Smiles of a Summer Night
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| Smiles of a Summer Night | |
| [[Image:File:A frustrated Bree.jpg|200px]] | |
| Bree attempts to find Katherine's recipe | |
| Season: | 4 |
| Episode Number: | 2 |
| Original Airdate: | October 7, 2007 |
| Written by: | Bob Daily and Matt Berry |
| Directed by: | David Grossman |
| Episode chronology | |
|---|---|
| ← Previous | Next → |
| "Season 4 Premiere" | "" |
“Smiles of a Summer Night” is the 71st episode of the ABC dramedy series Desperate Housewives. It was written by Bob Daily and Matt Berry and directed by David Grossman. It is the second episode of the show’s fourth season and aired on October 7, 2007.
Contents |
[edit] Guest starring
- Nathan Fillion as Adam Mayfair
- Kathryn Joosten as Karen McCluskey
- Tahj Mowry as Matt
- Pat Crawford Brown as Ida Greenberg
- Blake Hood as Boomer
- Matt Baker as teenage boy #1
- James Luca McBride as Al
[edit] Plot
When Edie almost catches Carlos with Gabrielle, Carlos has to run home before she finds him. Later, Carlos sees Edie’s car is thanks to him . . . she bought it for him to give to her as her birthday gift. He doesn’t agree to this, even as Edie reminds him about his illegal offshore money. Carlos and Edie enjoy her birthday, but now he wants to know what she bought for him to give to her. Edie gets on her knees and proposes to Carlos, She’s quick to remind Carlos of his hidden money, and argues that if they’re married she won’t have to testify about it. He reluctantly accepts Edie’s marriage proposal. Carlos meets with a man. He tells the man that there’s a woman standing between him and the woman he wants to be with. He hands the man a envelope filled with cash and gets the man to agree to take care of his problem.
Dylan’s upset by Mrs. McCluskey after the elderly woman mentions having met her father; Dylan didn’t know she’d ever met him. Meanwhile, Susan recalled the morning she and Mary Alice learned Katherine was moving away in a hurry.
When Katherine approaches and wants to make lunch for Lynette. Bree bristles when Katherine wants to bring dessert, as Bree always does that. Later,Susan, Gabrielle, Bree, and Katherine have brought Lynette lunch. It’s great, and the women especially enjoy Bree’s lemon meringue pie. But when Bree takes a bite, she realizes it’s not hers! Katherine admits to having served them all her pie instead. Later, Bree’s told Orson what Katherine did with the pie. He’s suitably horrified and takes his wife’s side. Bree’s afraid of Katherine stealing her identity as the perfect homemaker. Bree brings Katherine her recipe for mincemeat pie, and wants Katherine’s pie recipe in return. But Katherine refuses. Afterwards, when Bree’s attempts to copy Katherine’s recipe fail, she breaks into Katherine’s kitchen to steal the recipe but finds the recipe box has a lock on it. Always a problem solver, Bree retrieves a wrench from Mike and then again goes into Katherine’s kitchen. As Katherine, Dylan, and Adam arrive home, Bree listens in as Katherine claims Mrs. McCluskey’s memories are bad and that Dylan’s father was a monster. Dylan thinks Katherine may be the monster, and this leads to Katherine slapping her. As Dylan flees, Bree continues to listen in as Katherine reminds Adam all she’s done for Dylan. The solution to Dylan’s questions is that they’ll have to come up with better lies. Bree exits the home and returns to tell Orson what’s happened.
At chemo, Lynette and Tom play cards until she realizes he’s letting her win. She tosses him out! Later, Lynette asks her friends to join her at chemo, and everyone but Gabrielle is eager to do so. Lynette visits Gabrielle and asks about Gabrielle’s lack of interest in joining her at chemo. Gabrielle claims that the other women seemed so interested she wouldn’t be needed, but Lynette really wants her there. Even as Gabrielle admits she doesn’t like hospitals, she agrees to come. At the hospital, Gabrielle arrives at Lynette’s room with magazines which she’s apparently been looking for for some time. And now she wants to go get Lynette a shawl. But Lynette only wants Gabrielle to stay there, even as Gabrielle’s every action makes it obvious she doesn’t want to be there. When Lynette calls her friend out on her actions and tells her to go, Gabrielle admits the truth: her father died of cancer, and as he was dying, her mother told her not to cry around him. The day he died, Gabrielle was with him, even as she kept herself from crying, even though she was only five. She doesn’t want to cry around Lynette, and is afraid of losing her. Lynette and Gabrielle hug.
Julie wants to go to a boy’s party; Susan agrees, but when Mike points out he’s been at the place and they have wild parties with lots of alcohol, Susan must choose between her daughter and husband. She tells Julie she can’t go to the party. Later, Susan quietly tells Julie she can go to the party, but she doesn’t want Mike to know. At night, Susan surprises Mike in the bedroom by wearing very little. Mike happily notes that pregnancy has enlarged her breasts. As they fall into bed together to enjoy date night, Mike brings up the party Julie wanted to attend; he passed by it that night, and it was wild. Worried about Julie, Susan makes an excuse to leave. Susan’s let in to the party, and is quickly brought in to join the boys there, who are ready for the stripper! Susan hurries to tell them she’s not the stripper, she’s Julie’s mother! Susan finally finds Julie and wants to take both her and Dylan home. Julie’s mad at her mother for her lack of consistency when it comes to parenting lately. Susan doesn’t want to be in the middle of Mike and Julie with parenting decisions. Julie just wants her mother to keep to one decision and not lie. Susan accepts this, as long as the lying can end tomorrow! But when they enter the home, Mike catches Susan in a lie about Julie’s whereabouts, and Julie confesses everything. Mike’s okay with Susan making the decisions about Julie, but he wants to share in the parenting decisions with their own child. And with that, Susan and Mike are ready to continue their date night.
[edit] Notes
- This is the first episode since season three’s Bang in which the character of Mary Alice Young is seen.
- Although credited, Andrew Van De Kamp (Shawn Pyfrom), Danielle Van De Kamp (Joy Lauren), Parker Scavo (Zane Huett) and Kayla Huntington (Rachel Fox) do not appear in this episode.
[edit] Title reference
- The title of the episode “Smiles of a Summer Night”, comes from the film of the same title. Like almost all the other episode titles, this one has a connection to Stephen Sondheim as his musical A Little Night Music is based on the film.
[edit] Reception and ratings
Smiles of a Summer Night scored an 11.7/17 in Nielsen ratings with 17.817 million viewers tuning in,[1] down from season premiere Now You Know, which scored 12.2/18.[2]
[edit] Critical reviews
TV Squad writer Isabel Carreau was quite pleased with Smiles of a Summer Night. Carreau called Bree’s sub-plot “delicious” and claimed that it was another reason for calling Bree her favourite character from the programme. She was critical of Susan’s behaviour, noting that she should act more mature.[3]
[edit] Trivia
When Bree Hodge is sneaking from Katherine Mayfair’s home (after overhearing some Mayfair secrets), the reflection of a camera man’s head can be seen momentarily in the moving door’s glass pane.
[edit] References
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