housewives Up in Flames

Are you serious?  Cherry, Marc, my man, this much hyped episode of Desperate Housewives entitled, City on Fire, was an incendiary device, a bomb as it were.  The acting was horrible to put it politely.  Not that any of the actors on Desperate Housewives are typically formidable, Felicity Huffman, the usual exception, but this was particularly ghastly.  The writing was rotten too but I can't even comment because the actors were laughable, huge belly-laughable.  Now because the episode was so hyped, I did hear that the cast was working unusually late into the dawn hours; however, to that I say, "Boohoo."

The premise for last night's debacle was that all of the middle-aged husbands, who have recently been performing in a garage band, ready themselves to play an actual gig at a night-club.  The owner of the club is the husband of the middle-aged housewife, Anne Schilling, (Gail O'Grady) who is screwing Huffman's teen son, Porter.  In this episode Lynette (Felicity Huffman) discovers that Porter has gotten the over-the-hill hag, el prego. 

Lynette confronts her and the husband/club owner overhears, consequently beating his wife to a pulp, of course, what else, it's Marc Cherry.  Bree (Marcia Cross) is trying to avoid an evil book reviewer's wrath so she turns up the dial on her perfect image.  Actually the only good acting in this episode is when Bree confronts the awful critic with the truth and speaks for imperfect women everywhere who, simply surviving, strive to be better. 

This monologue, a catharsis for the character, was the best part of the episode and it had absolutely nothing to do with the fire. Before the over-the-hill band of brothers is to play, we realize that David Williams (respectably, and that's relative, played by Neil McDonough) is being sought by his psychiatrist for having returned to Fairview.  Obviously, this is our clue that he is dangerous.  The Doc arrives in town to stop the nightmare that he perceives is about to occur and warn others.  

Consequently, Williams strangles him to death, sets fire to the storage room where the body lies, and begins to play his set with the band.  Are you kidding?  So I don't care who you are, you have killed a man and set fire to a room which is right behind the stage but you go to play anyway? 

Thus, the club goes up in flames.  Gabby Solis (Eva Longoria Parker) stops in the middle of the desperate escape from flames, to ask if she will get money from a will for rescuing the family benefactor who she has been warring with in this episode, ridiculous. 

Oh excuse me, the walls are burning down around us, but can I ask you a question?  Susan Mayer (Terry Hatcher) is really unbelievable as a woman who thinks that her lover is inside of the burning club in peril.  All of it is anticlimactic, not to mention,poorly acted. 

Honestly, the cast probably all got drunk after this episode. It is one of those pieces of celluloid that you  look back on when you win an Academy Award, hopefully, (in this case maybe Huffman is the only one with a shot as evidenced in her role in Transamerica) and you say when you are confronted with the tape in front of millions on late-night, "Yeah Jay[Leno], I had to pay the bills." 

And then you laugh because you have so narrowly escaped being a very bad actor on a popular TV series.  It's like this: where would George Clooney be if he had stayed on The Facts of Life ?-uh, in the unemployment line with Natalie and Tootie!  You take the good, you take the bad, you take it all and there you have a really, really bad show!

 

-- Heather Langone