Desperate Housewives' Dirty Laundry: Gaby Solis’ Wild Ride

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 protagonist's 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: Gabrielle Solis Lang Solis
Known For: Very expensive taste in, well, everything; selfishness; telling it like it is
Marriages: Carlos Solis (twice, once divorced), Victor Lang (widowed)
Children: Daughters Juanita (who was switched at birth with Gaby's biological daughter, Grace Sanchez) and Celia, and an adopted daughter, Lily, who was returned to her birth mother
Professions: Former runway model, personal shopper

Desperate Housewives first look photos: Get a sneak peek at the series finale!

HIGH POINTS

When viewers first met Gaby (Eva Longoria), they had every reason to hate her — or love her, depending on your perspective. She was rich, spoiled, and was cheating on her husband with her underage gardener. In Season 1, she went to hilarious lengths to hide her affair with John (Jesse Metcalfe) (How many women would mow the lawn in a couture gown and heels?) and tangled with her husband's overbearing "mama" (Lupe Ontiveros). The next year, she helped get Carlos (Ricardo Antonio Chavira) out of jail and adopted — or should we say stole? — a local stripper's baby after she was unable to conceive herself. Gaby and Carlos' marriage may have seemed troubled at first, but their fiery passion was always evident.

Which is why it was so weird -- and surprising -- that Marc Cherry split up the Solises and paired the social-climbing Gaby off with aspiring mayor Victor Lang (John Slattery). They were doomed from the get-go: He proposed marriage to quell a sex-tape leak and later admitted he only got hitched to help his campaign. Victor overstayed his welcome, but Mother Nature helped rid Gaby of him. He was killed when a symbolic white picket fence post stabbed him to death during a tornado.

After Gaby and Carlos remarried, they enjoyed probably the strongest marriage on the Lane — that is, until Carlos killed Gaby's abusive stepfather, developed a drinking problem and had to go to rehab.

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LOW POINTS

For a woman who seemed so totally unfit for motherhood, Gaby actually pined to have a baby. She struggled with miscarriages, adoption and surrogacy, and after a while, the writers appeared to have a little much too fun inventing fertility roadblocks.

As it turns out, God may have been trying to tell her something, because she's a terrible mother! The five-year flash-forward revealed that the now-chubby Gaby and Carlos had two daughters. At first it was tough to watch her struggle to raise two undisciplined girls and take care of her then-blind husband, but ultimately that sympathy vanished as we learned more about her despicable parenting skills. One bright spot: watching Gaby taste her own medicine when her mini-me teenage niece Ana (Maiara Walsh) moved in in Season 6.

In Season 7, Carlos and Gaby discovered that Juanita had been switched at birth with another child and was not in fact biologically their daughter. The over-the-top storyline, in which Gaby met her real daughter just before her family was deported to Mexico, and then become emotionally attached to a doll that resembled her, asked way too much of Longoria dramatically. That loss at least led to Gaby admitting that she was molested by her stepfather (Tony Plana), whom Carlos later killed. When the Housewives helped cover up the crime, it became the final season's central mystery.

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HOW WE THINK IT WILL END

Gaby started out as the most narcissistic, self-absorbed Housewife, so wouldn't the best redemption be if she made the ultimate sacrifice and gave up herself and Carlos to save Bree? Carlos has already been to jail, and he just got out of rehab, so maybe it's Gaby's turn to spend some time in the slammer. We bet she has the perfect accessories to make that orange jumpsuit pop.

Desperate Housewives' series finale airs Sunday, May 13 at 9/8c on ABC.