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When "Desperate Housewives" first hit the ABC airwaves in 2004, Susan Mayer was the quintessential character to root for! During the pivotal initial season, Lynette was a stay at home mom, Bree was in a sick marriage, Gabrielle was cheating, Edie was scheming and Mary Alice was dead. Susan, however, was very much alive and looking for love with her hunky new neighbor, Mike Delfino. Teri Hatcher was spot on in her portrayal of a somewhat awkward, high-strung yet beautiful and charming woman trying to establish herself with a man.
Since the first season of "Desperate Housewives," Susan and Mike have changed. Their relationship has traversed more ins and outs and far-fetched plot arcs than the other couple's on the show put together multiplied times two, and it needed to stop five tragedies ago.
The character of Mike was presented to fans of "Desperate Housewives" as a man with a past right from the start. As Season 1 unfolded, it was revealed that mike had in fact committed manslaughter and served jail time. However, Susan's curiosity was not spiked in relation to this crime - she was curious about a gun and cash she had found in his home. This type of stunt was classic Susan as she found herself falling through Mike's floor, blowing her chances at inconspicuousness.
Flash forward that to Season 2 and you have the end of a fun love story and the beginning of a hot mess. Susan tells Mike one lie and Mike severs the relationship. Susan dates a doctor, sleeps with her ex-husband, remarries her ex-husband to have her spleen removed, and grabs another chance with Mike when he reappears to spawn a hasty re-divorce and a romantic dinner. Oops! Mike is hit by a car before dinner, goes into a coma, and spends much of Season 3 suffering from memory loss while Susan dates a British man whose wife is in a coma.
And that is not all, folks!
Mike is wrongly accused of murder, Susan borrows money from her new honey for Mike, agrees to marry the Brit, breaks it off with both the Brit and Mike, takes the Brit back, is turned away by the Brit and then marries Mike for a completely normal season ending.
Happy times all around, right? Wrong!
Mike becomes addicted to prescription painkillers while Susan is pregnant in Season 4, and in the 5-year gap between the setting of Season 4 and Season 5, Susan and Mike divorce because of Susan's guilt over a car accident that left a mother and child dead. After much dating, becoming engaged to other people and almost being killed, Susan and Mike remarry at the end of Season 5 only to face problem after problem in Season 6 before eventually having to move off the lane because of debt.
The current season of "Desperate Housewives," Season 7 has continued with the bizarrely far-fetched Delfino family plotlines. Susan is briefly a kitschy lingerie model for a website before being ashamed that the photos appeared on a billboard, Mike had to move to Alaska for a good job, and Susan became Lynette's nanny before the mid-season hiatus. At this point, Susan was trampled during a street riot and is now facing kidney dialysis for the rest of her life or until a donor kidney appears...and the beat will go on.
At this point in the "Desperate Housewives'" Susan Mayer plot arc, one half expects to hear a "Batman"-esque voice over at the end of every show. "Will Susan survive dialysis? If she does, will Mike suddenly need open heart surgery? Will his heart implant lead to him having a change of heart about Susan? Is the Delfino family the Newman family of nighttime television? All of these questions and more will be answered next week on Desperate Housewives! Same Desperate time, same Desperate channel!"
