EDIE BRITT is dead. Nicollette Sheridan did a nice, low-key job. Nothing too showy. Nothing like the stunt Rob Lowe pulled when he died a few times as Senator Robert McCallister on Brothers, Sisters And Bastards. It is surprising that more people who are enveloped by that Walker family don’t need open-heart surgery. But back to Edie.

Edie Britt was always the outsider housewife who never seemed terribly desperate. She was very rarely given any real or recognisable motivations for her actions. Edie Britt: hornbag with a heart of stone; nasty, nasty husband-stealing BLONDE. She’s been the blondest woman on television for the past few years. Blonde but not entirely
stupid.

Nobody ever wanted to be Edie’s friend. She had slept with most of the menfolk but in a catty way rather than the romantic way the other girls managed to get away with. Only the audience will miss her.

And yet, Marc Cherry felt the need to devote an entire contrived episode to the Edie we never knew. Granted, Desperate Housewives has always been about the
brittle outward veneer that hides the inner desperation. Edie seemed to be the
only one not so concerned about keeping up appearances. But Cherry, in the act of killing her off, wanted to keep those appearances up for the sake of the audience. Turns out she had a heart of gold and a whole lot of qualities all those nicer, murdering, adulterous, scheming, gossiping housewives had overlooked while they were bitching about her sluttiness. Cherry underestimates us. We like that husband-stealing ho.

At least Nicollette got to do some Emmy acting in her final scenes. Plenty of big speeches and channelling Bette Davis. As all the women of the lane drive across the countryside with Edie’s ashes, it becomes clear this show is on its last legs. They all have creepy plasticine faces now (Marcia Cross is about the weirdest-looking thing on telly since Alf); their hair looks like they’re wearing expensive chemo wigs; their cardigans are all in bright colours that possibly only exist on Wisteria Lane; and Edie’s jar of ashes looks considerably livelier than the rest of the cast.

Nicollette Sheridan got a bum deal. Her character always had more potential. As an actress, she appeared to possess more ability, not to mention a face that in recent years came to resemble a sharply cut butter sculpture. When late one night with Gabby, Edie, in a tiny gold dress, confessed to dreading the evaporation of her youth, she was far more credible than Susan the Silly; Bree, the super
housewife; Gabby, the gold-digging mother of fat kids; or Lynette, who swings from dedicated homebody to killer businesswoman. Edie was a pretty party girl in a gold dress, sitting on a swing and wondering where it all went. Then she was dead. Edie Britt might be a metaphor for Desperate Housewives.

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