Marcia Cross
Desperate Housewives wraps its eight-season run on Sunday, May 13 (9/8c on ABC) and what a long, strange trip it's been for the ladies of Wisteria Lane! As we prepare to kiss our favorite harried housewives goodbye, TVGuide.com takes a look back at each of the four protagonists' biggest triumphs, greatest downfalls and all the juicy hookups, makeups and breakups in between.
Check back every day this week for our takes on the other Housewives' wild rides.
Name: Bree Van de Kamp (formerly Hodge)
Known For: Perfect manners, conservative values, cooking skills, firearms skills, alcoholism
Marriages: Rex Van de Kamp (widowed), Orson Hodge (divorced)
Children: Andrew and Danielle (one additional faked pregnancy, to cover for...
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Katey Sagal and Hal Holbrook
Cheers to Hal Holbrook for his stunning performance on Sons of Anarchy.
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The octogenarian character actor classes up the third season of FX's biker drama as Katey Sagal's Alzheimer's-addled dad. His work as a widower is even more heartbreaking when you realize Holbrook recently lost his real-life wife, Designing Women star Dixie Carter.
Deservedly Oscar-nominated for 2007's Into the Wild, Holbrook could be the one to break SOA's Emmy jinx...
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Hal Holbrook
Five-time Emmy winner and Oscar nominee Hal Holbrook will join the cast of Sons of Anarchy in a recurring role during Season 3, FX announced Thursday.
Check out photos of Sons of Anarchy
Holbrook will play Nate Madock, the father of Gemma Teller (Katey Sagal). As we first reported, Madock is an 80-year-old man who has mid-stage Alzheimer's and spends his days in bed watching old Westerns.
He and Gemma...
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Dixie Carter
Dixie Carter, best known as the outspoken Julia Sugarbaker on Designing Women, has died, TVGuide.com has confirmed. She was 70.
Her publicist, Steve Rohr, said Carter died Saturday morning of complications airisng from endometrial cancer...
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Kyle Chandler, Friday Night Lights
Question: Well, it's that time again — time to rejoice and weep about the Emmy nominations. I was actually pleasantly surprised this year. After last year's debacle (it can't be called anything else), I wasn't expecting much. But this year, probably 75 to 80 percent of my wish list was granted, which, when it comes to Emmy nominations, is pretty good. Nothing's perfect, of course: In particular, I was disappointed that Lost wasn't nominated for best drama (but Boston Legal was? What?) and that Matthew Fox and Elizabeth Mitchell weren't recognized for their riveting performances. As a new convert to Friday Night Lights, I was also disappointed (but hardly surprised) to see that the show received no nominations at all. But there was good news to balance things out: I was particularly thrilled to see nominations for Ugly Betty, and for America Ferrera and Vanessa L. Williams. I also think they got it right in nominating Sally Field, Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn for their great weekly ...
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Kyle Chandler in Friday Night Lights by Van Redin/NBC Photo
Remember how Charlie Brown used to end up on his back every time he went to kick the football after Lucy pulled it away? Well, that was me, in the pre-dawn of Thursday morning at the TV Academy building in North Hollywood, as the first Emmy category (for best drama series) was read aloud. Amid a gaggle of impatient media crews and anxious publicists, I once again felt sucker-punched by the cluelessly inexplicable whims of the Emmy nomination process. (Go here for a list of nominees.)The football analogy applies because, once again, the Emmy system dropped the ball, failing to acknowledge NBC’s critically worshiped freshman underdog Friday Night Lights, instead finding room for ABC’s cartoonishly lurid freak show Boston Legal (on the basis, so I hear, of a rare detour into quality with a post-Katrina episode). A chagrined Academy source tells me that Friday Night Lights came close, but speculated that it may have flown too far under the radar in a way overcrowded field. Hea...
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Those promos at the end of last week's episode were right. We finally got answers to so many questions involving Orson's past:— He was in a psychiatric ward in 1976 after the supposed suicide of his adulterous but religious father. (But now we know Gloria staged the suicide the same way she was trying to stage Bree's.)— Gloria had blamed Orson for her husband's death, saying Orson was supposed to watch out for him, but chose to go out with friends.— It was Gloria who killed Monique with Mike's wrench.— Orson buried Monique in the dirt while Gloria removed Monique's teeth (ouch).Ahh... closure, at last. I knew it would be good tonight since it was written by Marc Cherry and Joe Keenan. As discussed here before, Marc had to finish up Bree's story line earlier than originally planned due to Marcia Cross' pregnancy. I was very happy that Gloria ended up alive at the end. When Ida Greenberg found the bodies of Alma and Gloria lying on the lawn, I figured they were bot...
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Three weeks ago (when the last new episode aired), I briefly whined: "When oh, when will we get to see Monique in flashbacks again?" So you know I was screaming with joy when I got my wish tonight! Not only did Monique (Kathleen York) reappear in a flashback, but we also got so many answers, as did Mike Delfino, all thanks to his hypnotherapist (Miriam Flynn). So Mike didn't kill Monique — Orson framed Mike by giving Mike his wrench back — the wrench that had Monique’s blood on it. Now we know why Mike's phone number was written on Monique's hand. We also know that Mike never dated Monique: "I'm flattered, but I'm seeing somebody." Monique: "Me, too, but he's married and I'm drunk." I do wonder what Orson told Bree when he "confessed" and told her "the truth." He said she was upset, but apparently not too upset, since she was still living with him before the ladder accident. As usual, we got some answers but were still left with further questions. Like, why would Glor...
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After last week's laugh-filled hour, tonight was a bit of a letdown as far as the humor level goes. This doesn't mean I didn't like this episode — I just enjoyed it less, and I am in agreement with those of you who are starting to get a bit tired of the Alma story line. When, oh, when will we get to see Monique in flashbacks again? At least we know that those teeth are actually Monique's, as expected, and we found out what Alma was injecting herself with — hormones, so she'd get pregnant more easily. Speaking of which, how about Alma giving Orson both sleeping pills and Viagra so that she could rape him while he was passed out? I do give the writers (Valerie Ahern and Christian McLaughlin) credit for making references to Viagra without actually mentioning it, like Alma saying she gave Orson something "to keep the part of you I need nice and perky." That was pretty creepy when Gloria mentioned how much she wanted a grandchild while Alma got ready for her night with Orson by...
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First thing I need to say right off the bat is how funny I thought the show was tonight. Not that I don't always think it's humorous, but I found it even funnier than normal. So I must commend the writers — co-executive producer Kevin Murphy and producer Kevin Etten — for a hilarious script. There were so many great lines, but I think my favorite was Lynette to Tom after Tom told her he wasn't inviting her to the opening of his new restaurant due to her snarky attitude, which made Lynette say no to sex. Tom: "So we're not havin' sex?" Lynette: "Hey — you banned me from your opening." Shut up. To think that Lynette had to expose her breasts to that old man Harry (Richard Herd) just to get him to sign off on Tom's liquor license. What a wife won't do for her husband. Mrs. McCluskey was an excellent inspiration for Lynette, so Kathryn Joosten was able to deliver one of the episode's many other zingers (re: Tom): "It's bad enough you cut off his cojones. Now you want to j...
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