History YMMV / DesperateHousewives

** In the fifth episode of the show Lynette (as played by Felicity Huffman) bribes an elite preschool with $15k to get her twins in. This episode aired in 2004. Fifteen years later, Felicity Huffman would be indicted on federal charges for a scheme in which she paid $15k to a college "admissions counselor" to bump her daughter's SAT score from 1020 to 1420 (out of 1600) so she could get into an elite university. She's alleged to have had her daughter take the test under a proctor on the take (after being given extra time for having a fake learning disability) who'd then let someone else fix some of the answers for her. Ironically enough, Teri Hatcher, who didn't get along with the rest of the ladies, does have a daughter who attends an elite University (Ivy League Brown) and got in on her own merits.

** Season 3 deals with the subplot that Mike has lost his memories and Susan is struggling to make him remember her. In ''Series/LoisAndClark'' where Teri Hatcher starred, an extremely similar plotline occurs where Teri's character Lois had lost her memories and her partner Clark tried to get them back for her.

* DracoInLeatherPants: Some see Edie as the unsung heroine of Wisteria Lane; a triumphant, independent bachelorette who takes what she wants and is unfairly victimized by SlutShaming. She's eventually shown to be a socially isolated woman whose man-hungry lifestyle has left her unfulfilled, and it's hard to blame the housewives for judging Edie's sexual appetite when half her paramours are married and the other half are her friends' exes.

* HarsherInHindsight: [[spoiler: In season 3, Nora's DeathEqualsRedemption by telling Lynette that her daughter was the "only good thing" she did in her life, only for Lynette to take care of Kayla on her request and discover that she's an EnfantTerrible.]]

** [[spoiler: Mrs. [=McCluskey=] dying of cancer]] in the finale is even sadder now that [[spoiler: Kathryn Joosten herself died of cancer shortly after the show ended]].
*** Of course, given the actress most likely knew she was terminally ill when the episode was written/filmed, it is highly possible that her character's fate was a case of RealLifeWritesThePlot.

** Katherine and Susan suffer a bad on-and-off one-sided rivalry for two seasons over Mike. In the 1996 film Film/FlyAwayHome, Katherine's actor, Dana Delany, played a character named Susan.
** Not to mention that both actresses have played ComicBook/LoisLane, and the actor playing Mike later voiced Franchise/{{Superman}} in ''WesternAnimation/AllStarSuperman''. At the same time, Kyle [=MacLachlan=], who plays Orson, voiced Superman in ''[[ComicBook/DCTheNewFrontier Justice League: The New Frontier]]''.

** Eddie really isn't a bad looking guy, but you'd think he was the town leper from how the girls recoil. [[GoldDigger Irina]] aside, the case could be made that his chronic romantic ineptitude is more down to his broken upbringing and lack of "game" than his physical appearance.

** InUniverse, the show has some fun with this. On a street full of GossipyHens with very long memories, old shames are inevitably dredged up from time to time. Gaby's affair with John is still thrown in her faces years after the scandal, as are Andrew's tyrannical teenage years, among other examples.

* WTHCastingAgency: Creator/EvaLongoria playing a former catwalk model. She is an extremely beautiful woman, yes, but she is also ''5' 2"''. Although, RuleOfFunny prevails when the catwalk model is the ''shortest woman in the main cast''.

** Creator/JustinaMachado and Creator/TonyPlana, who play the married couple Perez in this show, went on and played daughter and father in ''Series/OneDayAtATime'' and cousins in ''Series/UglyBetty''.

* CompleteMonster: Season 3: [[EvilMatriarch Gloria Hodge]] is a sociopathic ControlFreak hiding behind the appearance of a frail, religious woman. When her husband Edwin was discovered to have had an affair, Gloria murdered him in a staged suicide and pinned the blame on their son Orson. Through emotional blackmail, Gloria forced Orson to [[AwfulWeddedLife marry Alma]] following a pregnancy scare. When Orson found a lover in Monique Polier, Gloria staged Alma's disappearance to make everyone suspect Orson of having murdered her, she then killed Monique and forced Orson to help her dispose of the body, as well as run Mike over [[HeKnowsTooMuch to cover their tracks]]. After Orson marries Bree, Gloria tricks her and Alma's way into Wisteria Lane, organizing her son's rape at the hands of Alma by drugging him so that the latter can conceive a child. When Orson tells Bree the truth about Monique's death, Gloria resolves to kill her as well, a decision that even Alma refuses to endorse. Gloria then locks Alma in the attic, not caring that she could be pregnant, and tries to kill a drugged Bree in another staged BathSuicide before finally being stopped.

* CompleteMonster ("Children and Art" through "The Little Things You Do Together"): [[EvilMatriarch Gloria Hodge]] is a sociopathic ControlFreak hiding behind the appearance of a frail, religious woman. When her husband Edwin was discovered to have had an affair, Gloria murdered him in a staged suicide and pinned the blame on their son Orson. Through emotional blackmail, Gloria forced Orson to [[AwfulWeddedLife marry Alma]] following a pregnancy scare. When Orson found a lover in Monique Polier, Gloria staged Alma's disappearance to make everyone suspect Orson of having murdered her, she then killed Monique and forced Orson to help her dispose of the body, as well as run Mike over [[HeKnowsTooMuch to cover their tracks]]. After Orson marries Bree, Gloria tricks her and Alma's way into Wisteria Lane, organizing her son's rape at the hands of Alma by drugging him so that the latter can conceive a child. When Orson tells Bree the truth about Monique's death, Gloria resolves to kill her as well, a decision that even Alma refuses to endorse. Gloria then locks Alma in the attic, not caring that she could be pregnant, and tries to kill a drugged Bree in another staged BathSuicide before finally being stopped.

** ''Creator/JustinaMachado'' and ''Creator/TonyPlana'', who play the married couple Perez in this show, went on and played daughter and father in ''Series/OneDayAtATime'' and cousins in ''Series/UglyBetty''.

[[AC: Character Tropes]]

* NeverLiveItDown: Susan's detractors have a lot of arrows in their quiver, but her nearly crushing Danny beneath his car in early S6 is a sharp one.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: Paul Young. Granted he [[spoiler:killed the woman who drove his wife to suicide]] but it is difficult not to feel at least a little sorry for him given the estrangement of his son, his long stay in prison and the constant hostility and distrust of the people who were supposedly his friends and neighbours. In fact, read that back. His most unsympathetic trait is [[spoiler:that he killed the woman who ''blackmailed his wife into shooting herself.'']]

[[AC:Episode-Specific Tropes]]

* HilariousInHindsight: The shooter in 'Bang' played Debbie Salt [[spoiler: aka Mrs. Loomis, one of the main killers]] in ''Film/Scream2''.

[[AC:Show-Wide Tropes]]

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Susan's relationship with Julie is meant to be a WackyParentSeriousChild dynamic, but Susan's constant overreacting every time Julie starts dating a boy raises a question of whether Susan is trying to make up for her lacklustre parenting when divorcing from Karl and protecting her daughter...or does Susan feel like Julie is the only thing that's ever turned out right for her (calling Julie the "perfect teenager" a number of times) and she can't stand to let Julie make any kind of mistake because it would make Susan look bad? Julie herself seems to lean towards the latter, given that when Susan calls her out on having an affair with a married man, dropping out of med school and working as a waitress, all without telling her, Julie retorts that the perfect girl Susan remembers doesn't exist and Julie didn't want any of the things that Susan wanted for her.

* CreatorsPet: Susan. Marc Cherry has made it clear that she's his favourite character. A lot of fans retaliated by speculating that her clumsiness finally killed her soon after the end of the series, given her strangely being left out of the WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue. Ironically, Creator/TeriHatcher proved to be hugely unpopular among her co-stars. According to [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2141549/Desperate-Housewives-feud-finally-open-Teri-Hatchers-left-off-crews-farewell-gift-cast.html Daily Mail]], the other leading actresses made a farewell card to thank the crew, and they left Teri's name out.

** Susan was greatly disliked for letting Mike take the fall for Lila Dash's car accident in Season 5, although it was genuinely an accident, it was felt that her behavior followed a ''long'' pattern by Susan of being a jerk and being forgiven for it (e.g. burning down Edie's house while breaking in in Season 1, putting Julie's life at risk during the supermarket shooting in Season 3, demanding Gaby go on a date with her mentally unstable StalkerWithACrush to persuade him into paying bail for Mike, etc).
** Bree telling Orson that she couldn't forgive him for knocking down Mike (who recovered and forgave Orson) was ''very'' divisive, with many fans pointing towards Bree's HolierThanThou attitude and the fact that she covered up Andrew's hit-and-run of Mrs Solis, especially as she died. Orson at least calls her out on this hypocrisy.
* DracoInLeatherPants: Some see Edie as the unsung heroine of Wisteria Lane; a triumphant, independent bachelorette who takes what she wants and is unfairly victimised by SlutShaming. She's eventually shown to be a socially isolated woman whose man-hungry lifestyle has left her unfulfilled, and it's hard to blame the housewives for judging Edie's sexual appetite when half her paramours are married and the other half are her friends' exes.
* EnsembleDarkhorse: Orson Hodge, who went from being a one-off character, to a short-term villain, to one of the main characters on the show. Karl Mayer also tends to top "favourite husband" polls, despite (or perhaps [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys because]] [[LoveToHate of]]) his flaws.

** Susan for ''much'' of the fandom due to her frequent clumsiness, childishness and stupidity, particularly during the final season. She also gets EasilyForgiven for a ridiculous amount of things, including at one point being romantically involved with ''three'' men (Karl, Mike and the Doctor who was into her during Season Two) and essentially pimping Gaby out to Zach Young to try and persuade him to pay Mike's bail. She's also a very hypocritical and inappropriate parent with Julie, constantly discussing her sex life around her daughter, but then blows up and overreacts every time Julie shows romantic interest in boys and then gets upset when Julie goes to Edie for sexual health questions instead of her. She also reacts like a spoiled child whenever anybody criticises her, like storming off in the mountains alone after the trail guide calls her out on her DramaQueen tendencies (only to get rescued by Mike) or demanding Mike get rid of his "overbearing" mother when said mother points out Susan should learn how to cook and clean properly as a grown woman and/or get a better paying job so Mike isn't forced to work himself to the bone to support her, himself, Julie ''and'' the baby. (And when Mike hurt his back doing so, he got addicted to painkillers, which Susan utterly freaked out about and chose to blame Mike and Orson instead of thinking to put less pressure on her husband.)

** Adele, Mike's mother, is supposed to come off like an overbearing busybody, but she actually raises perfectly good points that Susan should really learn to cook and clean her own house as a full-grown adult, and that if Susan got a decent-paying job instead of part time work as an illustrator ([[InformedAttribute which we rarely see her doing]]), Mike wouldn't be working himself to the bone trying to support not only himself and Susan, but Julie and the unborn baby as well. Mike even ended up hooked on painkillers because he hurt his back working so much, but Susan gives him NoSympathy about it and instead blames it all on Mike and Orson instead of taking into account how her demanding behaviour impacted her husband. (Adele didn't know about this, granted, but her point is swept under the rug because Susan forces Mike to get rid of her.)

** [[spoiler: The reveal that Karen has been keeping her dead husband in the freezer for ''years'' in order to keep recieving his pension checks.]]

* AudienceAlienatingEnding: The final season was already divisive from the start, but the second half was met with almost universal criticism. Susan and Mike's relation, possibly ''the'' most representative one of the series, was cut short when Mike was gunned down by a gangster. Orson, who in the previous seasons had proven to be at worst immature about his divorce with Bree, turned out to be a murderous stalker, completely nullifying his CharacterDevelopment which included moving away from his mother's dark influence. Bree started a relation with her own attorney in the very last episodes while Andrew and Danielle got almost no resolution, essentially disappearing even during the trial. In the finale, Katherine showed up to tell the other housewives that she had broken up with Robin only after few months and suddenly offering Lynette a high pay job that would take her away from Wisteria Lane. In the epilogue, the four housewives left the neighborhood with Mary Alice saying that they would have never met all together again -- which, in the era of social networks and with Lynette and Susan having a common grandson, sounded like a very improbable way to force the narrative towards the bitter end of BittersweetEnding.

** A lesser example, but some of the outfits the characters wear (especially in the early seasons) are very of that era, such as Edie's chunky jewellery, Gaby's velour tracksuits, etc.

* AudienceAlienatingEnding: The final season was already divisive from the start, but the second half was met with almost universal criticism. Susan and Mike's relation, possibly ''the'' most representative one of the series, was cut short when Mike was gunned down by a gangster. Orson, who in the previous seasons had proven to be at worst immature about his divorce with Bree, turned out to be a murderous stalker, completely nullifying his CharacterDevelopment which included moving away from his mother's dark influence. Bree started a relation with her own attorney in the very last episodes while Andrew and Danielle got almost no resolution, essentially disappearing even during the trial. In the finale, Katherine showed up to tell the other housewives that she had broken up with Robin only after few months and suddenly offering Lynette a high pay job that would take her away from Wisteria Lane. In the epilogue, the four housewives left the neighborhood with Mary Alice saying that they would have never met all together again -- which, in the era of social networks and with Lynette and Susan having a common grandson, sounded like a very improbable way to force the narrative towards the bitter end of BittersweetEnding.

* NightmareFuel: The riot against[[spoiler: the ex-convicts home which Paul Young set up. Including having Susan trampled, Lee and Bob trapped in a car which is being beat up, Juanita, ''a child'' screaming in terror whilst in the car, and the good old fashioned [[PrimalFear claustrophobia]] of being pushed along by masses of people. [[AdultFear For parents, there is also Juanita being lost in the mob.]] ]] This was surprisingly scary stuff for a normally comedy and drama driven show.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Orson Hodge, who went from being a one-off character, to a short-term villain, to one of the main characters on the show.