Welcome desperate fans, to the 20th episode of the sixth season of desperate housewives!
Spoiler-free zone:
Things go dark in this very dramatic episode. We get insight to the strangler’s life (from past to present) and things get big in an incredibly tense, ending! Oh, and Mary-Alice makes an appearance!
Spoiler zone:
The episode begins with Mary Alice introducing Eddie and his mother. We already see the lack of interest that his mother has for him. In the end of that scene, while Eddie’s mom was looking for some booze, she found Edie’s album that had newspaper articles of all the girls he had attacked.
In the first segment of the episode, we get to see Mary-Alice’s relationship with Eddie (the strangler). At first, she just witnessed Eddie’s Dad dumping his mom. Later on she tried to approach his mom, to help her sort out her problems. In the end it is implied that Mary-Alice’s relationship with Eddie’s mom was cut short, after Mary-Alice found her in a bar while Eddie was back at home, alone. Mary-Alice told Eddie’s mom to take better care of him and it is implied that, after that, she drifted away.
In the second segment, we see how Gaby met Eddie. She first saw him playing in her bathtub the day she moved to Wisteria Lane. Her first reaction was to kick him out, but then he offered her to help with the unpacking, so Gaby decided to have him around. When Carlos found out, however, he told her to grow up and make friends her own age. Gaby then was forced to tell Eddie that they should start spending less time together. After that, Eddie went back home finding his mother under some man. That was when he showed his first signs of his violent character, by taking his toy riffle and shooting a bird. This segment showed how Eddie’s aggressiveness started, which is obviously essential in order for us to understand the rest of his actions.
In Bree’s part of the episode, we see her giving dating advice to Eddie, who was painting her house at the time. When Bree realises that Danielle is who Eddie was interested in, she goes over to his house to tell him that it isn’t going to work. She only finds his mother, so she begins talking to her. When Eddie comes back, his mother laughs at his face and tells him to back off (obviously not the way Bree wanted the situation to be handled). Bree then decided to stay away from the drama and thus left the house. This action could be debatable; I mean when you are so roughly exposed to a family’s drama what do you do? Do you keep a distance or do you try to help, which risks the possibility of getting involved into more drama. After that, Eddie goes back to paint Bree’s house because he needed the money. Poor Eddie held his tears when Bree tried to comfort him, and the actor replied with a very realistic “I just want to be loved”, which is a hard line to say and not sound cheesy. In the end for Bree’s part, we see Eddie deciding to go to a hooker who he thought he could charm. When he offered her flowers she laughed at his face and thus Eddie became “Eddie the Strangler”.
Susan’s segment, takes place a little before season five ended. Susan is in the coffee shop where Eddie is working and, through a conversation, she mentions that Mike dumped her for Katherine. She then notices a drawing of his and decided to give him some art lessons because she saw potential in him. During that time she paid for him to go do some art courses at some school. From that moment Eddie gave us the impression that he is beginning to fall for Susan. However, a few days later, Eddie comes back to tell Susan about his art classes and Susan appears in a wedding dress ready to marry Mike. Eddie then offered her to marry him (due to his desperation with the whole situation) and Susan took it as a joke and laughed. Eddie then proceeded to strangle Susan but as we all know, he (accidentally) got Julie instead.
Lynette’s storyline takes place somewhere during season six. It all begins when Eddie is at Lynette’s house playing charades and his mother comes in and makes a scene because he wouldn’t answer his cell. Lynette tries to intervene (no surprise there) but doesn’t do much. She then thinks things though and decides to ask Eddie to move in with the Scavos so he can get away from his unhealthy home environment. A few days later, we see him come back from home where he finds his mother with his scrapbook with the women he attacked. His mother flips out and tries to call the 911 and unfortunately became Eddie’s latest victim. Eddie tried to leave home, but at that moment Lynette arrives at his doorstep to ask him to move in with her and the family. Eddie accepts her offer, and while Lynette saw the corpse in Eddie’s living room, she assumed his mother was passed out. This last segment really reminded me of some Hitchcock movies and whether it was intentional or not, it definitely gave a dark and interesting feel to the entire episode.
To sum up, while segment episodes have become a common thing on the show, this one manages to stand out due to its carefully planned out build-up, created from the beginning of the episode. We get to see how Eddie ended up being, as Mary-Alice calls, “a monster”. While the concept of having a “troubled young kid, acting out because he wasn’t loved” seems clichéd, the execution of it was, in my opinion, excellent. Kudos to Josh Zuckerman (Eddie) for a great performance and kudos to Marc Cherry for writing a great episode.
