With the Oscars last weekend, several Sunday night shows aired their final episode before a month of reruns a week later than other series. ABC's Desperate Housewives entry was less shocking than some of their previous cliffhangers, but still contained quite a bit of good drama, especially in finding purpose, a theme for the episode appropriately titled "Searching".
Susan (Teri Hatcher) collapses in the episode before this, and this week her doctor does not have good news. Dialysis isn't working, and she needs a donor soon. She and Mike (James Denton) go on a picnic to celebrate their anniversary a few months early, as Susan worries she may not be up to it, if she is even still around, when the real date rolls around. Everything that can go wrong does, and Mike gets angrier and angrier. His anger isn't merely at the comedy of errors, which always follows Susan around, but at the disease, and what he perceives as Susan's give-up attitude. She the convinces him she intends to keep fighting.
I like that we finally get to see what Mike is feeling. So far, as with most guys until you really get to know them, Mike has kept a strong front throughout. He surely has been struggling internally, and his private scenes with Susan finally allowed him to let some steam out. They are a very compatible couple, and while it feels a little voyeuristic to watch them interact this way, it is also darn good writing and acting, and a side of the issue that we really need to see. Good job!
I've honestly found Susan's kidney disease arc a little exhausting. Susan's character is better suited to comedy than drama, and this season has brought her more of the latter than before. How many scenes can we take of seeing Susan being strong for her loved ones while a disease eats away at her? That being said, since the writers chose to go down this route, it's been handled as well as it can be. While perhaps sped up a bit to confine it to one television season, the twists and turns have been realistic, and there is emotion to be felt for her.
My favorite story this week was the end of Beth's (Emily Bergl) tenure on the lane. Beth is clearly a weak personality, easily manipulated and led to do others' bidding. It happens with her mother, Felicia (Harriet Sansom Harris), and it happens again with her husband, Paul (Mark Moses). What makes Beth such a tragedy is that she has no one in her life to support her. After failing both Felicia and Paul, they cast her aside, with no concern whatsoever for her once she is past her usefulness to their schemes.
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