Top 20 Shocking Desperate Housewives Moments
#20: Beth Dies
“Searching”
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Introduced in the show’s seventh season, Beth Young was later revealed to be the daughter of the vengeful Felicia Tilman. Beth was only a pawn in her mother’s plot against the villainous Paul Young. A sequence of events finds her out of a husband, out of a home, and with seemingly nothing to live for. Desperate and searching for some meaning, Beth goes to the hospital where Susan Delfino is in need of a kidney. She signs a few forms and then takes her life in front of the nurses’ station. Beth’s last desperate act is as tragic as it is shocking.
#19: Plane Crash
“Boom Crunch”
Affairs, shootings, fires, tornadoes: a lot of things have happened on Wisteria Lane, but a plane crash wasn’t on our bingo card. This season 6 episode is pretty standard stuff until the last few minutes. One couple reveals their secret affair. Another couple is expecting twins. Someone is about to be blackmailed over a horrible secret from their past. Then, a small aircraft plunges out of the sky and crashes right into the neighborhood’s annual Christmas gathering. In just a matter of seconds, whole storylines are completely upended. Relationships are torn apart. A few characters even die. It’s completely random in the way that some of the best “Desperate Housewives” moments are.
#18: Lynette Breaks Down
“Guilty”
When it first premiered, “Desperate Housewives” promised to bring the drama, but early on, it won many viewers over with its frank depictions of how difficult parenthood can be. Lynette Scavo spends most of the early run adjusting to being a full-time housewife. At first, her newfound dependence on her son’s ADHD medication just seems like a satirical joke on middle class moms who can somehow find time to do it all. But this storyline goes from darkly funny to just dark when Lynette crashes and ends up a crying heap on a soccer field. The heart to heart she shares with her friends probably made a lot of people feel seen.
#17: The Bomb in the Detonator
“I Guess This Is Goodbye”
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Angie Bolen’s past as a reformed bomb expert and eco-terrorist on the run from the FBI unfolded over the show’s sixth season. In the season finale, she’s finally tracked down by Patrick, her ex and the leader of her former eco-terrorist organization. Patrick holds her hostage and compels her to make him one last bomb. With the detonator in his hand, Patrick reveals that he planted that bomb in the house with their son. But the crafty Angie turns the tables on him. Her real bomb is in the detonator in his hand. Bye bye, Patrick. With this kind of spunk and ingenuity, it’s sad Angie didn’t stick around for another season.
#16: Lynette Confronts Art Shepard
“The Miracle Song”
Wisteria Lane resident Art Shepard is hailed as a hero, but Lynette soon comes to suspect the unassuming man living with his sister who uses a wheelchair might be a secret predator. Although the storyline doesn’t last long, it leaves a lot open to interpretation. When Art’s sister dies, and Lynette begins to be sorry for casting so much suspicion on him, his last conversation with her chills her to the bone. He all but comes out and says she was right about him. The most horrifying thing is we’re not actually sure if he’s being honest or if he’s just taunting her to get back at her for inadvertently causing his sister’s death.
#15: McCluskey Confesses
“Give Me the Blame”
When viewers first met Karen McCluskey, she was the archetypal nasty old neighbor. By the end of the series, she and the other housewives had become like family. Terminally ill with lung cancer, Karen decided to do some good with the time she had left. When Bree ended up on trial for the murder of Gaby’s violent stepfather, Karen threw herself under the bus for her by confessing to the crime on the witness stand. Like the best plot twists, this one shocked us just as much as it did the characters. It was also a fitting end for a fantastic character.
#14: Lily Is Taken Away
“It Wasn’t Meant to Happen”
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Gaby and Carlos Solis were not always the perfect pair, but they went through a lot together over those first two seasons. What they wanted more than anything was to complete their family with a baby. Viewers watched as the couple struggled to conceive. When they were finally able to adopt a baby girl named Lily, their happiness was short-lived. Lily’s mother reneged on their adoption agreement and took the baby back. Gaby’s heartbroken pleading with the cops as they return the infant to her mother is something viewers aren’t likely to forget anytime soon.
#13: Andrew Runs Over Carlos’ Mother
“Anything You Can Do”
Juanita Solis never liked her daughter-in-law, and the feeling was mutual. When she caught Gaby in a compromising position with her gardener, she raced out of the house with the proof, only to be run down by difficult teenager Andrew Van De Kamp. Nothing brings a family together like vehicular manslaughter. Even more shocking is how quickly and efficiently his parents take action. Estranged couple Bree and Rex continued their run of great parenting and hid the evidence from the police, saving their son the burden of having to be accountable for his actions. The whole storyline was peak privileged middle class nonsense, and we couldn’t look away.
#12: Katherine Tells the Truth
“Free”
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Like most of the new arrivals on Wisteria Lane, Katherine Mayfair came to town with a metaphorical closet full of skeletons. But her secret was one of the more heartbreaking and tragic ones. All is revealed in the season 4 finale, when her vengeful and abusive ex-husband holds her at gunpoint. The girl she’s raising as Dylan is not their daughter. Years ago, their biological child was killed in a horrible accident. Katherine has been raising the new Dylan in her place ever since. It’s a devastating revelation, especially given how plausible it is compared to some of the other stuff on this list.
#11: Rex Dies
“One Wonderful Day”
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Is there such a thing as a tragedy of errors? George, an obsessive pharmacist, poisons Rex Van De Kamp so he can have Bree to himself. Rex finds out he’s being poisoned and assumes it’s Bree’s revenge for his infidelity. Many viewers were shocked that the storyline didn’t end with George being found out and Bree and Rex continuing to mend their marriage. Instead, it ends with Rex accepting his fate, and writing Bree a note saying he forgives her. Watching actress Marcia Cross process the news of his death as she completes her daily chores is truly something to behold.
#10: Felicia’s Revenge
“No One Is Alone”
The first season’s mystery involved a mysterious, threatening letter, which led to Mary Alice taking her own life. After discovering that his neighbor Martha was responsible for his wife’s tragedy, Paul fatally took matters into his own hands. As if this web of revenge wasn’t enough, Martha’s sister, Felicia, cooked up a sinister plot to fake her own death and frame Paul for her murder. After sneaking into his house, she faked a grisly murder by spilling her blood all over the house and placing two of her severed fingers in his car. Paul would ultimately be arrested as Felicia went into hiding under her sister’s identity, not to resurface for another five seasons.
#9: The Tornado
“Something’s Coming”
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As if the drama plaguing the residents of Wisteria Lane weren’t enough, our protagonists had to endure a tornado in the middle of the fourth season. Just as several storylines were coming to a climactic head, the disaster shook up everything. The tornado would cause the deaths of Victor and Sylvia while also rendering Carlos blind, destroying Bree’s house, and indirectly causing Katherine to learn of her husband’s affair. The episode’s ending left the fates of Lynette’s entire family and Ida up in the air, resulting in a torturous month-long cliffhanger. It’s episodes like these, where the show wears its soap opera influences on its sleeve, that allow us to eat up every dramatic moment.
#8: Bree Abandons Andrew
“I Know Things Now”
As much as Bree has always wanted the perfect domestic life, her misbehaving son Andrew was always a thorn in her side. Though on the exterior she seems like one of the sweetest housewives, her dark side really came out in this moment. After Andrew hooks up with the man she’s seeing, she decides to take him on a college road trip. Thing is, she stops at a gas station and abandons her son there. This brutal moment may be one of the series’ darkest, and Bree seeing Andrew disappear in her rear window is absolutely heartbreaking. Fortunately, they would later patch things up, but it would be a long road to forgiveness for Bree.
#7: Lynette’s Diagnosis
“What Would We Do Without You?”
Though Lynette and Tom have one of the show’s most consistently stable relationships, one of its most major tests came when Lynette began to have feelings for an employee, Rick. When this escalates into an explosive argument, the two visit the doctor, and just as they’re about to start a major fight, the doctor drops a bomb on them: Lynette likely has lymphoma. It’s a fleeting but beautiful moment as Tom decides to let go of their petty arguments and support his wife in her diagnosis. This also sets off one of Lynette’s most dynamic storylines as she examines the true value of life while fighting to keep her own.
#6: Carlos Kills Alejandro
“Come on Over for Dinner”
In the show’s seventh season, Gaby faced her most personal storyline yet. After revealing that her stepfather had been abusive, the menacing figure returns to her life. Just as he approaches her at a vulnerable moment, Carlos sneaks up and gives him a good whack with a candlestick. Though he didn’t intend to kill the villain, he drops dead. As it turns out, he never actually had a gun, meaning Carlos killed an unarmed man. Along with the rest of the housewives, Gaby agrees to help Carlos cover up the killing, an event that sets in motion the main plot for the final season, sending each of these characters to a very dark place.
#5: The Shooting
“Bang”
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After Carolyn Bigsby discovered that her husband was having an affair, she made a decision that rocked Wisteria Lane. Upon shooting her husband at his grocery store, she proceeds to hold the rest of the store, including Lynette, Edie, Nora, and Julie hostage. The terrifying situation occupies the second half of the episode and is highlighted by impeccable performances from Laurie Metcalf and Felicity Huffman. In the end, Nora and Carolyn end up dead, and each of the housewives are left with hefty baggage to grapple with in the wake of the harrowing encounter. As an all-too-real situation, the comedy takes a back seat, resulting in a disturbingly effective episode.
#4: Time Jump
“Free”
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Just as the show was hitting a narrative lull in its fourth season, the writers made the bold choice to jump five years into the future. This breathed new life into the storylines by putting the characters in unfamiliar territory while also resulting in the show’s best season finale cliffhanger. Gaby has two kids now? Porter and Preston are troublemaking teens? Bree is semi-famous? And where the hell is Mike? And we had to wait all summer to get these questions answered?! This moment was “Desperate Housewives” at its best, teasing us with future storylines and leaving us with burning questions.
#3: Mary Alice Takes Her Own Life
“Pilot”
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This was the moment that started it all. In the very first scene of the pilot episode, Mary Alice narrates her average day up until the moment that she picks up a gun and shoots herself in the head, seemingly for no reason. This kicked off the intriguing and dark mystery that carried the show through its first season and made it clear from the get-go that the perfect little street of Wisteria Lane was all a façade. It was soapy, dramatic, and everything we would come to expect from a show filled with crazy twists and turns.
#2: Mike Dies
“You Take for Granted”
Mike had always been one of the show’s more complicated characters, struggling to smother some of his darker tendencies. This makes it fitting that his antiheroic qualities are what led to his ultimate demise. When it was teased that a major character would die in one of the series’ final episodes, there was a grave feeling that Mike could go down after violently confronting a loan shark. In the end, he shares one final, poignant moment with Susan before being shot in the chest and dying in her arms. After years of will they/won’t they, the end of their love ended up being even more tragic than we ever could have imagined.
#1: Edie Dies
“A Spark. To Pierce the Dark”
This moment may not have been so shocking if you were following the series’ production drama, as Nicollette Sheridan didn’t have the greatest relationship with showrunner Marc Cherry. Still, the killing off of one of the main housewives remains one of the biggest TV deaths in the early 21st century. After discovering the truth about her new husband and frantically escaping the house, a perfect storm of events causes Edie to crash into a pole and electrocute herself as she steps into the puddle below her car. As the other residents look back on her life, they realize that as pesky as she could be, she had a lot of heart and made all of their lives richer.
