Hi, Welcome to Desperately Devoted The Ultimate Desperate Housewives rewatch, hosted by me, Terry Hatcher, my on screen daughter Andrea Bowen, and my real life daughter Emerson Tenney.
Hi, guys, Hi did you see what I did with my voice there?
I sort of went, Hi, God, you did it very sky Yeah, you because we are talking about episode five, Come in Stranger, which originally aired on October thirty first, two thousand and four.
And you know, my daughter knows. I think you know too. But Halloween has always been a really big deal in our house, and Halloween doesn't really have anything to do with this episode other than the fact that it aired on Halloween. Wait, I will say that I got very excited about it.
I was going to say, I actually loved this episode, and I think it's very appropriate that it aired on Halloween because to me, this feels like this is where the mystery and the crime plot really picks up in a pervasive way in the neighbor hood on Westeria Lane.
Oh that's very true.
Yeah, very true, and something scary.
Yeah, it is true. We have a break in happening at the beginning, and that leads to Susan exploring and confused about her feelings between her and Mike. And we've got Gabby whose mother in law's scarily unannounced at the at the house, and Brie still struggling in her marriage with Rex, and Brie also becomes heightenedly worried about Zach and Janette, of course, is uh scared of her kids
and she should be. So did you guys have a favorite or you know, some sort of moment that stuck out to you that you're excited to dig into more?
I really did, I mean I had, I had a couple of different moments, but one and we're going to get to it because it happens a little bit later in the episode is when Susan ends up walking the street. And my favorite moment is very small and it's a definitely a behind the scenes, be in the know if you're in the know. But when Susan takes out her phone to call Julie, it is a bedazzled flip phone, Samson flip phone, and it is the same phone I
had as my first phone. I mean, obviously you weren't using my phone as a prop in that right, but it was exactly the same model. Mine was also bedazzled and I think I screamed out loud when I thought, oh, got my phone.
Oh, oh my god, Oh the nostalgia.
Yeah, that was my favorite moment and some of the lines that in that and this is really their choice to me.
Yeah, I would say my favorite moment from the episode happens during the It's really just the dinner scene with with bree and Zach. I found that scene to be really powerful. I think we discussed in leading up to this episode we wanted to know more of breeze backstory. We wanted to know more about where she came from, and the insight into what she shares about the experience she had with her mom's tragic passing when she was young really informs a lot about who she is today.
And I thought that was really powerful and beautifully played by both Marcia and and Cody.
Yeah, well sort of similarly. I think mine was also a free line. I don't know if it wasn't in that dinner scene, but I was really struck by her line that she says, just because you didn't hear them fighting doesn't mean they were happy and in a sad, deep way, which this show can do this to you, you know. I unfortunately, feel like that is pervasive still in our culture today, and you look at social media, the sort of the difference between the presentation of the
life and then the actual life. And so I feel like that episode really gets This episode really gets into that with all of these characters. So let's dive in.
Yeah, do it?
So? I wanted to talk about how it opens with Julie and and Susan having to take care of a cat.
I said, Mom, this episode is for you. We are opening on missus Frome the cat Lady.
Yeah, I wrote down also cat Lady vibes. Let's talk about it with Terry.
I don't feel complimented, That's all I'm saying right now. I feel like I'm getting thrown under the cat Lady.
When you when you go out of town, you are very worried about your cat and who is going to.
Work very hard to leave them.
You leave a long list of ways to feed them. They each have different ways to be fed. I have executed some of these tasks and luckily there's never been a break in and the door has never been left.
Ajar, Can I just say there is a shot where the cat like goes and crawls into her suitcase as she's packing. It's just a very mind but it's a thing. And you guys out there, you have to let me know. Like when I pack, my cat always gets in my suitcase. In fact, I think I printed out a picture I was going to show you. I have the cutest picture of fig in a suitcase. But it's inevitable that the cat will get in your suit suitcase too, So you know what I'm saying, Yeah, it's a real thing.
Does it smell like you?
Like?
Why do they have no idea?
But in this scene, the cat goes through the suitcase of missus Froner who's leaving, which I was like, that's so honest. It's a tiny, tiny detail. But like I liked it and appreciated it. And what else was I thinking about? Oh? The other thing was that surprised me is I didn't remember shooting this at all?
No, me, neither, I mean neither, I really.
I think that's one of the fun things about rewatching it is just seeing how much was dumped from my mind. I we're there, we're filming, I'm like, wow, I truly have no recollection of us doing that, of any of this storyline of there being a cat.
Involved at all.
I want to make like a cat burglar in here somewhere right, it's hovering right around us.
But it's true.
I would have thought that the cat, like working with a cat would have stuck in my brain because I love animals so much and I'm obsessed with animals and cats specifically, And I did not remember filming the sun.
Maybe it's because I know.
Maybe it's because Susan does such a bad job taking care of the cat, which honestly, I think is a little bit unfair, because then we go into this montage talking about Susan's misfortunes and all of the things that kind of go wrong when she tries to help or when she tries to be involved in a certain scenario. And in terms of the cat, I thought, you know what, someone breaking into the house is really out of Susan's control. I feel like that really has nothing to do with her.
But I was curious in terms of remembering moments, I wrote down.
I love when you write things down.
I'm so good at it.
On my phone, I tag it down, I said, I remember this falling on the table stunt, and then I said, care to share.
Mom Oh, yes, that was the first rib I broke. Definitely broke a rib on that one. You were saying that you remember, I remember, And this is not because again we've talked about people confusing Terry and Susan, and Susan can't cook and Terry can cook, and Susan's a fairly inept mother and Terry is not. And Susan's a
klutz and Terry is not. And the reason Terry is not is because that takes to be able to turn your body lean on the table, have it fall in a certain way, have your face end up in a cake, and do that over and over.
All the glasses fallen.
Yeah, all of that so choreographed, and it's so effort full, even though it looks like it just happened. And on one take it was, you know, because we probably did it five or six times. I mean, I don't know how many cakes we had. But on one take I just pushed too hard. That table was made of hard plywood, and somehow I landed on my side and cracked one of my ribs. Yeah, so I was unlucky. Like that was a moment.
Did you know right away that something might have been cracked?
I think I knew right away that I was in that I was in pain.
But I all met at home.
But I also appreciated the bird scene the little and I was trying to remember that must have been CGI had in right, There's no way anybody had a bird on a fishing line that they were just like off camera.
Yeah, I think it must have been a post.
Yeah.
I thought, I mean not to toot my own horn, But I was like, it is kind of funny to look back on this and a think, wow, I look like a baby. I can't believe I didn't realize at the time I was so young, but also be like that.
Was really good.
Yeah, it was great.
That whole montage of all of those little comedic moments.
It really makes me think of mom.
This is one of our favorite movies of Defending Your Life Albert Brooks, and there is this incredible montage when Albert Brooks's character is watching back moments in his life and the woman who I mean, I forgive me. If you've never seen Defending Your Life, you need this podcast.
And watch it right now.
But the woman who's trying him for his life says, and now I'm going to show you a compilation of moments, some of them plagued by fear, some of them just stupid. It's a compilation of all these physical stunts that Albert Brooks execute so well. And I really thought of you, well, I mean that.
To even be remotely a tenth compared to a genius like that. But I mean, those are the people that I, you know, studied like those movements and those comedic beats, you know, going back to Lucille Ball. But you know, somebody like Albert Brooks, I mean, or or Terry garr In Tutsie. I mean, I mean that is where I a sponge from those things. And anyway, great.
Show.
So we moved through Susan having bad luck and the whole thing with the cat, and then we get to a group scene, and I just wanted to talk about how these were very arduous scenes to shoot because there were so many people in them, and that means you have to shoot from so many different angles and you're just doing the same thing over and over and over for hours and hours and hours to try to get
coverage of everyone, which is fairly exhaustive. But that said, there was such power in having the whole cast in the same room and and then the cleanup afterwards, and and and I don't know.
Well, because we talk about how it's it's when we watch the show, you know, it's really fun for you and I having been on the show to watch it because there was so much we didn't see. We would read the scripts, but we didn't see these, you know, other storylines, And so when you get a group scene, it's really nice, I think as a viewer to see all of these people in one room to watch even in the background, like I'm noticing that I'm paying attention
to who is talking to who in the background. You know.
Oh, that was another thing I loved about the scene that all those extras that are crossing the street and walking in like that was Patty. Patty was my stand in for the entire run of the show, and Rosie, Patty and Rosie go walking across the street, and it just I mean, I know, I'm gonna cry like it. You well, you know, I was a crew girl, you know, like, I don't know what that is about me. I've never been.
I that was that was the the connection for me, was all those families and their crew people, and you know, we would go camping together.
Like yeah, I mean for years and and D and D.
D A and uh it and and they would come to my house for parties and and I threw bridle showers and things were Patty and baby showers for people. And I don't know, it's.
Your community, it was people, it was your family, and for so.
Much stand in it's a hard job. And I know I think I'm tiary because I know Patty had a lot of respect for me, and I have a lot of respect for her back. And it was just a moment in time. You know, eight years of a relationship.
We haven't kept in touch really, but I don't know her work, her her sort of diligence to kind of really clock what I would do in a rehearsal so that she could repeat it enough that it would get lit in the right way, which is really what a stand in's job is is is you know, if they're not paying attention and they decide to like sit on the stool and then you come back and you're like, I wasn't sitting, then it's not lit right. And so it's an important job in terms of how they represent you.
And she really cared and.
Well that's so moving.
Yeah, anyway, gosh, I didn't think I was going to talk about that, I.
Know, but it's nice and it was. It was noticeable to see them on screen like that. Yeah, you know, we didn't get to see them on screen, you know, so it felt really it popped off for me.
Yeah, totally noticing the people that were the extras that were there on sort of a loop of a basis in the neighborhood. Yeah, it's really sweet.
I love the community scenes too, because for me, it feels like each time we get to see the whole community together, all the women, yes, but all of the other characters on the block, it just strengthens this idea that there is really a fifth sixth character, which is with Sterry Lane. And I felt like I got such a larger understanding of what of community with Steria Lane is.
You know that a police officer is actually coming to stand in someone's room to do a kind of town hall about vigilance, about how to lock your doors and how to make sure that you're safe. It really grounds it in a even I know they never say, you know, with Steria Lane is set in a fictional place, but in a very specific atmosphere of an idea of an American town that I found.
It makes you feel like I want to live in a town where the police come and give like a lecture to the neighborhood. I would like.
The equivalent of that with me.
Downtown is like a citizen and Reddit subgroups talking about why fireworks are going off at two am every single night.
Not building chairs and croissants in someone's living room.
App So in that cleanup scene with all the women and this, I know we will we'll get to at the at the end, you know, kind of our claim maming of what our most desperate moment was. But I found it to be very interesting and somehow feel familiar to me, although I couldn't remember anything specific that had happened to me. But have you ever been asked to lie for somebody? Oh?
Gosh, yes?
And so what happens is Lynette asks Bree to lie to the private school about her kids being wonderful students so that they have a better chance of getting in. And Bree is sort of like, well, your kids aren't wonderful, so you want me to lie and let It's like, well, duh, you know, yeah, And it was It's an interesting has that happened to you.
This is such a tough moral spot. And I had the same instinct because I noted that moment too, and I thought, gosh, okay, have I been in a scenario like this, because my impulse is to say, yeah, of course, I feel like I feel like I have, you know, not around Obviously, I couldn't get anyone's kid into any school. I'm sorry, but you know, actually, just recently, okay, I do, I do.
I have a moment of this.
So in my communal building where I live, loft building, there's an outdoor parking structure and we share it with another building that is not a residential building.
It's like an office building. And they were opening.
New offices and they pulled and I happened to see it because my girlfriend and I were walking out in our outdoor parking lot to go to a coffee shop in the morning, and they pulled this like eighteen wheeler truck into the outdoor parking area, which is very narrow. It was blocking all the cars, so nobody who lived there could get in, and it had we hadn't seen this.
This is the moral gray are, okay, but it was clearly.
Like not supposed to be in a parking structure of that size, And as we were coming back from coffee, the truck had moved, but we noticed that the gate to the outside was clearly broken. I mean it was still opening and closing, but it was making this horrible screeching sound, and it had all of these like slash marks along it. And this man who runs the hoa for the building was out there and he kind of was looking and very hairy looking at the gate and
seemed very distressed. And he sort of said to us as we walked by, did you did you see what happened? Did you see this big truck? And we said, oh, is that? I mean, yeah, obviously we see the gates damage. And we did see there was a truck here this morning when we were leaving, and it seemed like, you know, they couldn't fit. And he said, well, will you go on the record saying you saw them hit the gate?
Oh?
Oh, when you didn't see them?
We didn't see them hit the gate.
And we said we were like, oh, you know, we didn't actually see.
Them hit the gate.
You know, I can deduce, like any of us can deduce, that that is what happened. And I'm happy to say that I saw there was a truck here, but I really can't say I saw it hit the gate for you because I didn't.
Yeah, so it does come up. Yeah, yeah it felt familiars.
I'm sure it has in small ways.
You know, if someone and I'm going to use an example, that feels weird, but you know, because like if you have to be a reference for someone for something, that's why it feels weird. Some'm like, when has someone asked me to be a reference? But I have a recollection of someone being like, hey, could you write me a letter of recommendation or something? And you know, maybe I've felt like, because I have love for this person, I would inflate it a little bit or something like that.
But I found this to be an interesting moment too.
Well.
One, it was very funny, right when she says, so you want me to lie? And she said yeah, I thought that was implied. Yeah, that was very funny. But I also thought maybe bree could actually really relate. This is speaking Breeze language right, as someone who strives so hard to present a certain image. And yes, her kids might be better behaved in general, but she does have other examples of when something's not entirely on the up
and up, and she portrays it that way anyway. So I thought maybe as Lynette's friend, she could have a softer approach to understanding why Lynette was asking.
Her to You mean she could have or you think she did.
No, I think she could have. I kind of. I mean, I understand because she doesn't.
Yeah, because she ends with you know, but of course you don't care about my like the fact that I would want to get my grandchildren in.
And like yeah, yeah, and she's like no, not really.
Yeah.
I thought the reason that Brie was so resistant was exactly because of what you said, Because I think Bree seems like a character who is actually just barely holding everything together behind this facade of perfectionism, that the last thing she needs to take on is someone else's lie about someone else's life, because she is kind of struggling with all of the potential lies or half truth she's woven around herself.
Yeah.
The end of this scene, they is the line that I brought up at the beginning, which is that you just, uh, just because you didn't hear fighting doesn't mean that they were happy. And I do think that that is maybe who says that?
Who that?
Yeah?
Because they hear. They hear Paul and Zach fighting again.
They're establishing that they must have been, you know, they've been fighting a lot recently. And they're standing on the front porch looking out at their house and they can hear, you know, this loud argument happening.
And I think it's just one of again those moments of nostalgia that people can relate to of that it is very pervasive, totally, this feeling, you know, you go, even though this is a crazy neighborhood with crazy stuff happening in it, there is this grounded sense of yeah, I've felt that before.
Yeah, And they're there.
They're all gathered to have this neighborhood watch meeting because, as we discussed in the top of the episode, there's a b in and that sort of sets everything off, and there's an item left behind, which sort of screwdriver as a screwdriver on the kitchen counter of We get to meet a new character. We meet Ida Greenberg in this episode, and that's really fun. We meet a couple of people who end up being on the show.
I do feel like Mark or the casting or the casting department, or the two of them together, they really did go out of their way to try to cast people that maybe wouldn't be cast in other things. Do you know what I mean the way I've said that, I kind of joke that ABC wouldn't have cast four women over forty if they had known how old we were. I also think, you know, the looking at trying to put an old person in a role.
I mean, it feels very real, like they're creating an honest sense of thing.
And I love that.
They were creating those roles for those actors.
Oh, me too.
And I love that her complaint at the meeting was that someone is trying to peep on her while she's in the shower.
I love that.
So so the screwdriver's left, Susan you know, realizes, oh, maybe this could be helpful to the police.
So she bags it.
As potential evidence, which is charming and maybe really ridiculous.
Yeah, But honestly though, it made me think, I know, we always say Susan and so Mom, no, just that you, the two of you are not similar. Although I did feel like the overachiever in you, Mom that always wants to go above and beyond and get an A plus and follow things by.
The letter and really do the right thing.
It reminded me a little bit of Susan's intention behind wanting to be like, I make make sure you didn't miss this piece of evidence, right this. I want to help you solve this. And well, I'm glad.
That you think it comes from that place, because I think some people think it may be her. That character trait came from her just wanting to get involved in everything. And I did like a like almost like a nosy like I'm gonna be a part of everything.
We already have missus Hooper.
She fills up that nosy neighbor cup just fine on her own.
So we then have Gabby's mother in law.
Oh out of nowhere, yes, brutal in law appearance.
Yes, And man, that is a that sets off a whole dynamic there, I mean.
And she she has a line that the mother in law family should always hug, regardless of how they feel about each other. And I mean that just almost I don't know. That really made it hard for me to breathe. It kind of reminded me of Susan actually says, which is, here's another way Susan and Terry are not alike at all. Susan says in the end, of might have been the last episode or third, she says to missus Huber, Yes,
was the mincemeat episode. After we get the frisbee back, I mean, after we get the we do the frizzy measure, we get the measuring cup back. She says something I'm paraphrasing, but it's like every time I say hello, every time I say I hope you have a good day, I'm really thinking I hate your guts and I cannot live like that as a person, Like it's way too much to hold on to. Yeah, it's way too much to
hold on to. And so it's sort of like snagged me a little bit on Susan's personality that I was like, Okay, is Susan really that kind of person? I mean, I guess I guess she is, because that's that's the character we're creating. But it's it's so now we're doubling down on you should always hug, no matter how you feel well.
And she is just Wanita Carlos's mom is such a tough character to empathize with, because I loved how that plot reveals itself that it seems like, okay, she showed up unannounced, and then you get the reveal that Carlos has actually called her because he is suspicious and he kind of wants like eyes on the inside.
And then and this, I know we've talked a lot.
About Carlos's behavior seeming really problematic, and I felt like we started to get a little peek into maybe his backstory when he starts breaking down and crying and he's really vulnerable with his mom saying that he's afraid that Gabby's having an affair, and she hits him.
Yeah, smacks him across the face, across the face, and she says, you know.
We don't cry about our problems. We find ways to fix them.
And there is the seed of toxic masculinity being bred in Carlos.
Can I tell you that? Was I wrote, I think this might be one of my highlight moments. Such a strong, borderline abusive character revealing that he just doesn't know how to make it right with the woman he loves. And then he cries yeah, and you can you can see the beginning of that toxic masculinity of where like he really wants to love. That's what I saw in that scene that Carlos really wants to love, but he doesn't have the first clue about how to correctly get there, and now we know why.
And then yeah, and he has this mother figure who instead of saying, oh my gosh, thank you for being vulnerable, it's you know, offering him some sort of comfort. She teaches him this very problematic behavior.
That showing emotion is weakness, that it equates to somehow being weak versus what it actually is, which of course we know is its strength. It's completely a strength, and it could have been a breakthrough moment with him and his mom, and instead she's backs him across the face and she tells him we don't cry.
And then she goes to do his bidding by.
Spying on Gabrielle through you know the rest of the episode and trying to catch her inkes Gabrielle's life. Hell, yes, makes Gabrielle and John the Gardener, Yes, our teenage friend.
Oh my god.
Another amazing line from John the Gardener. I used a month's worth of lunch money to pay for that motel room.
I know. Wait, I've got another one of John's just so you know, I've turned down half the pep squad for you.
Oh my god.
Yeah, I know, I actually wrote down I think emer since right because of what you'd said in a previous episode, and I was like, I think the writers might have just been having a really good time with these teenage references at this point, because they are they are something.
Yeah, yeah, they are.
They're really miring him in in uh Minerville.
Yeah yeah, they're tripling down on that.
I don't think there was an interesting moment in the Gabrielle storyline that really felt powerful and relevant today to me, which is when they're out shopping and her mother in law is trailing her, as we know, and she's just not letting her out of her sight and they're in this Lauderie store and they're talking about you know, she makes a comment about Gabrielle having children and giving her purpose, and Gabrielle says, and for the record, I'm not one of those women who has a hole in her heart
that can only be filled.
By a baby.
And I just thought, you know, we don't really explore that that much at this point in the storyline of Carlos and Gabby not having children, but I do know that that is still very relevant in conversations I have all the time with my friends about you know.
Becoming parents.
And and that journey and the feeling of you know, what's expected of you or what gives you purpose or if you can live a childless life and be fulfilled and happy, which they've actually shown studies that very much bolster that sentiment. And so I really kind of liked this. We haven't had that many moments of Gabrielle with having strong convictions about things that are on the right side of morality thus far.
Yeah, and I thought this was a nice moment for her character.
Yeah. I think so too. And it gets a little glossed over. So I'm glad because she says it with a lot of you know, umph. Yeah, but we don't really come back to it, and we don't linger there. We don't linger there, And it's kind of worth again pointing out in the writing. I mean to just keep, you know, praising Mark Cherry and the writers for finding these little moments that resonate so strongly that you know you can still talk about them as relevant twenty years later.
Oh my gosh.
Absolutely, I'm curious, Andrea. I mean, and if it's personal, we don't have to talk about it. But as about to be mom to be soon, did you feel like you knew you always wanted to have kids. Did you feel like you had a timeline of when you thought you needed to do that. I mean, I think about Gabby's character is a bit younger than the other women. I obviously I'm watching the show for the first time. I feel like I have a memory that at some point,
maybe Gabby does end up having a kid. I'm not sure that I'm getting that right.
We won't say anything saying don't give me anything.
But I'm just I'm curious how how that stuck with you and what you think about that.
I have always said that I am.
I feel pretty grateful that I was on the side of I always knew and that didn't change. Like I knew when I was a kid I wanted to be a mom, and I knew throughout getting older that I wanted to be a mom, And then when it came time in my life where that opportunity might be presenting itself, I still knew, which isn't the case for a lot of people, and they go back and forth or they know the opposite, you know, and so, But the question of did I feel a timeline, Absolutely, and even though
that's because we're becoming better as a society about giving more, you know, time to women and not putting this pressure on them of you have to have a baby by a certain age or that somehow you're unhealthy if you, you know, are a late advanced maternal age mom, which technically I am. Wow, oh yeah, I know, you know,
but I do think it's still quite prevalent. It's it's that's that pressure of the ticking clock is really strong, and you know, some of that's biology, some of that is is society and us not being that quick to progressing our stance on women's healthcare or researching women in the medical.
Field much at all. So I definitely feel that.
I feel that sometimes. Thankfully I found a medical team who doesn't really introduce those themes. As in my pregnancy journey thus.
Far, it's really hard for me to refer to you as advanced aging and anything. I mean, you are my thirteen year old daughter and you always will be. So if your advanced age, you know, give me a hearing aid and a cane right now, I.
Know, I know, it's really I'm in trouble.
Yeah, it's really nutty. It's yeah, it's a silly thing. And I will say just to kind of cap that off. I don't understand it right because at thirty five, this is the earliest in my life that I've felt prepared to be able to take this on, right, I really, you know, and I know that's a different journey for everybody, but I do feel like I'm in a great time of life, not an advanced maternal age time of life, right, in a really sweet spot to do this.
So, yeah, I was thirty two, almost thirty three when you were born.
Oh so you were in advanced maternal age at all?
No, but I no, but it felt but that felt that felt very right. Even in hindsight, it feels like that was right as opposed to twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine.
Oh my god, being it. Yeah, I mean I'm twenty eight, Yeah, I absolutely.
I mean, I also, like you Andrew, have always known that I want to have kids and that I want to be a mom, and probably because I have such an amazing mom and.
I just love child checks in the mail.
But I could not imagine at this moment in my life, with my career, with the things I want to accomplish as a writer and a director, and my social life and where I live and I just I cannot imagine having a child.
Well, I think this is a good time to bring up nipples.
Oh, I'm wondering when it's going to come up.
So God, did anybody notice the nipples pop out in the purple T.
Shirt of yours? And oh I noticed on the lawn.
There was a there was a purple T shirt nipple moment, and then there was a later gray T shirt nipple moment.
Wait, is that purple T shirt nipple moment when the cop who's your guest star.
Even even echo.
Yes when he comes and by the way, totally gaslights you into letting him take you on a date. I was like, this is exactly the problematic male behavior that people call out.
More to debt, I like to bring the term back Carl and disguise.
I think that we should collectively just just calling those men they're Carl's Carl, and.
We really do. And that has such a good payoff at the end, that this is when your nipples are out.
Yes, And it made me, first of all, I was like, Wow, there's there's the nipples like I and there they are, and I kind of remember at the time sort of being proud of them, like you know, like I like my breasts and I like my nipples, and I felt good about it, and I think, I recall this is one of those where I wish I had evidence, some like go research it, But I'm pretty sure this is accurate.
That the producers got calls from the network about myself and Nicolette and we needed to put our nipples away.
That was the language Nicolett and Terry need to put the nile away.
I mean, I that's the way I'm saying it now. And I did not want to put my nipples away. I did not want to wear a thicker bra or a different shirt, or walk around with a heating pad under my shirt. Whatever the techniques would have been, I don't know, but but you know, that's kind of my recollect of like what's the big deal, but then having stepped away from it for twenty years and then seeing it and being like, Wow, my nipples.
Are really out there.
I mean, maybe if I'd worked at the network and I was in like standards and practices, I would have been like, we gotta get rid of terrors nipples. Like maybe I would have agreed because they were they were they were prominent.
Well listen, that is totally I feel like coming back now. Everyone's nipples. Nipple is not even our back, not even just the silhouette of a nipple. I mean, people are wearing full on see through things with no bras. I was just going shopping for clothes on the Paloma Wol website.
I love Paloma Wool, but I gotta say, I am like, what world in which what world are we living in in which I am supposed to buy a dress that is entirely see through and wear it as worn by your model on the website with no bra and a thong? On where am I going in? It's an out anybody?
Could it would be you?
Yeah?
I appreciate that.
I mean, anyways, we could do a whole podcast on how what happens to your nipples and pregnancy, but I'll spare everybody.
Okay, I yeah, all right.
Well I call my own standards and practices when I see myself in the mayor and.
I'm like, put those away.
Yeah yeah, get ABC on the horn and tell them to put andrew his nipples away.
Anyways, Susan did have a I thought a charming storyline that went from the cop yes asking her out her deciding to go her insecurity with Mike about you know, how do you feel about me? And how soon is this moving along? And should I be dating other people? And how uncomfortable that is when you start to fall
for someone and it does feel early. I will say that scene between Susan and Lynette where Lynette is refilling the hole with dirt that she's made her sons dig in order to get their energy out, that scene where they're talking about it, and Susan basically admits to, you know, being this person who falls really hard, really fast. I did think. Okay, I'm always saying how Terry is not Susan, but I do think when I dated, because I don't date anymore, but when I dated never too. It's no,
it's too late. When I dated when I was younger, I was definitely that person that was like signing the married signature, like with your dad, Terry Tenny. How does that sound, Terry Tenny? Like I was doing that, you know, five minutes after meeting him, And that's kind of like how I was.
I've been told that I fall hard or jump in. Well, I jump into relationships with both feet pretty regularly. Although I will say maybe to my credit. I think I jump in with both feet, but I don't have trouble extra hitting myself.
Second, it feels like it's not working.
Hey, So that's that's kind of that works out. I think that works out. I agree.
I thought that there was a lot of really beautiful vulnerability in Susan, sort of you know, revealing to Mike that she cares by way of asking him what's going on here between us?
You know?
And I really I wrote down the line that Susan says, I'm mad that I like you so much without really knowing anything about you, and I do. I think, yeah, I love that line. I loved how you played it, and I do think that's relatable for a lot of people.
For dating.
The early stages of dating requires so much mental gymnastics figuring out what the other person is thinking about you.
You know, do you like me? Is terrifying to ask me.
So my big advice for not being in a successful relationship or dating but being six years old and looking back, is spend more time asking yourself if you like the other person. Then all the time women tend to think about does the guy like me? Does the person like me? And I think we put a lot of energy into that, and instead you need to turn it around and say why do I like this person? Do I like this person?
And why do I like this person? Because that'll help you not end up in a relationship you don't want to be in.
Yeah.
I do think those early stages of dating it is so much projection. You know, we are projecting onto the other person everything that we imagine they might be, and also I think projecting in them who we might be with them, you know, ideas and versions of ourselves that
we might want to be. And then I think the real test of a relationship as time goes on and you start to pull those projections back and actually look at who the person is because you have more time, you have more information, and you also look at who you are with them. Then I think that's the real test, to go, Okay, do I really love this person because it's who they are are and not who I've projected hoping that they're gonna be.
Yeah, And Susan actually has a right to be a little bit, you know, investigating a little bit about wanting to know more about who Mike is because he is hiding something.
He is hiding something. Yeah, And I love.
I love Susan's revelation that she is saying, you know, oh, she wonders if Mike is a caral in disguise, but then she ends up realizing that Stephen Ecklets's character the cop is really the caral in disguise, and how defiantly she gets out of the car and she closes the door. And then I wanted to ask you, mom in that scene, Yeah, where did you shoot that?
Because it's the backlot. Yeah, that's what I thought. That was the backlot. I'm probably like New York Street or something, but that was the backlot.
The universal backlot.
Yeah, yeah, that that scene of you standing on the corner and different Johns so to speak, pulling up asking basically like are you available and what's your rate and all of that.
She doesn't say I'm not a sex worker. She goes, oh, I'm on a break.
Yea, And that's not I don't I don't remember this actress's name, but I do remember the feeling of It's it's a moment where I just love those sort of day player kind of parts because you know, you're getting I you know, whatever it was, we're working together, and there was a comedic timing between the you know, get off my block, you can borrow my phone. I have weekend minutes. The character says, remember weekend minutes was a thing. Oh my gosh, and I just it's it's kind of
like the Ida Greenberg. These you know, our main characters are such quote unquote stars, but these little characters are really what glew the whole thing together.
I have to say because now it's come up. But she delivered my favorite line of the episode, which was which was, honey, if I got paid in quarters, I'd be doing something very wrong.
I thought that was that's a good line.
She delivered it perfect.
Yes. And also just to kind of, i mean wrap up the Susan storyline while we're in it, we get Mike and Susan's first kiss.
Oh okay, I have to and I had the broken rib and it was hard for me to turn that way to kiss him because I had the broken rib. I remember that sitting in the truck and being like, oh my gosh, I'm not gonna be able to turn this way.
Wow.
Yeah.
So that's the behind the scenes of like, this is not as sexy as it may look, because Terry's actually thinking about how much pain she's in from a broken rib.
Oh, because I was gonna say the screenwriter in me, I am such a sucker for an in the car first kiss, you know. I feel like in so many quintessential movies. I was just rewatching Easy A and they actually those two characters don't have their first kiss in a car, but they almost do. And I just think, you know, the pulling up at the end of the day.
Obviously in this case, you know Mike has rescued you off of your street corner, and that quiet stillness when no one really wants to open the door yet know that you have to go. You're right on the precipice of something. I It's just it's such a romantic moment to me, I love that moment.
So also, I'm now thinking, as you're saying this, my husband and my first kiss was in a car.
Yeah, that's very sweet.
So the one story we haven't really talked about yet,
which is so dynamic and incredible is the Breeze Act story. Yes, and uh, you know it starts with her being worried about him, and she's also alone because Rex is now living in the hotel, and so uh oh that was That was a great exchange too, where he where he comes over and to pick up the kids, and and he tells her so sort of arrogantly, and you know, with such confidence, you know, well, this therapy might not work out, so you better get used to living alone.
And she just turns right around. It's like, well, therapy might not work out, you better get used to crappy cooking.
Yeah, I know.
Good.
So there was another omen in that scene where he says he misses the kids, and you can tell there's just like a split second where it lingers before anyone says anything else, and you can tell that she's waiting for him to say and I miss you.
Too, yeah, and he doesn't.
Yeah, yeah, And he mentions her guns again, which I thought.
That was another great line. There's so many great lines, and.
I'm waiting episode I'm waiting for for Breeze NRA membership to really come back, and.
I don't Yeah, I don't remember exactly when it shows up, but it does come.
But I I have that line here, something about if you, if you, if if you you're a member of the NRA, you have four guns. If somebody breaks in, I expect you to protect me. Something like that. He says to her, Yeah, it's really good. But so she Brie has Zach come over for plum pudding, which I almost made, you guys, yeah, and then I thought, actually, I have my one of my favorite chefs in the world, Paul Ainsworth. Everybody check
him out. He's in Cornwall and Padstow. He's also all over British television in terms of all the competition kind of stuff. A great guy, fabulous chef. I had my sixtieth birthday party at his restaurant. Just the best food anyways he has because it's quite British. He has a plum pudding recipe that he's put out and they also make plum pudding that you can buy online, which I
highly recommend because anything he does is delicious. So I almost made you guys that, but instead, in the second Brie and Zach scene, she invites him over for a holiday meal that ends up never happening because she gets involved with Rex and has to cancel. But you do cut to her in the kitchen with a full on roasted turkey and then there's candy jams in the back and she mentions the candy jams and there's cranberry sauce, and you know, whatever would go with a holiday meal.
And so that's what I did bring for you guys today. So candy jams, which is yams that are topped with candied pecans and then roasted marshmallows, is a staple at my Thanksgiving dinner. I think it is everyone's favorite, even if you are that person that goes I hate this dish, which a lot of people do. It can be a controversial dish. Sometimes I do that, but then you eat it and you're like, Okay, I don't hate this dish. This is amazing. I can't stop eating it. There's never
any leftovers. I think the secret in mind is the zested ginger and the zested orange. Yeah, it's not too sweet and it's not too sweet, and so I've brought that for you guys. But let's talk about Brie and Rex and Zach. While I sort of unfind.
I find this, I think it's interesting that you made the candied jams as opposed to the plum pudding, because the meal that doesn't get eaten really is I feel like the crux of the relationship between Brie and Zach and it is so heartbreaking to me person because we see them connect over their first meal where Bree shares an incredibly interesting Andrew, you already pointed this out, incredibly interesting backstory into maybe her cleaning obsession, her need for
everything to be clean, and it's so specific and somewhat similar to She's come across Zach cleaning the spot where mary Alice's blood was.
She asked him what happened to your varnish and he reveals that that's where his mom, you know, called herself.
And then she says that her mom got hit by a car while they were caroling, and then she went out to the street when everyone went to the hospital and posed all the blood off of the street. And I almost I had a moment where I thought, wait a second, is she making up a story that is so similar to Zach's story because she wants him to feel like he can be vulnert. It almost had an air of inauthenticity to me.
Well, that's an interesting that you brought that up, because I had a little flag on. You know, I'm still a bit obsessed. I'm going to go all the way back to from I guess it was the pilot or one of the first episodes where Rex refers to her as what happened to the girl in college who used to drink milk out of the cart? And I'm still trying to figure that out. So I've gotten a little
bit obsessed and hung up on that. So when she tells this story about using cleaning as a way to erase her emotions from the time she was young when her mother died, I was like, Okay, if that was happening, then then where did the girl who drank milk out of the cart? And come like, I'm still having a little bit of trouble lining those two.
I wonder I wonder if Rex brought that side out of out of her, which is why he feels like not an ownership of it, but so in love with that because maybe he felt like he was the only one who saw this version. And I mean, I'm really just kind of hypothesizing, but maybe maybe that's it is he felt like he was this the secret side of Brie that only he got, and now he doesn't even get it.
Maybe it's that y.
I also, I thought it was interesting when she was sharing this story about her past that it also informed not just the cleaning side of things, but also maybe the mothering side of things for her. She then clearly grew up without one, right, so she's created maybe the idea of what she always wanted in a mom, so she didn't forget to have And it was just so tragic watching, you know, watching Zach really go through the grieving process without support from his dad is it's touching.
And I think Cody's doing such a lovely.
Job with that storyline because you can see he's troubled. They allude to the fact that he might have been troubled before this happened, and now he's kind of without a network or a support system to go through this incredibly tragic thing, and now Bree's offering him a hand. And it's going to be very interesting to see where that goes, because I can't tell if he's sort of using Brie as a surrogate mom now or if there's like a romantic thing happening.
I don't get that there's romance.
I was not picking up romance, but I was picking
up this deep sadness. And you're right, she extends this hand and then because of the issues in her own life and the fact that she wants to salvage her marriage, she pulls it away, and we actually get a book ended episode with a beginning of a break in and an ending with a break in with this bizarre Christmas decorating cry for help, I would say on Zach's part, and this heartbreaking moment when when his pall comes in, his dad comes in and he reaches for breeze hand.
And I didn't really view that romantically at all, but I really did view it as this kind of surrogate mother relationship that I think maybe she is unintentionally open to can of worms she didn't really expect to.
Yeah, totally so we And by the way, I just had a bite of this. I think this might be the best thing I've thin I.
Can actually smell the it's wasting off of it.
It's really really good. I think the secret to a good candy Dam's dish is the combination of the sugar and the salt. And there's actually even a little bit of heat in there. There's a tiny bit of cayenne in it. Yeah, I'm pretty proud of this.
It's so good and it's so funny me Thanksgiving.
Yeah, it's a thousand degrees outside, but I'm just going to pretend that it's fall and it's coziness.
And so this episode sort of wraps up with uh Juanita sort of giving that kind of final threat to Gabby of like, you know, I think you, I think you know what I'm doing here, and I think you know that I'm onto you, and I and and and and then and Susan has gotten her kiss and where we.
Oh and Lynette Lynette, we kind of lost track of the storyline with the original Yes, so Lynette tires her kids out, she gets them the interview, which, by the way, this actually I think was my favorite line from the episode, when the principal of the school says, we're always looking for more diversity in regards in regards to the identical twins, So funny being the diversity box that the school wants
to check. And she tires them out, and then it sounds like they've gotten into the school, but they can't afford to pay for it, and Tom throws out, well, why don't you home school them because they can't go to public school anymore, and you know, she sort of throws that back in his face, and then we get the resolve of her deciding that they need to sell his sailboat so they can send the kids to the fancy.
She very artfully leads him to believing that that was his.
Decision, stands next to the mantle and goes.
She uses his argument for compromise and sacrifice to get him to recognize what he could be offering up to sacrifice.
She must have been so good in the corporate world.
Oh yes, yes, and uh and but it doesn't lead me to one other thing mystery that continues, which is where is the baby?
Where is their baby?
And also where is their third son in this episode, because there are three little boys, and you know, you see the twins trying to get in school and all this stuff, and.
He's still in their public school because he didn't paint anybody blue.
Yeah, maybe he was in a different grade.
Yes, he's allowed to stay in his schooling. Yeah that's true. That's true.
So I love this episode, and I feel like some of the episodes you feel like, I feel like one of the last one we did, maybe I didn't feel like I had it as much to say, I feel like this one. There were some of my just favorite lines, and I really was taken in by what each character was sort of dealing with. I really loved this episode. I felt like the most desperate moment to me, I guess was Lynette asking Bree to lie for her. Feel like that's your She didn't do it in a desperate way.
She did it almost playfully, like of course you're going to do this for me. But to me, that actual ask of asking a friend to lie for me, that would be in real life that would feel like, Wow, I've hit the bottom.
It was coming from like I don't know what else to do. I'm desperate for this. Yeah, that's interesting.
What was yours, Andrea? What did you think your most desperate moment was.
I think my most desperate moment in the episode was Gabrielle framing her mother in law for shoplifting so that she could hook up with a teenager.
Well that's desperate and funny.
Yeah, that's hard to argue with.
I was gonna say, I think my most desperate moment was Susan calling her thirteen year old daughter from a street corner using a sex worker's phone that she bribed her for so the man who won't actually go out with her could come and pick her up off the street.
Well, now that you say it that way, exactly.
I think you win.
Yeah, that is the most desperate moment.
I'm so so excited also as we're exploring more and more episodes to hear from you, to hear from our listeners. I know we want you to write in with questions, with observations. It would be amazing to hear if you've had a very desperate moment in your week that you want to.
Share with us.
Absolutely, and you can do that because our instagram is live at Desperately Devoted Podcast.
Come find us there, Yeah.
Drop us a D m oh Man.
Well, thanks everybody for joining us again. We wish you were here. There's a lot more candid dams.
You're gonna have to put up a recipe.
I will definitely. I will always be putting up the recipes. I love the way food is a part of our lives and food is a part of with Sarria Lane. And we will see you for the next one because we are desperately devoted to you