Welcome to desperately devoted Think of us as your favorite neighbors as we chat about life and relationships, all.
While we revisit the iconic show Desperate Housewives together.
I'm Terry Hatcher, I'm Andrea Bowen.
And I'm Emerson Tenny.
Hey, guys, ah, so good to see you, So good to see your favorite thing about Tuesday.
I totally agree this episode's title. Speaking out over Here episode thirteen air January twenty third, two thousand and five, titled Your Fault.
From the amazing musical Into the Woods.
Into the Woods is my favorite Sontai musical. I could sing that not it's your fault and it's really mine at.
All came away with Without that beans, that would have been nose doc to get up to the giant in the first place. Wait a minute, yeah I won't.
But you know what I will say, speaking of Into the Woods and your Fault and Andrea. For my eleventh birthday, right my eleventh birthday, all I wanted to do was an Into the Woods themed birthday party, and so I was probably the only eleven year old sending out birthday invites along with people's sides.
I into the Woods. They got to signed a character and a script.
Yes, I cast it beautifully. I cast it with all my friends. I cast them in the roles that I thought that they should play. And everyone showed up at my mom's backyard in the morning. She set up a beautiful stage. She spray painted a backdrop with a carousel and a castle and a carriage, and we rehearsed for
the beginning of the day. Then we had lunch, and then we performed the first act only so we actually didn't get to the song your Fault, but we performed the first active into the Woods, and Andrea came with so saved the day.
She said, what happened? Why did I have to pitch hit some of my friends to come in?
So my one male friend at the time, as an eleven year old, whyatt Stromer, I'm called, I am out. He's still one of my dear friends. So I can I can say his name and last name. My gosh, he's identified. He's a wonderful guy.
He really is so cute.
Yeah, incredible cinematographer, just great human being. But at the time he was like my one male friend, and I think I had cast him as both the prince and the wolf. Because naturally he really had to carry a lot of weight. And then he got sick and he couldn't come to the party, and I was playing Cinderella, which now, just for the record, if we ever did into the Woods again, I would one want to be
the witch or the Baker's wife. Yes, but at the time I wanted to be Cinderella and I had no prince, and I was devastated.
And this is like late at night. And also I want to point out that Glee was at its height of popularity. So I imagine, just imagine Glee is at its high to popularity. My daughter is going to be turning eleven, and I call Andrea Sos, do you know anyone that could come be the prince at an eleven year olds to the Woods birthday party?
And I happened to be and still to this day, very very very close friends with Kevin McHale and Jenna Hushwoods, who were both on Glee and are just incredible people in general and both very musically gifted as we know. And so I was like, yeah, I do I have people who can come.
In and out and they did, and they did, and these two do you know that I told them I have I remember, you know, I never remember anything. Obviously we've been doing this rewatch, and I don't remember anything, but I remember this. After the party, we were in our living room and I was talking to them and I looked Kevin right in the face and I said, I will scrub your toilets for the rest of your life.
That is how much I know you. No, but I mean it was just I will do anything for you for the rest of your life because you came through these kids at this party, if you can imagine, I mean, it was like the biggest movie stars walked into the backyard and he played the prince and we did it all like very improvy, and I have video of all of this, and he twirled her around and he was so tolerant of like they were just gaga over the I mean it was crazy. So yeah, that's our into the Woods story.
I think we actually can probably pull up a picture of Andrea and I from that party when I'm in my little Cinderella like rags before i transform into my princess dress and I'm seeing the picture in my head.
Yeah.
Anyway, very special day, special time in our lives together. And now finally I've been waiting for the time that we get an into the Woods title as the title of the episode, and here we are, Here we Are will be the last.
So my highlight reel for this episode was, well, first
of all, the word fault. It just pushes so many buttons for me, like I'm definitely the person that's brainwired and from my childhood and still to this day working on like things happen, and I perceive everything as my fault and as me being bad and and I mean, I really do struggle with that, and and I'm sure there are sometimes when things are my fault, but everything isn't my fault, and I really do take that on and so that kind of came up for me when I saw the title. But in this episode, we are
looking at kids who are well behaved. Those are Susans and well maybe yeah, right maybe, and Lynettes who are not obviously, and Brie gets revealed really with the title now like maybe we could have guessed, but like now she actually gets the label of a Republican And when that happened, I don't know, I was kind of mind blown because obviously Republican party very different two thousand and five than it is now. But they actually in the episode they talk about her. She says guns, she talks
about immigration, I mean the death penalty. Yeah, I mean,
I don't know. I know that our podcast isn't necessarily politically bent, but it was a very big thing, and I mean it would be interesting to well, I can only imagine how Marsha feels about it, and it made me I can I know, I can very much imagine how she feel about it now, But I don't think I ever talked to her about where this landed for her emotionally when she was doing it in two thousand and five, I sort of like, vaguely, I feel like there must have been an election in there, like it
maybe it was between Obama and Yeah, it would have been two thousand and was it Mitt Romney and Obama?
It was before Obama.
Because Obama was eight, But I'm still there were there were political conversations on the set, which is why I know that she's a liberal. You know.
Oh, you know, I was going to say, I've actually been at just in this last election of the election before letter writing and canvassing parties that Marcia has been at. I mean, I know she's very right, and it's.
It's not my position to talk about her politics, but it really did. Because the world is so politically divided now, and it is in the forefront of our news every second of every day, it did really strike me, like, and I wondered, wow, would you do that now? Like, how would that play out now? Mm hmmmm breathing a Republican now.
I thought it was interesting too, that because she's that's the only character that we're really learning any sort of political viewpoint about, because these are things, these themes of gun ownership and other things come up. And and she's expressing to George in this scene at the diner, which I love a diner. Gosh, I love a diner. It was nice to see a diner up here on the show.
I went to a diner yesterday, Yes, yes, from San Francisco.
Yeah.
I had hash browns and coffee and just the way you would do it.
Perfect diner food. But I did think it made me think about, you know how, because we're in such politically divisive times. I wonder, when newly navigating a relationship that bre like like Brion George are politics, I wonder, how quickly does it have to come up?
Now?
Probably has to come up pretty early on, you know, because it's it's such a.
Oh, I think it's so at the forefront now that I think family members don't talk to each other, you know what I mean? Like, I think, you know, friends are unfriending each other, and I mean that in a
in a sad way. That's where we're at. But I would imagine, I mean, I when I used to be on a dating app, which I am not anymore and haven't been for a long time, but when I was, there would be people that would you would come across and it would say like, if you're a trumper, don't bother you know, and vice versa, right, no, depending on That was definitely something people let you know.
And in this instance, Brie was reflecting, as you know, on this as part of how she and Rex fell in love. It's part of It's such an integral part in their love story.
And in this episode, you know, we really see their divorce like play out in a way that we've not really seen divorce addressed before, and we see a lot of familial relationships come to light in this episode. You know, we have Susan seeing Julie's relationship with Zach. We have John's parents come to Gabby to demand that she kind of reinsert herself in John's life to try to convince him to go to college.
Can I like, can we just like hone in on that for a little bit because I was so interested that. So what happens here is that John the Gardner's the high school students Gardner. I think he turns eighteen, yeah, and he's going to go to college.
That's why his parents don't have any control over him, right because.
He's eighteen eighteen, but he wasn't at the time. And the parents come to Gabby because he's made this decision to not go follow through with his college scholarship, and they want her. They threaten her that if you don't change his mind, we're going to go to the police. But in that conversation, the mom actually uses the words
statutory rape. And I remember talking to you guys a couple episodes about about I don't really recall if this, if this storyline ever played out, if it really ever like, did we ever call it by its name? And I was like, oh, I guess we did. In episode thirteen we called it by its name, statutory rape. And so the other the thing that bothered me that this is what I wanted to get into with you. I could not get over how creepy this dad is. I was
so put off. But he basically says to Gabby, I'm okay with what you did with John, and by the way, I kind of wish you had done it with me, or that I would have been able to do something like that when I was his age, And it just the ick factor, and I just kept thinking if this was reversed, if this was Carlos that had had an affair with a sixteen seventeen year old high school girl and those parents had come over, there's no way that that, you know, mom would have been going, oh, this is
a great I wish this had happened to me when I was in high school. You know.
Well, I think this made me think a lot about actually another macro theme of this episode, which is kind of generalized sexism, especially in terms of how it relates to men, because this is exactly what you're saying. This moment stood out to me a lot too. Of It's almost like, obviously John the Gardner's mom is livid, but his dad is almost like, well, this is permissible and cool. Because the subtext I read into that scene is Gabby's hot.
Right, It's fine because look at you, You're so hot.
I wish I'd been able to do something like you when I was my son's age. And this really trickles into the one other storyline, which I know we'll dive into all these storylines more and you know, use them as springboards for some larger conversations. But which is Lynette learning that Tom's dad is having an affair and the way that also not just the fact that he's having an affair, but.
The comment at the top of the episode two when Parker's stuck up on the roof exactly and it won't come down, and he's like, let me take a stab at it and climb up to the ladder, and he uses motivating language such such as, don't be a girly girl. Are you a girly girl? Because only girly girls stay up on the roof and won't climb down the ladder. I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but I know about you is girly girl.
You know missus Tom's dad that's saying this to Tom's dad.
Yeah, so that enraged me.
No, there are so yeah, so many themes of sexism. I mean also Rex having an affair being permissible versus bree it not being permissible that she's flirting with the pharmacist George. I also think about Susan being so worried about Julie, and she says to Paul when she confronts Paul about Julian Zach's relationship, she says, well, you're not worried about it, but I have to be worried about it because she's the girl.
Right, Like you're the father of the boy, but I'm the mother of the girl.
Yeah.
Yeah, lots lots to dive into in terms of.
Well take it away, Yeah, pick one, pick one of those categories. And let's let's talk about the Julie. Let's talk about the delays.
Because you played Julie so fat, I have questions about do you remember doing these scenes with Cody, Like what was that? Like, can you tell us about that? I have very loose again like I did about the Edie Susan stuff, but I do kind of have loose memories about working him when when he has that explosion that throws to furniture. Yeah, but tell us about your relationship with him.
I do remember I remember what it was like filming these scenes. I remember the intimacy of these scenes, having to kiss, you know, not knowing the timing of that, because Susan comes in on us kissing, so we being feeling a little bit awkward as to when do we start this? Do we start it before he says action, because it's it's supposed to be going on before you come in, you know. So I remember feeling very nervous
about those things. I also remember, and I say this because I really enjoyed working with Cody, and I think he is a very talented actor, and I think we both really enjoyed working together. But I I will call him out on he was a smoker at the time, and maybe not like a big time smoker, but he would smoke and then we would have to kiss. And I was like, I was not in a position being young to say, hey, can you.
Not do that?
That was a thing for me.
What was your age to friends, because this is a weird thing about child actors being cast in relationships with other actors playing kids.
I think so I was fourteen at this time, and I think he was seventeen or eighteen. I know he had taken the SATs because I remember during the pilot when we were filming. I don't know if you remember this. I mean I think you remember this. But we kind of had a looser, weirder schedule with the pilot, Like I was called on days when I wasn't even necessarily on the schedule to work, but I was there, okay. And so we had a lot of time in that house that we filmed the wake at in Pasadena. I
think we filmed it at Pasadena. And so at the time, I was in school, so I had to be doing the child labor laws, you know, studio teaching stuff. But Cody still was but he was annoyed about it because he was just about to take the SATs and so he was like, I'm basically done. I don't have to sit in here and do this, you know. So there was that age gap, so he was either seventeen or eighteen.
Was there any like did he feel uncomfortable about having to kiss a fourteen year old? I don't or was it both like you were professional actors.
I mean we both leaned on the side of wanting to be perceived as professional actors and approaching it like we are just adults doing our job. I don't know. I can't speak to if he felt. I imagine there probably was. In his real life. He wasn't probably kissing fourteen year old girls, so I imagine there was a
little bit of awkwardness for him on that end. But also, as I've mentioned in other episodes where these things have come up, it was me playing out things that we were not happening to me yet.
Had you technically at that point not kissed a boy.
I had kissed, I had kissed a boy before, but I was in dating. You know, Julie and Zach are developing a little bit of a relationship. I hadn't done that. I hadn't, you know, gone to school dances because as I mentioned, I was alone on sect, just me in my shadow dancing in the trailer.
Did give yourself a corso?
Yeah, no, no, no, but but but it's sweet seeing it. I think it's very sweet watching it back. It's kind of a weird insight I get to have. I guess we don't get to watch ourselves as a teenage kids kissing people or having awkward school dances.
Which thank god.
No, I mean for the majority of people, they're like, thank god, But I try to reframe it in the context of that's kind of cool. I get to see this secret little well.
I think that other people to be impressed with how good you were, like and how I know, just how I feel like it was really honestly a fourteen year old where whereas like it was a middle of the country fourteen year old, as opposed to like euphoria where the fourteen year olds are what they're up to? Do you know what I mean? It was a real and I like that. I like how it worked within the show. Like I I didn't tell you were just great. I thought you were so great. So do you remember the
actual kissing? I do? Do you remember any other? It makes me think because I have one onscreen kiss that stands out in my career that I probably have talked about somewhere. But to tell you, it was with Pierce Brosnan and it was in Tomorrow Never Dies. And it was when you were in that movie too, by the way, because I was pregnant, So maybe you have a reflection
of this kiss also. I don't know. Oh yes, but we were, you know, having to kiss over and over, you know, in the scene and he sort of bit me like like like like I don't know, I'm sure that he didn't mean to, but whatever the structure, like like whatever the structure was, by the end of it, I was bleeding on the one side of my mouth, Like, yeah.
I thought it was going to be like it was so good. I remember it because it was such a fabulous kiss. But but you remember it because you have a scar from it.
I don't think it was that deep, but it was, like and I that's just interesting. And I remember feeling the power is dichotomy the right word of like he was James Bond, and I was like, this little actress who was just playing this small role was not about to pull anybody aside and go by the way, I think he's biting me. It's not very comfortable, like you know, you just I just tolerated it. Yeah, And it's just a weird like I'm it's a weird thing.
It's a weird thing as part of our job to ever show up and kiss people.
And I guess that's what I'm saying, like do you remember this kiss or other kisses? Like it is a weird part. I think if people want behind the scene, it's a weird part of your job. Any kind of sexual kissing or whatever.
I remember feeling embarrassed doing it. I do remember, because I could. While I knew, Okay, this is your job on set today, I was still a fourteen year old girl who wasn't used to doing this. I didn't have the ability. When I work on things now as an adult and there's kissing scenes and there's things like that, it's such a different experience than doing it as a child. I remember the embarrassment of doing it in front of the crew. I remember the embarrassment of not wanting my
mom to stand by the monitor and watch. I remember feeling my face get really hot.
My face is hot right now, I'm telling you, I'm sure.
And also just that thing of trying to trying to wire my brain to treat it just like any other scene with any other actor and not get caught up in the intimacy of it. But I wonder now, in today's climate, if people are more sensitive to the fact that miners are doing these things that are intimate for anyone of any age, but certainly those well they have intacy coaches.
Yeah, I mean, there's not a thing so I think neither of these scenarios would happen anymore, because I would go over to this person and I would say, listen, I don't want to be rude, and I'm sure he doesn't mean it. And he's a really nice guy and he's a fabulous acker, and he's James Bond, and he's James Bond. But something is happening that is resulting in me feeling like I'm getting cut on the inside of my mouth.
Also, even before that, you would rehearse and talk through in depth the level of what you were going to do in the kiss. I mean, that is what intimacy coordinators are for now on set, and I just think
there's so many more conversations happening around it. But I'm curious, okay, to the fact of your mom standing by the monitory and you feeling uncomfortable thematically, And I also really want to hear what you remember, mom about filming from your perspective these scenes where Susan is really essentially saying Julie is too young to be having this type of relationship.
She mentions her age twice in this episode.
Yeah, what are your thoughts now on is fourteen too young to be having your first kiss? That is kind of I mean, honestly, sometimes twelve, like around that time that I think kids start to experiment with stuff like that, and how difficult is it to navigate your child's sexuality as a parent. I don't necessarily mean you know who they are attracted to, but the fact that they are exploring what it means to be and.
You're almost twenty eight and I can't imagine what you're doing now.
I mean, I'm glad.
You're not right. No, I think it's I think it's really tricky. I mean, I think within the show and on the set, I was very much of a second mom, and I mean at least I took that role on and wanting to make sure that you were okay, set detected, and so I think I've probably felt that way. But also, I mean, feel free to talk about like I'm pretty
conservative in this area. I think. I also feel like females have great consequence to when they begin to explore their sexuality, and I think the consequence that is weighted in against the female, you know, isn't also bolstered by their mental judgment, and I think that can lead to difficult consequences that are going to end up in a girl's lap. As opposed to the boys. And I know Susan makes that point, like that's what she's saying, but I think I think I probably also raised you from
that point of view. Listen, when you're a mom and you're going to find this out. It is a crazy thing to have two things working at the same time, which is one you're trying to create and grow and be a part of posturing up, you know, propping up a beautiful, independent, well rounded, capable human being, and on the other hand, you're like, please never leave your room. I'd like to be in control of you for the
rest of my life. Like it is basically both happening at the same time, and so it is a very odd thing where you're trying to marry an understanding that part of growing up is beginning to be curious about sexual things, but also knowing that your frontal lobe doesn't
fully develop until you're twenty five. And then when you complicate it with governmental things like you're allowed to drive at sixteen, which I find insane, but you can't you can vote at eighteen, but you can't drink until twenty one. Like it's all mashed up in a way that I don't think makes a lot of sense, right.
Like the metrics for when someone's old enough to do one thing versus another don't really line up, and so a parent has to make those decisions for themselves. Do you remember how old you were when you started dating?
Oh? Yeah, I have so much to say about that,
because I was cracking up about Susan. In some ways, Susan's response to Julie, the way she is so protective did actually remind me of you as a mom when I was around Julie's age, And I think it's like one of the few times that I was like, oh, that actually sort of feels like I could see Terry, my mom, like having a similar reaction now, I Emerson, Terry's daughter would never have had the balls to be kissing someone at the kitchen table where just anyone couldn't walk in and see.
At your dad's house, probably maybe, I mean, I do think that benefits as right, you have a second house to go to with.
Truly, it's so interesting because Mom, you and I are so close now, and like, as an adult, I think we talk about sex and dating. I mean, you know, not the graphic any you know, whatever, details of life.
Communication is very open.
It's very open, and I did not feel that way when we when I was you know, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, maybe even I feel like, well around eighteen, like around the time I went off to college, I feel like that became more of a part of our relationship. But I do think when I was younger, and it makes sense that I think you for various ways that you grew up and things that you dealt with as a young child like that you would take a maybe more
protective bent on dating. Does not mean I didn't date and talk about the benefits of divorce. I think sometimes a guy would ask me to hang out when I was in like early high school, and I'd be like, ask me next weekend.
Uras comes out on a podcast, but clever.
I you know, it's funny that you mentioned Cody and yours age difference because actually, and this is now, I as a twenty eight year old, am cringing at this guy. I mean, he was a perfectly nice first official boyfriend. Okay, was a senior when I was a freshman in high school, and I that is a round. I mean I think I was fifteen, but that is like around the age difference. And then we actually even dated into when I was a sophomore in high school and he was a freshman
in college. I mean briefly, that only lasted a couple of months.
Do I know who this is? You don't know.
We went to the state where he went to college together to visit him. He came to a fancy restaurant.
Oh yeah, okay, yeah. I think I did feel weird about that.
At the time. No, and now as an adult, I look back on that and I think, you know, of course, why did I let that happen. I don't know. I mean, we went to the same school, that is how, that's how we knew each other. But and I felt very mature for my age or whatever. But I do think, I mean, I think that's a strange age gup. And now that was not I wasn't sleeping with him. I mean, I think, you know, it was still tame. It was
still tame. But I do think that is just it's a very interesting I have so many kind of around that time. First kiss. I remember even before that, like in the arc Light, back when arc Light was a movie theater still in Los Angeles, going with two of my best girlfriends and they brought some guy and like
his friends from their school. We didn't go to the same school, and it was like, Oh, we're all going to go see Looper, but actually we're going to make out in the back of the movie theater, something I never do because I don't want to miss the movie.
Now, Yeah, I think it's interesting because this is bleeding into another storyline in this episode a little bit, which is in this instance, in the Jewel Zac Susan Paul thing, we're kind of talking about parents inserting themselves into their children's relationships, which is different. But in the Lynette and Tom and his dad storyline, you have Lynette inserting herself into his father's relationship. And I thought this was I
thought there was a lot to talk about here. Obviously, Lynette is horrified to learn that Tom's dad is having an affair. She has a lot of feelings about it. She's a little bit appalled by Tom's lack of reaction.
She then learns that he's known about it, not this specific one, but other affairs, and it opens up this whole line of conversation between the two of them about affairs and how he feels about his dad and all of that, but it did make me curious for you, guys, if you've ever been in a position where you've had to or felt a desire to offer an opinion on someone else's relationship that you're close with.
I think the only time this ever came up for me was I had a friend who had been in a long term marriage and the husband was revealed to have fall in love with another woman and was having
an affair. And what I remember mostly is that all of her friends were like, get divorced, get divorced, get divorced, Like it was just immediately that that, you know, just get divorced, and I wasn't sure that she wanted to get divorced, and so I feel like I was the one friend at the time who sort of held space for it to be okay, for her to process this how she needed to. And I think what they ultimately ended up doing was a lot of years of trust rebuilding,
but ultimately stayed together. And you know, I have a lot of I'm in respect for that because I'm sure that took a lot of work and bravery and vulnerability on both of their parts. But it shows me as
an example that affairs can be conquered. And also I looked at this part of the story, you know, when Tom reveals that the mom has basically not necessarily been in on it, but sort of like in their words, I think like kind of made her peace with this is her husband's behavior, and this is he goes out and he has these relationships with this woman or that woman, and that you know, it's sort of okay with her. And we don't meet her, so we don't know if
that's really true or not. But what it did make me think is like we can be very judgmental about how what is the right way to be in a relationship, and I think that that is a mistake. I think that in general, we are all too hard on each other, too judgmental of each other. You just don't know what people are going through, and we should all just lead with a lot more, just give people some grace because you just don't know. And it's also none of your business.
It's people's relationship. It's their rules that they're comfortable with, it's the contract that they entered into, and it's very individual. Every relationship is so unique to the two people or three or four however many are involved.
I mean I always tell, you know, bringing it back to politics a little bit, like something that had been going on like in the last year for Emerson. And I mean, I don't think I'm speaking out of turn to talk about this, but no, I what you're about to say bringing up like how you were having a lot of anxiety about gay people's ability to get married in the US and is that something that's at risk, and yes it is and where is that going and
what can anybody do about it? And I along with just sharing the anxiety about me not being on the side of thinking that that's reasonable, but beyond that, I would say to Emerson, set aside that issue. I have never I have been saying this for forty years. I don't think the government should be involved in anyone's marriage, Like I just don't see it as a governmental thing.
And the only reason I think it became it like decades ago, was in order for the government to get taxes or you know, get like it became a financial thing, which has nothing to do with the the honoring, the resolution, the commitment, the spirituality, the community of your wedding and the people that are committed to supporting you as a couple. Like all of that is so beautiful and so worthwhiled,
but has nothing to do with the government. So I'm just sort of like, get married, but don't involve the government anyway. You know. That's my two sents.
Yeah, yeah, I mean I agree. I agree that I think the central component to me of a marriage and of that contract you decide to enter into with someone is to say we are going to we want to go through this life together, you know. And I think we do live in a country and generally marriage is set up now, so yes, they're benefits. There are laws around if you're visiting in a hospital, if you're you know, and I think that everyone who is in any type
of committed partnership should just that should be recognized. I recognize that that is maybe you know why the government is involved, and it's obviously very upsetting that, you know, we have a government that wants to recognize those types of rights but for certain individuals and not for others, when really it's about who do you want to choose to be your support system through life? I mean, I
really think that is. You know, you choose that in your friends, and then you say, okay, I want my primary point person to be this person and maybe.
It has really come into play in important ways in your life. It can and see those barriers regardless of whether or not we think it's right or wrong. We do live in a society where the government is involved, and so that access that we grant some is so necessary, and when we decide that other people don't deserve it is just so un fair, soul crushing and unreasonable. And yeah, I had a personal experience that I found really impactful in my early twenties with a friend of mine who
was dating someone who was not treating her well. And I had witnessed him not treating her well enough times, and I'd had a lot of conversations with her about it. She and I are very very close. She'd come to me a lot about it. I'd given her about all of the advice that I felt like I could. I didn't have any more to give, And the last thing that I could do was sort of recognize that I can't control what she does, and it is very much
her decision. If she wants to continue putting up with it, and if she sees the value out weighing the negatives, then that's her choice. The only thing I can do is control my what I can tolerate, and I can't tolerate being a witness to it anymore. So therefore I support you, I love you, I'm here for you, but I'm not here for the relationship. So I won't be
around that person. And she is told me that by me taking that level of a stance of saying I won't be around them, it really changed everything for her and she could just totally, you know, accept and see fully that this wasn't a healthy relationship anymore. So anyway, that's my example.
That's because I could see that backfiring on your friendship too.
I could do it was a risk, it was a big risk.
That's that's interesting. Yeah, And I think that's brave that you put yourself out there like that.
I loved her and I still love her, and I just wanted better for her.
Yeah.
Well, I think that's really interesting in terms of the line that we see Lynette take with Tom's dad. I mean, first it's and it's such a good comedic feat that she puts him out on the curb, and then you see her and Tom kind of have more of an argument about it, and then we cut to immediately Tom out on the curb, sitting next to his dad, and
eventually they they let him back in. But I feel like Lynette is saying a version of what you said of you know what you are saying, And I am personally I am a big believer in the idea that you know they talk about maybe Tom's dad's or Tom's dad's wife knows to some degree that these this affair is happening. And I really do believe energetically or cosmically
that everybody kind of knows everything. I mean not to say that, obviously, it is our responsibility to communicate our needs, and people are not mind readers, and people are very capable of keeping secrets. But I do think if you're thinking about who is the kind of person who has an affair over the course of many years of their marriage, you.
Feel like you know who that is.
Well, it's hard for me to believe that their partner doesn't know, Yeah, Noor, she did know, or is completely blindsided by that information. But Lynette is saying, whatever you have worked out with your family and what they are willing to tolerate, I'm not willing to tolerate that. And that seems to really stick with Tom in a way that it's that he is maybe hiding something. Yea, we're gonna find out that's making him extra nervous. At first, I got scared.
I forgot. I don't know.
I don't know either, but it did make it seem like maybe Tom had already had an affair.
Yeah, And it made me think, And Mom, you and I talk about this a lot. What is the line of how much you think our parents are a reflection of who we are as people, Like I remember really distinctly. I think when you're young, you know, when you're Julie's age and or Zach's age, and there's so much embarrassment around anything that your parent does, like, oh my god, don't speak to me in the carpool line when you pick me up from school. Just keep the windows up.
I remember, like with my dad once he took me to Starbucks in the morning before school. We were standing in line. He loves the story, and his phone dings and he looks at his phone and I'm standing in front of him in line, and I have texted him, Dad, all my friends are here, don't do anything. I don't
do anything, do anyone in order? And I think, you know, we shed a lot of that embarrassment that we feel in our teenage years when we come to realize that our parents' actions are not a reflection of our actions, and that everyone is their own person.
I think this leads in a little bit to Mary Alice has all of you know, she always has her overarching view of everyone on Westeria Lane, and in this episode she says, sooner or later, time comes to be a responsible adult, to give up what you may want and do what is right. And it makes me think, do you think becoming a responsible adult means giving up
the life that you want to go after? Which I bring it up now because I agree that by extension, there becomes a time when you're going from childhood into adulthood taking on responsibility that you can choose to be
your parents or not. And some times that has to be a very conscious I mean, I spent a lot of my adult life going I am not my mother, I am not my mother, I am not going to be my mother, and I know you, and then sometimes I go, oh, my god, I'm my mother, and and it makes me want to, you know, punish myself, because there's a lot of qualities in my mother that are
not great, and I don't want to emulate. I mean, there's parts of her that are great, but like, I don't want to be my mother, and I think so kind of, I'm sort of answering your question too, which is, I think you can elevate beyond who your parents are and what you've witnessed as a role model. But I don't know. Do you think becoming an adult means letting go of what you want?
I think not. Yeah, i'mar and sweet, No, I don't. Okay, yeah, I marked this moment too, because I think I actually see friends of mine and people I know whose parents seem to have this belief that it is immature to be pursuing what you want to do, and that that's like, oh, well, that's rivolous to try to build a career or build a life around what you want, Like you're such a child. What you actually should do is commit to something stable that you don't like that much, but it pays your bills.
That's being an adult, Because that's being an adult. And I think, God, I'm sorry for my friends have so much dismantling to do from their parents' belief systems in order to have a happy life. Because I disagree. I I mean, I entirely disagree. I think being an adult is maybe learning how to take responsibility for your actions, learning that your actions don't exist in a vacuum. There's consequences, yeah, and that what you do affects the other people around.
You, and there's compromise. Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do. It's not a living a life of indulgence or living a life of selfishness, right, It's that there's trade off. Sometimes you have to do something you don't want to do because it's necessary, or it benefits someone else, or you have an obligation to meet or whatever. That as being an adult, but it's don't enjoy your life, give up the things that you want to do.
Yeah, and yeah, I think that responsibility also really does have to be balanced with the fact that, at least personally for me, I believe this is our one life. You know, it is a huge gift that we ended up in human form, in this life, in this moment, and to some degree, I think you're entitled to enjoy your life. I think that you know, being born into this world gives you that entitlement.
And do you know that every night when I go to sleep, Like people will ask me if I meditate, and the version of meditating that I do. When I go to sleep, I put my head on the pillow and all the lights are off and I and I start reflecting on what I was grateful for in that day.
And it could be the.
Littlest thing, you know, like the feeling of the pillow on my I already told you I'm devoted to my pillow, the feeling of the pillow, or like like it that I got to have two real deep conversations with two different girlfriends on one day, which never happens, you know, and and or you know, I saw a bird or
I ate the hash browns or whatever. But it those conscious acknowledgments of the moments that your life is made of and the ones that you enjoy, I think start to define like that you're having a life you want to have.
Yeah, there was another Mary Alice line that I flagged from this episode that I just kind of caught a double entendre that I'm not sure I would have the first go around for myself, which was I think it might be the last line in the episode. She says, sooner or later, we must all become responsible adults. No one knows this better than the young. And she says this as it's right after Julian Zach meet back up
against their parents' wishes and whatever. But their last name being young Mary Alice Young Zach Young landed with me, and I was so. I was kind of emotional about it because it became we listened to Mary Alice give us this insight, and her narrations serve so many plot devices and furthering the storyline and also just giving us
so much wisdom throughout. But she is also watching the lives of her friends and her exit or her husband and her son, and so when she says that no one knows this better than the young, it just really struck me that or if they meant it that way, I feel like with our writers that faces and they must have, but I don't know that they needed everyone to catch it, or maybe everyone did and I just didn't. I certainly did this time, and I thought it was you beautiful that connection.
I didn't and as their last name nobody, I so am now and I have to say this episode and Mom, the scene that Susan has with Paul because they meet up back in the dance venue where the school dance has.
Happened as Sportsman's Lodge.
Fyo, remember lodge for which is now where arewana is where you can get a forty dollars smoothie and for you.
No, but I mean Zach and Paul and and Paul and Susan's dynamic in this episode really just it sang to me a lot. And then the way that you know, Susan and Paul have this moment dancing to what is the song Dustin?
And that made me I love that song, but it also made me I don't want to get in the way of your point, but it did make me want to talk about playlists and which you know and just music and what it does to you because that I couldn't believe that that was the song. And it also I was like they paid for that song. I was sort of surprised, Yes, go ahead.
It was a beautiful scene where you feel Susan towing the line of how much is Paul going to tell her because she doesn't actually know what Zach has done yet. In that scene, it's like fishing, yeah, and then we find out what Zach has done maybe maybe he actually hasn't killed his sister. He's been led to believe he killed his sister. And now and I said, oh my god, this show should not have been set on Wisteria Lane. It should have been set on blackmail Lane, because everyone
is blackmailing everyone now Zach' mysteria lane. Now Zach is blackmailing Paul to not move so he can stay in this relationship with Julie. And you have Susan confront Zach before him and Julie run to meet up for that very last scene of the episode. And I really I was kind of haunted by the scene at the end with Julian Zach, but also the scene prior between Susan and.
Zach.
Oh, Zach, oh in the kitchen.
We're in the kitchen, And I wanted to know. I mean, I know we've talked about your first kiss and being a parent and navigating that, but do you remember filming that scene? Because I just thought, gosh, how challenging to have a child who maybe suffers from mental illness. How challenging to have a child dating a child who has a predictable behavior, you know, whether that has anything to do with underlying conditions or not. And I thought you handled that scene so well as an actor, Mom, But
do you remember anything about that? It was really intense.
Again, I'm gonna say that, you know, Unfortunately I don't other than like what comes through me, like what resonates is that, Yes, it was intense, and I feel like
Cody and I had each other's backs. I feel like this is the same thing I was saying about Nicolette and in the Edie Susan scene where they take the ashes out, Like sometimes I'm not remembering the specificity of like what might have gone wrong or what might have been funny, like you know, did the cabinet not fall over the right way one time or whatever, Like I'm not remembering those things, but I'm remembering an overall sense of like that is a scary place to go to,
like as an actor, And that's the fun of being an actor that you get you get led on these different journeys depending on what the character's story is. But when you know as the actor that you're gonna have to go to this place, like, I agree with you. I thought it was played well. I thought what I saw in Susan was like I really want to be respectful about how is there a way for everybody to get a win, like, can Julie have what she wants? Can Zac have what he wants? Can Susan still feels safe?
Like I kind of saw that until he throws the thing, and then it's like and she says, thank you for making this so easy on me, and I actually love I mean, that felt like a very true moment too, whenever you're like having a difficulty with somebody and then they do something that's so egregious that all you can think is, I'm not mad about the egregious thing you
just did. I'm just super happy that you just did it, because now this is not hard for me at all, And there's like relief in that because it's permission.
It's permission to just go with your instinct and you don't have to worry about how the other person feels anymore, sort of because they just did something that made it very clear cut.
Yeah yeah, yeah.
But I feel like it would be interesting to talk to Cody because I feel like I kind of recall again and maybe this is just like my angle of like the way I at least am remembering what it's like to act in something like that long ago. But I feel like we both were probably really trying to find the subtlety in.
It all, and Cody was I mean, Cody was a very committed actor. He took his job very seriously. He showed up with ideas, he showed up prepared, and he was intense. When in those scenes where he had to be intense, he took them very seriously. He felt a big responsibility to play those out. So I can imagine it was an intense moment to film as well, because he probably thought about it a lot and done quite a lot of prep prior to showing up.
It makes me think about another big theme that emerged for me towards the end of this episode, the idea of how relationships and the relationships we have to other people can sometimes cloud and make it difficult to know what we need as individuals. You know, in the relation to John and Gabby's relationship, John has clouded his idea of what going to college means because he's thinking about his relationship with Gabby and maybe not about what's best for him as an individual. We see Rex and Brie
in their divorce. Brie seems really steadfast on saying this is what I need as an individual, and Rex is trying to still think about them as a unit, and we have.
How those tables have turned. Now he wants the relationship to maybe work, and she's checked out. Now she's decided it's no longer going to serve her.
Yeah, and Julie and Zach, I mean, I question what Julie wants because I feel like Zach is really leading their relationship along, even though we know that Julie cares about him. And Yeah, I'm just curious. Have you ever either of you felt like I think you know? It can be both. A relationship can be really supportive of your individuality, but it can also make it harder to maybe identify or advocate for what those individual needs are.
Do you feel like you've experienced a version of that or have any thoughts on that?
In relation to this, when two people are in a relationship who are very similar versus seeking out relationships where you're different from one another, I don't know which is I think it depends on the person, right. Sometimes people like to be with people who are very similar with a lot of shared interests, and sometimes it's better for those to maintain their individuality by being with people who
are very different from them. I think it's very common for people to lose a sense of individuality or identity in a relationship, and it can be very damaging because the relationships with ourselves have to be at the forefront of our lives so that we can offer a full person to someone else. And I think that I've been in relationships where I've been very similar with the partner, and for me personally, it has been more fulfilling to me to be with someone who is different, different than
I am. Not in always and the core ways to have a lot of similar values and morals and things like that, but interests being different. The way we react to things being different, I feel like allows me to feel a sense of individuality. But I get to learn all the time from the other person, and I love that. And I learned things about myself, for good and bad, that I think are really valuable to the maintenance and
longevity of a relationship. And just another thing about the John Gabby thing, because I thought it was so interesting. We see him propose to her, which is wild. He proposes by saying, miss is so long, you're getting You're not getting it. Can't even call her by her first name. But then we learn because the parents come back. The dad comes back for that final scene to confront and she's his mom says, where's the ring? Where's my grandmother's ring?
So we learned that Gabrielle did. She say, yes, I don't understand what happened there.
She left the ring.
No, she took it.
She took it because they came. The parents came to say, where is our grandmother's ring? And she says something like, I.
Think she took it because they need money.
Oh, I thought, she Oh, that's interesting. I hadn't even given that a thought.
I thought she was thinking she was going to sell it.
Maybe I thought that she left it on the table.
We had to read it.
We have to have another rewatching to figure out what really happened.
I thought she left it on the table and she said, I never really loved you and I Actually this scene stood out to me a lot. I thought this was such an interesting scene to write when thinking about Gabby's character, because obviously I can't speak for Eva as an actor, but I feel that in the writing of this scene, Gabby is being asked for the first time to really look at the consequences of what she's done. That now here is this kid, throwing away his life and future.
She finally sees him as a kid maybe well to be with.
Her, and that she has I think she has really loved him, and I think the kind of theme of you know, we give up what we want to do, what is right, this idea that maybe we disagree with what it is that that's what Gabby is doing in that scene. I think she does love him, but I think she knows saying I was never in love with you will make him let go of the idea of their relationship in a way that will let him have
a future and that does have hope. And that's the adult thing for her to do, which which I was happy to finally see her do.
Yeah, it's a redeeming moment for her character.
Well that's a good way to end this episode. Yeah, I think everybody, everybody being their most adult self. And so then the three of us are going to go adult this week, and then we'll see each other next week, and we'll see you guys next week too, because we are desperately devoted to you.
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