Searching (''Desperate Housewives'')

"Searching" is the 150th episode of the ABC television series, Desperate Housewives. It is the sixteenth episode of the show's seventh season and was broadcast on March 6, 2011.

Plot

Gabrielle Solis (Eva Longoria) sees Lee McDermott (Kevin Rahm) teaching Jenny Hunter-McDermott to play the violin. Gabrielle finds out that Jenny will be performing in a school talent show and is rather impressed at Jenny's abilities. However, Gabrielle questions and downgrades Lee's form of parenting—forcing his child to do many things to make him proud. Angered, Lee challenges Gabrielle that both Jenny and Juanita Solis (Madison De La Garza) should compete against each other at the talent show to see whose form of parenting is better. After agreeing to this, Gabrielle gets worried when Juanita seems to spend her time eating ice cream and her ability (or talent, as she sees it) to make farting noises with her armpit. Annoyed, Gabrielle forces Juanita to try tap dancing in the talent show. A few days later, Gabrielle's ongoing pressurizing finally takes its toll on Juanita who decides to give up after having been very exhausted from the daily training. Gabrielle then convinces her to not let her talent go to waste and Juanita gives in. At the talent show, while Gabrielle and Lee exchange smirks and underestimating remarks, Gabrielle is shocked that Juanita's practice routine is very odd and untalented and to prevent being embarrassed when Juanita gets to perform onstage, Gabrielle purposely hides Juanita's tap dancing shoes under a heater, forcing Juanita to drop out of the talent show. Gabrielle is then impressed at Bob and Lee applauding and encouraging Jenny after her performance and realizes that she, herself, is the one who has no good parenting skills and is surprised at Juanita's disappointment at not being able to perform. Just before the talent show ends, Gabrielle gains the courage to have Juanita perform after revealing where her shoes are and as Juanita performs onstage, a proud Gabrielle smiles at her daughter's accomplishment.

Following her recent loss of consciousness due to a further kidney failure accident, Susan Mayer (Teri Hatcher) and Mike Delfino (James Denton) are shocked when a nurse tells them that Susan's kidney is critically failing and that her dialysis is not helping at all, meaning that Susan will die if she does not receive a kidney transplant immediately. The nurse also says that if she has anything she has always wanted to do her whole life but not being able to yet, she should "do them now". Fearing that her days are numbered, Susan decides to let every minute in her life last and she and Mike decide to go on a picnic in the very same forest where they got married privately years ago. As the two begin to make love to each other, Civil War reenactors interrupt them, revealing that Susan and Mike have accidentally stumbled on a film set. As one of the actors order them to leave, Mike retaliates by telling him of Susan's life-threatening condition and that they are trying to make the best of their marriage as Susan is dying. Before their argument continues to intensify, Susan manages to pull Mike away and they head back to their car. Unfortunately, their car has apparently run out of petrol, forcing the two to walk home. While travelling down a road in the wilderness, Mike accidentally injures his foot when he stumbled on a rock. Susan tries to tend the wound but Mike prevents her from doing so, saying that he should be the one taking care of her instead of her for him. A disgruntled Mike angrily admits that he is also suffering that he knows that Susan is dying and there's nothing he can do about it. Susan tells him that she will live through this as she wants to live with Mike until they're old and see M.J. graduate. The two ponder at the possibility of whether to continue making the best out of their lives and they walk down the road, smiling as Mike leans on Susan for support.

Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman) is shocked to learn that Renee Perry (Vanessa Williams) is considering to have a child of her own whether or not she'll adopt or birth it. A worried Lynette stops Renee in her tracks and tells her that she doesn't have any experience in raising a baby. Intrigued, Renee accepts Lynette's challenge of babysitting Paige Scavo for the night as Lynette wants to have dinner with Tom (Doug Savant). That night, as Lynette and Tom enjoy being in a restaurant without hearing any of their children's needs, they are surprised to see that Renee is at the same restaurant with Paige but with a man, implying she's on a date while babysitting Paige, something that Lynette completely disapproves of. Lynette is further taken aback that Renee has paid one of the waitresses to babysit and tend to Paige while she concentrates on her date. Lynette then takes Paige from the waitress and when Renee finds that Paige has gone missing. She humiliates herself by shouting out for Paige in the restaurant as she frantically searches for her everywhere. Eventually, she sees Paige in the care of Lynette and Tom and they express their disappointment in Renee for poorly handling Paige and they say that she'll never be a good mother. The next day, Renee comes over and apologizes to Lynette, admitting that Lynette's right that she'll never be able to correctly mother a child. The two then agree to have a night out with Paige although Renee expresses that Paige should be by Lynette's side as she might do something wrong again to Paige.

Bree Van De Kamp (Marcia Cross) invites Reverend Sykes (Dakin Matthews) for a snack and when Sykes realizes that Bree's cookies are the best she has ever made yet, he asks her what she has done this time as he knows that Bree's culinary triumphs always happen when she's down (implying Bree's habit of having the house clean, doing chores and being perfect during a crisis). A depressed Bree admits that God has taken everything from her over the past year, having lost her business to her scheming stepson Sam Allen (Samuel Page), her children Andrew (Shawn Pyfrom) and Danielle (Joy Lauren) never call or keep in touch with her anymore and is now a single woman again after both Orson Hodge (Kyle MacLachlan) and Keith Watson (Brian Austin Green) have left her. Sykes says she should substitute her sorrows with helping her friend Susan to find a kidney donor in the neighborhood, following the announcement of Susan's kidney dilemma. As a result, Bree, along with Lynette, Gabrielle and Renee, helps to organize a trap to have most of Wisteria Lane and neabry neighborhood's residents in her house so as to have everyone blood-tested to see who can be Susan's kidney donor. The results are revealed to be both Bree and Beth Young (Emily Bergl) to have the same blood type as Susan, making the only two suitable donors. Bree then tells Beth she will be Susan's kidney donor as she wants to do something that means a lot to Susan and as a purpose for her life.

Beth Young has been facing social troubles after Paul Young (Mark Moses) kicked her out of his house. Now living in a motel, Beth pays Paul a sudden visit to profess her love to him and confess all her secrets regarding her involvement with Felicia Tilman (Harriet Sansom Harris). Paul doesn't exchange any romantic moments with her and as he tells her to leave immediately, he subtly tells Beth that he did kill Martha Huber (Christine Estabrook), shocking her. She quickly heads to visit Felicia in prison to tell her about Paul's confession. However, her mother berates her for being so stupid as to not get the confession on tape and that Beth is useless to her, telling the guards to remove her daughter from the visitor list. Later, Bree comes to Beth's motel to reveal they're both a match to be a kidney donor for Susan but Bree wants to do it in order to feel needed. With nothing else left in her life, Beth ignores Bree's decision and goes to the hospital. Beth wrongfully but intentionally goes up to a nurse in the counter in the Emergency/Intensive Care Unit part of the building. She makes sure the nurse in the waiting room files the paperwork ensuring her kidney will go to Susan despite the annoyed nurse repeatedly telling her to go to the correct part of the hospital where they'll see and critique her papers but the nurse gives in and accepts the papers, promising to handle them for her. As she thanks the nurse for being kind she leaves the counter for a moment, a smiling Beth then pulls a gun out of her purse and shoots herself in the head. As she falls to the ground, doctors and the very same nurse that Beth last had a conversation with attend to her body though her head is unseen, making it unclear whether or not Beth has truly been killed by the gunshot.

Reception

On its original broadcast on ABC, the episode scored 11.351 million of viewers and achieved a 3.4 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic.^[1] With the DVR Rating, this episode is up 1.9 in million of viewers (rising to a total of 13.2 million of viewers) and it's up 0.9 in the adults 18-49 demographic (rising to a total of a 4.3 rating).^[2]

Notes

• This is the show's 150th episode.
• The title of the episode comes from the name of a song in Stephen Sondheim's musical Sweeney Todd.
• This isn't Marcia Cross' 150th episode with Desperate Housewives due to her maternity leave during season 3. She doesn't make her 150th appearance as Bree until "Come on Over for Dinner", seven episodes later.
• Given the cliffhanger at the end of the episode that Beth shoots herself in the head, it is initially left unclear if Beth is killed. In the next episode, however, it is revealed that Beth has died, being the second wife of Paul Young to commit suicide, after Mary Alice Young who did the same thing in the show's pilot episode.
• Each shot leading up to when Beth pulls the trigger, matches Mary Alice killing herself - i.e. a shot that moves 90 degrees to the right, then a closeup of her face, then one of the gun, and then a shot of a reflective surface where you can see her body fall to the ground.
• According to SpoilerTV and DH Central, Emily Bergl (Beth Young) tweeted that 3 different endings to episode 7.16 were shot, and not even she knows which one was used.

International titles

• Arabic: لا يوجد واحد، ولكن اثنين (There is not One, but Two)
• Italian: Il senso della vita (The meaning of life)
• Ελληνικα : η αναζητηση
• German: Der Sinn des Lebens (The meaning of life)
• French : Un sens à notre vie (A meaning to our lives)

References