Okay, just so you know, I'm not going to do that thing where I pretend that I've never seen this show before, because I've been recapping this for weeks now and that's just too much work for me. Lying. I can't recap a lie, people. It'll make my head hurt.
Anyway. We open, as we do every week, on Wisteria Lane. All is well -- at least, it appears to be. Gabrielle drives by Mary Alice's House of Impending Doom as MAVO explains that, as we read this morning's paper, we may come across an article about the unusual day she had last week. We watch as she goes out, and does some work in the garden. MAVO explains that, normally, there's nothing newsworthy about her life: "All that changed last Thursday." MAVO narrates that it all started quite as usual, as we cut to a shot of her serving waffles to the family and going through the rest of her chores and projects and errands: "I spent the day like I spent every other day: quietly polishing the routine of my life until it gleamed with perfection. That's why it was so astonishing when I decided to go to my closet and retrieve a revolver that had never been used." She holds said revolver up to her head, and shoots. I rewatched this on slow motion, because the shot seemed a bit vague as to whether the hand holding the gun was actually Mary Alice's, but it definitely is. Mary Alice falls to the ground. Why, I guess she's dead! What a shocker!
Cut to Mrs. Kravitz tasting a puddle of red liquid. Which is, of course, not Mary Alice's blood, as the editing at first implies, but rather jam. She hears the Shot Heard Round The Lane, and heads right to her pantry. Finding a blender marked "Mary Alice Young," she grabs it and trots over to Mary Alice's to, you know, check shit out. When no one answers her knock at the door, she scampers around back, looks in the window, sees the body, screams, runs back to her own house, and calls 911. And then she takes the label off the blender and puts it back in her pantry. Let no one say that Mrs. Kravitz can't see the bright side of things.
Oh, dear. There are no proper credits in the pilot. Credits are when recappers rest! Sadly, I now recall that MAVO is super-blabby in this episode. I'm quite pleased that I decided to start ignoring her ages ago. She explains that her funeral was on a Monday, and that everyone came back to the house later to pay their respects: "And, as people do in these situations, they brought food," she says, kicking us neatly into an introduction of each housewife.
Lynette, we learn, brought fried chicken and four of her alleged children. She is not wearing a choker. Repeat: THERE IS NO CHOKER ON LYNETTE. She's also chokerless during the flashback in which we learn that she used to be a real corporate mover and shaker. But, in case you missed the memo, she's much more stressed now that she has four bratty kids at home, all of whom appear to have been fathered by the Dark Lord rather than sweet Gay Matt. En route to Mary Alice's, Lynette is forced to take a moment to stop and tell the boys that they really have to behave because she's not looking forward to being humiliated in front of the entire neighborhood. She takes a folded piece of paper out of her bra. "Santa's cell-phone number," she tells them, warning them that she's not afraid to use it. Parallelogram, Pentagram, and Pythagorean appear to buy this, but we all know that they're just waiting to unleash hell.
Gabrielle brought a "spicy paella" to the funeral, because she herself is spicy and Latina and also spicy BECAUSE she is Latina. We learn that she used to be a runway model, despite the fact that she is 5 foot nothing. But the question is, has she come to terms with her snout? We also learn that Carlos works in Mergers and Acquisitions and that he proposed on their third date. He even cried when she accepted! MAVO explains, however, that Gabrielle "soon learned this happened every time he closed a big deal." We also learn that Carlos and Gabrielle bicker a lot. They scamper out of the house and toward Mary Alice's, arguing about how he wants her to tell some dude something about how much her necklace cost, or some such, and she doesn't want to, and he reminds her that she owes him because they recently went to a party where she told the assembled guests that she slept with the entire Yankee outfield. Gabrielle insists that this factoid came up in context. And, in her defense, that is only three people.
KimberBree brought two baskets of homemade muffins to the wake, because she is a perfectionist with a miserable family beaten down by the force of her perfection. Which is ridiculous, since muffins cure everything. She and the family stroll in, and Rex and the kids mope around while KimberBree gives Creepy Paul her sympathies and also the muffins. "Of course, I will need the baskets back once you're done," she chirps. Behind her, Rex's mouth hangs open. Oh, Rex, shut it. You cry when you ejaculate.
Susan and Julie bring mac and cheese. It looks terrible, and I say that as someone who would eat mac and cheese out of a dumpster. Susan, apparently, has a history of unfortunate experiences with mac and cheese: she was eating it when Karl, Her Asshole Ex-Husband, left her for her secretary, and also when he announced that he was divorcing her, a year ago. So she needs a man. And a bra. As the Mayer girls cross the street, Julie wonders why anyone would kill herself. Susan explains that "sometimes people are so unhappy, they think it's the only way they can solve their problems." Julie thinks that Mary Alice seemed happy enough, but Susan tells her that sometimes people seem one way on the outside but are totally different on the inside. "Oh, you mean how Dad's girlfriend is always smiling and saying nice things, but deep down, you know she's a bitch?" Julie chirps. "I don't like that word, Julie. But yeah, that's a great example," Susan says. Heh. They head into the gathering, putting the mac and cheese on the buffet. Julie heads over to talk to the other kids, as Susan joins the Coffee Klatch at the table.
Everyone looks sadly at Mary Alice's empty seat. They miss her, never having been forced to listen to her narrate their lives. As Susan pours the coffee, we flash back to a former Coffee Klatch, in which Susan had to tell her bitch posse about Terrible Karl and his Terrible Affair. "He said -- and you'll love this -- 'it doesn't mean anything, it's just sex,'" she says. All the girls groan. Susan explains that Karl then told her that "most men live lives of quiet desperation." Everyone rolls her eyes. "Please tell me you punched him," Lynette snarls. Susan responds that she asked him what most women lead: "Lives of noisy fulfillment?" They all make a lot of "you go, girl," noises, as though this were a particularly clever comeback, and Susan whines that she can't believe Karl decided to bang his secretary. "I had that woman over for brunch," she says. Also, it's terribly cliché. Gabrielle muses that her grandmother always used to say that an "erect penis doesn't have a conscience." Lynette crabs that even the limb ones aren't that ethical, and Gabrielle cracks a walnut. Heh. Although that's sort of unfair, really. I complain about the menfolk all the time, but I generally find that they are as capable as making ethical sexual decisions as women are. KimberBree announces that this is why she joined the NRA: when Rex started going to all those medical conferences, she explains, she wanted to plant in the back of his mind that he "had a loving wife at home with a loaded Smith and Wesson." Mary Alice makes sympathetic expressions beatifically -- because, you know, dead woman as saint, blah blah blah -- and wonders if Lynette ever thinks Gay Matt is having an affair. "Lynette snorts, "Oh, please. The man's gotten me pregnant three times in four years. I wish he was having sex with someone else." The boards have been doing a lot of math about this and they don't think it's possible, judging from how old her kids appear to be. But...you know, whatever. Lots of babies, in not a lot of time. Also, Lynette, if you don't want all those babies, there are ways to prevent being impregnated. I know! The wonders of the modern age. Lynette asks if Karl is going to break up with the secretary, and Susan snuffles that she doesn't know. She just doesn't know how she's going to survive this. If I may make a suggestion? Listening to "Dear Prudence," as the women appear to be in this instance, is not going to help. I suggest "It's Raining Men" instead. That has seen me through several dark periods. Mary Alice tells her with the Wisdom of the Soon to Be Dead that they all have moments of desperation: "If we can face them head on, that's when we find out just how strong we really are." Mary Alice: patron saint of the pat homily.