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Desperate Housewives Season 5 Episode 23

Everybody Says Don't (1)

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Episode Summary

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AIRED: 5/17/09

Gabrielle and Carlos attend a family meeting hosted by Carlos' aunt Connie (guest star Liz Torres), who reveals an ulterior motive. Bree comes clean to Orson about her true intentions behind stealing and hiding her stuff, and Orson blackmails her into staying married to him. Lynette freaks out when she learns her husband wants to go back to college to study... Chinese. Susan learns just how desperate Katherine is to get Mike to stay with her after Jackson (guest star Gale Harold) tells her he believes Mike was the one who gave him away to the authorities. In the meantime, Roberta Simonds (guest star Lily Tomlin) learns of Dr. Heller's death, and Dave records a very important tape and starts hallucinating again.moreless

FAN RECAP

Fan Episode Reviews (13)

season 5 epsidoe 23

7.5

By danny7277, Jun 08, 2011

this episode pretty much just sets the stage for the season finale next week Gaby had an ok storlyine im looking forward to next week when we meet this teenager that carlous and gaby are taking in i am looking forward to see how gaby reacts with a teenager

katherine and mike plan to get married in vegas

as susan maynard and dave go fishing with dave planning to kill maynard

bree had a ok week as her divorce continues and her flirting with karl mayer go on

overall a ok episode that dose a good job of setting up next weeks finale which i am looking forward tomoreless
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A show about house wives and the dramatic changes they go through.

6.0

By Lisakudrow730, Sep 25, 2009

I have got to say that this show is good for those with an appeal towards dramatic shows. It shows romance, betrayal,friendship,loyalty, and secrecy. I do watch this show on occasion but it is not my first choice of shows, I do have a liking to it but not as strong as other choices of mine. I foyu are one looking for things with comedy and not much sexual content don't turn to this show.... the opposite is looking in the right direction! I will say that a positve thing about this show is that you can learn some lessons from this that actually can happen in life(though you might not want to handle it the same way they do).moreless
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Average finale but better than the concluding part...

9.0

By super_friend21, Jun 09, 2009

Although of course being Desperate Housewives this was a funny episode even though the momentum was cut short by 'technical difficulties' on E4, this was a ery average first part of a season finale. I think what would ahve been a smart move was to make these episodes seperate, making this the penultimate episode. They already had the titles now just dont label it as a two hour finale. Anyway the best part to both parts is Bree's storyline. I mean it is so out of character for her to be even attracted to Karl. And the wondering about the secret mystery that is Ana is interesting but they could have found a more attractive actress if they are making her out to be a teen temptress. Lynette was really mean to Tom but only after hearing his reasoning behind wanting to learn Mandarin. But the clincher has to be Mike seeing Dave's villianous face as Susan accepts Dave's "friendly" gesture.moreless
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Bloody Hell! (part one)

9.0

By mobbs456, May 28, 2009

Wow! Another fine start to the end. Everything is falling into place and Dave is going mad (more on him and his psychopathic life later)

Firstly, I dont understand why Lynette is standing in the way of Tom's dreams. She should be more supportive instead of thinking of herself!

Love Gabrielle at her family reunion - she knew it was a trap before they arrived. This mysterious Anna that people are talking is interesting...

Bree and Orson reach new levels of bitterness. Love how Orson wants to save the marriage and Bree doesn't. Her and Karl are becoming closer too.

But its Susan who rules again. Her anger at Mike when she thought he was responsible is understandable since he still loves her. Katherine's upsetting pleas to let things be is well acted by the wonderful Dana Delany. But Psycho Dave is breaking down (love the Edie cameo) and now it appears little MJ and Susan are in danger....moreless
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The Reason Why Written by John Pardee And Joey Murphy Directed by Bethany Rooney

8.0

By shawnlunn2002, May 21, 2009

Dave (to Dr Heller): "You don't know what you're talking about. I'm getting away with this."

Lila: "Why would you want to? I don't mean to criticise but I thought you were doing this for us."

It's become tradition with ABC that along with fellow big hitter, Lost that this show also bows out with a two part finale with both episodes airing on the same night. Thankfully with two individual titles, it also makes it easier to review individually rather than in just one big go.

Dave's plans are finally in action and all he wants to do is kill a little boy to make the woman who destroyed his family suffer a thousand fold. Dave explains this on tape in a bizarre attempt to justify his actions but actually getting Susan to go away with him has been more difficult than he expected.

In fact Susan seemed more suspicious of him wanting to take her and MJ away for the weekend that I had to admire her. She and Dave have barely had a friendship at all during the season, so she should be a little suspicious about his sudden interest in her but a lot of her rejecting his offer has more to do with Jackson.

Susan moping over yet another relationship being flushed down the toilet is hardly something worth caring about. Her and Jackson's wedding would've been a sham and at the end of the day, Dave might have done her a favour in a completely unusual way. Not that Jackson would see things like that if he didn't think Dave was the nicest guy ever.

With this finale finally here, it was about time that the cops would get a better clue about Dave being involved in Dr Heller's death. We finally got an ID on the body, his secretary told them about the texts she was receiving and Jackson even mentioned that he saw Dave coming out of the storage minutes before the nightclub went on fire. All we needed now was either Bob or Tom to let slip that Dave blatantly lied about seeing Porter when he didn't and we probably should've gotten them, given that Karen and Roberta got very much pulled back into the mystery. It might have been half a season but Roberta and Karen are still fun to watch again.

Instead Dave had to stew with Susan telling him to get lost and also got taunted by a few familiar faces. Having Dr Heller, Lila and Edie all make their own opinions known about Dave's plans going arseways was a decent scene if not as spectacular as it could've been. I think out of the three of them, Lila might have had the most perceptive comments. Did Dave really want to get away with hurting Susan?

If so, he might not have opted to attempt to shoot MJ in broad daylight. It was lucky that Susan actually told Dave that she wanted to get away for the weekend. However Dave giving Mike his little video message really made no sense. Why on Earth would he do that, if there was a possibility that Mike would be able to stop him?

Speaking of Mike, really not nice to know that this show's least anticipated nuptials are still going ahead. Just about no-one (and this is something that both James Denton and Dana Delany have even admitted in recent reviews), cares about Mike and Katherine as a couple but having Jackson convinced that Mike was the one who called immigration.

It does make more sense for Jackson to accuse Mike of doing this, due to the simple that he thought more highly of Dave and also because he was unaware that Dave knew about him being Canadian. I liked that Susan didn't go in there guns blazing and she was probably right not to tell Mike about Katherine pretending that he'd agree to keep paying alimony but still?

There were some interesting moments with Mike and Susan that would heavily suggest a reunion between the two of them. Katherine even admitted herself that Mike still seemed hung up on Susan and that Susan didn't seem to love Jackson. Here's a thought Katherine, cut the apron strings and try to find someone who actually does love.

I could apply the same advice to Orson. When your wife stages a burglary, is seen with a well know divorce lawyer, tells you that she wants out of the marriage and doesn't love you and seems unshakeable in changing her mind, it's a brilliant hint to just leave her.

Orson however suffers from the same sickness that Katherine, Edie and various other characters have on this show. He decided to stay with Bree and even threatened to send her to jail if she pursued the divorce. Well she did force him to go to jail and there is an interesting little thing called karma. Knowing Bree, she'll find some way of wrangling out of their failing marriage but she might want to act quickly before Orson really does get on a roll. She and Karl certainly seem to have something going on between them, in spite of her insistence that he generally repulses her. You say that now, Bree but what about in the next hour? Will Karl still be as vile in your eyes?

Elsewhere Lynette learned that sometimes sabotaging one of Tom's insane ideas isn't always the best thing to do. To be fair, when he said he wanted to go back to college to study Chinese, I didn't exactly jump for joy either but when he explained his business reasons for doing it, I actually felt a touch sorry for him. Why couldn't we have had those explanations earlier in the episode and have Lynette support him? It would've made a nice change.

Speaking of change, we finally got to meet some of Carlos's other family and as a result, he got foistered into looking after his niece/cousin Ana, even though Gabby tried to wriggle out of it. The fact that we suddenly more family stuff with Solises is certainly a highlight in the episode but here's hoping the writers can do something original with Ana when she appears in the next episode.

Also in "Everybody Says Don't"

Is it me or did the writers go overkill in making MJ look a little too cutesy for this episode? We didn't need that to be any more disgusted with Dave's plan to kill him.

Dave: "I didn't want to kill MJ Delfino, I had to. Susan Mayer killed my wife and daughter. Police called it an accident but I don't believe a person who takes two innocent lives should be allowed to walk away."

There was already an episode in Season Two called, Everybody Says Don't" so it's bizarre that we've got another episode with the same title.

Gabrielle (to Juanita): "Honey, you're six now so I think it's time we had a mother-daughter talk. Your father's side of the family are trash, any questions?"

Bree: "I'm so glad this divorce is almost over. An obnoxious, unpleasant man will be out of my life and so will Orson."

Karl: "Hey, it's not over yet. We've still got a couple of hurdles."

Karl talked about setting up with Bree with some potential suitors. Underneath the sleazy bravado, I get the impression that he does like her himself.

Lynette (to Bree): "That's your advice? Hope an opportunity just drops in my lap? I might as well start shopping for beekeepers suits."

Orson: "I don't want a divorce."

Bree: "Well, that part's not negotiable."

Orson: "Can we at least talk about this?"

I loved that we got a reverse scene of "The Story Of Lucy And Jessie" with Orson telling Bree to sit down and explain her crimes.

Juanita: "Aunt Connie seems nice. Maybe she's changed."

Gabrielle: "Trash doesn't change, sweetheart. She's up to something. Now, come on, let's go get a lawn chair before we're stuck on the grass with fire ants."

Bree: "You would actually send your wife to prison?"

Orson: "My wife, no. My ex-wife, you bet. But it won't come to that, darling. I know we can get back to what we once both had."

Bree: "That will never happen."

So what exactly is up with Ana that Connie had to 'trick' Gabby and Carlos into taking her in? Is she next season's mystery?

Edie: "Isn't it better that Susan knows why her son had to die. I mean, the whole point is to make her suffer, right?"

Dave: "That's true."

Edie: "And then the whole world will finally understand what you've been going through."

Karen: "I'd feel better if we had proof."

Roberta: "And I'd feel better if I had a functioning liver but sometimes you gotta play the hand you're dealt."

Chronology: Still a few days since "Marry Me A Little".

As a start episode for the finale, "Everybody Says Don't" is decent enough. There's enough going to keep things interesting but finally putting this Dave story to rest will the best thing all round.

Rating: 8 out of 10.moreless
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Cast & Crew: STARS

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Teri Hatcher	Susan Mayer
Felicity Huffman	Lynette Scavo
Marcia Cross	Bree Hodge
Eva Longoria	Gabrielle Solis
Nicollette Sheridan	Edie Britt
Dana Delany	Katherine Mayfair

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Cast & Crew: RECURRING AND GUESTS

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Marie Caldare	Lila Dash	Guest Star
Liz Torres	Connie Solis	Guest Star
Stephen Spinella	Dr. Samuel Heller	Guest Star
Mason Vale Cotton	MJ Delfino	Recurring Role
Richard Burgi	Karl Mayer	Recurring Role
Gale Harold	Jackson Braddock	Recurring Role

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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TRIVIA (0)
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QUOTES (1)
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- Dr. Heller: They're onto you, Dave. Those text messages you sent to my receptionist didn't fool anybody. They've identified by body. And now, they're trying to trap you.
  Dave: It's not gonna work.
  Dr. Heller: They can trace those signals, Dave. They're going to find you.
  (Dave takes Dr. Heller's cellphone and throws it against the wall, smashing it to bits)
  Dr. Heller: It's too late. Whatever plan you had, it went to hell when you killed me. You should've stayed on your meds.
  Dave: Y-you don't know what you're talking about. I'm getting away with this!
  Lila: Why would you want to? I don't mean to criticize, but I thought you were doing this for us.
  Dave: I am. I want justice for our family.
  Lila: Then who cares if you're caught? We miss you, Dave. We should be together.
  Dave: So, what are you saying? So I should just walk over and kill M.J. now?!
  Edie: Sure. Why not? And, let's face it, your plans to take the kid to some lake and pretend he accidentally drowned? Boring! Hey, isn't it better that Susan know why her son had to die? I mean, the whole point is to make her suffer. Right?
  Dave: That's true.
  Edie: And then the whole world will finally understand what you've been going through.
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NOTES (6)
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- When this episode aired back-to-back with "If It's Only in Your Head as the 2-hour finale for season 5, guest star Stephen Spinella (Dr. Samuel Heller) is credited after Liz Torres (Connie Solies). However, when the episode was released on DVD, separated from its follower, Gardell was billed before Otto. A similar thing happened with the forth season finale.
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- International Episode Titles:
  French: Douce Amertume (Bittersweet)
  Italian: Il Cerchio Si stringe (The Circle Narrows)
  German: Kein Zurück (No Way Out)
  Czech Republic: Všichni říkají, nedělej to (Everyone Says Don't Do It)
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- International airdates:
  Latin America: July 8, 2009 on Sony Entertainment Television (a.k.a. Canal Sony)
  Australia: July 27, 2009 on Channel 7
  The Netherlands: October 12, 2009 on Net5
  Finland: October 19, 2009 on Nelonen
  Germany: November 18, 2009 on ProSieben
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- Nicollette Sheridan (Edie Britt) makes her final appearance as a series regular in this episode.
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- Although credited, Shawn Pyfrom (Andrew Van de Kamp), Joshua Logan Moore (Parker Scavo) and Kendall Applegate (Penny Scavo) are absent from this episode.
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- This episode's original official title is "Everybody Says Don't", which is the same title of a second season episode.
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ALLUSIONS (1)
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- Episode Title: The title of this episode comes from a song in the Stephen Sondheim musical Anyone Can Whistle.
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