Desperate Housewives - Crime Doesn't Pay

After a two week hiatus, Desperate Housewives was back last night with a brand new episode. I can understand the week off due to the Oscars, but last week's snore-rific 2 hour long Brothers and Sister was such a complete waste.

But DH returned with a resounding bang. My favorite moments:

Tom and Lynette's game of one-upmanship vying for the same marketing position with Bree's publisher. Tom didn't even WANT the job until Lynette started angling for it. Their no-holds barred "interview" has Bree commenting: "Maybe we should slice the tart in here. I don’t want to bring a large knife into this." Lynette mentions that Tom worked for her and she fired him, Tom says Lynette is great--"As long as the cancer doesn't flare up again."

Ouch!

Bree's publisher makes a hasty retreat telling the pair, "Trust me, you’ve certainly made an impression."

Speaking of knives, that was sure a big one Maria plunged into Bradley's back after he confessed to his affair with Shayla. Gaby, tired of covering for Carlos' philandering boss, goes to Shayla under the guise of getting a haircut. (Great line in response to Maria's query about how many Shaylas does she know?: "There's Shayla the hairstylist and then there’s this other Shayla I know who’s a homewrecking whore...")

But Shayla is undeterred from continuing her relationship with Bradley until Gaby tells her that Maria is pregnant. Shayla tells her to leave, holding her hair hostage with a pair of scissors until Gaby slinks away. "This is why no-one should ever get their hair cut at a mall!" she declares as she leaves.

Gaby finally confronts Bradley refusing to continue to lie for him even though it means Carlos will lose his job (Speaking of which--who reads newspaper classifieds to find a new job? Especially one of the six-figure variety...) That's when they get the call from Maria and arrive to find Bradley in a pool of blood.

"I just wanted him to stop talking," the dazed Maria says.

Indeed.

But my favorite moment was between Katherine and Susan. As much as Susan Mayer annoys the hell out of me, the writers finally took pity on Teri Hatcher this week. There's a bump in Katherine and Susan's attempt to take the high road when Katherine finds out the painting of Mike's hanging over her fireplace was painted by Susan. When Susan arrives at the housewarming party Katherine is throwing for Mike, she notices it missing. Katherine claims the glass broke when she knocked over during cleaning, but everyone knows she's lying.

"That’s how I got rid of Tom’s last bottle of “Musk” the cologne for men," Lynette remarks.

Susan finds the painting in Katherine's garage and shows it to Mike--who then has a big fight with Katherine during the party. He makes Katherine go to Susan and apologize. But Katherine's "apology" is less than heartfelt. She tells Susan that it's enough of a struggle dealing with her living across the street and the fact that Mike and she share custody of M.J. "Do I have to have a painting of your honeymoon, too?" she asks Susan.

So later when Susan marches over to Katherine's house and removes the painting, it seems like she's being a bitter bitch--but in reality she's protecting Katherine from having to have Mike's past relationship with her thrown in her face. Both actresses did a really great job with that moment.

In other news: McCluskey is back--although without Lily Tomlin, Edie is hot on the trail of deceptive Dave when she finds out his real surname is "Dash" and Orson has developed a bad case of kleptomania.