Welcome to desperately devoted Join us as we explore the human experience through the lens of the iconic show Desperate Housewives.
I'm Terry Hatcher, I'm Andrea Bowen.
And I'm Emerson Tenny.
Well, we're back here we are. This week we're discussing episode eleven, Move On, which aired on January ninth, two thousand and five. And as I'm saying that, I'm realizing that I probably should have sung that intro because this is a great episode for theater. Not only do we have two amazing theater legends join us in the episode, but we also get an iconic performance of New York, New York, sung by Susan while she's handing Carl his ass.
This performance actually was part of what got my mom, Terry Hatcher a nomination for the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.
So Cool and So deserved.
Oh and missus Hooper's strange and off putting sister Felicia arrives on the lane. While Edie continues her pursuits of finding out what has happened to her friend, Brie goes on a date which she not so subtly rubs in Rex's face.
Lynette suspects Tom may be attracted to their new nanny.
And Gabrielle finds herself facing the harsh realities of job hunting while adjusting to life with Carlos and Jail, which leaves her spinning on a turntable in them all with a buick.
So much to discuss, let's jump in.
Okay, Okay, So I just want to say, because we do like to explain where the titles of the episodes come from, and this one is a Sondheim reference. It is a The title comes from a reference to Sunday in the Park with George, which I just am obsessed with that musical. I do think it's one of his greatest pieces of work ever in my opinion. And there is a lyric from this song that is the perfect underscore of this episode and so clearly why it was titled after the song, and that lyric is I chose
and my world was shaken. So what the choice may have been mistaken? The choosing was not. You have to move on, And I just think it's so such a profound you.
Say that again?
Yeah, okay, sure, yes.
And can you just does Burnett Peters Oh of course, yes she does.
And there's an amazing there's an amazing performance of Burnet Ut Peters and Mandy potank And performing this to honor Stephen Sondheim on YouTube, and I highly recommend you all go watch it because it's so powerful and yeah, amazing. So the lyric is I chose and my world was shaken, So what the choice may have been mistaken? The choosing was not you have to move on?
Wow.
I have to say, I'm so glad you pointed this out, because move On. I mean, I'm a huge son time fan, but move On from Sunday in the Park with George is one of my all time favorite musical songs. Yeah, and I actually have it on playlists of like normal non musical music, and then move On just comes in and then I start crying in my car, and yeah, I really love this song too.
Yeah.
Yeah, And I love when it's so clearly lines up with what was happening in the story, and I just think, gosh, that's so cool that we were, that I was a part of a show, being such a theater kid, and having Sondheim be someone who was so influential in my life, like another person who raised me I feel like tie into this other show that was such a huge part of my life. I mean, that's so cool.
Yeah, I just I mean I was going to get to this when we get to the restaurant and the karaoke party, which we will at the end. But since you said you were a theater kid, I just want to point this out to our audience. And I don't even Emerson, I don't know if you know this. So Andrea, am I right? You got your first role on Broadway as a six year old Yes in lay Miss Yes, and then follow that up at like seven with the Sound of Music, Yes, and then followed that up with was it a Disney show or no?
It was. It was a musical adaptation, which is actually so incredible but sounds maybe strange, but it was a musical adaptation of the amazing novel Jane Eyre. Oh wow, Yeah.
Okay, right, yeah, and then and and then so Desperate Housewives was basically like your first big TV thing. I mean, you did another pilot, but this was the first one that like, yes went.
Because in New York, if you're a theater kid, the TV shows that you do are all in the Law and Order universe, Right, all around. So I did all of the Law and Order shows, and those were that was my like dipping my toe into the TV world,
which I really did love. And honestly, my very first kind of amazing example of a woman on screen was Mariska Hargatee when I worked with her, and she was a great example of someone who was leading a television show with so much compassion, and you know, she was She's such a team player, and she commanded so much respect while also giving so much respect in return and being so gentle towards me. I was, you know, it
was Lawn Order SVU. I were a little older when I did that, but yeah, I was young, and I was handling a very delicate storyline about having you know, been sexually abused as a child and all these things, and she just handed that also well. But she also came to see me in Jane Eyre and she brought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers and came backstage and she was so lovely and yeah, anyway, so that's amazing.
Yeah, I have to say, listening to you talk about these beautiful female friendships and relationships forged in Hollywood or in New York, Theater on Broadway reminds me actually of the opening of this episode that Mary Alice narrates when she says Edie Britt never understood why she didn't have any female friends, and then this segues into us kind of understanding that maybe the reason Edie has been prying into Martha Hubert's disappearance is because as strange and as
odd of a couple of friends as they kind of were, they were both these single women who were not able to kind of fall into the friendship of four women on the block that Susan and Brie and Gabby and Lynnette are. And I just I found this really interesting and I wanted to pose this question to both of you of what do you think about the trope of being like a girl's girl versus a girl who can't have female friendships. I feel like, I know some of my female friends were like, oh, it's just so hard
for me to have girlfriends. Most of my friends are guys, and I just do have equal male and female friendships. Do you feel like that is a stereotype that you fall in time?
I do. I mean it's interesting that you bring it up as something to dig into, because I mean, I have that written down here too, You know that, why do certain women seem to have a harder time like falling into those kinds of relationships than others? And is that fair? Or why does that happen? And is it because of jealousy or is it because of like controlling
or you know what is it? Because when you look at it, like you could look at Edie as an example and you could go, Okay, she kind of comes off as like a know it all or like superior to everyone else. And whether she feels that way or not, maybe that's her defense mechanism or her safety mechanism. But she comes off with that sort of air of supremeness that I can imagine would be off putting for other people running to go, oh, I want to be your friend.
But should it be you know? And should I don't know. Should confidence and a high sense of self and worth be the kind of thing that like drives other women away from you?
Yeah?
Also, I think we see that Edie's capable of being a good friend. You know, she doesn't always lead with being necessarily what people assume often goes with that like warm and welcoming and fuzzy and soft, like she's not necessarily those things, but that doesn't mean you're not a good friend. And I do think that's a very interesting point that both of you are making about where does that trope come from the idea that some women have an easier time making friends with other women? And what
does that say? And honestly, I wonder if it's a societal thing. I wonder if society has put women in a category where instead of it being like there's a room for everyone, there's often not. There hasn't been historically room for every woman, and therefore there's inherently an idea of competition or jealousy being brought into the fold when often it's not about that. So I don't know. I will say I have to answer your question directly. I
have so many amazing female friendships in my life. I am so incredibly lucky and rich in that way definitely outweighs the number of male friends that I have. I do have several male fri friends that I also very much cherish, but there is just something about having a community of women around me that I feel so grateful for. And I thought it was kind of nice that we saw because we've joked about like, what strange, what a
strange pairing they are Edie and missus Huber. But seeing that missus Huber was the first one to really extend her hand and be welcoming to Edie when she moved onto the lane, I was like, Oh, that's where it began. Yeah, the other women weren't cold, but they waved from afar.
But that's and that's the part of like why you know why? And I guess, Okay, you're making a TV show. You've got to set up you've got to set up conflict. You know, you can't have everybody like love each other, there's no story to do. So but like in the real world, I mean, if you took it off the wisteria lane and go like, why why would those four women? Like I almost blame the four women more than I blame Edie, oh for sure, Like why would they stand
there and wave? And it can only be because she's sexy and single, single and confident and they're jealous. I mean, yeah, I can't think of another reason. I'm just And you asked about our personal lives, you know, you were there. But for my sixtieth birthday, which was truly my greatest one of my greatest memories ever and the absolute perfect way exactly how I would have wanted to spend my birthday.
I had nine of my girlfriends and one male friend meet me come with me to Cornwall, England, which is a very hard place to get to, which I say that because it like speaks so much for my friends who were willing to literally you know, planes, trains and automobiles, that's what it is.
I was on the seven hour bus ride through the dark, rainy, windy streets. Yeah it's true.
But we were there for five days and I mean every single and some of them knew each other and some of them didn't, and as they said, not me, they were like not an asshole in the bunch. Like it was just like everybody was so great and it just could not have been better and made me just you know, I felt like my sixtieth birthday was sort
of like this is the long haul. Like it's like from here forward, it's probably not going to be the easiest section of my life, and you want people in it that are the most substantive, like supportive and energetic, you know, whatever, it is, curious, whatever the love is that capacity that it's a very specific thing that I am so grateful for having. So Yeah, I have women in my life that I would do anything for, and
I'm so grateful for that. But I do find this sadly familiar of like times in my life where I feel like I've been part of a times in my life where i feel like I've sort of been ostracized as part of a group. And it is interesting in hindsight, you ask yourself, did you ostracize yourself? Like is Edie ostracizing herself here? Or are they pushing her out? I don't know, it's hard. How about you in your personal life?
I mean, I do have I have two best friends who I've known from the time I was under one year old because our moms met in Mommy and me, and we grew up together. And we never went to the same schools and we didn't go to the same colleges, but we have stayed in each other's orbit through all of that, and I really feel like, you know, the three of us are on a group text together, we have matching tattoos, we could call each other at any
moment and would show up for each other. And then I have some other really great girlfriends who I've made a little bit later in my life, you know, a couple from high school, though I don't have very many friends from high school, and then a few from college, and quite a few that I've made, you know, in
my adult life. But I will say I also have a high not maybe exactly equal, but almost close to equal number of male friends who mean the world to me also and who I think really just offer a slightly different perspective, and I really appreciate the perspective that they're and the energy that they bring into my life, which is not better or worse, but is different than
my female friendship. So I'm definitely pro cultivating both girlfriends and guy friends equally because I think I think it can be a really valuable resource for perspective in my life.
I think that's really cool. And I was thinking about how sometimes you have that built in into your family, right, Like if I am lucky enough to have two sisters who I'm really close with, and then that makes me think, of course, of the fact that missus Hooper has a
sister who shows up on the street. Oh my goodness, does she show up with She just she just comes straight out of the gate with some singers and with a bunch of personality, and of course she's played by the amazing Harriet Sampson Harris, whom I've just loved and benefited at first. So we talk about.
How much I fann girled out on her because when Emerson was little, we lived in New York and I used to take her to as much theater as a young four year old could go to.
Which was staggeringly a lot.
We want to see hairspray, and I like, did her hair up in the in the fifties things bufon thing like. We really went for it. So I think probably our favorite show was thoroughly modern Milly and Harriet played the you know madam yes whatever, it was, the bad guy and she, oh, she was so good and we I think we went and saw it twice and then and then we listened to that. We knew every word of everything.
I was thinking every word too, But the fact is.
Everything is there really mud check your personality?
Gosh, we're nerves.
Broadways anyway, So when she came on the set, I don't even think I was working with her. I certainly not in this episode.
So probably at the table read you saw her.
I made sure that I pulled her aside and was like, you don't know my daughter, and I love you so much. We think you're this the greatest thing ever.
Well also, I mean it's going to turn into like a whole love letter to Harriet Harris. But I my favorite television show growing up was Frasier. I was a very big Fraser fan, and she played his manager Bbie, and that was just another incredible performance of hers. So I was also like totally awestruck that she was on our show because of that. So this was a big episode.
Yeah, And I have to say Felicia as a character is bonkers. I mean in the best possible way. She comes in and she just says and I actually do think. I mean, it's fascinating that the twist is, you know, she hated her sister. But there is a thing that
I see. I mean, I don't have a sibling. I'm an only child, but I see with my friends who do have siblings, especially twins, although that's its own kind of intense connection where they really will like the phone will ring across the room and they'll go, oh, that's my sister, like before they see who's calling, and it will be And I think this idea that Felicia felt that Martha Hooper died and she and she knows, and she's so unquestioning. Even though Edie is saying, no, we're
gonna find her. Really don't worry. You can't think like that. She's like, no, I know my sister's dead. And it's I just I love a character that comes in and just cuts right to the core of their beliefs. I think is fascinating. And she plays that so well.
And I did get a big, big old belly laugh when she called her a wretched pig, a wretched pig of a woman who was just like wow, wow. Sometimes sister's words can really wound.
Speaking of characters that other characters are thinking are wretched, Rex is being released to go home, and Bree says that she doesn't want to take him back in, although she ends up ultimately relenting to her kid's pressure. But this is really where my best line Award once again has to go to breathe because her son says Andrew. Andrew says, I cannot wait until you get old and I can put you in a nursing home. And she says, I'm sorry to disappoint you, Andrew, but my plan is
to have an embolism and to die young. And that really perfectly delivered amazing, amazing line and did also open a larger conversation topic for me that I was thinking about in terms of kids putting their parents in nursing homes, but also the responsibility of taking care of a partner who suddenly falls unexpectedly seriously, Ill, what did this bring
up for either of you? I mean, Mom, I know you and I have had lots of conversations about putting if we should, if we shouldn't, put Grandma and Grandpa into a home. They really resist that idea, and you've really done everything you can to facilitate them not having to go to a nursing home. But what do you both think?
Well, I think there were, you know, a couple issues here that, like, the caregiving is real. You know that.
I've started a little video series on my Instagram called Sandwich about the Sandwich generation that is taking care of their elderly parents and what that feels like to be obligated to that and it's difficult and it's pervasive, and being a caregiver of somebody you don't like, which is what we bring you know, somebody that you have animosity towards, which is the situation pri is finding herself in, you know,
is even even harder. And I think at the end of the day, a character like Bri and people who find themselves in this situation, ultimately you'res not doing it for the person. You're doing it for yourself. You're doing it for who you want to be when you look in the mirror. You know, I actually, you know, my parents have been pretty great lately, Like I don't know what's happening, but they've been kinder and gentler and whatever.
But like my good friends, the ones we were talking about, would tell you, like, you know, your parents don't deserve you, you know, like I'm not sure it's been reciprocal, like what I'm giving and what I've sort of received over my life. But for me, in the end, that's who I am. I want to be a person, and that is doing the all I can do to take care of this these people that have been in my life, my whole life. And I think that's how Brie must feel here, and she's also doing it for her children.
I did think it brought up an interesting thing which neither of you, I guess will really be able to
answer because you're not parents yet. But how many times parents like eat their own feelings on behalf of protecting their children, right, And that felt really deep and really relatable to me, that this character is, you know, not saying that the dad had an affair, and you know, trying everything she can to not say that, to not throw the dad under the bus, but yet she's still living with this great betrayal and these deep, deep wounds. And I think a lot of parents do.
That, and I think we see that come up, I mean to jump Ahat had a bit in the episode to come up. When Brie really can't hold it in anymore, and Andrew confronts her when she's on the date with the pharmacist and she blurts out, you know that your father's been having an affair. And then later the next day Andrew comes to her and says, you know, I'm on your side, And he's finally on her side. I mean, he's been so against her actions all the time, and he says, you should throw him out of the house.
And I think it's a beautiful scene. It's a beautiful scene. Yeah, when Brie says, you know, I and I'm paraphrasing because I don't have it written down, but she says, you know, I am hurt, and I'm going to divorce your father and I may go on to marry someone else, but your father was and may always be like the love of my life and the father of my children, and you're not going to disrespect him.
It's so illustrative of how much Bree is holding, how many big feelings she's holding all at once. You know, she's grappled with the fact that she's been so guus.
They all are the feelings. They're in that big beehive haird oh.
I know when she embodies that perfect nineteen fifties they're stacked up in that hairdoo. Yeah, you're right, you're right, But it really is. It's a very powerful scene. And I think that that and we see Rex overhearing it, and I don't know what that will do in terms
of how much. I don't know how it will impact the way he treats her moving forward, but I imagine that would be a really amazing thing to overhear knowing that you have just hurt your partner so deeply that you did not act with that type of loyalty and reverence and respect that she is now offering Rex and he's standing there overhearing this. I imagine it's going to land with him in some big way. But yeah, I
thought it was a really powerful moment. Her arc in this episode is is really fun to watch the date that she goes on with George the pharmacist played by Roger Bart, who is another amazing theater actor.
Now what has I know he? What has he been in?
Okay, so well, I first fell in love with Roger Bart when he was in You're a Good Man Charlie Brown on Broadway and he played Snoopy and he has just some incredible moments and performances in that musical. Another thing people should go on YouTube. But I was so excited when he came onto the show. I was really really excited. He's very talented in general, talented theater actor, talented television performer, so he's great.
There was a plethora of theater people because Mark came out of theater and I think when he could, he wanted to put those kinds of people. He wanted to surround himself with those kinds of people.
Yeah, I have to say that is a dream of mine as a filmmaker, and to think to think about the community I have of friends, be it actors or directors or producers, but specifically, I think you can see it really concretely illustrated with actors, to think, oh gosh, I dream of the day that I am in a position of power where I create something or I'm directing something, and I get to put my friends in it and
celebrate their talent in that collaborative kind of way. I'm sure that was really fun for Mark.
And in that scene where Brie is getting ready for her date and George shows up and she welcomes him in, and she's clearly obviously flaunting the fact that she is trying to move on in Rex's face because Rex is sitting there the whole time, and then yeah, which is so funny. I mean, it's just a great dynamic. But he has that amazing line. I mean, really, Bri and Rex have some killer moments in this episode. But Rex says, after George calls him mister Van de Camp, he says, please,
you're dating my wife, call me Rex. Just fantastic.
Gabby is losing her power and all of her things. Although I have I have to say, I caught an inconsistency when she is meeting with the lawyers in her house. All of her furniture is back in the house, including the image of the paintings of herself on the wall.
Uh oh oh was it?
That's a faux pas.
So I caught it in a different way. I noticed later in the episode that Andrew and Brie were in their garage and I was like, how do they fit in this garage? All of gabby stuff's in there?
Oh? Interesting, we all of Gabby's stuff is back in her house.
And I caught another little mistake in this episode, which was that you could see the boom mic really clearly in the scene that we were just talking about with Rex and Brie and George. There's a moment where you can really see it reflected in the background in across like a closet door. So wow, a couple little bumps in this one, I guess.
And you know what, we just have to move on from those inconsistencies.
You just move on, just move on. And how do we think the furniture got back? I mean in the last episode, was was that where there was a scene where they the FBI or whatever came and they were like, we're gonna take all your stuff, and she's like, it's not here, there's not really that's what happened.
And then I so.
Then we just assumed that that went away, and so now she got her stuff. I guess we presume they're not gonna come. She thinks, come once, and then they don't come again.
I guess, but they do. I mean they do show off the electricity, which prompts her to go, and I like, I like how she is, you know, says I relied on my ability to make money before I married Carlos. I'm gonna do it again. But of course, in this fictional place that with Steria Lane exists in there's one modeling in quotes for boat shows.
And car car.
The same glamorous lifestyle she was living in New York City and Milan.
Yeah, and she swallows her pride and gets up on the spinning turntable with the buick in the Fairview Mall, which is actually for people who are you know, in California and Los Angeles, is actually the Westfield Fashioned Square Mall in Sherman Oaks, which.
We have frequented a lot.
I was gonna say, I think it's a lot of our like main moll, I mean, that's where I go for stocking stuffers. Yeah, that's where alert.
Yeah, seven year olds listening spoiler alert, that's where I go for talking to There's a Sea's Candy there.
I was gonna say, I cannot walk in there without getting a sample from Reeze Candy.
I know, we all pretend with Seas that we're going to buy something, and we just go in and accept their free truffle and walk right on out.
I honestly, I'm past don't do that. I'm past even pretending that I'm gonna buy something.
Oh.
I walk in and I go, can I try this one? And they go yeah, and I go thank you, and then I tell you I still pretend.
I'm like, oh, I'm looking for a gift, and then I wait, and then they finally offer me one, and then I'm like, oh, I don't think I need that gift anymore.
Oh well, I also think, I mean, I think we talked about this in our in our teaser episode, and this is maybe not the actual, not the mall in Sherman Oaks that we used to do this in, although there are two and they're fairly close to each other. And this is one of the big ones. When around two thousand and five, when this episode aired and Desperate Housewives was starting to kind of skyrocket into its stardom,
that really was huge. There were a ton of paparazzi often camped outside of our house, as I'm sure they were camped outside of all of the stars houses, and we used to drive into the underground parking garage of one of these Sherman Oaks malls to meet talking about my long term childhood best friends from before I was one. My best friend Sammy's mom would meet us there and we would switch cars with her and drive out so
the paparazzi would stop following your car. And I don't know, this mall made me made me.
Crazy that way. Yeah, malls, and it's crazy, that's crazy. I yeah, I just I just can't believe we survived that.
Yeah, did you deal with papazzi like that?
No?
I mean, can you know they weren't that interested in what I was doing. Let's just be honest about that. I was busy in ceas trying to get free candy. No, I mean, I definitely had moments of it, but it was always catching me off guard. I never had to really prepare for it. I had some weird encounters, though. One thing I will say, because this was a particularly
strange fan moment for me as a kid. I was in Ikea with my family and an older woman who was foreign recognized me from the show and was trying to effusively tell me how much she loved it. But of course there was a bit of a language barrier, and so she just kept kind of going on and on about how much she loved it, and I couldn't really understand, but I thought it was positive. And then she grabbed me on either side of my face and kissed me on the mouth.
Oh my god, that's horrible.
Yeah it was. It was, And I was a you know, fourteen year old and I just stood there thinking, I know, this is super inappropriate and weird, but also I can tell she meant it with love and you know, kindness. But yeah, oh my god, I know's all in Ikeia, And yeah, it really is like a vortex into another planet Akia.
Yeah, are you okay?
You know what?
I think The jury is still out on that. Yeah, so paparazzi, but a lot of older women coming up and kissing me on the mouth.
Jeez. Well wait, okay, we'll talk about invasive. Yeah, that is I already know what to say.
Almost as crazy as all of these neighbors wandering out into the woods to look for Martha Hooper's body.
Yeah, okay, so we go on a mission, a quest of a neighborhood, a neighborhood hunt to find anything we can find for tracking down missus Hooper's whereabouts. I also noticed, just as a brief quick aside, that in two scenes in this episode, Julie and Tom Scavo are paired together.
Yeah. Did you notice that?
I know, and I just am so fascinated by how that happened. And then did Doug and I just kind of like make our way towards each other because we're kind of just glorified background actors for those scenes, and what on earth were we talking about? Anyway? I thought it was so funny, so funny.
Yeah, I noticed that too.
Yeah.
I also noticed that Susan is wearing the cutest little gloves while they're walking through the woods, and I thought, I can't imagine it was that cold when they were filming this, although maybe I don't know. If it's early morning, we.
Definitely shot it. There were moments where we fell cold or definitely hot or whatever. It all seems to be the reverse. It's like when you're supposed to have no clothes on your outside in the freezing and then when you have all the coats on somehow it's you know, ninety five degrees.
I may be wrong. I thought the gloves were given to the searchers so that they didn't contaminate evidence.
They looked like cashmere. I mean, that was a nice big spenders for the for the searchers to not contaminate thing.
Well, this gets me close to one line that sort of jumped out at me, and I wonder what you guys thought of it. So in this scene, everybody's searching and Susan ends up saying to Lynette and Breathe that, uh, that she has some good news that Mike let slip that he loves her, and they go, oh my god. And then everybody like thinks that they found the body and and they're like, no, no, it's nothing, just Susan
had good news. And then you know the rest of the crowd like wanders back off and Edie says, oh, you know, leave it to her, and this is the line that she manages to make it all about her. Okay, so this line gets repeated a few times like, oh, and that character makes it all about them, Well.
It's already been said once about Edie. About Edie when they have the gathering with the neighbors to announce the search, and Edie is talking about how much she actually, in a touching way cared for Martha, and she starts crying, and I think it's Gabby who leans over the girls and goes leave it to Edie to have her make it all about her kind of struck me, Like.
Is that something anyone would say, like like would you
ever be with your girlfriends or something? And like see some behavior and then Lena omrgo, oh, you know what their character trait is, They always make everything about them, Like I just I feel like when it was like a button, like I feel like, maybe we'll see when we keep watching the episodes that this felt like a personal button for Susan really not terry, but like that like somehow her character like is always making everything about her And I just resist that so much and I'm
defensive of that so much, and I don't know why it like poked me like that, Why did it poke me like that?
I mean, I'm Dumb'm not. I don't know. Maybe if that's is for your therapist.
But what are you though? I do you think that I got.
Very defensive of the accusation being that you make everything about yourself. Yeah, well I think it's I think it's not true, right, but also feels super mean. It feels mean for women to say that about other women.
Okay, I'm going to push back. I'm going to push back on this. I agree that it's being said between a lot of people in a more derogatory or demeaning way in this episode, because I think a lot of people are having relatively large outbursts, even Carl showing up, you know, with Brandy, you know, leaving there's I think there's lots of moments where we could argue that someone is making a situation about their feelings about the situation.
But I want to say, and you know, as totally not your therapist, I would like to offer that maybe when the feeling of defensiveness, of feeling like it's a really mean thing for someone to say, oh, you're making this about you, I agree, I agree, I totally get that, and I wonder if maybe there's a reframe of do you know what it is okay to take up space? It is okay, it's okay to have your feelings be
recognized and hold space in a room. And if someone wants to call that making it all about you, why is the assumption that something should never be about us or what we're feeling or what we're going through.
I love that so much.
Maybe Emerson is your therapy, is my therapist.
In the main, Well take that with you, if.
That so much, because I do say it again the beginning part, just that.
It is okay space, It's okay to take up space.
Man, I feel like a lot of women and maybe this is where our generations. I mean, if if I'm like the we're like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, where I'm the hot, you're the media, and you're the like better or something that I feel like in my generation, it was really frowned upon to take up space to talk about yourself or talk about that and just to feel large and to be seen and to want to be counted and to you know, I think it was more lauded when women were you know, invisible and didn't
really have needs and you know, could just jocky around and handle the goods and the bads and didn't really have to make too much commotion about any of it and just sort of tolerated at all. But like we're small, I feel like and quiet and quiet and I and I that means a lot to me, Like I feel like I can use that in my life right now, like in the instances where I feel like it's okay for me to take up some space. Yeah, that's so interesting. How do you does it?
Yeah, well, I was just going to say, I think that we're also context matters and the fact that you were sharing Susan was sharing this really sweet life update with her friends, and yes, they happened to be on a walk in the woods looking for a dead body, but you know, she was sharing this big moment. Hey, you guys, the guy that I'm seeing told me he's in love with me. He told me he loves me, and this is this big moment and so yeah, that's totally a wonderful thing to share with people and shout
from the rooftops. And you know, I think that obviously, in this episode, it's set up to be kind of a funny thing where they're volleying back and forth. Who makes it about them? But I do. I think that's a beautiful thing you just said, Emerson, and I think that that's very true. And hopefully we're getting better and bigger and louder and more comfortable taking up that space as women.
Amen to that. Well, just staying on Susan's storyline for a little bit, the Susan Mike Carl love triangle of it all I think is so palpably interesting in this episode. Isaac, of course, he shows up because he broke up with Brandy because the heart wants what the heart carl, and
I find it really interesting. I mean, Richard is so good in this scene, and I really feel for Susan and her moment of empathy for Carl because he seems so sad, even though of course he is the one who left her for Brandy in the first place, and she, Susan feels it's her responsibility to somehow shoulder his sadness, and she ends up inviting him to the birthday party that she's going to with Mike, And it really brought up for me on a macro scale, why and maybe
this is fitting into smallness or not, but why do we often as women, feel it is our responsibility to make people feel better about their uncomfortable feelings when we didn't cause they're uncomfortable feelings.
Their uncomfortable feelings are actually a result of their own actions in the first place.
Carl left Susan, and now Susan is feeling guilty for not including him because he is the one going through a breakup with the person he left her for.
Yeah, and it feels very familiar to women's roles of where we're just sort of constantly picking up, you know, the the mush, you know, like whether we created it or not, Like, Okay, I can be a part of making this better, you know. And again, I guess you if you want to behave that way because you want to be that person, then you know, I think good for you. But I think Susan isn't that conscious about it.
I think it's reactionary of like from a guilt place, you know, like, oh, I better, you know, I better just fix this. I better, you know. I don't deserve to have my own space. I don't deserve to be here going like so are you going through that?
In this episode really highlights that back and forth for Susan of trying to realize or recognize how much do I let Carl still get to me? How much power does he still hold? Do I have feelings about Carl, whether that's romantic or not, you know, And we get to watch her sort of realize in this episode. No, he doesn't make me. He doesn't make me feel like that anymore.
Kudos to Mike for holding space for Susan to explore that when he first says I love you, and she goes, that's great.
You know, what ever happened to you? Did anybody ever say I love you to you that you weren't ready to say it back?
Yes?
I have said I love you to someone and they haven't set it back to me.
How was that?
Well, they went on to cheat on me shortly after.
That, numbers and addresses.
Honestly, we're still friends. Like if he hears this, like I he is a friend of mine. We were young, like, we moved past it.
We had friend of mine, we got back.
Together, we dated again, we then we broke up more. You know whatever. Consensually. But and I've actually and I've done it. I've done it twice. I've done it twice the other time was not as like scarring, but where I felt ready to say I love you and the person was like, oh, like I really haven't, like like that really means a lot to me and I and I feel like, I, you know, I really really care about you, but I don't use that word a lot, and I just kind of need to sit on it.
And it's a little bit what Susan responds. And I think in the second time that this happened to me, I would like to think that I took kind of Mike's position of saying, that's okay, like I want to tell you what I am feeling, but it's not going to be a rejection. Saying I love you is a big deal, and it's what I'm feeling right now. But if it's not a place that you're ready to be in yet, that's fine, and it doesn't need to spoil
our relationship or what we're discovering with each other. And I think people do show up to relationships on their own timelines, with their own complexities and things that they're working through. As Mike so aptly points out to Susan, you know, he goes, well, maybe you still have feelings for Carl and you're sorting through this and your whatever.
And of course she rejects that she has feelings for Carl, But I love that he is so confident in himself and what he feels for her that he is able to, in a totally not defensive, self conscious way, give her the space to come to saying that those words back to him on her own timeline when it feels right to her.
And it's also so sweet because he says it spontaneously. It's like he can't really did it well.
He did.
It was so tender and sweet and adorable.
And wait, you had somebody say it.
I have had someone say it to me, and uh, and I didn't feel it? Yeah, and I and I well, and not only did it, it was not like I thought. That's where I didn't think that the relationship was at the level of saying that or even heading in that direction. Okay, And so I think I responded with, no, you don't because you don't really even know me well enough to know that information.
So we've gotten very confused in my long terminal singleness about the word itself, like the the only you know as it applies to Emerson. I'm very very clear, right what what that means and thank god, Yes I know, and I and as it applies to my loved ones, I would put you in that category. My girlfriends. Yeah, I think it would take a lot for me to have a significant other that I got that close to that I would say those words. I think I'm very far away from that. Yeah, I you know, Yeah, I
don't know. It feels like it's been so long, like it's quite a mystery.
I also think, and this came up recently with some of my friends, but I think, and you guys can weigh in here. I think saying I love you for the first time is hard. It's a big deal, or it can be. It doesn't have to be hard necessarily, but it's a big moment.
Right.
However, I think saying I love you the second time is way harder. I think that you build up, yeah, you build up this to this moment in your relationship where you look at each other and you go, oh, you know, I want to tell this person I love them or they are telling me they love them, and then you have to do it again. I think that second time, every.
Time you hang up the phone love you. Yeah.
So interesting. Well, so you know, we have Susan grappling with as Mike points out, does she still a feelings for Carl? Does she not? Does she feel guilty? Whatever? She ends up inviting him to Julia's birthday, which so many things to say about this scene. Where was the shot? Tell us more about singing Andrea Mom, tell us more about what it takes to submit a performance to get nominated for an Emmy, because I think this was the scene.
Okay, just before we get there, I have to step back and acknowledge one of the best long lasting bloopers that happened to me anyway, with.
My dialogue, I love this one.
Yeah. This was almost as pervasive in its future as The Heart Wants with the Heart Wants. When Carl is exiting that first time, when he's first saying, you know, I've I've I've broken up, he's about to tell you know, Susan that he's broken up with Brandy, and but before he does, you know, he's talking to her about the Julie's party and he's you know, and he's like, okay, well, so I'm going to leave, and and Susan says, give
my best to Brandy, and that's what him to go. Well, we're actually not together anymore.
But what did you say?
What I said on film with the cameras rolling was give my breast to Brandy.
Oh my god.
I did not live down give my breast to Brandy for a really long time. Yeah, it was a good one.
It was a good one in.
Your blooper reels. I love that my breast to Brandy.
Yeah, okay, so really quickly, I just want to mention because you said, where was it filmed? Okay, so this was filmed at the Smokehouse, which is a pretty historical restaurant in Burbank, California. It was established in nineteen forty six. I looked it up because it's been there for a long time.
It's been dinner with Clooney there once, I know, I said, I said, I wait, said that again. I've just remember I said that, Remember I said. A couple episodes, I said, we'll get there. Yeah, it's going to be so slow though, Oh.
My gosh, she's dropping little little moments.
At George Clooney.
Okay, well, among George Clooney.
Staring at each other.
Yes, yeah, there's okay, all right, we'll wait anxiously for more of that story. But it is a pretty iconic place in Burbank and it's been around for a long time. A ton of movies and television shows have been filmed there. And the reason that I just want to bring it up really quickly is because, as we discussed earlier, it ties into the whole assisted living and independent living and
homes and nursing facilities. My mother in law lives at an assisted living facility up the street from my husband and I and it's a great place and it's wonderful, and there is a resident there who is one hundred and six years old. Yes, his name is Joe, and he is a World War Two VETT who fought at the Battle of the Bulge and is just incredible in so many ways. And my husband Josh will strike up conversations with him when he's visiting his mom because he
finds this man so interesting. And one point, this guy shared with Josh that he once a month goes swing dancing at the Smokehouse in Burbank. Still and so recently Josh comes home and he had been visiting his mom and he said, I talked to Joe. Tonight's the night he's going to the Smokehouse to swing dance. We gotta go. And and you know, Josh and I were like prepared
to be in for the night. I'm pretty pregnant and it was like, oh gosh, we have but we were like, no, you're right, we have to go witness this one hundred and six year old war veteran swing dance. And so we went to the smokehouse. Your pictures on the wall, Terry, Yes it is, I pointed it out, not knowing that I was.
About to watch my episode.
Yeah, no, George cloudy. But and and sure enough he got up. He had fancy black and white shoes on. He moved and grooved, and I just thought, man, that is inspiring.
That is really inspiring.
Yeah, so I wanted to I know. So here's to Joe being an incredible swing dancer at one hundred inspired.
So just you're never you're never. It's never too late, You're never too old.
No, that's you're only as old as your mind set.
Amazing.
Yeah, okay, okay, So do you have.
Like on the day memories?
I mean, I wanted to sing more. I wuld sang more. And also there's a girl in the scene with me who's playing my friend. Her name's Ashley rose Orr and she wasn't Sound of Music on Broadway with me, and then she was playing my friend in this little moment, and I wish we could have sung more, but but I do.
Was Eric Viatro there? Yes?
Eric was there?
Okay, we leave Eric listeners. We have this wonderful, wonderful vocal coach to the stars in common throughout decades of all of our lives.
Now we've all taken singing listens to the Eric viature. Who I actually, I have to say, Eric Vitro is also Ariana Grande's vocal coach.
Yeah, well everyone, I mean everyone coach.
Yeah, like he really did? He blew up more on Instagram after the whole wicked thing. I mean, He's always been a very big piece of Selena's I think, you know, just everybody I think anyways, but I have known him on and off for working on musicals. Every time I've ever sung in a in a show, you know, I'll go work with him, which I've done quite a few times. And and you worked with him when you were doing musicals in high school.
I did, I mean, and god.
I started I started working with him just when I moved out from New York. I had had a big community there of people that I could go and train with, but I didn't know who the person was here and someone point he's very much.
He's a wonderful guy. So I mean, so you know, when when for me, anyway, when I get a signed singing in any kind of role, the first thing I do is called Eric Vitro and and get him to help me work on it. The most recent musical I did was about three years ago. I did more Tesha Adams in the Adams Family.
She was so good, Terry, you were so good.
Dancing is a really fun show.
It you were a fun show.
But like I don't keep that tool up to par I don't keep it.
I should you're not working out that muschle.
I don't. I'm not. I don't. I should sing every day and whatever, and I don't. So it's for me. And eric Al says this to me, He's like, I wish you would get to the point where you could
stop like panic coming in here. You know what I mean, Like if you would just sing on a regular basis, it wouldn't always be like starting at zero, because basically what it's like is if you don't go to the gym, ever, and then someone says, hey, you're going to play a weightlifter, and then you're in like a mad rush to like create your biceps and you know, get yourself looking like that.
That's what it's like for your voice. Yeah, And so I sort of have a tool, like I have pulled off singing decently in some things, but it isn't something that I keep in check to like readily do. And I should because I love being on stage and I love I love the craft of singing and dancing and just telling stories that way.
Well, you're so good at it and in this scene you are so amazing, and I really I would love to hear more about how this scene went for you. And uh yeah, I mean you were singing live.
Yeah yeah, yeah.
I think Nicolette's singing because that happens right before you, and I remember I was there, and I think she was. I don't know if that was her. I don't know if that was her or not.
I mean she was singing to it, but I don't know if she was singing to her.
I think she was.
I actually thought she did a great job. Yeah, oh yeah, I thought she was.
I thought, and I thought the is dichotomy the right word between Edie and Susan between her song and my song and like the sort of melancholy thing she had Marilyn Monroe thing going on, and then my thing, which was more boisterous. I again, you know, if you go to the running across the yard naked or whatever, you know, I look at these like a puzzle. I look at the nervous breakdown of it as like, okay, where where does that start? You know, where does the timing of
like where do you come out of? Like when does the thought that's the that's the thing. As an actor like that, you got to decide when am I in the middle of sink trying to sing this song which I tried to do the little motion with the these vagabond shoes, like like, Okay, that's gonna be okay. I'm gonna try to sing this song and I'm gonna try
to have fun doing it. And then it's like nope, I can't, you know, And and then you try to like go back to it and it's like nope, I just can't do it, and and like and finding that I think I had a little bit of notes for myself as I watched it in a highly Yeah, I thought, I thought maybe I went too big, too fast. I don't know.
No, oh gosh, I have no notes for you. Okay, I have no notes.
Other than to tell you your regards to the Emmys. So, yes, how does that win the Emmys? So I I won the Golden Globe, and I won the Screen Actress Guild that year, and I was nominated for an Emmy. But Felicity one, rightfully, so with your favorite scene and the whole show so far going into the pool to get her children out with her clothes on in the pilot.
Well, it's a great scene.
It's a great scene, and she's great and absolutely should have won. I mean all of it's it's every year. It's so, it's every year everyone should win, like they're all. It's impossible to choose. Everybody's got great moments and performances. It's it's silly, but that's it. You do decide, You decide the episode that you want to submit as the actor.
As the actor, the show though, decides to submit.
The show decides to submit you as what you are submitted. So they submitted Felicity and I as lead actress, right, And I and Marcia and and I. I don't know if they submitted Eva and Nicolette or if they submitted them into supporting. I'm not sure. How about work, I, you know, I don't know.
But then you get to pick which episodes speak for behind.
So I know that Felicity submitted the pilot and I don't. I I didn't submit the pilot because I knew that she submitted the pilot and I thought, well, you know, we're all and I think Marcia submitted something. I don't know what episode she picked, and I think I just thought of sort of thought, well, let's let's let them see a range, you know, or whatever. But yeah, so that so I actually submitted that episode the But based on that, then the Emmys decided to put me as
one of the nominees. Right, So it's kind of like a two handed thing.
To find that really interesting how that actually works.
Yeah, I did not know that.
Oh yeah, yeah, you thought that the Emmy department just like looked at it all and picked one episode that they thought you were great.
And I don't and highlight one episode.
Yeah, I thought the show nominated. I didn't realize that the actor had that much control over picking what was submitted or not submitted, but I'm glad that you did because it is just it is I mean, and this scene is such a good The whole episode is so good because I have to say the backup after the aftermath of the singing breakdown, when Carl comes over to Susan's house the next day, of this scene, and I almost would say, this is the scene of the reason
that I would have submitted you in this episode, even more than the singing breakdown, which is obviously fantastic. But he comes over and he says, you know, come on like we always had, you know, when we fought, like we fought, but when we were good, we were so good. And I'm just like, oh God, this is such a dude.
Also so toxic. Your assessment of that, that's what makes a relationship good and healthy.
God, and I love that Susan, which it feels like Susan's character could fall for this. She is sometimes, you know, susceptible, and she doesn't and she goes, oh, that's so good to hear, and she's like, it's so good. I don't feel anything. I don't feel anything. And she runs across the street, which and you have such you know, girlish, gleeful energy in this just so.
Much joy and I want to run like that.
No, you know, And of course we have the ten of the fact that Paul Young has gone and dug up Martha Hoover's body and taken off her jewelry and planted it in Mike's garage to make him look so much.
Because Mike's like, he's got stuff, skeletons in the closet anyway, I know, or in the garage, I should say. And now he's got more I know.
And the cops are there, not yet knowing about the planted jewelry, but they're just interviewing him. So you got this kind of wonderful gun under the table tension.
Oh I love that description. Gun under the table.
Well, you know that screenwriting that's a screenwriting expression. Well it's called Chekhov's gun, which is the idea of if you introduce a gun in a scene, it always has to be it has to go off right later. And so then I think that has morphed into the expression of a gun under the table is something that the audience knows, but the characters don't know yet. So we know that this is planted, but the characters don't know,
and it's you know, builds a lot of tension. And you have Susan running so free and gleefully across the street and she knocks on the door and he opens it and she tells him that she loves him, and they kiss, and then she looks over her shoulder at the police. She goes, I love him. You can write that in your little book. And I just love that.
I hope that someday I'll fall in love and be able to do a scene like that, do you know what I mean, Like in my life, not on TV. Yeah, that would be pretty neat for me to get to be in love like that.
Again, I hope so for you too. Yeah.
Yeah, it's so romantic and you know what, Okay, speaking of love.
We didn't get to talk too much about Lynette and Tom in this episode.
Is that where you were going Lynette and Tom and Claire and her breast?
Yes, right, there got a hot nanny in her breast, and and you have Lynette like really clued in on the fact that Tom thinks that nanny is hot and it's.
And then he sees her naked yep, And I got to say that is a really interesting thing that happens where he sees her naked and then go upstairs and has sex with Lynette.
Right, It's like he goes down to turn the coffee pot on, but actually he gets turned on, and he goes upstairs and uses the fact that the source material for him being turned on was not his wife. In fact, it was their hot nanny. But she's none the wiser. She has no idea. Lynnette has no idea. She just knows her husband comes upstairs and all of a sudden is ready to go.
Yeah, And what do you guys think about that? Like do you think that? Because she is upset when she finds it out later and then he kind of, I feel like, responds really authentically when they're at the mall after they see poor Gabby, who's you know, hiding the fact that she's working with the buick.
So well, Clynette's instincts come to fruition when you finally do have Tom staring at Claire's breast and slow, I're sort of like jiggling around in slow and he calls it yeah, and he says we're going to have to find and the cops to it.
Earlier, he doesn't cop to being attracted. He says that I'm not attracted and if I were, I would you know, I would admit so? Or was she she is attracted, That doesn't mean I may track to her.
And I think it's another reason we keep coming back to Tom and Lynette as sort of our favorite example of a married couple, because these are things that happen you're in a monogamous, long term relationship. People are going to be attracted to other people and that has to be communicated through and conquered in an honest way. You
can't pretend like you're not attracted to somebody. You can't lie about it and cheat like you have to kind of come clean and as a team make a commitment to do the choice that keeps you in your monogamous relationship. And I just think Tom and Lynette continue to exemplify a complicated, not perfect, but truly grounded marriage.
I totally agree.
So next week we'll see if they're still together. Anyways, we hope that you are finding love in your life, that somebody makes you want to run across the street and say I love you and we love you because we are desperately.
Devoted to you, and hey give my breast to Brandy.
I want those back.