I'll Swallow Poison on Sunday

"I'll Swallow Poison on Sunday" is the 154th episode of the ABC television series, Desperate Housewives. It is the twentieth episode of the show's seventh season was broadcast on May 1, 2011.

Plot

With Susan still cooking and tending for a sickly Paul, a seemingly sad Felicia appears on Susan's doorstep, looking for comfort after Beth's death. This starts a series of events that has Felicia helping Susan with Paul's cooking, though Felicia is hiding a dreadful secret of what she's putting in the food.

With Gaby, Juanita and Celia staying with Bree, Bree decides to lay down some ground rules for when they're at her house, after the two spoiled girls break an expensive platter, a mirror and other things. Juanita soon asks Carlos why he and Gaby are fighting, and Carlos takes the opportunity to tell Juanita the truth about her grandmother's death, causing Juanita and Celia to think that "Bree killed Grandma." Earlier, Bree is caught by Chuck Vance, a police officer, and she finds him creepy. Later, Bree has seemingly talked some sense into Juanita and Celia, who are acting like Bree's slaves and calling her "Mrs. Van de Kamp". Later that night when the girls are in bed, Bree attempts to pick up a pillow off the floor of the girls' bedroom, causing Juanita and Celia to think that she was going to smother them. The girls then call the police, and Chuck Vance returns to Bree's house. Carlos then comes over and takes the girls home. Gaby is then furious that Carlos told Juanita the truth about his mother's death, and Bree eventually tells Gaby to "go home to her husband."

Back at Susan's, she asks Felicia to try a fresh batch of brownies that they both made (with Felicia poisoning the batter) and Felicia hesitantly eats a full brownie, and promptly vomits in her handbag. Later when Susan was feeding Paul, she tells him that her and Mike were ready to move back into their house, causing Paul to believe that she didn't actually care about him, and that she just wanted her house back. He then throws her out, and stares out the window angrily. He then collapses on the floor.

Meanwhile all of this, Lynette and Renee decorate Tom's office, leading into an awry result with Tom and Lynette.

Reception

On its original broadcast on ABC, the episode scored 9.438 million of viewers and achieved a 2.8 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic.^[1] With the DVR Rating, this episode is up 2.2 in million of viewers (rising to a total of 11.3 million of viewers) and it is up 0.9 in the adults 18–49 demographic (rising to a total of a 3.7 rating).^[2] This episode was interrupted during its original airing by the breaking news of Osama Bin Laden's death which may have resulted in a lower than expected rating than usual.^[3]

Notes

• Kevin Rahm (Lee McDermott), Tuc Watkins (Bob Hunter), Charlie Carver (Porter Scavo) and Darcy Rose Byrnes (Penny Scavo) do not appear and are not credited in this episode.
• The last sentence spoken by Mary Alice in this episode "No good deed goes unpunished" is a popular quote from the well-known musical Wicked.
• The title comes from a line in the song "Kiss Me" from Stephen Sondheim's musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

International titles

• German: Gift (poison)
• French : Les bonnes actions (Good actions)

References