There is something about TV shows with announced deaths. It has happened with a few shows I’ve watched, the most recent one I can recall being Ugly Betty: The last few episodes of the last season are always amazing, to the point where I end up wondering why the hell they didn’t have that level of storytelling before since it’s almost always clear that had they done so they would’ve avoided cancellation.

That is the case with Desperate Housewives and its last couple episodes. After a season that’s been mostly terrible and filled with even worse filler episodes and circumstances, it seems like finally the writers have decided to take their work seriously and write a TV drama once and for all. And what do you know, it is working. For the first time in the season there are two episodes in a row that deliver – And considering both the way the plot is right now and the amount of episodes left (four), I believe the following episodes will remain as strong as this one, helping the series end on a high note after what could be considered the overall weakest season in it.

The storyline has nothing new added, instead opting for advancing the existing plotline, making the right move for once in the season. Bree gets arrested during Renee’s bridal shower for having murdered Alejandro, getting Bob to pay her bail and recommend her a criminal lawyer, while also letting her know the only relatively strong lead they have regarding Alejandro is her fingerprint since the other two are of a questionable nature.

In the meantime, Gabrielle finds some success at her job by flirting nonstop with clients, something Carlos is clearly not fine with. After she takes Carlos out to dinner and pretends he’s not her husband when she runs into a customer, Carlos gets (rather understandably) angry and leaves the restaurant, prompting them to have a discussion regarding it where Carlos says he feels bad about her treating him and her being the bread winner, with Gabrielle pointing out that’s pretty much his fault and in some way what he wanted initially.

Lynnette keeps trying to get Tom back by baking a cake for his birthday, while Jane thinks she’s doing Tom a favor by giving Lynnette the divorce papers for her and Tom herself, in an amazing display of what not to do if you don’t want to be seen as the biggest bitch by everyone, your boyfriend included. After a very depressed Lynnette goes down to meet Tom and hands him the signed divorce papers Tom, clearly angry at Jane, has a rather strong conversation with her where she explains that she thinks he needs Lynnette out of his life for their relationship to prosper. Her plan, however, backfires when Tom states he’ll always care about Lynnette since he has a family with her and that if she can’t deal with that then they shouldn’t be together.

While picking up Mike’s things with Lee, Susan finds a locked box in his closet that prompts Lee to tell her it probably contains something that Mike didn’t want her to know about. Initially giving in to Lee’s suggestion that he should see it first and then let her know if she should know of it, she allows him to do so and he takes the box with him – Not discussing his contents with her. However, being Susan, she eventually asks Lee to let her know what said secret was.

Lee then proceeds to let her know Mike had been sending checks to a woman every month on what he thinks was paying child support to a woman, particularly since it had started six years ago. While trying to deal with that, both Susan and Julie go to the woman’s address, only to find out the woman receiving the money is a caretaker for autistic adults, and the actual receiver of the money was Mike’s sister. Not knowing exactly why Mike would hide that from Susan, Julie reads through his correspondence and finds out he himself didn’t know about his sister until six years before – And it was his mother who told him, full of regret about having given her daughter away due to her being an inconvenience. After learning this, Julie realizes that’s exactly what she’s doing with her daughter, deciding to keep her rather than doing something she’ll regret later on.

Back with Bree, she gets rejected by the criminal lawyer (who, by the way, is almost a perfect copy of Billy Flynn from Chicago) since the case seems “too easy” and he believes nobody will put her in jail considering how she presents herself as the perfect woman. However, after she gets taken back to the station where the investigators show her some tampered evidence they plan to use against her and try to coerce her to confess to the crime, the lawyer sees her almost breaking up and decides to take her case because, though he knows she’s innocent of the crime, he’s now sure she knows who committed it.

Final review rating: 4.5/5