616: 'The Chase'
Wr: John Pardee & Joey Murphy
Dr: Larry Shaw
Synopsis: Celia comes down with the chicken pox, and having never had it herself, Gabrielle must keep her distance, so she stays with Bob and Lee for a while, and is suddenly reminded of what it feels like to be "single" again. In the meantime, Tom and Lynette forget little Penny's birthday, which leads the girl to go missing. Bree hires a promising new employee (guest star Sam Page) and Katherine makes a surprising discovery about herself. Meanwhile, Susan cheats on Mrs. McCluskey, whereas Angie grows concerned over Danny's disappearance.
Review: Desperate Housewives is having a right gay old time this week; us homos are quite literally everywhere, botching up previously functioning catering businesses, seducing supposedly heterosexual single ladies and spilling out of detached suburban homes in the wee hours, drunk on cocktails, gossip and super fabulous exfoliation dahling. On the one hand, such prominent visual presence is significantly encouraging; in effect, the show normalises queerness, treating it in the same off-hand, 'as is' style as its somewhat 'straighter' motifs, which egalitarianises the sexualities and avoids a sense of 'us and them'. However, this argument doesn't account for the nature of the representation, and for all 'The Chase' has some positive and healthy things to say about gay sexuality, it tends to rely far too heavily on convention and stereotype.
While it is certainly pleasing on the eye to have Andrew back in play, albeit with a five o'clock shadow that would put Jack Bauer to shame, his storyline effectively reinforces a number of common misconceptions about both gay men and their ability to participate in functioning, loving relationships. The strand is hampered by nature of the relationship between Andrew and Alex. The first we ever saw of the two, in season five, was when they sprung their surprise coupling on Bree and Orson and then, within the space of a dinner, announced their engagement. This sudden revelation, while providing a nice momentary jolt to the narrative, prevented the viewer from ever being able to invest in their paring, from giving a tinker's cuss about whether their marriage would actually come to fruition. Subsequently, we've barely seen anything of them since the story took a decidedly different turn and their relationship turned into a springboard for the delineation of the changes to Bree's character and her difficulties with Orson. The homosexual element served only to progress the hetero, and once completed, disappeared off our screens completely.
Now, Andrew's suddenly sleeping with the innocuous Tad and jeopardising what he has with Alex, but it's so throwaway that it barely even seems to matter. The plot doesn't afford this development any real significance; there is simply no gravitas to it as its sole purpose is to provide convenient fodder for the furtherance of a patently ridiculous narrative involving some random, woolly-jumpered creep whose mission to become Bree's surrogate son involves severely discrediting the one she actually bore. It isn't even conveyed as being particularly objectionable: for all Bree raises the issue of Alex, Andrew brushes the accusation of adultery aside, excusing his behaviour as a result of drink and, laughably, peer pressure and raising the small matter of Bree's own infidelity. Nothing is challenged here, and you can guarantee that we will see no repercussions in the weeks to come (since Shawn Pyfrom's probably fulfilled his ten minutes of screentime for the year by now), so this casts an air of superficiality over Andrew's marriage, reinforcing the idea that this is perfectly standard behaviour for us homos and even potentially acceptable. Instead of pratting about with some hopeless caricature of a character who has about as much depth as my old paddling pool, the story would prove far more rewarding if the onus was on the implications that all of this had for Andrew and Alex's relationship.
Similar problems impact upon the success of Bob and Lee's first actual story in about three seasons. Firstly, their involvement is solely the result of an unfortunate development in the Solis household, so inevitably, the focus is on the impact for her character and how getting a taste of the 'single'/childless life has a dramatic impact on her, turning her (once more) into a selfish, self-absorbed socialite. This trope probably constitutes about 85% of the narratives into which Gabrielle has found herself entrenched in the six year duration of the show and consequently, it's about as interesting as the bacterial infection in my granddad's big toe. A far more rewarding storyline would have been to concentrate squarely on the impact that Bob and Lee's proposed lifestyle change has on their relationship, especially since we know so little about these characters that they're effectively blank slates, bursting with opportunity and potential.
Sadly, however, the Housewives writing staff choose to let them remain ciphers for the vast majority of their narrative, exhibiting all the hallmarks traits of a conventional, heteronormative perception of gay life. Bob and Lee are super fabulous party animals, whose house is brimming with opulence (because, you know, all homos have so much disposable income that they just don't know what to do with it other than splurge on excess), overflowing with alcohol (seriously... how much cocktail-concocting material do these boys have?) and is a constant port of call for any and all rampantly queeny, effete and gossip-mongering homos. Lee 'has ten homos on speed dial' at any given time and can get them to turn up within minutes of suggesting that there might be a social gathering, looking like catwalk models, every one. They have names like Frederico, drive ludicrously posh cars, wear fedoras and gather round their ex-model faghag as she's gossipping about her torrid sex life, soaking up every detail like it's the most interesting thing since Angelina split up with Brad. They're hopeless archetypes, the sort of characters that the straight world believes to be indicative of homosexuality and frankly, I expected a whole hell of a lot more from a showrunner who is actually that way inclined himself. Perhaps Marc Cherry's life is more like this, who knows... it doesn't really matter anyhow. What matters is that it's hardly empathetic or welcoming; if anything, it propagates the perceived difference between gay and straight, setting us apart as entirely different creatures altogether. When the story does come round to providing something of substance - the revelation that Bob and Lee wish to adopt - it's far too little, far too late.
And then, of course, we have the big one. The one that's got all the tongues wagging. Katherine Mayfair's new-found confusion regarding her attraction to Robyn. Credit where it's due, at least the unusual nature of all of this is actually addressed. It's good to see Katherine approaching her psychiatrist on the issue and being open and up-front with him, and the advice he gives is actually quite pertinent, suggesting tat she is simply distracting herself from her recovery. Unfortunately, sense finds itself shoved out of the nearest window as the narrative progresses and ratings-grabbing takes priority, so instead of simply having moderately amusing, but a little cringe worthy, sexual dreams about Robyn, Katherine actually goes to bed with her instead. Yes, you read that right, Ms Mayfair is actually willing to skip the starter and go straight for the main course, so to speak, diving in (hur hur) with both feet without even the slightest objection. Not for Katherine a kiss, cuddle and romantic meal, oh no, she wants to get down to business, so we end the episode in post-coital bliss (or indeed, regret). There is insufficient of a journey here: essentially, as Robyn starts taking her top because she's spilled wine all over it, Katherine gets all hot under the collar and starts acting like a cat on heat. Well, sort of. It doesn't feel logical enough; it reads more like an attempt to provide shock value, to get the message boards buzzing, and sadly, we've had so little time to invest in the development that it's hard to have any faith that it will amount to little more than a passing curiosity.
There are other storylines in 'The Chase', ones that don't concern themselves with queer issues, but they certainly don't have the same level of impact. In fact, they're fairly dull by comparison; Angie and Nick's proposed trip to New York is a rather predictable twist, while Susan's incessant pestering of poor Roy to propose to Karen is just about the most useless storyline that she's ever had, full of ludicrous dialogue and unbelievable character decisions (Roy kisses Susan because he 'feels trapped'? Huh? That's just an excuse to give us all a 'memorable' gross out moment). No, the main meat of the hour is everything to do with us gays but sadly, the writers drop the ball in more ways than one. Instead of challenging the viewer and providing valuable insight into our lives, the storylines use their queer motifs in throwaway fashion, perpetrating ridiculous narratives and illustrating a series of distinctly outmoded conventions and stereotypes. There is such potential within all of Housewives' non-hetero characters that this comes as a massive disappointment and sadly, the episode suffers greatly as a result. 4.8
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