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--> ''Susan Mayer, Pilot''
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http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/DesperateHousewives.jpg
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--> ''Susan Mayer, Pilot''
[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/DesperateHousewives.
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*** Lampshaded my Marc Cherry in the commentary of the first episode: When you see Gabrielle walking down a runway he admits the irony of his casting decisions.
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* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Lynette organizes a demonstration against the supposedly pedophile swimming coach. It manages to kill his sister [[spoiler: thus terminate his only reason to restrain himself.]]
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** In "Who Can Say What's True", Susan then proceeds to continue this long streak of bad decisions by [[spoiler: investigating Alejandro's life by travelling to his home, where she meets his family. Because after covering up a murder, it's only natural to want to become acquainted with their kin, right? ''Nothing'' suspicious or potentially implicating about that?!]]
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** In "Who Can Say What's True", Susan then proceeds to continue this long streak of bad decisions by [[spoiler: investigating Alejandro's life by travelling to his home, where she meets his family. Because after covering up a man's murder, it's only natural to want to become acquainted with their kin, right? ''Nothing'' There is absolutely ''nothing'' suspicious or potentially implicating about that?!]]
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* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Renee, who has an identical personality to Edie, wears similar clothes to her, and lives in the same house.
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** Lampshaded heavily. Andrew once even referred to her as "running for the Mayor of Stepford".
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Renee, who has an [[ItsAllAboutMe identicalpersonality personality]] to Edie, wears similar clothes to her, and lives in the same house.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Renee, who has an [[ItsAllAboutMe identical
* IdiotBall: Susan in "Suspicion Song". After they are ''finally'' in the clear for [[spoiler: Alejandro's murder, she decides to ''paint'' a series of portraits of the event in her art class, which her teacher ends up putting into an art gallery, in plain view of the public.]] Not your finest moment there...
** In "Who Can Say What's True", Susan then proceeds to continue this long streak of bad decisions by [[spoiler: investigating Alejandro's life by travelling to his home, where she meets his family. Because after covering up a murder, it's only natural to want to become acquainted with their kin, right? ''Nothing'' suspicious or potentially implicating about that?!]]
** In "Who Can Say What's True", Susan then proceeds to continue this long streak of bad decisions by [[spoiler: investigating Alejandro's life by travelling to his home, where she meets his family. Because after covering up a murder, it's only natural to want to become acquainted with their kin, right? ''Nothing'' suspicious or potentially implicating about that?!]]
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* TooDumbToLive: Susan in "Suspicion Song". After they are ''finally'' in the clear for [[spoiler: Alejandro's murder, she decides to ''paint'' a series of portraits of the event in her art class, which her teacher ends up putting into an art gallery, in plain view of the public.]] Not your finest moment there...
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* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Edie's sudden death in Season 5 was orcehstrated to write the character out of the show due to Nicolette Sheridan being on increasingly bad terms with producer Mark Cherry.
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* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Edie's sudden death in Season 5 was orcehstrated orchestrated to write the character out of the show due to Nicolette Sheridan being on increasingly bad terms with producer Mark Cherry.
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** While perfectly true this would suggest that the Housewives should be even ''more'' creeped by Mary Alice than by Paul in retrospect, if she could so easily have created a facade. Whenever she is mentioned it is as Mary Alice 'our dear friend who took her life' rather than Mary Alice '[[spoiler:the murderer and kidnapper]] who had us all fooled'.
*** The suicide may have played a role in this : Mary Alice regretted her acts, while Paul never did, as far as we know. Also, season seven has made him cross the MoralEventHorizon ''much'' deeper than Mary Alice ever had.
*** The suicide may have played a role in this : Mary Alice regretted her acts, while Paul never did, as far as we know. Also, season seven has made him cross the MoralEventHorizon ''much'' deeper than Mary Alice ever had.
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* ArtisticTitle: Literally. The opening credits (as used from seasons 1-3) depict various situations in which women find themselves 'desperate' throughout time. Eve being the very first 'Desperate Housewife', through various pieces of art until we eventually see the four protagonists holding an apple (alluding to Eve's downfall) of their own, symbolising the very contemporary and yet timeless idea of female desperation.
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* AThreesomeIsManly: Dave, Katherine and Mike go camping in "The Story of Lucy and Jesse".
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* AThreesomeIsManly: AThreesomeIsHot: Dave, Katherine and Mike go camping in "The Story of Lucy and Jesse".
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Rename
* BabyDollBaby: When Gaby [[spoiler: found out that her daughter had been exchanged when she gave birth, she started searching and found the other (her biological daughter)girl, and coming to realize that she couldn't keep her near her]] she bought an expensive doll and started to play with her, talk to her as real person, at first this is dismissed by the other characters, but when she and Carlos are about to go out, and arguing about the doll (which was in the back sit) [[spoiler:they get robbed and told to step out of the car, Gaby refuses to let the doll even tough the robber had a loaded gun, and tries to retrieve it, yelling "My daughter!"]]
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* MyBabyDoll: When Gaby [[spoiler: found out that her daughter had been exchanged when she gave birth, she started searching and found the other (her biological daughter)girl, and coming to realize that she couldn't keep her near her]] she bought an expensive doll and started to play with her, talk to her as real person, at first this is dismissed by the other characters, but when she and Carlos are about to go out, and arguing about the doll (which was in the back sit) [[spoiler:they get robbed and told to step out of the car, Gaby refuses to let the doll even tough the robber had a loaded gun, and tries to retrieve it, yelling "My daughter!"]]
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* [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield Where the Hell Is Fairview?]] Why, in the "Eagle State", of course. (Common consent seems to be that it is located somewhere around Indiana).
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* GoshHornet: In Season 2 when Edie winds up disturbing a yellow jackets' nest and is stung pretty badly. Its left up to the audience whether this is dramatic or hilarious.
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* GoshHornet: In Season 2 when Edie winds up disturbing a yellow jackets' nest and is stung pretty badly. Its left up to the audience whether this is dramatic or hilarious.
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* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: Paul Young lampshades this during the Riot, that his entire goal was to prove this point;
--> '''Paul Young''': Look at those people over there, those are ''your'' friends! What makes you think you're ''better'' than a bunch of ex-cons?!
--> '''Paul Young''': Look at those people over there, those are ''your'' friends! What makes you think you're ''better'' than a bunch of ex-cons?!
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man, I have no idea if this trope is \"episode-specific\" or \"series-wide\", so I\'m randomly guessing. The series doesn\'t have arcs?
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* MyBabyDoll: When Gaby [[spoiler: found out that her daughter had been exchanged when she gave birth, she started searching and found the other (her biological daughter)girl, and coming to realize that she couldn't keep her near her]] she bought an expensive doll and started to play with her, talk to her as real person, at first this is dismissed by the other characters, but when she and Carlos are about to go out, and arguing about the doll (which was in the back sit) [[spoiler:they get robbed and told to step out of the car, Gaby refuses to let the doll even tough the robber had a loaded gun, and tries to retrieve it, yelling "My daughter!"]]
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* TookALevelInJerkass: Carlos seems to go back and forth on this. For the most part he's an easy going nice guy, but sometimes he will suddenly become a intimidating vindictive ass doing needlessly villainous things, such as firing Lynette when she's the sole supporter of a family of six and pregnant with twins solely because he didn't want to give her maternity leave.
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***Actually, the reason that Carlos put Lynette through hell was because Gabrielle had asked him too(which is shown in a quick scene where Gabrielle admits a bit of guilt for it). The reason why he fires her, is because [[spoiler: Lynnette sends her Lawyer to his house]]
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* VictimFallsForRapist[=/=]BlackComedyRape: If you want to have a baby with your ex-husband (and thereby force him back into marriage with you), just drug him and rape him! And make sure you do the reveal with the wife realizing what was done to her husband by his ex by having her use the "R" word in an over the top fashion.
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* VictimFallsForRapist[=/=]BlackComedyRape: LovingForce[=/=]BlackComedyRape: If you want to have a baby with your ex-husband (and thereby force him back into marriage with you), just drug him and rape him! And make sure you do the reveal with the wife realizing what was done to her husband by his ex by having her use the "R" word in an over the top fashion.
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** When Tom ''finally'' stands up to Lynette, he calls her out on her controlling attitude and having the nerve to shoot him down everytime he actually makes a genuine decision for himself, despite her claims that she wants him to become more independent.
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* AcceptableFeminineRoles: Underlying the whole show is this.
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Bored wives in {{Suburbia}} experience unrealistic drama in their lives after the suicide of their friend.
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Bored wives in {{Suburbia}} experience unrealistic and endless drama in their lives after the suicide of their friend.
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* ShirtlessScene: John Rowland
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* AThreesomeIsManly: Dave, Katherine and Mike go camping in "The Story of Lucy and Jesse".
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* NecroNonSequitur: Many characters' deaths or injuries are like this, where previous scenes set-up the death of the characters. These tend to occur in the middle and the end of a season, and oftentimes storylines intersect with each other to provide the proper circumstances.
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* NecroNonSequitur: Many characters' deaths or injuries are like this, where previous scenes set-up the death of the characters. These tend to occur in the middle and the end of a season, and oftentimes storylines intersect with each other to provide the proper circumstances.
* NeverWakeUpASleepwalker: Averted. Susan finds Orson standing on her front lawn naked and muttering to himself. Once she figures out he's sleepwalking, she slaps him awake.
* NeverWakeUpASleepwalker: Averted. Susan finds Orson standing on her front lawn naked and muttering to himself. Once she figures out he's sleepwalking, she slaps him awake.
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* AmazingFreakingGrace: At [[spoiler: Mike's]] funeral.
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* AmazingFreakingGrace: At [[spoiler: Mike's]] funeral.
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* AmazingFreakingGrace: At [[spoiler: Mike's]] funeral.
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made the Big Bad characters from every season spoilered
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** Season 4: Wayne Davis, Katherine's bitter CorruptCop ex-husband.
** Season 5: Dave Williams
** Season 6: Patrick Logan, Angie's ex-husband.
** Season 5: Dave Williams
** Season 6: Patrick Logan, Angie's ex-husband.
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** Season 4: [[spoiler: Wayne Davis, Katherine's bitter CorruptCop ex-husband.
ex-husband.]]
** Season 5: [[spoiler: DaveWilliams
Williams]]
** Season 6: [[spoiler: Patrick Logan, Angie's ex-husband.]]
** Season 5: [[spoiler: Dave
** Season 6: [[spoiler: Patrick Logan, Angie's ex-husband.]]
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* TooDumbToLive: Susan in "Suspicion Song". After they are ''finally'' in the clear for [[spoiler: Alejandro's murder, she decides to ''paint'' a series of portraits of the event in her art class, which her teacher ends up putting into an art gallery, in plain view of the public.]] Not your finest moment there...
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* AlasPoorVillain: [[InvokedTrope Deliberately invoked]] in "''Epiphany''", where we see how years of emotional abuse and neglect caused [[spoiler: Eddie Orlofsky]] to go from a sweet kid into become the notorious Fairview Strangler.
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* CryForTheDevil: Deliberately invoked in "''Epiphany''", where we see how years of emotional abuse and neglect caused [[spoiler: Eddie Orlofsky]] to go from a sweet kid into become the notorious Fairview Strangler.
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--> [[spoiler: Eddie]]: Please stop laughing at me...
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--> [[spoiler: Eddie]]: '''Eddie''']]: Please stop laughing at me...
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* AlasPoorVillain: [[InvokedTrope Deliberately invoked]] in "''Epiphany''", where we see how years of emotional abuse and neglect caused [[spoiler: Eddie Orlofsky]] to go from a sweet kid into become the notorious Fairview Strangler.
* MadnessMantra: [[spoiler: Eddie Orlofsky]], before he strangles women who [[BerserkButton mock him]].
--> [[spoiler: Eddie]]: Please stop laughing at me...
--> [[spoiler: Eddie]]: Please stop laughing at me...
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* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Eddie's sudden death in Season 5 was orcehstrated to write the character out of the show due to Nicolette Sheridan being on increasingly bad terms with producer Mark Cherry.
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* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Eddie's Edie's sudden death in Season 5 was orcehstrated to write the character out of the show due to Nicolette Sheridan being on increasingly bad terms with producer Mark Cherry.
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http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/DesperateHousewives.jpg
Not a porn mag, but a US TV drama.
Bored wives in {{Suburbia}} experience unrealistic drama in their lives after the suicide of their friend.
Notable for its combination {{Narrator}}/NearDeathClairvoyance trope, in which the entire series is narrated by the dulcet tones of an apparently omnipresent dead woman - the friend who committed suicide.
Basically a comedic [[SoapOpera soap]], which means that unlike a regular soap, this program is funny and has interesting plotlines. However, the situations are often just as ridiculous and the relationships and plots just as hopelessly tangled-up and interwoven as any old-fashioned soap (though ''unlike'' daytime soaps, the fast pace tends to leave many confused if they miss a couple of episodes - probably why the [[ClipShow clip show]] specials still proved relatively popular).
Owing to creator Marc Cherry's penchant for comedy, the series pokes fun at itself and its characters about as often as it takes them seriously, probably the number one thing that attracted most of its initial viewership, aside from the fact that it throws vicious, subversive holes in the ideas of suburban paradise and maternal bliss. In fact, ratings dropped after ExecutiveMeddling caused the second season to be more "dramatic" (read: melodramatic) leading to the panicked execs basically saying "OK, OK we'll go back to doing more comedy again, Marc. You win." Ratings apparently improved again after that point.
Think ''SexAndTheCity'' meets daytime soap, meets parody of daytime soaps, set in the suburbs instead of the city with housewives instead of single women. Narrated by a dead woman.
You get all that?
A word of warning to those who aren't up-to-date on the latest episodes, the series is basically one string of continuous spoilers, so it is hard to detail just about anything that happens without revealing one twist or another. So be prepared for unmarked spoilers below.
Has a [[Characters/DesperateHousewives Character Sheet]]. Feel free to contribute.
----
!!Character tropes include:
* AffablyEvil: [[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.
* AlphabeticalThemeNaming / LetterMotif: Lynette's kids; Porter, Parker, Preston,Penny, and Paige. Paige's twin, a baby Tom and Lynette lost, was to be named Patrick.
* AluminumChristmasTrees: Gabrielle once tries to convince Carlos that she has "sexsomnia". Probably fewer than ten percent watching the show know [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_sex it's a real condition]].
* AmicablyDivorced: Susan and Karl during the third season. And after the first season their relationship went from toxic to a snarky competitiveness than anything.
* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Irina, Preston's Russian fiancee]].
** [[spoiler:Martha Huber]].
** [[spoiler: Nora Huntington]].
* BadassBystander: No one seemed to expect that the psychopathic gun toting hostage holder in season 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.]]
* BewareTheNiceOnes: [[spoiler:Dave Williams from season 5, Eddie from season 6]].
* BigBad: 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 CorruptCop ex-husband.
** Season 5: Dave Williams
** Season 6: Patrick Logan, Angie's ex-husband.
** Season 7: [[spoiler: Felicia Tillman]], as an [[NotSoDifferent ironic reversal]] to the situation in the first season.
** The Final Season notably averts this, using [[BigBadEnsemble several different characters]] during different arcs of the last season.
* BittersweetEnding: 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 will never meet again]]. Plus, [[spoiler: Karen succumbs to cancer, but at least she's revealed to be with her son in the afterlife]].
** It gets worse when Jennifer, the new owner of Susan's house, is revealed to have a terrible secret of her own.
* BlondGuysAreEvil: [[spoiler:Dave Williams again]].
* BloodSpatteredInnocents: In season 3 when [[spoiler:Nora is shot and killed]], Lynette's face and hands are coated in blood.
* BrattyTeenageDaughter: Played straight with Danielle, averted with Julie.
* ButtMonkey: 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.
* TheChewToy: 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.
* CrazyJealousGuy: Carlos over Gabrielle in Season 1. She ''was'' cheating on him, but he ended up physically assaulting the wrong man twice (both of them turning out to be gay) and getting a prison sentence for it.
* CreepyChild: Kayla.
* DawsonCasting: John, the gardener in season one who only ''just'' turns 18 that season was played by the 28 year old Jesse Metcalfe.
* TheDitz: Susan.
* EvilMatriarch: Orson's mother.
* FagHag: 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 season five though, she and Lee become decent friends.
* FloorboardFailure: Susan managed to suspend herself between two floors when it happened to her in her house.
* FourGirlEnsemble: The original housewives, Bree, Susan, Lynette and Gabby.
* FourTemperamentEnsemble: Susan is sanguine, Bree is melancholic, Lynette is phlegmatic and Gabrielle is choleric.
** The husbands qualifies as well: Orson is melancholic, Carlos is choleric, Tom is sanguine and Mike is phlegmatic.
* GoldDigger: Preston Scavo's fiancée, Irina.
* {{Housewife}}: It's in the title.
* HugeGuyTinyGirl: 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/glamour models (and Eva Longoria is no stranger to such spreads in real life).
* ImpoverishedPatrician: Carlos and Gabrielle spend the majority of seasons 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 season 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.
* IvyLeagueForEveryone: 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.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Karl, on occasion.
* LiteraryAllusionTitle: Most episodes have a title taken from a line of, or the title of, a song from a StephenSondheim musical.
* LittleMissSnarker: Julie in the earlier seasons
* MamaBear: Susan goes ballistic whenever a member of her family is harmed.
** Bree turns a gun on anyone who messes with her children.
* MysteriousPast: Almost everyone.
* NearDeathClairvoyance: Mary Alice.
* NosyNeighbor: Martha Huber. And to a lesser extent, virtually everyone else on the block. Don't worry, she gets her comeuppance.
* PairTheSpares: Carlos and Edie, Mike and Katherine and since the season five finale Bree and Karl are taking this direction.
* PutOnABus: During season six, 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.
* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Eddie's sudden death in Season 5 was orcehstrated to write the character out of the show due to Nicolette Sheridan being on increasingly bad terms with producer Mark Cherry.
* RichBitch: Gabrielle, who also gets her comeuppance.
** Also Renee from Sesaon 7 on.
* ScarsAreForever: 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.]]
* SensualSlavs: Again, Irina.
* ShockValueRelationship: Andrew and Justin.
* SpotlightStealingSquad: The cover[[http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51IfLnIErtL._SL500_AA300_.jpg of Season Seven's DVD]] blatantly has Renee standing center stage while all of the main characters are off in the background. Despite the fact that she was only introduced that very season, and was in no way had an important role or was even involved in that season's story arc.
** Susan was this for the first season, to the point where she could have been the main character.
* StraightGay : Bob, in contrast to his CampGay boyfriend Lee. In fact, Gabrielle was surprised to find that Bob enjoyed watching football while drinking some beer, and had no idea about fashion.
* StepfordSmiler: Bree, an apparently OCD woman who probably carries at least half of the "domestic bliss" satire.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Renee, who has an identical personality to Edie, wears similar clothes to her, and lives in the same house.
* TokenMinority: The Applewhite family, eliminated after the audience failed to take to them. To a lesser extent, Gabby and Carlos, though they were there from the start.
* TookALevelInJerkass: Carlos seems to go back and forth on this. For the most part he's an easy going nice guy, but sometimes he will suddenly become a intimidating vindictive ass doing needlessly villainous things, such as firing Lynette when she's the sole supporter of a family of six and pregnant with twins solely because he didn't want to give her maternity leave.
----
!!Episode specific tropes include:
* AesopAmnesia: In season five, 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.
* AllPsychologyIsFreudian
* AloneWithThePsycho: Just about every season, such as [[spoiler: Lynette with Eddie]].
* AmoralAttorney: What Karl is revealed to be.
** Subverted with Bob who legitimately cares about his clients.
* AndIMustScream: Orson's mother, who suffered a stroke and no longer is able to move or speak, but still has a fully functioning mind.
* BirthDeathJuxtaposition: The series finale spliced scenes of Julie's baby being born with Mrs. [=McKlusky=] succumbing to cancer.
* BreadEggsMilkSquick: "Oh, we had a very busy day. We dropped off the dry cleaning, we deposited money into our Christmas account and then we got circumcised."
* BriefAccentImitation: Gabrielle's hilarious imitation of Angie in the hospital [[spoiler: to get past the nurse]].
** Also in Season Seven after [[spoiler:Gabby calls the imigration cops then changes her mind and pretends to be Carmen and Carman pretends to be Gabby]]
* {{Catfight}}: Gabrielle vs. a nun, Susan vs. Edie, Gabrielle vs. Edie etc.
* ComicallySmallBribe: Gabrielle tries to bribe a nurse into letting her into a patient's room... with twelve dollars. But then remembers she needs to pay for parking and brings the bribe down to two dollars.
* CourtroomAntic: Carlos' trial.
* DeadMansChest
* DeathOfTheHypotenuse / MurderTheHypotenuse: Often.
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: [[spoiler: Karl]].
* FamilyRelationshipSwitcheroo: Bree sent her pregnant daughter to a convent and pretended to be pregnant herself. She actually managed to get away with it... for a while. Eventually everyone who mattered found out by the end of the season and [[spoiler:Danielle took the baby back between seasons]]. Note that the use of this trope was a deliberate anachronism; the show is a comedy, after all.
* FingerTwitchingRevival: Subverted. [[spoiler:Edie]] is accidentally electrocuted, falls down, then we get a close up of the Twitching Hand right before the credits. The following episode starts with the character already cremated.
** Of course, "already cremated" means that there was no body. But it never went anywhere.
* TheFunInFuneral: Rex's funeral, indescribably wrong and weirdly funny.
* GoshHornet: In Season 2 when Edie winds up disturbing a yellow jackets' nest and is stung pretty badly. Its left up to the audience whether this is dramatic or hilarious.
* HereWeGoAgain: [[spoiler: The ending of the very last episode features a woman moving into Susan's house after she leaves, taking out a box that she looks at with worry before hiding it, clearly implying it containing a secret. And that's where it ends.]]
* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: [[spoiler:Victor Lang, Gabby's evil mayor husband]], ended up impaled by a white picket fence.
* IncestIsRelative: In season 5, Lynette pretends to be a teenage girl online to get her son to open up and find out what's going on in his life. ... then she sort of accidentally became his online girlfriend. Much to her shock.
* JerkassHasAPoint: Mrs. Huber's sister spent season two trying to turn the neighbors against Paul and have him arrested for murder, and repeatedly attempted to kill him. We seem to be intended to feel sorry for him, but it's sort of hard considering he actually ''is'' a murderer who had been getting away with everything he did in the past.
* LifeImitatesArt: In the SeriesFinale [[spoiler: cancer claimed Mrs. [=McCluskey=] - [[TearJerker as it would Kathryn Joosten]] (who played her), a few weeks after it aired]].
* NakedInMink Bree to Orson.
* NaughtyNurseOutfit and SexualRoleplay in general.
* NiceJobFixingItVillain: Nora, when trying to seduce Tom by supporting his idea of enterprise, from Lynette, who was critical about it.
* RoomFullOfCrazy: The episode "If..." features Gabby having a nightmare where she becomes MyBelovedSmother to Celia, causing Carlos to leave her, slowly loose her [[SanitySlippage grip on reality]] and living off ''food-stamps'' in her house with the walls covered in newspaper clippings.
* SeasonFinale / WhamEpisode: Usually involving a death and/or disaster.
* TeenPregnancy: Danielle in Season 3/4.
* TreehouseOfFun: Lynette's kids briefly have a tree house in their yard for them to hang out in, though its destroyed in a tornado a few episodes later.
* TwoPersonPoolParty: the way we find out Andrew is gay is that he's doing this with his friend Justin.
* VerbalTic: Mary Alice has a fondness of constantly beginning a narration with "Yes...".
* VictimFallsForRapist[=/=]BlackComedyRape: If you want to have a baby with your ex-husband (and thereby force him back into marriage with you), just drug him and rape him! And make sure you do the reveal with the wife realizing what was done to her husband by his ex by having her use the "R" word in an over the top fashion.
* VisitByDivorcedDad
* [[spoiler: WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: The very last episode ends like this.]]
* WholeCostumeReference: One episode opens with Gabrielle wearing [[TheSims Bella Goth's dress]].
* WhyDidYouMakeMeHitYou
* WorthlessForeignDegree: A house cleaner teaches Juanita while she's being home schooled. She had a doctorate in engineering from the University of Bucharest.
* WoundedGazelleGambit: Kayla attempted this in the last few episodes of season four...[[spoiler: and ultimately backfired on her]].
* {{Yandere}}: [[spoiler: Orson's ex-wife, who was believed to be dead]] in season three. And of course, George Williams from the first two seasons.
** Katherine seems to be treading a fine line between this and being a [[StalkerWithACrush stalker with a crush]]. As of the ninth episode of the sixth season, she has officially gone over into this.
----
!!Show wide tropes include:
* AcceptableFeminineRoles: Underlying the whole show is this.
* AnyoneCanDie - Reserved for plot twist moments. While most of the time they only kill off villains and B-characters no one really cares about, every once in a while they'll surprise you by killing off someone important.
* ArcWords: As of season 8, the note saying [[spoiler: I know what you did, it makes me sick, I'm going to tell]].
* ArtifactTitle: All four leads have been non-housewives at some point on the show (Lynette by virtue of having a paying job, the other three by virtue of not being married). Currently, Bree is unmarried and Lynette is [[spoiler: Separated]]
* BetweenMyLegs: Seen in the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60VTZE5nNP0 season 7 promo]].
* BookEnds: Mary Alice always voices a remark after the title and before the episode ends, though with the events that occur during the episode, the meaning changes drastically, inadvertently becoming DarkerAndEdgier.
** Mixed with a BrickJoke : [[spoiler:The first episode of the final season ends with a note that is word-for-word identical to the one that [[DrivenToSuicide drove Mary Alice to suicide]].]]
* BrotherChuck: Mike's dog Bongo was an important character in the early episodes but has not been seen or mentioned since mid-season 2.
* ClosetShuffle: Several times every season. But special points go to Gabby from escaping her lover's room by hiding in a very small suitcase.
* DarkerAndEdgier: Season 2, which gradually became more melodramatic.
* DawsonCasting: Inverted, thanks to the TimeSkip. Danielle and Julie are now several years older than their still-teenage actresses.
* DerailingLoveInterests: Orson in season 5, though he got back on the rails in season 6.
* DoubleStandard: The very different treatment of Paul Young and [[spoiler:Mary Alice]] who are eventually revealed to have committed the exact same crimes. [[spoiler:Murderer and kidnapper Mary Alice is remembered with nothing but fondness by the four main female cast]] while Paul was shunned from very early on.
** Paul had difficulty with acting as if he didn't have something to hide - he [[spoiler:tore out his pool to remove the body of the woman his wife killed]] in the middle of the night and was dubbed [=CreePaul=] by TelevisionWithoutPity. Compare that to Mary Alice, who was extremely adept at playing like nothing was wrong.
** While perfectly true this would suggest that the Housewives should be even ''more'' creeped by Mary Alice than by Paul in retrospect, if she could so easily have created a facade. Whenever she is mentioned it is as Mary Alice 'our dear friend who took her life' rather than Mary Alice '[[spoiler:the murderer and kidnapper]] who had us all fooled'.
*** The suicide may have played a role in this : Mary Alice regretted her acts, while Paul never did, as far as we know. Also, season seven has made him cross the MoralEventHorizon ''much'' deeper than Mary Alice ever had.
* {{Ephebophile}}: Gabrielle had an on-again-off-again tryst with her gardener since he was about 17 years old. Thanks to being played by a visibly grown man, it's easy to forget he's supposed to be a teenager.
* MrFanservice: Most of the guys, but [[HandsomeLech Karl]], [[HotDad Carlos]], [[{{Badass}} Mike]] and Danny (for the younger girls) stand out the most.
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin
* FamilyBusiness: The Scavo pizzeria which [[spoiler: may finally be dead]].
* {{Fanservice}}: There is a very large amount of male-oriented fanservice for a show aimed at women. Eva Longoria Parker, anyone?
** Check out [[http://www.celebdirtylaundry.com/2008/09/24/desperate-housewives-tv-guide-50s-style-shoot/ this promotional piece for TV guide]] which has the Housewives dress in sexy [[TheFifties Fifties]] pin-up style fashions: a literal housewife (Katherine), [[TheVamp Vamp]] (Susan), sexy teacher (Lynette), HotMom (Bree), [[BrainlessBeauty airhead]] (Gabrielle) and another housewife [Edie).
* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: The series is downright ''infamous'' for the amount of innuendo it has managed to slip right past the ABC censors, to the point where it could very well have its own page.
* GoodAdulteryBadAdultery: To list all examples of both the good ''and'' bad adultery on this show would be madness, but Bree enters grey territory.
* HotMom: The titular housewives.
* {{Housewife}}
* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Most of the episode titles are taken from StephenSondheim lyrics.
* LatinoIsBrown: Subverted for the sake of a joke. Gabrielle is stopped speeding by a cop and tries to play the race card with the (fair complexioned) officer... but realizes that the name on his uniform reads 'Martinez'. Otherwise the show played this trope totally straight.
* LighterAndSofter: Season 5 was much lighter in tone than the other seasons.
* LiteraryAllusionTitle / IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Most episodes are named after titles of or lyrics from StephenSondheim songs.
* LoveDodecahedron: Oh, where do we start? Bree had an affair with Karl, who's divorced from Susan, who's married to Mike, who once dated Edie, who almost got pregnant by Carlos, who's been twice married to Gaby, who had a blind date with Zach, who had a crush on Julie, who got pregnant by Porter...
* LoveMakesYouCrazy: Edie attempting ''suicide'' over a man.
* ModernStasis:Post TimeSkip the show is set roughly five years in the future (confirmed in Season 7 dialogue with Bree referencing the events of a 2006 episode as taking place "9 years ago.")
* MoodWhiplash:
** With almost every episode ending on a dramatic note, the ending music never fails to be perky. Also see BookEnds.
** The show often juxtaposes scenes of differing moods (serious, comical, dramatic, emotional, contemplative, surreal, etc.). Many storylines in a single episode start off as one mood and end up in another. It is not uncommon to see one of the housewives get into some sort of extremely [[HilarityEnsues humorous]] [[ZanyScheme antic]] (sometimes while playing [[MysteryFiction detective]]), only to reveal [[BeneaththeMask deep trauma]] or a [[NightmareFuel disturbing fact]] with another character. It is also not uncommon for a sequence of dramatic scenes serving as a set-up for a disastrous...
* NecroNonSequitur: Many characters' deaths or injuries are like this, where previous scenes set-up the death of the characters. These tend to occur in the middle and the end of a season, and oftentimes storylines intersect with each other to provide the proper circumstances.
* {{Narrator}}: Mary Alice.
** Edie narrates the episode following [[spoiler: her own death.]]
** [[spoiler:Rex Van de Kamp did it first after his own death.]]
* NoBisexuals: According to the characters on the show, if Katherine admits she's attracted to women, it means she must forsake her attraction to men entirely. It's impossible to like both, apparently.
* ObnoxiousInLaws - Every single mother-in-law on the show, without exception.
* OutOfFocus: Bree spends virtually half of season3 on a freakishly long honeymoon.
* OutOfGenreExperience: The [[DisasterMovie disaster]] episodes are often quite of a different tone from the rest of the show.
** In the episode ''Bang!'' in Season 3, [[spoiler: Carolyn Bigsby]] snaps and takes the people in a local supermarket [[HostageSituation hostage]]. The episode is also peppered with Lynette having [[RecurringDreams recurring dreams]] of Mary Alice.
** Season 4 has the episode ''Something's Coming'' has a storm coming to Wisteria Lane. This episode provides an example of [[NecroNonSequitur Necro Non Sequitur]]
** Season 5 has ''City of Fire'', where a tragic fire occurs in a club.
** Season 6 has ''Boom Crunch'', which details how a series of events [[NecroNonSequitur lead up]] to a [[TrainwreckEpisode plane crash]] in Wisteria Lane.
** Season 7 has ''Down the Block There's a Riot'', where a protest in Wisteria Lane erupts into a riot.
* PrettyInMink: A few furs show up, notably the sable coat Bree wore to try to get Rex back. HilarityEnsues
* {{Prison}}: Three of the four main husbands have done time there.
* StarMakingRole: For Eva Longoria Parker.
* StepfordSuburbia
* StoryArc: Investigation of Mary Alice's past... among other things. The number of ''subplot'' arcs in this show can make your head spin.
* TheAdventureContinues: The last scene and ending narration indicate that although the main characters will all eventually leave Wisteria Lane and never really meet again, life there will go on its merry way without them.
* TimeSkip: The fourth season finale.
* TrueLoveIsBoring: Mike and Susan run afoul of this trope multiple times. Tom and Lynette as well.
* TwistEnding: The show tries, but over time the twists have became easier and easier to spot, the worst being season 5, when everyone had the whole mystery figured after the first episode. Season 6 finally was able to pull off a surprise when it came to [[spoiler: Patrick's demise]] thanks to red herrings and misleading spoilers.
** In Season 5, it is explicitly stated from the start that [[spoiler: Dave is planning to kill Mike]], so the tension of this Season comes from DramaticIrony, we watch as he gets close to the main characters, always knowing his motive.
* TheUnfairSex: The females get away with crap that would get them put to death if they were males. [[spoiler:Like throwing your spouse out a upstairs window because they caught you trying to con them out of all their money. And no, it never gets mentioned again]].
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: What the heck happened to Karl's son?
* WritersCannotDoMath: Trust us, it does not always take very long for the [[FridgeLogic Fridge Logic]] to set in when you realize how much time has supposedly passed in between episodes, especially with the children's birthdays and ages. For example, Juanita is a year older than MJ, even though the episode where he was born happened before Gabby knew she was pregnant. Then there's Eddie, who seems to be the same age as the Scavo twins yet went to high school with Danielle, who was a teenager when the twins were little kids.
** The Scavo twins were explicitly stated as being 8 in the season 3 finale. This would mean that they would be 9 at the end of season 4, then 14 at the beginning of season 5, due to the five-year jump. However, Lynette says in the season 5 premiere that they're 16.
* ZanyScheme: All the housewives like to cook up one quite often - with varying degrees of success...
----
Not a porn mag, but a US TV drama.
Bored wives in {{Suburbia}} experience unrealistic drama in their lives after the suicide of their friend.
Notable for its combination {{Narrator}}/NearDeathClairvoyance trope, in which the entire series is narrated by the dulcet tones of an apparently omnipresent dead woman - the friend who committed suicide.
Basically a comedic [[SoapOpera soap]], which means that unlike a regular soap, this program is funny and has interesting plotlines. However, the situations are often just as ridiculous and the relationships and plots just as hopelessly tangled-up and interwoven as any old-fashioned soap (though ''unlike'' daytime soaps, the fast pace tends to leave many confused if they miss a couple of episodes - probably why the [[ClipShow clip show]] specials still proved relatively popular).
Owing to creator Marc Cherry's penchant for comedy, the series pokes fun at itself and its characters about as often as it takes them seriously, probably the number one thing that attracted most of its initial viewership, aside from the fact that it throws vicious, subversive holes in the ideas of suburban paradise and maternal bliss. In fact, ratings dropped after ExecutiveMeddling caused the second season to be more "dramatic" (read: melodramatic) leading to the panicked execs basically saying "OK, OK we'll go back to doing more comedy again, Marc. You win." Ratings apparently improved again after that point.
Think ''SexAndTheCity'' meets daytime soap, meets parody of daytime soaps, set in the suburbs instead of the city with housewives instead of single women. Narrated by a dead woman.
You get all that?
A word of warning to those who aren't up-to-date on the latest episodes, the series is basically one string of continuous spoilers, so it is hard to detail just about anything that happens without revealing one twist or another. So be prepared for unmarked spoilers below.
Has a [[Characters/DesperateHousewives Character Sheet]]. Feel free to contribute.
----
!!Character tropes include:
* AffablyEvil: [[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.
* AlphabeticalThemeNaming / LetterMotif: Lynette's kids; Porter, Parker, Preston,Penny, and Paige. Paige's twin, a baby Tom and Lynette lost, was to be named Patrick.
* AluminumChristmasTrees: Gabrielle once tries to convince Carlos that she has "sexsomnia". Probably fewer than ten percent watching the show know [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_sex it's a real condition]].
* AmicablyDivorced: Susan and Karl during the third season. And after the first season their relationship went from toxic to a snarky competitiveness than anything.
* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Irina, Preston's Russian fiancee]].
** [[spoiler:Martha Huber]].
** [[spoiler: Nora Huntington]].
* BadassBystander: No one seemed to expect that the psychopathic gun toting hostage holder in season 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.]]
* BewareTheNiceOnes: [[spoiler:Dave Williams from season 5, Eddie from season 6]].
* BigBad: 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 CorruptCop ex-husband.
** Season 5: Dave Williams
** Season 6: Patrick Logan, Angie's ex-husband.
** Season 7: [[spoiler: Felicia Tillman]], as an [[NotSoDifferent ironic reversal]] to the situation in the first season.
** The Final Season notably averts this, using [[BigBadEnsemble several different characters]] during different arcs of the last season.
* BittersweetEnding: 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 will never meet again]]. Plus, [[spoiler: Karen succumbs to cancer, but at least she's revealed to be with her son in the afterlife]].
** It gets worse when Jennifer, the new owner of Susan's house, is revealed to have a terrible secret of her own.
* BlondGuysAreEvil: [[spoiler:Dave Williams again]].
* BloodSpatteredInnocents: In season 3 when [[spoiler:Nora is shot and killed]], Lynette's face and hands are coated in blood.
* BrattyTeenageDaughter: Played straight with Danielle, averted with Julie.
* ButtMonkey: 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.
* TheChewToy: 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.
* CrazyJealousGuy: Carlos over Gabrielle in Season 1. She ''was'' cheating on him, but he ended up physically assaulting the wrong man twice (both of them turning out to be gay) and getting a prison sentence for it.
* CreepyChild: Kayla.
* DawsonCasting: John, the gardener in season one who only ''just'' turns 18 that season was played by the 28 year old Jesse Metcalfe.
* TheDitz: Susan.
* EvilMatriarch: Orson's mother.
* FagHag: 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 season five though, she and Lee become decent friends.
* FloorboardFailure: Susan managed to suspend herself between two floors when it happened to her in her house.
* FourGirlEnsemble: The original housewives, Bree, Susan, Lynette and Gabby.
* FourTemperamentEnsemble: Susan is sanguine, Bree is melancholic, Lynette is phlegmatic and Gabrielle is choleric.
** The husbands qualifies as well: Orson is melancholic, Carlos is choleric, Tom is sanguine and Mike is phlegmatic.
* GoldDigger: Preston Scavo's fiancée, Irina.
* {{Housewife}}: It's in the title.
* HugeGuyTinyGirl: 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/glamour models (and Eva Longoria is no stranger to such spreads in real life).
* ImpoverishedPatrician: Carlos and Gabrielle spend the majority of seasons 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 season 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.
* IvyLeagueForEveryone: 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.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Karl, on occasion.
* LiteraryAllusionTitle: Most episodes have a title taken from a line of, or the title of, a song from a StephenSondheim musical.
* LittleMissSnarker: Julie in the earlier seasons
* MamaBear: Susan goes ballistic whenever a member of her family is harmed.
** Bree turns a gun on anyone who messes with her children.
* MysteriousPast: Almost everyone.
* NearDeathClairvoyance: Mary Alice.
* NosyNeighbor: Martha Huber. And to a lesser extent, virtually everyone else on the block. Don't worry, she gets her comeuppance.
* PairTheSpares: Carlos and Edie, Mike and Katherine and since the season five finale Bree and Karl are taking this direction.
* PutOnABus: During season six, 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.
* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Eddie's sudden death in Season 5 was orcehstrated to write the character out of the show due to Nicolette Sheridan being on increasingly bad terms with producer Mark Cherry.
* RichBitch: Gabrielle, who also gets her comeuppance.
** Also Renee from Sesaon 7 on.
* ScarsAreForever: 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.]]
* SensualSlavs: Again, Irina.
* ShockValueRelationship: Andrew and Justin.
* SpotlightStealingSquad: The cover[[http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51IfLnIErtL._SL500_AA300_.jpg of Season Seven's DVD]] blatantly has Renee standing center stage while all of the main characters are off in the background. Despite the fact that she was only introduced that very season, and was in no way had an important role or was even involved in that season's story arc.
** Susan was this for the first season, to the point where she could have been the main character.
* StraightGay : Bob, in contrast to his CampGay boyfriend Lee. In fact, Gabrielle was surprised to find that Bob enjoyed watching football while drinking some beer, and had no idea about fashion.
* StepfordSmiler: Bree, an apparently OCD woman who probably carries at least half of the "domestic bliss" satire.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Renee, who has an identical personality to Edie, wears similar clothes to her, and lives in the same house.
* TokenMinority: The Applewhite family, eliminated after the audience failed to take to them. To a lesser extent, Gabby and Carlos, though they were there from the start.
* TookALevelInJerkass: Carlos seems to go back and forth on this. For the most part he's an easy going nice guy, but sometimes he will suddenly become a intimidating vindictive ass doing needlessly villainous things, such as firing Lynette when she's the sole supporter of a family of six and pregnant with twins solely because he didn't want to give her maternity leave.
----
!!Episode specific tropes include:
* AesopAmnesia: In season five, 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.
* AllPsychologyIsFreudian
* AloneWithThePsycho: Just about every season, such as [[spoiler: Lynette with Eddie]].
* AmoralAttorney: What Karl is revealed to be.
** Subverted with Bob who legitimately cares about his clients.
* AndIMustScream: Orson's mother, who suffered a stroke and no longer is able to move or speak, but still has a fully functioning mind.
* BirthDeathJuxtaposition: The series finale spliced scenes of Julie's baby being born with Mrs. [=McKlusky=] succumbing to cancer.
* BreadEggsMilkSquick: "Oh, we had a very busy day. We dropped off the dry cleaning, we deposited money into our Christmas account and then we got circumcised."
* BriefAccentImitation: Gabrielle's hilarious imitation of Angie in the hospital [[spoiler: to get past the nurse]].
** Also in Season Seven after [[spoiler:Gabby calls the imigration cops then changes her mind and pretends to be Carmen and Carman pretends to be Gabby]]
* {{Catfight}}: Gabrielle vs. a nun, Susan vs. Edie, Gabrielle vs. Edie etc.
* ComicallySmallBribe: Gabrielle tries to bribe a nurse into letting her into a patient's room... with twelve dollars. But then remembers she needs to pay for parking and brings the bribe down to two dollars.
* CourtroomAntic: Carlos' trial.
* DeadMansChest
* DeathOfTheHypotenuse / MurderTheHypotenuse: Often.
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: [[spoiler: Karl]].
* FamilyRelationshipSwitcheroo: Bree sent her pregnant daughter to a convent and pretended to be pregnant herself. She actually managed to get away with it... for a while. Eventually everyone who mattered found out by the end of the season and [[spoiler:Danielle took the baby back between seasons]]. Note that the use of this trope was a deliberate anachronism; the show is a comedy, after all.
* FingerTwitchingRevival: Subverted. [[spoiler:Edie]] is accidentally electrocuted, falls down, then we get a close up of the Twitching Hand right before the credits. The following episode starts with the character already cremated.
** Of course, "already cremated" means that there was no body. But it never went anywhere.
* TheFunInFuneral: Rex's funeral, indescribably wrong and weirdly funny.
* GoshHornet: In Season 2 when Edie winds up disturbing a yellow jackets' nest and is stung pretty badly. Its left up to the audience whether this is dramatic or hilarious.
* HereWeGoAgain: [[spoiler: The ending of the very last episode features a woman moving into Susan's house after she leaves, taking out a box that she looks at with worry before hiding it, clearly implying it containing a secret. And that's where it ends.]]
* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: [[spoiler:Victor Lang, Gabby's evil mayor husband]], ended up impaled by a white picket fence.
* IncestIsRelative: In season 5, Lynette pretends to be a teenage girl online to get her son to open up and find out what's going on in his life. ... then she sort of accidentally became his online girlfriend. Much to her shock.
* JerkassHasAPoint: Mrs. Huber's sister spent season two trying to turn the neighbors against Paul and have him arrested for murder, and repeatedly attempted to kill him. We seem to be intended to feel sorry for him, but it's sort of hard considering he actually ''is'' a murderer who had been getting away with everything he did in the past.
* LifeImitatesArt: In the SeriesFinale [[spoiler: cancer claimed Mrs. [=McCluskey=] - [[TearJerker as it would Kathryn Joosten]] (who played her), a few weeks after it aired]].
* NakedInMink Bree to Orson.
* NaughtyNurseOutfit and SexualRoleplay in general.
* NiceJobFixingItVillain: Nora, when trying to seduce Tom by supporting his idea of enterprise, from Lynette, who was critical about it.
* RoomFullOfCrazy: The episode "If..." features Gabby having a nightmare where she becomes MyBelovedSmother to Celia, causing Carlos to leave her, slowly loose her [[SanitySlippage grip on reality]] and living off ''food-stamps'' in her house with the walls covered in newspaper clippings.
* SeasonFinale / WhamEpisode: Usually involving a death and/or disaster.
* TeenPregnancy: Danielle in Season 3/4.
* TreehouseOfFun: Lynette's kids briefly have a tree house in their yard for them to hang out in, though its destroyed in a tornado a few episodes later.
* TwoPersonPoolParty: the way we find out Andrew is gay is that he's doing this with his friend Justin.
* VerbalTic: Mary Alice has a fondness of constantly beginning a narration with "Yes...".
* VictimFallsForRapist[=/=]BlackComedyRape: If you want to have a baby with your ex-husband (and thereby force him back into marriage with you), just drug him and rape him! And make sure you do the reveal with the wife realizing what was done to her husband by his ex by having her use the "R" word in an over the top fashion.
* VisitByDivorcedDad
* [[spoiler: WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: The very last episode ends like this.]]
* WholeCostumeReference: One episode opens with Gabrielle wearing [[TheSims Bella Goth's dress]].
* WhyDidYouMakeMeHitYou
* WorthlessForeignDegree: A house cleaner teaches Juanita while she's being home schooled. She had a doctorate in engineering from the University of Bucharest.
* WoundedGazelleGambit: Kayla attempted this in the last few episodes of season four...[[spoiler: and ultimately backfired on her]].
* {{Yandere}}: [[spoiler: Orson's ex-wife, who was believed to be dead]] in season three. And of course, George Williams from the first two seasons.
** Katherine seems to be treading a fine line between this and being a [[StalkerWithACrush stalker with a crush]]. As of the ninth episode of the sixth season, she has officially gone over into this.
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!!Show wide tropes include:
* AcceptableFeminineRoles: Underlying the whole show is this.
* AnyoneCanDie - Reserved for plot twist moments. While most of the time they only kill off villains and B-characters no one really cares about, every once in a while they'll surprise you by killing off someone important.
* ArcWords: As of season 8, the note saying [[spoiler: I know what you did, it makes me sick, I'm going to tell]].
* ArtifactTitle: All four leads have been non-housewives at some point on the show (Lynette by virtue of having a paying job, the other three by virtue of not being married). Currently, Bree is unmarried and Lynette is [[spoiler: Separated]]
* BetweenMyLegs: Seen in the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60VTZE5nNP0 season 7 promo]].
* BookEnds: Mary Alice always voices a remark after the title and before the episode ends, though with the events that occur during the episode, the meaning changes drastically, inadvertently becoming DarkerAndEdgier.
** Mixed with a BrickJoke : [[spoiler:The first episode of the final season ends with a note that is word-for-word identical to the one that [[DrivenToSuicide drove Mary Alice to suicide]].]]
* BrotherChuck: Mike's dog Bongo was an important character in the early episodes but has not been seen or mentioned since mid-season 2.
* ClosetShuffle: Several times every season. But special points go to Gabby from escaping her lover's room by hiding in a very small suitcase.
* DarkerAndEdgier: Season 2, which gradually became more melodramatic.
* DawsonCasting: Inverted, thanks to the TimeSkip. Danielle and Julie are now several years older than their still-teenage actresses.
* DerailingLoveInterests: Orson in season 5, though he got back on the rails in season 6.
* DoubleStandard: The very different treatment of Paul Young and [[spoiler:Mary Alice]] who are eventually revealed to have committed the exact same crimes. [[spoiler:Murderer and kidnapper Mary Alice is remembered with nothing but fondness by the four main female cast]] while Paul was shunned from very early on.
** Paul had difficulty with acting as if he didn't have something to hide - he [[spoiler:tore out his pool to remove the body of the woman his wife killed]] in the middle of the night and was dubbed [=CreePaul=] by TelevisionWithoutPity. Compare that to Mary Alice, who was extremely adept at playing like nothing was wrong.
** While perfectly true this would suggest that the Housewives should be even ''more'' creeped by Mary Alice than by Paul in retrospect, if she could so easily have created a facade. Whenever she is mentioned it is as Mary Alice 'our dear friend who took her life' rather than Mary Alice '[[spoiler:the murderer and kidnapper]] who had us all fooled'.
*** The suicide may have played a role in this : Mary Alice regretted her acts, while Paul never did, as far as we know. Also, season seven has made him cross the MoralEventHorizon ''much'' deeper than Mary Alice ever had.
* {{Ephebophile}}: Gabrielle had an on-again-off-again tryst with her gardener since he was about 17 years old. Thanks to being played by a visibly grown man, it's easy to forget he's supposed to be a teenager.
* MrFanservice: Most of the guys, but [[HandsomeLech Karl]], [[HotDad Carlos]], [[{{Badass}} Mike]] and Danny (for the younger girls) stand out the most.
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin
* FamilyBusiness: The Scavo pizzeria which [[spoiler: may finally be dead]].
* {{Fanservice}}: There is a very large amount of male-oriented fanservice for a show aimed at women. Eva Longoria Parker, anyone?
** Check out [[http://www.celebdirtylaundry.com/2008/09/24/desperate-housewives-tv-guide-50s-style-shoot/ this promotional piece for TV guide]] which has the Housewives dress in sexy [[TheFifties Fifties]] pin-up style fashions: a literal housewife (Katherine), [[TheVamp Vamp]] (Susan), sexy teacher (Lynette), HotMom (Bree), [[BrainlessBeauty airhead]] (Gabrielle) and another housewife [Edie).
* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: The series is downright ''infamous'' for the amount of innuendo it has managed to slip right past the ABC censors, to the point where it could very well have its own page.
* GoodAdulteryBadAdultery: To list all examples of both the good ''and'' bad adultery on this show would be madness, but Bree enters grey territory.
* HotMom: The titular housewives.
* {{Housewife}}
* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Most of the episode titles are taken from StephenSondheim lyrics.
* LatinoIsBrown: Subverted for the sake of a joke. Gabrielle is stopped speeding by a cop and tries to play the race card with the (fair complexioned) officer... but realizes that the name on his uniform reads 'Martinez'. Otherwise the show played this trope totally straight.
* LighterAndSofter: Season 5 was much lighter in tone than the other seasons.
* LiteraryAllusionTitle / IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Most episodes are named after titles of or lyrics from StephenSondheim songs.
* LoveDodecahedron: Oh, where do we start? Bree had an affair with Karl, who's divorced from Susan, who's married to Mike, who once dated Edie, who almost got pregnant by Carlos, who's been twice married to Gaby, who had a blind date with Zach, who had a crush on Julie, who got pregnant by Porter...
* LoveMakesYouCrazy: Edie attempting ''suicide'' over a man.
* ModernStasis:Post TimeSkip the show is set roughly five years in the future (confirmed in Season 7 dialogue with Bree referencing the events of a 2006 episode as taking place "9 years ago.")
* MoodWhiplash:
** With almost every episode ending on a dramatic note, the ending music never fails to be perky. Also see BookEnds.
** The show often juxtaposes scenes of differing moods (serious, comical, dramatic, emotional, contemplative, surreal, etc.). Many storylines in a single episode start off as one mood and end up in another. It is not uncommon to see one of the housewives get into some sort of extremely [[HilarityEnsues humorous]] [[ZanyScheme antic]] (sometimes while playing [[MysteryFiction detective]]), only to reveal [[BeneaththeMask deep trauma]] or a [[NightmareFuel disturbing fact]] with another character. It is also not uncommon for a sequence of dramatic scenes serving as a set-up for a disastrous...
* NecroNonSequitur: Many characters' deaths or injuries are like this, where previous scenes set-up the death of the characters. These tend to occur in the middle and the end of a season, and oftentimes storylines intersect with each other to provide the proper circumstances.
* {{Narrator}}: Mary Alice.
** Edie narrates the episode following [[spoiler: her own death.]]
** [[spoiler:Rex Van de Kamp did it first after his own death.]]
* NoBisexuals: According to the characters on the show, if Katherine admits she's attracted to women, it means she must forsake her attraction to men entirely. It's impossible to like both, apparently.
* ObnoxiousInLaws - Every single mother-in-law on the show, without exception.
* OutOfFocus: Bree spends virtually half of season3 on a freakishly long honeymoon.
* OutOfGenreExperience: The [[DisasterMovie disaster]] episodes are often quite of a different tone from the rest of the show.
** In the episode ''Bang!'' in Season 3, [[spoiler: Carolyn Bigsby]] snaps and takes the people in a local supermarket [[HostageSituation hostage]]. The episode is also peppered with Lynette having [[RecurringDreams recurring dreams]] of Mary Alice.
** Season 4 has the episode ''Something's Coming'' has a storm coming to Wisteria Lane. This episode provides an example of [[NecroNonSequitur Necro Non Sequitur]]
** Season 5 has ''City of Fire'', where a tragic fire occurs in a club.
** Season 6 has ''Boom Crunch'', which details how a series of events [[NecroNonSequitur lead up]] to a [[TrainwreckEpisode plane crash]] in Wisteria Lane.
** Season 7 has ''Down the Block There's a Riot'', where a protest in Wisteria Lane erupts into a riot.
* PrettyInMink: A few furs show up, notably the sable coat Bree wore to try to get Rex back. HilarityEnsues
* {{Prison}}: Three of the four main husbands have done time there.
* StarMakingRole: For Eva Longoria Parker.
* StepfordSuburbia
* StoryArc: Investigation of Mary Alice's past... among other things. The number of ''subplot'' arcs in this show can make your head spin.
* TheAdventureContinues: The last scene and ending narration indicate that although the main characters will all eventually leave Wisteria Lane and never really meet again, life there will go on its merry way without them.
* TimeSkip: The fourth season finale.
* TrueLoveIsBoring: Mike and Susan run afoul of this trope multiple times. Tom and Lynette as well.
* TwistEnding: The show tries, but over time the twists have became easier and easier to spot, the worst being season 5, when everyone had the whole mystery figured after the first episode. Season 6 finally was able to pull off a surprise when it came to [[spoiler: Patrick's demise]] thanks to red herrings and misleading spoilers.
** In Season 5, it is explicitly stated from the start that [[spoiler: Dave is planning to kill Mike]], so the tension of this Season comes from DramaticIrony, we watch as he gets close to the main characters, always knowing his motive.
* TheUnfairSex: The females get away with crap that would get them put to death if they were males. [[spoiler:Like throwing your spouse out a upstairs window because they caught you trying to con them out of all their money. And no, it never gets mentioned again]].
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: What the heck happened to Karl's son?
* WritersCannotDoMath: Trust us, it does not always take very long for the [[FridgeLogic Fridge Logic]] to set in when you realize how much time has supposedly passed in between episodes, especially with the children's birthdays and ages. For example, Juanita is a year older than MJ, even though the episode where he was born happened before Gabby knew she was pregnant. Then there's Eddie, who seems to be the same age as the Scavo twins yet went to high school with Danielle, who was a teenager when the twins were little kids.
** The Scavo twins were explicitly stated as being 8 in the season 3 finale. This would mean that they would be 9 at the end of season 4, then 14 at the beginning of season 5, due to the five-year jump. However, Lynette says in the season 5 premiere that they're 16.
* ZanyScheme: All the housewives like to cook up one quite often - with varying degrees of success...
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