The Chase (Desperate Housewives)

One of Bree's employees, Tad (Eric Ian Colton), keeps making major mistakes, but Andrew defends him. Later, a mysterious man named Sam Allen (Samuel Page) visits Bree, insisting he understands her values and wants to work for her. Although initially hesitant, Bree is impressed and hires him. Later, Andrew gets upset when Bree plans to fire Tad, and Sam correctly assesses that Andrew is having an affair with him. Later, Sam hints to Bree that Andrew should be let go, then secretly drinks coffee from Andrew's "World's Greatest Son" mug.

Susan forced her elderly neighbor Roy (Orson Bean) to propose to his girlfriend Karen (Kathryn Joosten), and he does so after Karen indicates she wants to get married. Later, however, Roy laments to Susan about being put in the situation, and fears he will start lusting after other women now that he is engaged. Later, Karen learns she may have lung cancer. Roy tells Susan he is marrying Karen because he now realizes he does not want to lose Karen, and is sure she will beat the cancer.

Danny Bolen leaves a note claiming to be camping with his friend

Production

"The Chase" was written by

"The Chase" continued an ongoing storyline of Katherine Mayfair exploring her sexuality. Actress Dana Delany praised the subplot. She said she did not know if the character would become a lesbian permanently, because the story lines change so often in Desperate Housewives, but that series creator Marc Cherry "is interested in playing the complexity of that".^[10] Delany compared Katherine's new realizations to that of actress Meredith Baxter, who realized she was a lesbian late in her life after entering into a relationship with a woman. Delany said she believed her character would be taken by surprise by the new feelings she is experiencing: "I think that she’s still so emotionally vulnerable from getting out of the loony bin, and I think she and Robin connect on a kind of wounded, emotional level. And I think if anything, she’s feeling this kind of emotional solace with her, and that draws her to Robin in a physical way, and that’s confusing to her."^[10]

Reception

In its original American broadcast, "The Chase" was seen by 10.89 million viewers, according to

The episode received generally mixed to negative reviews. Entertainment Weekly writer Tanner Stransky was highly critical of the episode, describing the Gabrielle story as predictable, the Susan subplot as boring and the overall Bolen story arc as too slow in developing. Stransky also felt the Katherine and Robin pairing was unbelievable, and questioned whether the show's audiences of families and midwesterners would respond well to a lesbian pairing.^[5] Gael Fashingbauer Cooper of MSNBC praised Longoria for turning what he said could have been a gloomy story into "a gleeful fantasy". Cooper said the character was fun and funny but ultimately heartfelt and caring. Conversely, Cooper said the subplots involving the other housewives were "all pretty standard, and dreary, stuff".^[16]

Los Angeles Times writer Gerrick Kennedy said he liked the Robin character's charm and chemistry with Katherine, and said their story arc "has already grown infinitely more interesting than the Angie Bolen mystery". He said the relationship made more sense for Katherine than her previous subplots involving her romance with Mike and her mental breakdown following their break-up.^[17] Isabelle Carreau of TV Squad said she was glad the episode was centered on the supporting cast, particularly praising the attention to Bob and Lee, but she said that did not like the direction the Andrew character had taken, and felt the relationship between Katherine and Robin had evolved too fast.^[6]

References