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Desperate Housewives (view source)

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{{tropelist}}
== Character Tropes ==
* [[Affably Evil]]: {{spoiler|Mary Alice, our cheerful sing-song narrator who kidnapped a baby, then later killed said baby's mother and dismembered the corpse}}.
** Dave Williams/ {{spoiler|Dash}} is this. Despite what he's trying to do, he does come across as a genuinely nice guy.
* [[Alphabetical Theme Naming]] / [[Letter Motif]]: Lynette's kids; Porter, Parker, Preston,Penny, and Paige. Paige's twin, a baby Tom and Lynette lost, was to be named Patrick.
* [[Aluminum Christmas Trees]]: Gabrielle once tries to convince Carlos that she has "sexsomnia". Probably fewer than ten percent watching the show know [[wikipedia:Sleep sex|it's a real condition]].
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** {{spoiler|Martha Huber}}.
** {{spoiler|Nora Huntington}}.
* [[Badass Bystander]]: No one seemed to expect that the psychopathic gun toting hostage holder in seasonSeason 3 to be taken down and shot by {{spoiler|a nameless extra who commented earlier that the woman with the gun taught her daughter's Sunday school class.}}.
* [[Beware the Nice Ones]]: {{spoiler|Dave Williams from seasonSeason 5, Eddie from seasonSeason 6}}.
* [[Big Bad]]: One for every season.
** Season 1: {{spoiler|Mary Alice Young}}, since she was the one who killed Deirdre.
** Season 2: {{spoiler|Matthew Applewhite}}.
** Season 3: {{spoiler|Gloria Hodge}}, the murderer of Monique.
** Season 4: Wayne Davis, Katherine's bitter [[Corrupt Cop]] ex-husband.
** Season 5: Dave Williams.
** Season 6: Patrick Logan, Angie's ex-husband.
** Season 7: {{spoiler|Felicia Tillman}}, as an [[Not So Different|ironic reversal]] to the situation in the first season.
** The Final Season notably averts this, using [[Big Bad Ensemble|several different characters]] during different arcs of the last season.
* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: The finale has Mary Alice funnily explain the peaceful destinies of the housewives, {{spoiler|Lynette remarrying Tom and finally landing her dream job as a CEO in New York, Gabrielle moving to California and becoming the host of a home-shopping TV show; Bree marrying Trip and becoming a legislator in Kentucky while Susan's destiny is left a bit on the dark, but with her children and granddaughter by her side.}}. Then we understand that {{spoiler|they never meet again}}.
** Get's worse when Jennifer, the new owner of Susan's house, is revealed to have a terrible secret of her own.
* [[Blond Guys Are Evil]]: {{spoiler|Dave Williams again}}.
* [[Blood Spattered Innocents]]: In seasonSeason 3 when {{spoiler|Nora is shot and killed}}, Lynette's face and hands are coated in blood.
* [[Bratty Teenage Daughter]]: Played straight with Danielle, averted with Julie.
* [[Butt Monkey]]: Everyone gets this treatment at one point or another during the show, but Bree and Tom Scavo appear to be the go-to characters for when the writers need something horrible to happen to a character.
** Susan gets her fair share of this also, to the point where the other housewives don't bat an eyelid when they find out she's in trouble yet again.
* [[The Chew Toy]]: Lynette. Lynette has, among other things, had a plethora of uncontrollable children who constantly make her life even harder, was shot in a hostage situation after finding out her husband has a love-child, is diagnosed with cancer and once cured from cancer there is a tornado which buries her family in rubble, then framed for abuse by her stepdaughter, then a whole load of personal hell... then she gets into a divorce with her husband of 20 or so years..
** Lee as well.
** Susan, too, with everything's that happened to her.
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* [[The Ditz]]: Susan.
* [[Evil Matriarch]]: Orson's mother.
* [[Fag Hag]]: When Bob and Lee move in, Susan is excited to become this. Though this only irritates them and cause them to seriously dislike her. By seasonSeason fiveFive though, she and Lee become decent friends.
* [[Floorboard Failure]]: Susan managed to suspend herself between two floors when it happened to her in her house.
* [[Four-Girl Ensemble]]: The original housewives, Bree, Susan, Lynette and Gabby.
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* [[Huge Guy, Tiny Girl]]: Carlos is a big hot blooded bruiser, and Gabrielle is so small that ''anyone'' can pick her up over their shoulder, and in one episode was able to quickly hide herself inside a small travel bag and carried around discretely.
** Makes you wonder how she became a model at all, considering models are usually super-tall; runway models are 5'10" at a minimum. It can be assumed that Gabrielle was some other type of model, perhaps a petite model or catalogue model.
*** Indeed, being tall isn't a prerequisite for many men's magazines/glamourglamor models (and Eva Longoria is no stranger to such spreads in real life).
* [[Impoverished Patrician]]: Carlos and Gabrielle spend the majority of seasonsSeasons 2, 3, and 4 unemployed, yet they still live in a luxurious house, attending big parties, and collecting clothes with all the right labels.
** In seasonSeason 4, Carlos sinks their savings in an embezzlement scam, and then loses the papers for the off-shore account and goes blind for 5 years, in that time having two kids. Then he gets his sight back and almost immediately gets a high-paying job.
* [[Ivy League for Everyone]]: Every one of the families seem to be able to sneak their kids into the same incredibly exclusive and expensive private school. Though Lynette every now and then mentions the financial troubles with it, and Susan manages to get MJ in by getting employed as a teacher's assistant.
* [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]]: Karl, on occasion.
* [[Literary Allusion Title]]: Most episodes have a title taken from a line of, or the title of, a song from a [[Stephen Sondheim]] musical.
* [[Little Miss Snarker]]: Julie in the earlier seasons.
* [[Mama Bear]]: Susan goes ballistic whenever a member of her family is harmed.
** Bree turns a gun on anyone who messes with her children.
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* [[Near-Death Clairvoyance]]: Mary Alice.
* [[Nosy Neighbor]]: Martha Huber. And to a lesser extent, virtually everyone else on the block. Don't worry, she gets her comeuppance.
* [[Pair the Spares]]: Carlos and Edie, Mike and Katherine and since the seasonSeason fiveFive finale Bree and Karl are taking this direction.
* [[Put on a Bus]]: During seasonSeason sixSix, one of the twins mentions that he wants to go to Europe. Without any proper goodbyes or explanation he is simply gone for half the season and we can only assume he actually did end up going to Europe.
* [[Real Life Writes the Plot]]: Eddie's sudden death in Season 5 was orcehstratedorchestrated to write the character out of the show due to Nicolette Sheridan being on increasingly bad terms with producer Mark Cherry.
* [[Rich Bitch]]: Gabrielle, who also gets her comeuppance.
* [[Scars Are Forever]]: Angie has a horrific looking burn scar on her back, which she got {{spoiler|from her days as an eco-terroist}}. She doesn't seem to mind it though, probably because its always covered.
** Season 8's subplot {{spoiler|on Karen's illness, which would later turn on a major plot point in the finale, was heavily inspired by the Kathryn Joosten's previous two experiences with cancer and her third relapse, which coincided with the filming and would cause her death just weeks after the series finale aired in May 2012.}}.
* [[Sensual Slavs]]: Again, Irina.
* [[Shock Value Relationship]]: Andrew and Justin.
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== Episode-Specific Tropes ==
* [[Aesop Amnesia]]: In seasonSeason fiveFive, Tom and Lynette kept going through the same loop--Tom wants to do something wild, Lynette disapproves, Tom whines about how he never gets a chance to do anything, Lynette tries to put a stop to what he is doing, the two reach a compromise, and resolve to be more understanding of each other's wishes...only to go through the ''exact same situation'' yet ''again'' a few episodes later.
* [[All Psychology Is Freudian]]
* [[Alone with the Psycho]]: Just about every season, such as {{spoiler|Lynette with Eddie}}.
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