Beautiful Girls (Desperate Housewives)

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"Beautiful Girls" is the 55th episode of the ABC television series, Desperate Housewives. It was also the ninth episode of the show's third season. It was written by Dahvi Waller and Susan Nirah Jaffee and directed by David Grossman. It aired on November 19, 2006.

[edit] Guest Starring

• Dougray Scott as Ian Hainsworth
• Kathryn Joosten as Karen McCluskey
• Ernie Hudson as Detective Ridley
• Matt Roth as Art Shephard
• Ian Abercrombie as Rupert Cavanaugh
• Jennifer Dundas as Rebecca Shephard
• Alec Mapa as Vern
• Dixie Carter as Gloria Hodge

[edit] Co-Starring

• Juliette Goglia as Amy Pearce
• McKenzie Applegate as Isabel
• Winifred Freedman as Mrs. Tomlinson
• Patrick Malone as Detective Shrank
• McKenna Palmer as Donna
• Jodi Taffel as Mrs. Horowitz

[edit] Plot

Gabrielle's personal shopper, Vern, convinces her to coach girls for the Snowflake Beauty Pageant. Gabrielle reluctantly agrees, but after a while, she realizes how much fun it is to coach these girls. When she's having pizza with the girls, she tells them about her past years in modeling, and tells them about how some people got skinny by sticking their finger down their throats and vomiting their food. She advises the girls never to do that, but some girls who are self-conscious about their weight do it anyway, resulting in Gabrielle being fired. Gabrielle convinces the parents to let her continue coaching, because that's the only thing meaningful she does in her life. The parents decide to give her a second chance.

Lynette tries to convince the police that Art's a pedophile, but since she doesn't have any evidence, the police don't believe her. While Lynette and the kids are watching a movie, Lynette falls asleep and Parker goes outside to play. When Lynette wakes up, she's horrified to learn that Parker left the house. She can't find him in the house or on her property, so she barges into Art's house and goes down to the basement, but all the toys and pictures of the half-naked boys are gone. Art says he donated everything to the children's hospital, but Lynette doesn't believe him. She leaves his house and finds out that Parker only went to Mike's house, where Tom was hanging out at the time. Tom calls the children's hospital, and it turns out Art was telling the truth. Tom tells Lynette that she's taking this too seriously and he's worried that the supermarket incident may have traumatized her worse than she thought it did. She agrees to talk to a therapist. She shares her suspicions with Mrs. McCluskey. She believes her and tries to convince the police as well.

After a romantic dinner with Ian, Susan spends the night at his 160-room-mansion. Ian promises Susan her own drawer at his house to keep her things in, since Ian has his own drawer at her house. The next morning, Ian's butler, Rupert, walks in on them while Susan is bare-naked and Ian is in his underwear. Susan is introduced to Rupert as Ian's girlfriend, but Rupert thinks of her as his mistress. She later makes things worse by unwittingly flashing him. When Susan sees that Rupert is giving her the cold shoulder, she decides to warm up to him by buying him a shirt with the United Kingdom flag on it. This doesn't please him. Susan decides to help him polish silverware and get to know him, but Rupert decides to show her to her own drawer. When he takes her into one of the rooms, he shows her that Ian hasn't been letting go of all of Jane's things. When Ian finds out that Susan knows, he tells her that he just can't bring himself to get rid of her things, and Susan tells him that he can leave his heart open for both her and Jane. Ian empties one of Jane's drawers and gives it to Susan with the explanation, "if I can fit you both into my heart, I can fit you both into my bureau."

Gloria is settling into the home of Orson, Bree, Andrew, and Danielle, and they all realize that she is more than they can handle. She watches an old home movie which Alma appears in. Bree has banned alcohol from her, because Gloria can't mix alcohol with her medication. Gloria demands to be able to live in her own house, and tells Orson to buy it for her. Edie ends up showing them around a cheap house in the ghetto area of Fairview, but when Gloria ends up falling on the unstable kitchen floor, Bree demands that she continues to live with them, over the objections of both Gloria and Orson. Gloria, in the hopes of destroying the lives of Orson and Bree, tells Bree that Orson cheated on Alma, and his mistress was Monique. Monique cheated on Orson, too. Bree tells Orson that it scares her that he had two women in his life before her; one's missing, and one's dead. She throws him out of the house.

Carlos has just moved into a condonium, but he has been temporarily kicked out because the place is being renovated. He asks Mike if he can stay with him for a couple months. Mike doesn't remember Carlos at all, but Carlos tells him they were best friends, so Mike lets him stay. Tom comes over to Mike's house, and he, Carlos, and Mike, end up watching football and munching on snacks. Mike asks his two best friends what he was like before the accident, and they say that he was very secretive and nobody really knew him that well. When Mike catches Detective Ridley and his work partner, Detective Shrank, spying on him, he tells them to leave him alone. Detective Ridley tells Mike that the only piece of evidence they have yet to find to prosecute him for Monique's murder is the toolbox containing the wrench Mike is accused of killing her with. Mike takes the toolbox, takes it out to the middle of the forest to bury it, but Detective Ridley catches him.

[edit] Title reference

The episode title, Beautiful Girls is taken from a song from the Stephen Sondheim musical, Follies.

[edit] Quotes

• Bree: "You cannot let your mother move into this neighborhood. It's filled with junkies and whores."
  Orson: "And we'll owe them all an apology, but who cares? She likes it."

• Orson - "I can't afford to buy you a house"
  Gloria - "You can't afford not to."

• Art - "What? Come on, you're in an empty house, curious about your new neighbors, you look around... We all do it."

• Orson - "Bree - please - I love you."
  Bree - "I know. But it scares the hell outta me."

[edit] International Titles

• French (Canada) : Des hommes dangereux (Dangerous Men)
• French : Susan et Rupert, le dragon
• German: Biester (Beasts)
• Italian: Beautiful Girl
• Polish: Małe królowe piękności (Little Queens of Beauty)
• Spanish: Chicas Hermosas (Beautiful Girls)
• Hungarian: Királylányok és hercegek (Princesses and Princes)

[edit] Notes

• Although credited, Julie Mayer (Andrea Bowen) and Austin McCann (Josh Henderson) do not appear in this episode.