Secrets and Lies on Wisteria Lane

Buy Desperate Housewives Season One from Amazon.co.uk or from Amazon.com
Buy Desperate Housewives Season Two from Amazon.co.uk or from Amazon.com

After only a few weeks of being on air, Desperate Housewives had established itself in a cosy position at the top of the American ratings chart. ‘Everyone in the country knew what Desperate Housewives was and even if you didn't watch TV you'd heard of it,’ Marc Cherry (the show's creator) recalls. ‘I was certainly struck with this sense that this was bigger than me.’[1] Cherry is right on this account: the show has been dubbed into Mandarin for its debut in China; Argentina is developing its own version (Esposas Desperadas); and in Australia it commanded a national television audience of around two million viewers for almost thirty weeks in 2005. Unsurprisingly, it is also a huge hit here in the UK.

The show revolves around the lives of the housewives of Wisteria Lane – in a suburb so smart you almost expect people to wipe their feet as they leave a house as much as on their way in, lest they muddy the pavement. At the start of season one, Mary Alice Young (Brenda Strong), an 'everyday' housewife from Wisteria Lane, had just taken her own life, leaving behind husband Paul (Mark Moses) and son Zach (Cody Lasch). We were thrown head-first into a compelling 'whodunnit'. Mary Alice took on the role of commentator, looking down on her grieving friends, observing the nature of the remaining housewives: their friendships, their love-lives, their joys and their pains. By the end of season one, we had been educated to this extent: Zach had been bought by Mary-Alice and Paul from a drug addict called Deidre. Later on, Deidre cleaned up and returned, demanding her son back. Mary-Alice, devastated at the thought of losing her precious son, killed Deidre. Years later, busybody Martha discovered the crime and blackmailed Mary Alice. Unable to live with what she had done, Mary Alice ended her life. Paul, in reaction to this, killed Martha. Mike Delfino (James Denton) moved into the road, former lover of the late Deidre and, more importantly, the real father of Zach. Season two continues with this plotline. Deidre's father (Zach's grandfather) a wealthy mafia-style man on his death-bed, tries to get Paul killed (but fails) and demands to see Zach (who now learns that Mike is his biological father). When Paul is set up by Felicia Tilman (a lady who knows all his secrets and wants to see him pay for them) and arrested for murder, he begs Zach to help him out, using money from his grandfather. When Zach's grandfather refuses to help, Zach pulls the plug on his life-support machine and kills him, thus inheriting a fortune . . . but at the same time deciding not to use his new-found wealth to get Paul out of trouble.

Teri Hatcher plays Susan Mayer, a scatty single mother who looks for love in the first season, then finds it, then loses it, then finds it . . . and this kind of pattern continues on into the second season, when she develops an on/off relationship with Mike, whilst having to deal with her ex-husband taking up residency in Wisteria Lane. Felicity Huffman is Lynette Scavo; the first season showed her as an ex-career woman who raises four difficult children, but by the second season she's gone back to work, leaving her husband to be a willing stay-at-home Dad (who later turns out to be slightly less willing, and takes a position at Lynette's firm, where she is his boss). Marcia Cross portrays Bree Van De Kamp, a perfectionist in every way possible, who found the death of her husband in Season one was not on her agenda for that week. Season two brings with it the chance of a new romance for Bree (George) but it's not long before she suspects that his intentions are far from perfect, not to mention his actions of the past. She then chooses alcohol to be her closest friend. Eva Longoria is the gorgeous ex-model Gabrielle Solis. Her affair with her young, fit gardener John (Jesse Metcalfe) occupied her time in season one, before her husband Carlos (Ricardo Antonio Chavira) eventually caught on. Season two sees her and Carlos deal with a tragic miscarriage, attempt to adopt and end up using their maid as a surrogate mother. Nicollette Sheridan plays Edie Britt, whose strong appetite for men keeps her busy, but often raises freshly-plucked eyebrows – especially in season two when it transpires that her latest victim is Susan's ex-husband.

Although technically Desperate Housewives is a soap opera, it has been dubbed 'the funniest non-sitcom ever' by some. Its razor-sharp satire of suburbia wins every time. But don't be fooled. A cross between Twin Peaks and American Beauty, Desperate Housewives is undeniably dark – very dark.

Bree: ‘. . .You killed Rex. But I know it wasn't totally your fault because you're not well. So, if you'll just be honest with me, I can forgive you. It'll be the hardest thing I've ever done, but I'll do it. But you have to; you have to tell me the truth.’
George: ‘Look, I'm in trouble here. We need to call someone.’
Bree: ‘Not until you admit what you've done.’ (Episode 9: ‘That's Good, That's Bad’)

Lies, fibs, untruths, dishonesty – whatever name you use for it, when it comes to the residents of Wisteria Lane, it's guaranteed to do some damage. Here, George has just overdosed on pills, and is wanting Bree to ring for an ambulance. She will do it, she says, if he'll just admit to what he's done (killed her husband, and tried to kill her shrink). If he can only be honest with her, perhaps for the first time ever, she'll cut him some slack and save his life (or at least this is what is implied). So does he do it? No. Being what they call a 'pathological liar', he holds back the truth, risking his life in the balance. He can't see how much the truth matters to Bree. It's debatable if he even knows what the truth really is. Perhaps he kids himself that as all his past actions were 'for the best' (in his opinion) so he's not really guilty of anything, and therefore has nothing to admit to. Whatever the inner workings of his warped mind, Bree is not satisfied. She wants justice, not believing he deserves to live, after what he's done.

George: ‘We need to phone an ambulance.’
Bree: ‘I called them while you were asleep. They're already on their way.’

Oh no they're not. Bree ends the whole business with a lie of her own, and George is gone for good.

The housewives don't have to be mad (or be dealing with mad people) to withhold the truth. Susan, despite being a bit wacky, has got a heart of gold, hasn't she? She's a mother, after all, and has even written children's books. She's no liar! But circumstances lead her down this path only too easily. When Susan and Mike are hunting for Zach, it's she that discovers him, living rough. Yet she keeps this information from Mike. She knows Mike is desperate to find his son again, but fears for her daughter Julie, who used to date Zach. Her over-protectiveness of Julie causes her to withhold the truth from Mike, even though she must have known that it would be certain to damage her and Mike's relationship should it come to light (which, of course, it does). Just as George imagines his lies are 'for the greater good', Susan follows suit. Is she being evil?

Mother-to-be Gabrielle bends the truth to the extent that it's a total lie. Desperate for Carlos to believe her baby is his (when it is really John the gardener's) she fakes the paternity test. She's decided that she loves Carlos and wants to stay with him, and it's important to her that he believes that the child is his. She's a woman on a mission, and she clearly figures that this is the best course of action – the only one that can be taken, that will enable them to play happy families. Does true love ever lie? Gabrielle seems to think so.

Finally we turn to career-crazy Lynette. Business-like and professional whilst in the office she may be, but when it comes to a court of law she has no qualms about 'fudging' the facts. Despite the fact that she could be prosecuted for telling a lie in court, she goes ahead and tells a whopper: Bree isn't an alcoholic, Lynette claims. Therefore, Bree could not have got drunk and beaten or abused her teenage son, Andrew, who has made these, admittedly false, claims against her.

Mr. Bormanis: ‘. . . why did you line empty wine bottles up on her front door step?’
Lynette: ‘I was helping Bree with her recycling.’
Mr. Bormanis: ‘Do I need to remind you of the potential consequences of perjury?’
Lynette: ‘No, you don't. In fact, I hate liars.’ [She looks directly at Andrew] (Episode 18: ‘Everybody Says Don't’)

What was Lynette's motive here? If Bree really had abused Andrew, due to her alcohol problem, one assumes Lynette wouldn't have acted as her saviour. But Lynette seemed to have weighed things up for herself; become the unofficial judge, working outside of the courts. She ruled that Andrew was the liar, and stepped in to protect her friend. She knew about Bree's alcoholism, but also that Bree was getting help for it. She judged that to lie was the right thing in this situation, to prevent Andrew's lies from getting his mother into trouble that she didn't deserve.

Marc Cherry based the show on his own mother, an opera singer who gave up her career to raise her three children, sometimes unhappily. ‘I wanted to write something about the choices we make in life and what happens when that doesn't go well,’ says Cherry. ‘All these women have made some kind of choice in their life and are in various stages of regretting it. That's where the desperation comes from.’[2] It could be said that this explains the high level of deceit amongst the housewives: they are busy making up for bad decisions made in the past. Perhaps in their younger days, their naivety caused them to be more truthful, and now they see that this hasn't helped them as much as they'd thought it would. (Some might claim that this theory falls apart when one considers that the few teenagers in Wisteria Lane are generally as economical with the truth as their parents.) Does this mean that it's acceptable to lie for the sake of the greater good, like Susan thought she was doing? Are there situations in which it's fine to tell an untruth, or to hold back the actual truth? Can we play at being judge, like Lynette did? Can we decide who deserves to be told the truth and who doesn't, in the style of Bree at George’s deathbed?

From a Christian perspective, the whole issue of truth and deceit is a greyer area than we sometimes think. The Bible generally urges us to be truthful to all: 'You must not tell lies about your neighbour.'[3] That said, it also holds examples of lies that appear to be OK. Rahab the prostitute says that she doesn't know where the spies are, when challenged by the King of Jericho, when she is, in fact, hiding them on her roof! She is praised for protecting these men of God.[4] We can even read about God himself telling someone to lie or deceive. God commanded Moses to request Pharaoh’s permission to worship for three days in the wilderness. Clearly, the sacrifice wasn’t the real reason for their leaving; it was obviously a deception.[5] However, the Bible is by no means jam-packed with liars who get the thumbs up from God – these are unusual examples. And lying is often punished, a classic case being that of Ananias and Sapphira, the husband and wife team who thought that lying to their church would allow them to benefit financially.[6]

Desperate Housewives reflects what we all experience on a daily basis at work, at home, at church, in the pub, and so on: people appearing to be or do one thing, when in actual fact they are being or doing something quite different. 'While man looks at the outward appearances, God looks at the heart.’[7] This statement throws some light on the topic. Whether applied to the actions of the Housewives, or to those around us in our everyday lives, no one can judge whether a lie is justifiable or not. No one but God, that is.

The overall message of the Bible, and of Christianity as a whole, is to love each other.[8] To put each other first. To be selfless rather than selfish. No clear-cut answers to the 'lying' dilemma present themselves in fictional TV dramas, in real life, nor even in Christianity. If a lie is motivated by selfishness, then it is unlikely to be the 'right' thing to do. If it is motivated by the need or desire to protect, help or love someone, then perhaps it could be the right thing to do. But motives can be slippery things, and we need to remember that we cannot anticipate what the consequences of our lies might be. In most circumstances, integrity and honesty seem to be safer options. No doubt season three will see the Housewives continue to lie, due to a whole host of mixed reasons and motives, alongside much humour and intrigue. No doubt we will continue to watch.

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