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Desperate Housewives Season 3 Episode 8

Children and Art

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Episode Summary

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AIRED: 11/12/06

Lynette returns home from the hospital. Gabrielle decides to get back into modelling and travels to New York. Susan comes home to find Austin and Julie making out on her couch. Bree meets her antagonistic mother-in-law Gloria (guest star Dixie Carter), with whom Orson is in a quarrel. Detective Ridley has Mike's house searched.moreless

FAN RECAP

Fan Episode Reviews (27)

Lynette Bakes A Cake To Art, The Neighbor Who Saved Her Life At The Supermarket. Bree Invites Gloria Hodge To Dinner While Mike Returns Home.

8.5

By Matt16020-FIN, Apr 30, 2012

This is a great episode to follow the events of the supermarket drama. I liked how all kinds of things happened here. We finally met Orson's mother, Gaby returns to New York and Mike is suspected for killing Monique. The episode centers to the new neighbor, Art. The best scene was when he and Lynette convinced to Parker that everything is okay. But as the episode unfolds, everything is never what it seems. The ending scene was frightening and it brought me the chills. Those kind of men should be killed off from this world. It was also nice to see Karl Mayer again. He is funny as hell. A great episode.moreless
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Lynette returns home from the hospital. Gabrielle decides to get back into modeling and travels to New York. Bree must put up with her mother-in-law. Susan finds Julie and Austin making out on her couch.moreless

10

By ParkPlace2623, Apr 14, 2008

This episode was so amazing. Julie and Austin hook up and start making out, only to have Susan find them. Julie ends up on Austin's motorcycle with him, as he rides away down Wisteria Lane. Gabrielle decides to go back into modeling, and travels to New York. Bree must put up with her mother-in-law, who is out to get Orson. But the best storyline of all was when Lynette comes home from the hospital. She decides to bake Art a cake, but when she goes into his house to deliver it, Parker runs into the basement, where Lynette discovers pictures of naked boys. This episode was so entertaining and so dramatic. It is, without question, a series classic.moreless
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Lynette returns home from the hospital. Gabrielle decides to get back into modelling and travels to New York. Susan comes home to find Austin and Julie making out on her couch. Bree meets her antagonistic mother-in-law Gloria (guest star Dixie Carter).moreless

9.2

By Black_Grace, Apr 03, 2007

Great episode! I thought they would be more sad that Nora died even though Lynette didn't really like her. I wonder if Kayla knows and how she will act about it. Lynette was so weird with I am going to bake you a cake. He is a protecter man!! And he takes pictures of kids. Now he doesn't seem like that nice guy anymore. That other girl is funny when she says fine I will go to the supermarket. Andrew is so funny when he said to Bree can we call her grandma? I love Andrew so much. He is so funny!moreless
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Loss Of Innocence Written by Jenna Bans And Kevin Etten Directed by Wendy Stanzler

7.0

By shawnlunn2002, Feb 17, 2007

Gloria (to Orson): “I gave you life; you know I won’t hesitate to take it away”.

If you had a mother like this I bet the prospect of being orphaned would be a somewhat more appealing lot in life as this week, Orson is given a rather reminder of his past and suffice to say, Mr Hodge is far from happy to see the woman who gave him life again.

Then again in a way, Orson does have himself to blame as the way he kept evading Bree’s questions in regards to his mother’s whereabouts was his downfall. The way Orson quite harshly tried to get Bree off the scent only made her more suspicious. I think Bree was able to see through Orson’s protests of not wanting to see a vegetable version (not in the literal sense) of his mother because otherwise, she would’ve dropped it and respected her husband’s wishes, right?

This is Bree we’re talking about and no longer the compliant type she went out of her way to track the exact retirement home in which Gloria was occupying and upon visiting the mother from hell, Bree quickly realised that Gloria was far from the senile old bat that Orson had told her she was. What’s with the lies mate?

That’s exactly what Bree wants to find out and so she unwisely springs Gloria from her retirement home and into the Hodge household much to Orson’s horror. These two have an ongoing feud which neither is ready to make Bree or the audiences as to why but for one of them, keeping schtum is beneficial in the blackmail department. That would be Gloria, which already makes her fit into Wisteria Lane quite perfectly.

With Gloria home for dinner, we’re treated to another memorable dinner scene with this particularly dysfunctional clan as Orson and Gloria can’t help but lay into each other and when this mother and son have at it, neither is exactly polite in their disapproval of one another.

It turns out that Gloria’s pathetic first attempts of buttering Orson up were because she wants out of the retirement home he’s confined her to and in a moment of sheer inspired malice, Orson happily tells her that not only does he refuse to let her out of the place she can’t stand but he also sold her home and belongings to help pay for the very retirement home that she despises.

Just like her son, Gloria isn’t in any way fond of being told what she can and can’t do and openly expressing to Orson that she wished she had smothered him as a child, causing Andrew to ask whether or not they could call her Grandma. Well she’s pretty vindictive so I’d say she’d fit your family just fine, so have at it. No wonder Orson hates her guts; the only thing that shocked me was that he didn’t try to choke the ****

Gloria then uses Bree’s naivety against her and tricks her into going in a car with and driving it into a fire hydrant. Bree and Orson spent this entire episode taking different view points to Gloria with Bree ultimately siding with the old boot instead of her husband. There’s a limit on which elders you should respect and on this show, it’s quite a limit.

That being said Gloria still wins out because whatever she has on Orson, he’s desperate enough to hide it and to allow the old bat to move in with him and his new family. Dixie Carter makes for a wonderful villainess, whose acerbic putdowns make you sympathise with Orson all the more, while wondering what will happen next between mother and son.

And this isn’t the only thing of sinister purposes that makes me wonder what is going on as this week we learn that there is more than meets the eye with the seemingly kind new neighbour Art, when Lynette discovers something very unpleasant about her hero in the hostage situation of last week.

Lynette first began to strike up a friendship with Art, even going to the extent of wanting to bake him a cake and unlike Bree or Susan; Lynette is hardly the kind who goes baking for her neighbours at random so depending on her cooking, Art should consider himself a lucky guy. There was another reason why Lynette wanted to get to know Art as well.

When the Scavo spawn found out from the one of the kids in their school that mad Carolyn had shot their mother and killed Aunty Nora, Lynette and Tom found themselves in a pickle. You can’t blame them for not wanting to worry their children especially given that Lynette survived but at the same time, a small town like Fairview and it was only a matter of time before even their kids found out about the supermarket fiasco.

Porter and Preston reacted pretty funnily asking Lynette if she got to keep the bullet so they could use it for show and tell while playing hostage games of their own. Parker, the more sensitive child was so scared of losing his mother; Lynette had to get Karen McClusky to get her groceries in the market, so Lynette had to enlist someone to put Parker’s mind at ease.

That person was Art who along with Lynette pretended to be a superhero called Protector Man. It took Parker a bit to actually buy it and it helped that Art conveniently had a T-Shirt with a “P” sign on it as well. Yeah it was the start of a beautiful friendship.

So it kind of stinks that when Lynette and Parker stop by to Art’s house to drop him off a cake that in fairness looks more like Lynette bought as opposed to have made that Parker’s curiosity lead him and Lynette to a basement full of toys and disturbing photographs of young boys.

I’ll ask the obvious question – is Art a paedophile? Those pictures would certainly suggest so and the conspicuous manner in which they were on display and it so, this is an audacious topic for Desperate Housewives to cover and is likely to be given a more fascinating run than the regular covering of this dark subject on shows like Law And Order: Special Victims Unit but at the same time, this show is also great for throwing ruses and who is to say that this isn’t one of them?

Speaking of handling, could Susan’s reaction to the very thought of her sixteen year old daughter having a boyfriend be anymore silly? I understand that no parent wants to see their kid about to move a few bases with their new honey but Susan’s reaction upon seeing Julie and Austin together was as if someone threw sulphuric acid all over her face.

Granted Austin is far from a prize and Josh Henderson’s acting is still pretty wooden but once Susan chooses to handle Julie’s desire to have a relationship of her own in a pretty childish manner in which she handles any other obstacle within her life that even the similarly emotionally immature Ian can’t side with her.

It also turns out that using Karl as the bad cop is another one of her failures when Austin informs Karl of Ian and Karl finds that his ex-wife’s love life is more discussion worthy than Julie’s. Richard Burgi’s return is always welcome but he really is wasted in this episode.

It also doesn’t help that Susan’s other attempt of enlisting Edie is a disaster too for her. Edie feels that Julie and Austin will run their course but is mostly too busy rubbing into Susan the fact that she has Mike and not her. Mike on the other hand is too busy having his house searched by cops looking for his toolbox which in a surprising moment we learn that Karen McClusky hid for him. When she mentioned blood on his wrench you do wonder if he is guilty of something.

Last but because it’s the least interesting storyline of the bunch, Gabrielle decides to resurrect her modelling career and after a strained meeting with her botox obsessed agent she finally snags herself a gig.

However tings have changed and Gabrielle is no longer the hot thing she once was in the modelling world. New girl Tanya gets all the pretty dresses while Gabby is forced to play a frumpy housewife and a photographer who once shot her barely recognises her and when she tries to work her unflattering outfit to her advantage, Gabrielle is given a much overdue reality check and for once I actually feel bad for her. Not a huge lot but a little bad no less.

Also in “Children And Art”

Housewife of the week: Karen McClusky helping the neighbours like Alberta From with neutering her cat Baxter, Ida Greenberg with taking her Christmas lights down and some other neighbour with painting their garage door blue. Plus the sly lady blackmailed Edie into handing over Mike’s lawnmower.

Karen: “I found those pictures of Mike and Susan you threw out”

Edie: “Pictures?”

Girl Scout (re Vogue Magazine): “Are you sure?”

Gabrielle: “I should be I was on the cover”.

I’ve just noticed that out of all the regulars so far the only ones whose families such as parents or siblings we haven’t met are Lynette and Mike’s. We should do at some point.

Art: “A cake?”

Lynette: “Yeah, I never make cakes so this is huge”.

Bree: “Andrew its delicate no-one wants to hear sad news on Christmas”

Orson: “That’s true”.

Even though Andrew has been pretty pleasant this season, am I the only who found it weird helping Bree out with the Christmas cards?

Ian: “Why do I have to be a fussy snob?”

Susan: “Because you’re British”.

Marcella (to Gabrielle): “Isn’t that ironic since I’m the one you called a career obsessed **** who will die alone and be eaten by her cats?”

Did anyone note how irked Gabby was when Tanya was bragging about sleeping with Dirkin? I have a feeling that Gabby did the same as well.

Bree (re Orson): “How do you disappoint him?”

Gloria: “I refuse to die”.

Tom: “And we’ll all see Aunty Nora in heaven”

Lynette: “Or wherever”.

Although the continuity from “Bang” is good would a funeral sequence for Nora have killed the show? Also why didn’t Susan/Julie tell Karl about the hostage situation of last week?

Dirkin: “Just make it work”

Gabrielle: “Just need a moment to get into character”.

Gabrielle wanted to be Hot Mom and Big Sister to Tanya’s risqué daughter. This is one of the few episodes where Eva Longoria’s beauty shines through.

Karl: “If you don’t care about my feelings then I don’t know what I’m doing here”

Susan: “Your feelings? My God! You’re the worst bad cop ever”.

Lynette (re Art): “He’s sort of a superhero”

Parker: “Give me a break”.

The Opening Credits are back again this week. Nice to see ABC keep using them.

Gloria: “I should’ve smothered you as a baby”

Orson: “Now there’s the mother I know”.

No Carlos this week but everyone else was present and accounted for.

Andrew (re Gloria): “So can we call her Grandma?”

Chronology: About a week since “Bang”.

Not a patch on the excellence of the previous episode but “Children And Art” deals nicely with the theme of innocence being shattered through the harsh realities of what life subjects people to and the stories involving both Orson and Art make proceedings suitably dark.moreless
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The end of this episode is very shocking!

9.5

By AlliePinder, Feb 14, 2007

I found that this episode was like all others; clever, charming, funny, except at the end it all changed and became sinister and creepy. I do love this about Desperate Housewives, where they take a completely likeable character and reveal a hidden secret that transforms all the opinions you ever had about them. The new neighbour seemed really sweet, charming and normal but when his shrine of half naked kids was shown everything changed. I don't normally have bad dreams but after watching this episode I had one and it creeped me out! I can't wait to see what Lynette is going to do about it!moreless
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Cast & Crew: STARS

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Andrea Bowen	Julie Mayer
Brenda Strong	Mary Alice Young
Doug Savant	Tom Scavo
Felicity Huffman	Lynette Scavo
James Denton	Mike Delfino
Joy Lauren	Danielle Van De Kamp

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Cast & Crew: RECURRING AND GUESTS

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Debra Monk	Marcella	Guest Star
Allison Miller	Tanya	Guest Star
Ian Paul Cassidy	Durkin	Guest Star
Ernie Hudson	Detective Ridley	Recurring Role
Dixie Carter	Gloria Hodge	Recurring Role
Pat Crawford Brown	Ida Greenberg	Recurring Role

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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TRIVIA (4)
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- The spelling of the name of the Scavo boys' school is inconsistent. In the this episode, the name on the school bus is spelled Briarcliff (Academy). In other episodes, the name is spelled Barcliff (Academy), such as on the "Robin Hood" banner in the forth season premiere.
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- It's revealed that Gabrielle's maiden name is Marquez.
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- This is the first episode featuring Karl Mayer (Richard Burgi) since the season two finale.
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- When Art explains why he has a shirt with a "P" on it, he says that his cousin went to Purdue. However, the letter on his shirt is colored orange and black, yet Purdue's colors are gold and black. Also, the font of the letter is not the same as what is usually used for Purdue's trademarked "P".
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QUOTES (16)
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- Karl: You're dating some British guy named Ian.
  Susan: How did that come up?
  Austin: I'm sorry, I didn't realize it was a big secret.
  Karl: When you said it was true love with you and the plumber I was a good guy, I stepped aside and now you're on to someone else.
  Susan: Big picture Karl. (pointing at Austin) His hand up our daughter's shirt.
  Karl: Don't change the subject.
  Susan: That is the subject.
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- Mary Alice: Each year as part of their fund-raising drive, the Fairview Adventure Scouts would award a shiny new bike to whoever sold the most magazine subscriptions. And each scout would set out utterly convinced the prize would be hers. That's the beauty of youth. Little girls believe anything is possible...that is, until they grow up and get divorced.
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- Karl: (About Ian) Fine, that's it, all right? I forbid you to see this guy!
  Susan: What?! No! I don't take orders from you!
  Julie: Mum has a point, dad. You can't tell her who she can or can't date. It's her choice.
  Susan: Exactly, thank you! Wait, no, that does not apply to you!
  Karl: You know if you don't care about my feelings, I don't know what I'm doing here!
  Susan: Your feelings?! My God! You are the worst bad cop ever!
  Susan: (to Julie) Go to your room! (Austin follows) Not you!
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- Marcella: You, come with me.
  Gabrielle: Marcella, look, I don't know what they told you, but all I'm asking for is a simple costume change.
  Marcella: First of all, you don't get to pull that diva crap. Tanya gets away with it because she's a star. You are nothing.
  Gabrielle: Now, just a minute! Where do you get off talking to me like that? You know, I shot thirty-six covers by the time I was twenty!
  Marcella: Well, you're thirty now. And when you make that face, you look thirty-five.
  Gabrielle: Let me ask you something. Do you know how many photographers would die to work with me again?
  Marcella: Yeah. Zero. I had to call in major favors just to get you this job.
  Gabrielle: I don't believe that.
  Marcella: Well, you know what I don't believe? You gave up a brilliant career to play house in the suburbs, and the minute it falls apart, you come back here expecting a homecoming parade. Well, guess what, sweetie? We've moved on. Now get your polyester self over there and act like the pro you used to be.
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- Bree: Now you listen to me. That woman gave you life, and the Fifth Commandment tells us to honor our parents no matter how hideous or repellent they may be.
  Orson: That's not exactly what...
  Bree: Orson, it's implied!
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- Susan: Julie, that boy drinks, he steals, and now I find him mauling you on my couch? That's it! Julie Alexandra Mayer, I forbid you to see him!
  Julie: You can't do that! I choose who I date. You don't!
  Susan: Oh, yeah? Well, maybe I don't, but I do choose to ground you. Two weeks, baby. No more.
  Julie: Fine. I'll just see him at school, then.
  Susan: Well, then maybe you won't go to school. I'll home school you.
  Julie: Right. You're gonna teach me trig? You can't even balance your own checkbook.
  Susan: Yes, and you will be poorly educated, and you won't get into college, and you will work for minimum wage for the rest of your life, and all because of that boy! I hope you're happy!
  Julie: Mom, I like this guy, and I'm sorry if it makes you unhappy, but I'm going to keep seeing him no matter what. So don't try to stop me!
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- Orson: (to Bree) I don't care, my mother's not moving in here until she fits in a jar on the mantle.
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- Parker: You went to the store and you got shot, and auntie Nora died.
  Lynette: I'm only gonna be in there for ten minutes, I promise.
  Parker: Can't she go? (pointing at Mrs. McCluskey)
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- (A girl scout is selling magazines to Gabrielle.)
  Scout: For the lady of the house we offer Redbook, Glamour, Vo-goo...
  Gabrielle: I think you mean Vogue sweety.
  Scout: You're sure?
  Gabrielle: I should know, I was on the cover.
  Scout: No way!
  Gabrielle: Er... Way!
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- Gloria:(to Bree) Why are you talking to me like I'm a moron?
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- Marcella: (on the phone) What do you mean you can't shoot her? Francesco, if you could airbrush her acne, you can airbrush the track marks. Now, don't call me again unless she OD's.
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- Lynette: Art is the one who saved me, at the supermarket. He's sort of a superhero.
  Parker: Give me a break.
  Lynette: It's true.
  Parker: All right. If you're a superhero, what's your name?
  Art: I'm Protector Man!
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- Susan: (talking about Julie and Austin) Are you crazy? If we don't do something those two could end up having sex.
  Edie: Could?
  Susan: Oh my God! You don't...
  Edie: I've got a box of condoms in my dresser. Eleven are gone. I can only account for eight of them.
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- Lynette: How do I thank the man who saved my life.
  Art: You don't have to say anything.
  Lynette: I'm gonna make you a cake.
  Art: (smiles) A cake.
  Lynette: Yeah, I never make cakes, this is huge.
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- Tom: (to his children) And we'll all see Auntie Nora again in heaven.
  Lynette: Or wherever.
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- Gloria: (to Orson) I should have smothered you in your crib when I had the chance!
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NOTES (4)
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- International Episode Titles:
  Czech Republic: Děti a Art (Children and Art)
  Slovakia: Umenie výchovy (Art of Upbringing)
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- Andrea Bowen submitted this episode for consideration on her behalf in the category of "Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series" and Dixie Carter also submitted this episode for consideration in the category of "Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series" on her behalf for the 2007 Emmy Awards.
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- Creator Marc Cherry started his career as Dixie Carter's (Gloria) assistant.
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- Although credited, Ricardo Antonio Chavira (Carlos Solis) does not appear in this episode.
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ALLUSIONS (2)
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- The big "P" letter Art has on his t-shirt is an allusion to Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter".
  
  In this novel Hester Prynne, the protagonist, has a scarlet "A" on her breast for the crime she commited, Adultery.
  
  In Art's case the "P" stands for his crime, Pedophilia.
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- Episode Title: "Children and Art" is a song from Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 1984 musical Sunday in the Park with George.
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