LOS ANGELES — The saga of bereaved family man Dave dominated the season-ender of Desperate Housewives but the two-hour episode also made room for middle-age pregnancy, infidelity and a teenage vixen.
Oh, and a cliffhanger, natch, and snappy patter amid the melodrama. Why should the ABC series change now?
Dave’s twisted journey of revenge, milked all season, ended Sunday at the same intersection where his wife and daughter had died in a car crash with Susan and Mike (Teri Hatcher, James Denton).
This time, Dave (Neal McDonough) wanted to take the lives of their son, MJ, and Mike as fair trade. Susan was intended to bear witness to the tragedy, tied up helplessly in the grand tradition of a Perils of Pauline silent screen heroine.
But — spoiler alert — Dave wrote a new ending for his would-be victims after the ghost of his angelic dead daughter appeared to him. (Earlier, Nicollette Sheridan made a brief appearance as Edie, Dave’s dead wife, but wasn’t similarly angelic).
When Mike, speeding to the rescue of Susan and MJ, crashed into Dave’s car, the only thing lost was the last shred of Dave’s sanity. The tortured widower had freed MJ without harm.
Mike and Susan, clutching their son, shared a passionate kiss after their lives were spared.
Dave was last seen in a psychiatric facility, lost in a smiling reverie in which the past is erased and he’s together with his loved ones.
An indirect victim: Katherine (Dana Delany), who was en route with Mike to their Las Vegas wedding when the crisis hit. Abandoned at the airport, her plans for marital bliss looking shaky.
Meanwhile, back at Wisteria Lane, Lynette (Felicity Huffman) schemed to derail her unemployed husband’s plan to return to college — and learn Chinese.
A health scare quickly follows for Lynette, who fears her cancer has recurred. The doctor delivers a different diagnosis: she’s pregnant with twins.
Gabrielle (Eva Longoria Parker) also confronts an unexpected new family member but this one is full-grown and full of trouble.
She and husband Carlos (Ricardo Antonio Chavira) have agreed to take in his niece, who is a saucy teenager who casually uses men and boys.
The episode ends with another kiss, this one at the altar. The groom is Mike and the bride is...shielded from the TV audience by her veil.
Is it Susan? Is it Katherine? Did you have anything else to do this summer but speculate about it?