Desperate Housewives (Season 1)
ABC
2005
Rating:


"I not only watch, I cheer them on, these amazing women," the spirit of Mary Alice Young (Brenda Strong) says in her typically grating narration at the end of the first season of "Desperate Housewives." "I hope so much they'll find what they're looking for. But I know not all of them will."

Having failed to find what she was looking for, Mary Alice killed herself at the beginning of the season when a neighbor learned her dark secret. Mary Alice's friends on Wisteria Lane — flibbertigibbet Susan (Teri Hatcher), anal retentive Bree (Marcia Cross), gold digger Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) and frazzled mother Lynette (Felicity Huffman) — supposedly spent the year attempting to uncover Mary Alice's secret, which would seem insensitive since that's why she killed herself. Fortunately (or not), the Wisteria Woman actually spent little time on the mystery, so caught up were they in their own lives.

Which is as it should be. "Desperate Housewives," which was created as a soapy satire by Marc Cherry until ABC decided it needed a hook to sell a "women's show," succeeds only when it delves into, well, the desperation of the modern housewife as seen through Technicolor glasses. Most of the characters couldn't be more ridiculous or more unlikable, which makes their sudden feminist hero status all the more surprising. Susan is turning into her mother, a selfish, whoopsy-daisy of a woman who would be nowhere if not for her headstrong daughter. Gabrielle married for money and has come to regret it, though she lacks the courage or even the desire to leave her cushy surroundings. Bree is so oppressive and repressed that she's unable to see the irony when her husband Rex (Steven Culp) cheats on her with a dominatrix. Lynette, though frequently harried, is the only one whose desperation is forced upon her and therefore the most likely to meet Mary Alice's fate. However, Lynette has been rescued now that her resentful husband (Doug Savant) has decided to let her be the breadwinner, preventing the show from following the trajectory of what real desperation can do to a housewife.

For Mary Alice's desperation could not have been more convoluted, more soap-worthy. The solution to Mary Alice's suicide had been telegraphed fairly obviously throughout the season, making the flashback climax redundant. Mary Alice was once named Angela and bought a son named Dana on the black market from junkie Deirdre, as if rich white couples have trouble passing through the adoption process. Angela moved to Wisteria Lane with her husband Paul (Mark Moses) and renamed her son Zach. They're eventually pursued by Deirdre, who was also the girlfriend of detective/plumber/cop-killer Mike (James Denton). Deirdre wanted her son back, but Mary Alice had such a lose grip on her moral compass that she decided to kill Deirdre rather than let that happen.

Considering this is a show about women, the finale was, at the very least, stridently anti-feminist. After the women of Wisteria Lane spent the season pretending to care about why Mary Alice killed herself, it was Mike who solved the mystery while holding Paul at gunpoint. Paul, for his part, was freed of all responsibility for the body buried in his pool and his wife's death. Was it bold or brainless to say Mary Alice caused her own desperation? In most circumstances, the thought would be appalling, but here the assertion that Mary Alice created her own hell is spot-on.

Posted Saturday, July 30, 2005

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