Housewives Exclusive: What's Up with Susan's New Fella?

What is Gale Harold doing on Wisteria Lane, why is he welcoming Susan home, and what happened to Mike? Those are but three of the questions raised by Desperate Housewives' season-ending five-year flash-forward. As ABC's two-day TCA press tour presentations drew to a close with a star-studded soiree, I grabbed the ear of DH exec producer Bob Daily, to see what, if anything, he would reveal about Susan's new sitch. For starters, Harold's character is named Jackson. (The actor himself, standing nearby, put me through quite the guessing game to deduce that much.) Daily then elaborated that when Jackson and Susan first meet - sometime during the five years glossed over by the finale - he is far more into her than she is into him, "but then, over time, she softens a bit." And where did Susan and Mike go wrong before all of this? Daily says that big question will be answered in the season premiere, and that the circumstances of the couple's split will be most compelling. Which is not to say that the root-for couple DH introduced us to in that very first episode is 100-percent kaput. After all, says Daily, "They're sort of the heart and soul of the show, with that on-again/off-again romance. Who knows what will happen in the next couple of years?" - Matt Mitovich