- Lynette begins spying on Tom; Danielle moves back home with her son; Gabrielle tries to affect change at a PTA meeting; Susan battles with her art teacher.
- Tom is taking his life in his own hands now. Lynette begins spying on him through a tablet given to Penny. Renee's biased bad influence soon convinces Lynette that he is having an affair, supposedly with a foxy aerobics instructor Andre Zeller. Bree has a hard time controlling her 'I told you so' when Danielle moves back home with her son Benjamin, after a six month ill-considered marriage. The real confrontation comes when Bree discovers the starting capital she put up for 'fitness equipment' is for a 'love swing'. Gaby bluntly keeps taking on the tyrannical PTA president over parking privileges, ending in a surprise switch. Susan fakes her artistic personality to get into famous rebel painter Andre Zeller's open college class.—KGF Vissers
- After disobeying the rules of student drop-offs at the front of Juanita's school, Gaby makes it her mission to get even with a parent volunteer who banishes her to a faraway parking lot; Bree discovers that daughter Danielle's new business may not be as wholesome as first thought; Lynette begins to suspect that Tom may be dating; and Susan tries to ease her guilt by taking an art class with no-nonsense instructor Andre Zeller.—ABC Publicity
- "Desperate Housewives" - "School of Hard Knocks" - Oct. 16, 2011
Gaby drops Juanita off in the wrong spot at school for the third time which means, according to the drop-off Nazi-like rule, that she'll need to park in a far away lot and walk Juanita to class. Gaby tries arguing with the mean-spirited and imperious parking lady Dana and is unsuccessful.
Lynette works hard to do separation "right," reading books about talking to the kids, making visitation equitable, etc. She tells Renee that they're not talking divorce, it's still a separation and they're going to work on it. Tom shows up to pick up Penny and he has a teeth whitener in and Renee notices he's also working out. They leave and she makes clear that these things mean that he's probably having sex with someone, and getting good looking for her. Lynette naively thinks he's just trying to take care of himself. She thinks if he was dating someone he'd tell her.
Bree apprehensively approaches her mailbox and she admits to Gaby she's nervous another letter might come. Since it's been three weeks Gaby thinks it's a bad blackmailer and since Chuck is gone and Susan seems okay they should consider themselves lucky. Just then, Bree's estranged daughter, Danielle, visits because her husband recently left her and she and Bree cat back and forth in their special nasty mother-daughter way. She tells him she broke up with Chuck not vice versa. Bree says the plan now is to help Danielle get her life to get back together. Danielle just wants to veg out and eat ice cream.
Meanwhilw, Susan asks Mike if he still loves her. He hugs her and says there's nothing she could do to make him stop loving her. She say it was really hard to keep the secret from him. He's relieved she's not having an affair and understands why she was distant. She says she hopes things can go back to normal. Mike says, as someone who has done this sort of thing, it's not always that easy. She's decided to distract herself with a painting class at the college with a fancy-schmancy painter. She says from now on, no more secrets between them.
Gaby and Juanita show up at the B lot and she commiserates with other moms who have been stranded there. Turns out Dana's job is an elected position and Gaby wants to storm the next PTA meeting and go "all Braveheart" on Dana and get their parking placars back. She fires them up.
The fancy schmancy painter Andre, claims to be impressed with Susan's work, at least technically. He says she can't be in his class. He says she's fine illustrator but it's not what he calls art. She points out that her illustrations have been in best-seller. He says art is about anger and passion and putting your heart on the canvas and that he doesn't want a bored housewife who wants to do something between spin class and dropping her kids off at soccer practice. She says just because she's done children's books doesn't mean she can't do other art. He asks if she has anything like that to show him. She says she does and will bring it in the next day.
Danielle is still vegging out and Bree wants her to get her life going again. She says she has a plan to sell an exercise machine she invented on the Internet. She just needs seed money. Bree offers her $500 and the test kitchen to work in.
Tom and Lynette go over logistics with the kids' schedules while he has a "Lunch": a protein shake. Lynette offers up couples counseling if he still wants to go. He says he does. He gets a call and gets touchy with it and asks if he can call the person back. He claims it's a work thing and skedaddles. She's starting to get suspicious.
Gaby heads off to the PTA meeting but it doesn't quite go as expected. She stands up and starts her speechifying against Dana and gets no back-up from the B Lot moms at first. And then a few do stand up with her. Gaby needs five votes to get a vote of "no confidence" against the president. Dana tries to bribe them with returning their parking placards and it works. Dana say she won. Gaby says so what, what more can she do since she already parks in the B Lot. The mean and vinctictive Dana sends her to the C Lot.
Bree visits Danielle and Benjamin in the test kitchen as they are making her new product and she's already sold 200. Bree picks up the strappy contraption and wonders how the exercise equipment works. Danielle says it uses Pilates and stretching. The phone rings and she ushers Bree and Benjamin out. She then answers "Ecstasy sex swing, we put the swing back in your sex life!"
Lynette gives Penny an iPad she can use to video chat with her when she's at Tom's house, so she can help her with her math homework, she says. Of course she's really using it to get a look at Tom's apartment. She makes Penny walk around until she finally sees Tom talking to a hot young blonde in a bikini. "That's Chloe, she lives in the building and is really nice"... according to Penny. Penny then actually asks for help with fractions but Lynette is so bummed she hangs up on her essentially.
Susan goes back to Andre with her "angry" art. It's a dark tree in the forest representing loneliness and isolation. He guesses that she's the tree. He busts her for painting the night before and mocks her housewifiness. She says he doesn't know anything about her. He says what's to know, her life is shallow and so is she. He accuses her of being afraid of ugly. She freaks out on a canvas saying she has anger and pain and secrets and splays black paint and stabs the canvas and tells him to go to hell basically.
Bree comes back into the test kitchen when Danielle is out and takes a closer look at the "exercise equipment." She climbs in it and tries to use it as Renee comes in and congratulates her on getting back with Chuck. She says they're not back together. Renee wonders why she's standing in a sex swing then. Bree is aghast, of course. Danielle comes in while Renee and Bree are "trying" it. Renee grabs one and skedaddles. Bree, in the swing and yells at her. Danielle is mad that she's finally done something successful, that she's good at and Bree still isn't proud of her. She stalks off, leaving Bree stranded in the swing.
Susan is explaining to Mike her blow up with Andre. She figures he thinks she's crazy. Mike tells her he knows she wants what happened in the woods to go away but it's part of her. She says she doesn't want it to be. He says he didn't want it either but if she doesn't figure out how to accept it it's unlikely she'll be able to live with herself. So, she says things will never be the way they were? He says they are the way they are. He asks how she is and she says okay and goes off to help MJ with his math homework.
Danielle and Bree continue their fight in the house. Bree admits that she is judgmental and that she is far from perfect and has no right to be critical. Danielle says Bree is being weird now and wonders if something happened. Bree says a certain recent event has cast things in a new light for her and ask for Danielle's forgiveness. Danielle gives it. Bree also says she wants to invest in Danielle's filthy business as a silent partner. They exchange I love yous.
Susan returns for her portfolio and Andre is starting his class. He tells her she's late for class. He's letting her join for now but the crazy lady that showed up yesterday better be there everyday. Susan says that woman scares her. Andre says "good." She takes her spot behind a canvas.
Renee and Lynette are headed to the gym and Lynette wants to take Chloe's aerobics class. Renee is behind this spying class. Chloe is a kick-ass teacher, literally, she teaches "booty burn ballet." Renee and Lynette are sweating up a storm. Lynette trades jokes with a funny/friendly doctor working out next to her.
In order to not miss a waxing appointment, the shallow Gaby flouts the rules yet again and goes to the green zone to drop off Juanita even though she doesn't have a placard. She drives over traffic cones and then hits Dana, accidentally, with her car. She visits her in the hospital and apologizes a lot. Dana tells Gaby she can't PTA president anymore because of her injuries and she's been told to pick an interim president. She picks Gaby. Gaby says Dana hates her. "Exactly", says Dana. She says she used to be fun and married until she became PTA president and it ruined her life as she became abrasive and demanding to everyone. She hopes the same will happen to Gaby. Gaby tries to decline but Dana says if Gaby doesn't take the job she'll press criminal charges. Gaby is the new reluntant PTA president.
Lynette is chatting up Chloe after class: she's an aerobics instructor, aromatherapist, and a lingerie model. Lynette is happy that she's hot but she's an idiot and therefore she and Renee decide she's a fling, a palate cleanser for Tom. Lynette gives the whole thing three weeks. Tom shows up and is surprised to see Lynette. She says "I know." Tom says all they've done is had dinner a couple of times and there's nothing going on and is this what she's doing now? Spying on him? It turns out that he's actually dating Chloe's mom, Jean, the doctor Lynette was chatting with. Now that she says it's a grown, smart, funy woman, Lynette is very upset. He says he was going to tell her Thursday in counseling. She asks him what the point is.
In the final scene, the angry and vindicitive Chuck is brooding in his office about Bree, looking at the engagement ring. Another cop walks in and wonders if he's still hung up on that redhead. He says he is angry about being led on and yes he hasn't let go of it yet. The cop says he has some missing persons' reports for him. Chuck says to throw them on the desk. We see the top one is Alejandro, Gaby's stepfather.
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