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Desperate Housewives - General Discussion


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Edie: You said you two were finished. You thought he was a murderer.
Susan: And that was your cue to come over and flirt?! You wasted your time... and your donuts.
Edie: Not if you choke on them

 

Edie: You can't outrun me Mayer, I'm in the best shape of my life!

 

Bree: Rex cries after he ejaculates.

 

Lynette: I'm a cancer bitch!

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I will say that S3 "Bang" is the best episode of the entire series. Almost everyone's story came together at the grocery store except for Gaby and Carlos' divorce. Have to love Lynette after Nora got shot. I was hoping that Art being a pedophile would be a red herring but it turned out that he was. Gross that Lynette ended up apologizing to him for how she treated him.

 

I didn't like the David Dash story cause it was too obvious who he was going to target when he arrived on the Lane, plus the story ended up killing off one of my favorites Edie.

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I felt that out of all the Housewives, Bree has been through the most. Husband was killed, Andrew treated her like crap, Danielle was just...Danielle, Rex's other son took her business, George was obsessed with her, began a relationship with Karl but he was killed before (which I hated that they killed him off), and the girls turned their back on her in S8. 

 

My favorites were Lynette and Edie. I know that some thought Lynette was too mean to Tom but I can understand her frustration with him at times. Like when he wanted to see Scavo's take the kids out of school, pack the whole family up in an RV and just travel around. She was wrong for costing Tom his promotion earlier in the series and Tom wanted to be a househusband but then not that soon after he wanted to get back to work. I loved Lynette's take no crap attitude.

 

Edie was just upfront with who she was but didn't like when the writers turned her into needy Edie when she was wanted to be with Carlos, cause Edie said that doesn't need a man, she just wants them and they had her almost commit suicide to keep Carlos and to get his money in the Cayman bank account. If Carlos wanted to end things with her she would have just washed her hands clean of him and moved onto the next man. Like with Mike she didn't need him, she only wanted him to sleep with him cause when he was arrested she quickly left him.

 

I also loved Angie Bolen and wish she had stayed on but Drea de Matteo only agreed to do one season. Angie took no crap from people as well and absolutely loved her walking up to Mitsy without saying a word and just kicked her trash cans over and she just punched her husband in the nose when he confessed to his affair with Julie.

 

I hated Susan from S2 and beyond. S1 Susan was rootable and quirky with trying to get Mike but after S1 she just became unbearable to watch. Especially her treatment of Katherine after Mike coldly left her to be with Susan and Susan felt that it wasn't fair that people were saying "poor Katherine" instead of congratulating her on her engagement to Mike and Susan never approached Katherine to apologize. Plus Susan's attitude towards Katherine when Katherine was babysitting MJ when Mike was working to help pay for MJ's tuition was just ridiculous. When Mike and Katherine moved in together Susan cause Mike & Katherine to argue because Katherine removed the painting Susan painted, glad the other girls didn't like that Susan did that. Susan getting onto Mike about buying Katherine pearls and not using the money towards EJ's school, Susan seen that Mike was working a lot while she wasn't working at all until she got the teaching job.

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I liked the first couple of seasons, it was enjoyable seeing the different women/families and their crazy stories.

 

I couldn't watch the show after Susan and Mike had "money problems" because the set up for that was just so ridiculous it really showed how out of touch Hollywood writers can be.

 

And sometimes they just glossed over other issues, like Gaby having two chubby children (even having children).  Oh yes, lets make fun that ex-model has two fat kids, but how about explaining how the kids got that way?

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I think Season 1 was hands-down the best season in every way.  

 

Season 2 was overall very weak.  Season 3 had too many large plot holes, I felt.  But overall, it was pretty good. It had some outstanding episodes (such as Bang).  

 

Season 4 was forgettable to me.  I really have to think "What happened in Season 4?" and then I'm like "Oh yeah. Katherine/Dylan."  

 

Season 5 was better. It was pretty obvious, but I felt the writing itself was better.  

 

Season 6 was pretty bad in a lot of ways.  Even with the reveal of the strangler, it was like they picked someone who had just been shoehorned into several scenes just so it wouldn't be a total stranger.  

 

Season 7 was another pretty forgettable one for me. 

 

In Season 8, I feel like they tried to put way to much in there.  And the whole plot was so ludicrous.  Rather than go to the police when a man was killed while attempting to rape a lady that he had previously raped, they hid the whole thing leading to all the drama.  Though I loved Mrs. McCluskey taking the fall for it.  The ending was also ridiculous - both the flash forward into the future and Susan seeing the parade of the dead.  

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I didn't like the death because the girls all blamed Bree for it when things started to go haywire when Bree was doing nothing but trying to protect them all. Susan is the one they should have been mad at. She was the one going around town, breaking laws and drawing unwanted attention on herself. Then like an idiot paints the scene where they buried the body and after it was shown at an art show is when Bree started getting the blame. IDK if they were expecting that this was the type of behavior for Susan since she's so naive let her get away with it. Bree is more organized and now that she's not holding everything together let's blame her. Bree could have let Carlos go to prison.

 

I don't think Carlos would have went to prison anyway because Alejandro did break into the house and was going to sexually assault Gaby so had every right to protect her. Since they all banded together to justify Katherine shooting and killing her ex-husband they could have done the same for Carlos even though Gaby, Susan, & Lynette weren't there when Katherine shot him. It was a fail on the writer's part.

 

The Strangler story was a miss because they picked a character that we didn't see until S6 or cared about. Would have been more interesting if it was an actual character like one of the Scavo children, hell with the way they were acting during their childhood it wouldn't surprise me if one of them turned out to be a murderer.

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I don't remember too clearly as it was a while ago, but the thing that always irked me with the Susan and Mike had no money arc, didn't Susan's ex leave her half of a profitable business when he died? I think that she sold it and made quite a bit of money off of it. The next season her and Mike were broke. Just bad!!

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I don't remember too clearly as it was a while ago, but the thing that always irked me with the Susan and Mike had no money arc, didn't Susan's ex leave her half of a profitable business when he died? I think that she sold it and made quite a bit of money off of it. The next season her and Mike were broke. Just bad!!

Yes, and Susan had been working as a children's illustrator. Suddenly there was no mention of that at all. 

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I don't remember too clearly as it was a while ago, but the thing that always irked me with the Susan and Mike had no money arc, didn't Susan's ex leave her half of a profitable business when he died? I think that she sold it and made quite a bit of money off of it. The next season her and Mike were broke. Just bad!!

 

I think what happened with that is that Susan used all her money to help Mike out of his IRS situation, so didn't have enough for her to keep up the payments on her house so had to rent it out. Also wasn't because Lonnie was embezzling money and left, Susan left the publishing company that Lonnie was part of to work with him and then changed her mind. I guess since she left the publishing company they weren't interested in taking her back, but she still could have illustrated books for another company or freelanced. Weird she opted to do softcore porn and make hideous jewelry instead of continuing on with her original career.

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I think what happened with that is that Susan used all her money to help Mike out of his IRS situation, so didn't have enough for her to keep up the payments on her house so had to rent it out. Also wasn't because Lonnie was embezzling money and left, Susan left the publishing company that Lonnie was part of to work with him and then changed her mind. I guess since she left the publishing company they weren't interested in taking her back, but she still could have illustrated books for another company or freelanced. Weird she opted to do softcore porn and make hideous jewelry instead of continuing on with her original career.

I don't have indepth knowledge of how it all works, but wouldn't she still get residuals for previous work? 

 

It was just such a contrived storyline.

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IDK about her receiving residuals, I guess with Susan it would depend on the contract or whatever agreement she had with the publishing company. Knowing Susan and her lack of self awareness and naivety she probably signed something where she wouldn't receive residuals. After Season 1, Susan had the worst storylines out of all the housewives and she was my least favorite of the 4. 

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To me, Susan was the most likable as a person. But her plot lines were just so irritating and not amusing that it made it very hard to like the character.  Gabby and Bree overall did a lot worse things than Susan, but they managed to be so entertaining while being awful people that I found myself pulling for them anyway!

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IDK Susan has done a lot of selfish things like how she butted into Karl and Edie's relationship and then having a small problem with Bree seeing Karl, a relationship that should have kept going instead of killing him off. Sabotaging Julie from giving her baby up for adoption, damn near crushing Danny Bolen under a car (never apologized to him when he was found not to be the one who strangled Julie), having a problem with Katherine babysitting MJ even though Mike was out working, stealing Katherine's pearls and putting all of the schools tuition on Mike when Susan wasn't even working at the time. Even pushing Juanita Solis down, and telling Gaby that Juanita was milking the fall. if I caught an adult pushing my child forget talking, she would have been punched right in the face

 

There are some things that Bree done that I didn't agree with like getting Benjamin circumcised knowing how Orson felt about it, throwing out Lynette's pizza, the way she treated Katherine during their catering business. I felt bad for Bree on how the ladies treated her during S8.

 

Gaby I pretty much give a pass on because she was self aware that she was shallow, petty, and materialistic. Even though I didn't like her making Juanita chase after the car to get her to be active. Once Carlos changed his ways after becoming blind he was able to balance out Gaby's materialistic ways.

Edited by ShadowSixx
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Susan did a lot of small and big selfish things, but Bree and Gabby did more bad, illegal things, particularly in the first few seasons. Covering up a hit and run, statutory rape, etc.

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Well as far as Bree covering up the hit and run and hiding it from Carlos & Gaby until the end of S7, she makes up for it by covering up for Carlos when he killed Alejandro, which they shouldn't even had to since he was breaking into someone else's house and attempting to rape Gaby. So IDK why they all didn't think of that, just because Gaby never reported him sexually abusing her as a child, he was trying to do it again before Carlos whacked him over the head. Did they not think that Susan, Bree, & Lynette wouldn't help come up with a story?

 

Gaby and her statutory rape story in S1, for some reason really didn't raise that many eyebrows, I guess because a lot of people found John Rowland hot and didn't really pay it that much attention. I just didn't like how the writers wrote statutory rape stories because it's a serious crime but look how they did the Porter story in S5 when he slept with Anne, Lynette paid her off to leave town and never come back and realized that she was never pregnant. Which I don't understand if she was after money why the Scavos? If she was wanting money the best person to go after in S5 was Bree because she was the only housewife who never suffered financially and was the richest next to Gaby/Carlos once they got back on their feet.

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I completely agree about the characters getting stuck in circular storylines. It felt like Susan in particular just got worse as the seasons went on, with her always defaulting into some kind of sympathetic and goofy situation. In one episode she is inheriting a fancy piano and part ownership of a strip club or something from Carl, but then in the next episode she is so poor she has to move out of her house and rent it to other people? Then she finds herself in need of extra income, so she does softcore web video chatting while still being a teacher's assistant at an elementary school? Who does that?! To this day, I wonder how on earth they actually moved forward with that kind of writing on the show and kept their jobs.

I try to remember seasons 2 and 3 which I actually very much enjoyed over everything that came later. Katherine was a great addition to the cast and I loved her relationship with Bree, but they lost track of what to do with her at a certain point. I really liked her with Mike after the flash forward and thought Susan's relationship with the young painter made a lot of sense given her interests...but then, the writers had to go and try and force Susan and Mike back together. So naturally, Katherine completely loses her mind and has to be institutionalized?! And then becomes a lesbian?! And then comes back as bi... or something. I can't even remember anymore. Dana Delaney is awesome and deserved better.

I think one of the most desperate things the show ever did with a character in the early years was have Edie attempt suicide quite out of nowhere after losing Carlos during Gabi's wedding. There was practically no build up to that aside from one quick scene with the ghost of Edie's mother telling her she would always be alone. If they were going to take Edie and develop her psychological issues a bit the following year, fine...but of course, it was just a joke and a fake-out. I thought that was in such bad taste.

Lynette and her marriage problems really tired me out to the point where I really didn't care going into the final season. It was insane how they kept getting her pregnant just to trap her in the role of the tired mom.

But at the same time there were some things that I really, really loved about the show: the first year of Bree and Creepy Orson, Susan and Edie's rivalry, Lynette's loyalty to her friends and the overall arc of Gabbie and Carlos' relationship, which I thought was one of the strongest things about the show in the end.

It's just a shame the show went on as long as it did. I would have preferred them to end it than recycle ideas or get bigger and bigger with their ratings stunts to try and stay on the air. The plane crash was so pointless, as was the terrorist plot. Way too much craziness happened on that street!

Edited by DisneyBoy
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I really miss this show.  Yes, it went way over the top the last few seasons, but I haven't found anything else on tv to "replace" it.  It was a fun show. 

 

Totally agree with DisneyBoy about too much happening on the street. It was like the tornado episode was good and dramatic so they tried one-upping it with plane crashes, terrorism, and so much more that took away from the show's core charm.

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They never should have killed off Rex. He had his own weird issues and was the most interesting of all the husbands. And Andrew should have paid for his hit and run.

 

I liked the return of Paul Young and how he volunteered to go back to prison to pay for killing the woman who blackmailed his wife. Speaking of which, how could Mary Alice (as the narrator/voice over) sound so impersonal when commenting on her husband and child?

 

I disliked the ending too, There was no reason to kill off Mike and no reason why the women couldn't all have stayed at Wisteria Lane.

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Marc Cherry said he regretted killing Mike because he made Susan what she was when the show started which was a single mother. Everyone else pretty much evolved except Susan was what she was when the series started which showed that the writers really didn't know what to do with Susan's character after S1 besides make her an annoying pain in the ass. The only people that made Susan interesting was Karl and Edie and they were killed off.

 

Mike & Susan were alright for the most part but then I started disliking them during S6. The way they treated Katherine was just ridiculous. While Mike and Katherine were seeing each other Susan just inserted herself in their relationship. She took Katherine's necklace that Mike brought for her, told Katherine about a honeymoon painting and causes Mike and Katherine to argue during their housewarming party. Gets upset with Katherine for Mike leaving MJ with Katherine while Mike was off at work.

 

I did think that Susan and Jackson made a better couple.

 

What I also didn't like was how Justin and Andrew didn't have a proper breakup. Justin loved Andrew and was upset when Justin thought that Andrew was going to go live with his grandparents.

 

I do agree that Carlos & Gaby had the best relationship arc throughout the series even though they tried making Mike & Susan the IT couple but Carlos & Gaby were more fascinating. Ricardo was almost let go after S1 because they thought he was too stiff with his acting but good thing they kept him.

 

When I rewatch the show on Hulu at times I felt bad for Tom but watching reruns I see he's just as guilty as Lynette because he loves to guilt her. He tells Lynette at the end of S1 that she's going back to work because she cost him a promotion which fine I agree with. Then when Lynette starts working Tom becomes bored with being Mr. Mom, and wants to work again, dips all their money into Scavo's Pizzeria which eventually shuts down, then wants to sell the business and tells Lynette that he wants to take the kids out of school and travel around the world in an RV for 1 year and didn't even have a plan after that 1 year is up. Has a midlife crisis and tries to act all young with buying a corvette and being in a band with Dave.

 

Also Tom says Lynette has control issues when Lynette didn't want to sleep on baby spit up. I mean nobody wants to sleep on spit up, Tom was just being an ass on that one.

 

Did Lynette and Frank (hairdresser) even end what they had? They started seeing each other and then poof gone.

 

I did wish that Drea De Matteo signed on for more than 1 season because I really loved Angie Bolen.

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I used to love this show when it was first airing and I was in my early 20s. I decided to rewatch on Hulu because there's not much else on, and I couldn't even get through the first episode. So many misogynist stereotypes for my current sensibilities: Women competing with one another for a man's attention? Check (the MAVO even calls Edie a slut)! Former career woman turned frazzled mother (with a clueless husband who does nothing around the house)? Check! Perfectionist housewife/mother who drives everyone in her family crazy? Check! Gorgeous trophy wife who doesn't get enough affection from her rich hot-shot husband so she cheats with the hunky gardener? Check! Every scene made me want to barf, especially when Gabrielle complains that one of Carlos's business partners always grabs her butt, and Carlos says she should let him because that guy makes him a lot of money.

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Finished season 3.  It was okay. Mike married Susan was a nice ending. 

Austin wasn’t that hot. Actually Julie  and Danielle aren’t all that either.  Guess it’s acceptable to leave a pregnant girl, right Marc Cherry. 

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To be fair, much of what all the characters do on the show wouldn’t be considered acceptable in real life.

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Season 1 and 3 have always been my favorite seasons, but I love the whole series despite some letdowns here and there. Bree was my favorite of the women early on, although Lynette overtook her in the later years. Gabby was the funniest along with McCluskey; I always thought she was the character who most benefitted from the time jump.

I never could stand Susan. A lot of it has to due with the character's stories being so romance-heavy--the show rarely did romance that well, imo, and I can't think of one love interest she had that I liked--but she was also holier-than-thou, ridiculous, hypocritical, and self-centered. All the women had selfish/judgmental moments, but Susan was almost always in that mode and then acted like she was some kind of saint (where the others characters would usually own it when they were being awful). Her best moments/stories involved parent issues; I loved when she flipped out on Zach Young. There's another storyline with Julie at the beginning of S6 that made me root for the character (somewhat), too. The only seasons she was bearable were S1 and S7. She's decent in S5.

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The Dave actor was so good at being soooo creepy.

Lynette was always my least favorite housewife and her plotlines were often the most boring. 

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I'd wish Susan had been the one to perish in season 5 instead of Edie.  The last three seasons had more stories/avenues for Bree, Gaby, and Lynette...while Susan really had nothing to offer.  

With that said, I thought the show was smart when bringing on Renee to not limit her interactions to just one housewife.  She shaded all of them though I dont recall her shading Gaby all that much.

I also grew tired of Edie vs Susan, and was glad by season 4 and 5 that they mixed Edie with Gaby and Bree more so I'm glad Renee wasnt a total clone of Edie. 

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I remember it came out at a later time (might've been during Nicolette Sheridan's trial) that Marc Cherry had considered killing off Susan in season 5.

I love Vanessa Williams, particularly her time on Ugly Betty, but I never liked her character on DH. Renee felt like too obvious a replacement for Edie, and I didn't think she gelled with any of the ladies that well. She was funny though. I hated her first storyline with Tom, which might be what colored the character for me out of the gate. Which goes into my least favorite thing about Lynette's storyline the last season and a half of the show (don't read if you haven't watched that far yet), which is how irritated I was that, after years of Tom's bullshit on this show, he is the one who was painted as the "victim" and began the divorce at the end. I mean, I could agree with Gabrielle and Susan being the "bad guy" in their divorce storylines and both of Bree's divorces were a mixture of blame, but I always thought Lynette was dumped on by her whole family for most of the series despite constantly bending over backwards and sacrificing to please everyone.

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I was 50/50 on Lynette. She had her moments such as costing Tom a promotion so he wouldn't travel more but then tells him to go after big jobs and how he won't go nowhere if he doesn't push himself. Also when Renee & Lynette decorated Tom's office she should have decorated it the way Tom wanted not how she wanted. On the reverse side Tom did guilt and manipulate Lynette to sacrifice a lot do his bidding. Really didn't have to keep making her pregnant either. 

My favorite relationship was Carlos & Gaby. Didn't like the statutory rape which was uncalled for and could have easily made John a college kid but people looked over it because John was hot. They were both horrible in S1 but after their relationship was developed better. I didn't like the baby switch story and Carmen saying Gaby was a bad mother and how Carmen was acting when they first met.

I didn't want Rex to die, he was an ass at times but Rex & Bree scenes were great. I really think Bree had no other connection with any of her other relationships. Orson was too creepy, Trip I wasn't feeling it, Chuck was ok until they broke up and he became an ass and Keith was just a mismatch, Brian Austin Green didn't fit into the show and could be his acting or the fact writers didn't have him interact with the cast. I did like her relationship with Karl and could have had great funny moments seeing as how opposite they were but they killed him off before it couldn't even go anywhere.

Hated the whole premise of S7 cause it was just a mess and made no sense to me. Killing an intruder is justifiable homicide whether Gaby reported his past sexual abuse or not. Alejandro broke in with the intention of rape. Susan fucking up more than usual if that was even possible, Bree being an alcoholic slut. The only good thing was Felicity Huffman's acting during the divorce story.

Susan ugh just completely useless after S1 wish Angie Bolen did whack Susan with that bat instead of the car.

Hated what they did to Katherine's character, it was obvious they didn't know what to do with her after her S4 story wrapped up. 

Didn't like how they wrote Betty Applewhite, Alfre Woodard did a great job portraying her but her interactions were limited and the story wasn't that great. 

Angie Bolen was cool, outspoken, she would have fit in well.

Why did they pick such a nobody to be the strangler? Couldn't pick an established character. Just a random and one episode of his past. Ok. Blah. 

Renee was alright, just Edie mixed with Angie character that they needed for the show.

I agree Bang is one of the best episodes of the show.

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I just started watching this show for fun.  I'm a few episodes into season two now.  So far it's difficult to not think about the storylines in today's context and I have to keep reminding myself that the first season of this show aired ~20 years ago. 

Specifically, I keep wondering how these most of these families are able to live in such huge houses in an assumingly affluent area on one person's salary (except for maybe Bree/Rex with the doctor's salary and Gabi/Carlos with Carlos' sketchy dealings).  But seriously, how was Lynette able to afford private school for three kids, a part-time nanny AND a mortgage on just Tom's non-VP salary?

Also, when Lynette went back to work, the amount of control her boss had over her time just wouldn't be feasible in today's context.  Even before the pandemic, I think such a controlling boss/company would have difficulty retaining talent.

But overall, this has been a fun background show!

 

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15 hours ago, zenithwit said:

I just started watching this show for fun.  I'm a few episodes into season two now.  So far it's difficult to not think about the storylines in today's context and I have to keep reminding myself that the first season of this show aired ~20 years ago. 

Specifically, I keep wondering how these most of these families are able to live in such huge houses in an assumingly affluent area on one person's salary (except for maybe Bree/Rex with the doctor's salary and Gabi/Carlos with Carlos' sketchy dealings).  But seriously, how was Lynette able to afford private school for three kids, a part-time nanny AND a mortgage on just Tom's non-VP salary?

Also, when Lynette went back to work, the amount of control her boss had over her time just wouldn't be feasible in today's context.  Even before the pandemic, I think such a controlling boss/company would have difficulty retaining talent.

But overall, this has been a fun background show!

 

I think Tom and Lynette are the only ones who wouldn't (at least initially) be able to afford the lifestyle they're shown to have. We know Bree was a trust fund baby in addition to Rex being a very high earner. Karl was an extremely successful lawyer from the looks of it, so I speculate Susan had a huge settlement/child support. Carlos had a pretty shady business that seemed to be in line with their lifestyle.  

But as the series moved on, none of the financial stuff made any sense to me.

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On 12/26/2023 at 1:21 PM, deaja said:

so I speculate Susan had a huge settlement/child support.

I do think Susan was initially supposed to be a successful illustrator(?) for children's books, so perhaps she had money through that? 

I'll also never not laugh at the idea of 5'1 Eva Longoria as a successful runway model in New York. 

On 12/25/2023 at 9:47 PM, zenithwit said:

I'm a few episodes into season two now. 

All I can say is that poor Alfre Woodard deserved better than this show.  

One thing I did notice in watching reruns not too long ago is how much this show suffers from the 22 episode season format.  There are so many episodes that feel like filler. 

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22 episodes weren't alot... the writers just didn't know how to plot and pace the show where 22 episodes could be filled with little to no filler.

You had 4, sometimes 5, lead characters with five different plotlines that could be paced and planned out where there weren't be filler... but that takes writers with talent.

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