Desperate Housewives Season 3 Recap Spoilers

Season 3 of Desperate Housewives started with the mystery of Orson Hodge's previous life and what happened before he moved to the mysterious Wisteria Lane. We find out that he had been married and looking at his wife Alma Hodge, you got the distinct impression that she was an abused woman. She was jumpy, panicky and seemed overly eager to please her husband whenever he was close to her.

After he leaves the house, presumably to go to work, she quickly begins to pack and we see her quickly packing in what looks to be an escape attempt. Mr. Hodge returns to the house to retrieve something and catches her in the act. The next scene is of a body half in and out of an impromptu grave. We now have to wonder, did Orson kill his wife?

Mike is in a coma because at the end of the season 2 finale, Orson Hodge ran Mike over with his car. We are a bit confused because the two characters had not met before; at least we assume that they haven't. While caring for Mike, Susan Mayer meets a charming, rich man by the name of Ian Hainsworth at the hospital who is there visiting his terminally ill wife and Susan begins to date him.

After Mike awakes from his coma it becomes clear that he has lost his memory. The police after finding the dead body begin to look at Mike for the murder after finding a connection between him and the dead woman. Of course Mike has no idea if he did or did not kill her because he can't remember, an excuse the police simply does not believe. They ask for his toolbox and Mike claims that he does not know where it is but later we find him about to bury it only to have the police walk up and thank him for providing the evidence they were looking for. It turns out that one of his wrenches has the woman's blood on it. We now have to wonder if Mike is indeed a murderer; again. We still do not know how Mike is connected with the deceased woman but we find out that her name is Monique Polier and that she was Orson's mistress during his marriage to Alma.

Mike is put in jail and Susan is soon torn between helping her old love who has no memory of her and her new boyfriend who's technically still married, making her the other woman. Susan begins to investigate and realizes that Orson Hodge was probably the one who murdered the woman because his missing wife's best friend shows up to warn everyone that he is a murderer. Her friend disappeared and no one has ever seen her again and she suspected that Hodge was the reason for her disappearance.

Bree Van De Kamp has now married Orson and begins to get annoyed with Susan because if Mike is innocent as Susan believes then that would mean that Orson is guilty and as we know, Bree hates to be embarrassed. Their friendship soon begins to get rocky as each fight to protect the man that they care about. Ian realizes that Susan still has feelings for Mike and he makes her a deal. He will get Mike a good lawyer but only if she agrees to cut Mike from her life. Mike is soon released and he begins to have a few short flashes of memory.

Orson's mother Gloria Hodge comes to visit and Bree wants her to stay so that she can be taken care of. She is elderly and walks with a cane because she has a limp due to a bad or broken hip. You begin to realize that Orson and Gloria do not get along and that Orson has secrets that his mother repeatedly threatens to tell Bree about. Gloria begins to tell those secrets to Bree but still cannot get her to leave Orson. Gloria then makes a phone call and waits outside as a car pulls up. The window rolls down and the anticipation is rewarded as we see that the driver is Alma Hodge, Orson's presumed dead wife.

Bree throws a party that night and the surprise to her guests was to have Alma walk into the room, both showing and gloating to all of her guests that her husband was not a murderer. Her friends quickly realized that Bree had thrown an "I told you so", party. The event is broken up when the police show up to arrest Orson Hodge and Bree knows from her guilty expression that Susan Mayer was the one who called and told them about Orson's connection with the Monique. Bree ends their long friendship with a few short words.

We soon begin to get the feeling that Gloria and Alma Hodge is in cahoots to break Bree and Orson apart. Gloria explains to Bree that she is the other woman since her marriage to Orson cannot be legal because he is still technically married to his first wife Alma. Alma has now moved into the street across from the Hodge's and is already plotting with her mother-in-law. Soon after Bree finds a bag in Alma's new home and finds that it contains teeth. This looks bad for Orson because he is a dentist and the teeth belong to his dead mistress.

Orson gets a phone call from his mother one night, telling him that Alma has tried to commit suicide and he goes over to Alma's house. He finds her in bed with her wrists bandaged and Gloria explains that she cut her wrists. He questions why an ambulance was not called and Gloria makes some excuses. She gives him a drink of liquor and as he sips it he begins to get woozy. Alma sits up and takes of the bandages to show that they both set him up. Alma explains that she wants a child and Gloria wants grandchildren. She wants them from Alma not Bree.

A few hours later Bree comes home and her son tells her that his stepfather went to his first wife's house and has not been back for hours. She quickly rushes over to find her husband in bed with Alma who tells Bree that they are getting back together. Bree angrily slaps and beats on her unconscious, cheating husband but he won't wake up. She notices the alcohol and finds two bottles of pills. We know that one is sleeping pills and realize that the other is Viagra or something similar when Bree lifts up the sheets to look at her husbands nether regions and gasps in shock. Alma begins to panic a bit as she realizes that Bree has discovered what she has done. She tells Bree that she could be expecting a child and Bree punches her in the face before calling her son and telling him to come over with a wheelbarrow.

The next morning Orson finally tells Bree the whole truth about his dead mistress but we do not find out what that truth is yet. Bree tells Orson that he has to tell the police or else and her son Andrew hears them arguing. Orson goes over to his mother and Alma and lets them know that Bree now knows everything but she still loves him and even though she's mad, it doesn't matter because she will forgive him soon enough.

Alma is discouraged and decides to give up. She realizes that Orson does not plan to leave his wife for her. He doesn't love her and never did. They had only gotten married because she had gotten pregnant and we are to assume that she may have gotten pregnant and tricked him into marriage. Alma had a miscarriage and we learn that she left all those years ago in hopes that Orson would soon come running back to her but he didn't care. Once the baby was gone he had no reason to stick around.

Gloria Hodge refuses to give up so easily and lures Alma into a storage/attic area and locks her in before limping off with her cane. It is obvious that she has plans to do something sinister. After months of thinking that Orson is the bad guy we begin to realize that his mother is really the evil one. However we still have to wonder what motivated him to hit Mike with his car.

Bree walks around the side of her house where she spies a ladder with a satin jewelry bag, similar to the one that contained Monique Pollier's teeth tied to the top rung. She slowly climbs it and we see that one rung has been sawed in half. Bree falls to the ground, screaming after she steps on the severed wood and her son Andrew rushes to her aid. Orson also runs over to his wife and is upset at seeing her hurt. Andrew however believes that he tried to kill his mother because of the argument he had heard earlier. Bree had told Orson to fix something and Andrew wonders if this was how he fixed it.

While at the hospital, Andrew and Orson argue some more with Andrew warning that he could be a pretty bad guy when he wanted to be and he warns to hospital staff not to let Orson in the room with his mother. The staff follows those orders for fear of being sued were Orson to hurt Bree, especially since they had been warned. Orson leaves the hospital frustrated.

Mike has started going to a therapist who can help him regain his memories. After a few sessions he finally gets the memory that he was looking for. He now knows his connection to Monique Pollier. We are taken back to the night of Monique's murder to see what really happened.

Mike is a plumber and lingerie covered Monique called a handyman to fix her broken kitchen sink. She flirts with Mike and politely declines her blatant offer and leaves to buy some parts for the sink. When he returns he sees pair of kitchen gloves and they are on the hands of Orson Hodge who convinces him to leave saying that he is Monique's boyfriend and that he can fix the sink himself.

Mike goes to the hospital to find him and they meet on the roof where all the cars are parked. As Mike talks about his memory and visiting a therapist, Orson realizes that he remembers that night and Monique. Orson tries to run and after a brief scuffle Orson falls over the side of the hospital and as he takes a long fall he remembers the night that Monique was murdered and this time we find out the whole secret that he had confessed to Bree.

We then see Orson Hodge enter his mistress's home but he only finds his mother Gloria and the dead body of Monique. His mother explains that she simply came to over to tell the woman to stay away from her married son and she accidentally killed her when she beat Monique with one of Mike's wrenches. Although Orson wants to call the police, Gloria tells him that she will go to jail if he does and that he owes her because it was his fault that she too had lost someone she loved, just like he has now lost his mistress. We don't find out what Gloria means just yet but we will later. Mike returns from the store and Gloria hide as we see that this is why Orson had told Mike not to finish fixing the sink. Monique's body was behind the island in the kitchen and Mike might have seen it had Orson not made him leave.

Orson agrees to help her cover up the murder and begins to dig a whole for the body. As he looks behind him he finds his mother pulling out Monique's teeth so that her body can't be identified and complaining that she didn't realize Orson's job as a dentist was so hard. He becomes angry that she is now abusing the body that she had already murdered and he accidentally throws her into the freshly dug grave. We now realize that he is the reason for her limp and cane.

We are taken back to Orson falling from the roof of the hospital and he hits a tree which slows down his fall, preventing his death. He is badly cut up and the hospital staff believes that he attempted suicide.

Andrew tells Bree about the "suicide attempt" by Orson and said that he must be feeling guilty about trying to kill her. However we know that it was Orson's mother, Gloria who tried to kill Bree. As Andrew tells her of his suspicions Bree seems to be afraid.

Susan and Ian are now at the hospital to pick up his now deceased wife's belongings but the box instead has Mike's things instead. Susan sees Andrew who tells her about Bree and she quickly leaves to visit her friend. Bree reconciled with Susan and tells her that Mike is innocent. She doesn't tell Susan but she secretly believes that Orson is guilty of the murder and that he tried to kill her.

While Susan is gone Ian opens a jewelry box to see the engagement ring that Mike had wanted to give Susan in season 2.

Orson is told by a doctor that he cannot leave until he speaks with him about his past because he knows that his father committed suicide and that he was in a mental institution many years ago.

We are told and shown that years ago when he was still a teen, Orson was supposed to be keeping an eye on his father while his mother was not home. Instead he snuck out and when he returned his father was in the bathtub with his wrists slit. Orson explains that he never blamed himself because Gloria blamed him enough for the both of them. That is the reason he felt obligated to do whatever she asked of him, and the reason he was in a mental hospital.

Gloria is now speaking through the door to Alma who is still locked in the room. She tells Alma that Orson tried to kill himself so that must mean that he is unhappy with Bree, so she still has a chance with him. Alma tells her to give it up because Orson doesn't love her but Gloria leaves but not before explaining that he will eventually love her because Bree will be gone soon. Alma realizes that Gloria means to hurt/kill Bree and she opens a window and climbs onto the roof of her house.

Gloria sees that Andrew has left his sister Danielle by herself to watch their mother who is now back from the hospital but still injured. Gloria convinces Danielle to go have fun at the opening of Tom and Lynette Scavo's pizza restaurant but wants her to take a bowl of soup up to Bree before she goes and to let Bree think that she herself made it, that way she can get some brownie points from her mom. Once Danielle is outside, Alma who is still on the roof of her house tries to get her attention but falls before Danielle could see her.

Bree is in bed with an injured foot and she spies Gloria in her room but no one is home to save her from her evil mother-in-law. At the pizza shop Andrew realizes that Danielle has left their mother alone with suspected murderer Orson's mother and he rushes home to make sure that his mom is alright.

Bree was drugged by the soup her daughter handed her and after a few words; Gloria pulls Bree from her bed and drags her to the bathroom where she plans to kill her. She lights candles, and places Bree into a half filled bathtub before she picks up a knife and takes hold of Bree's wrist. Before she can cut it she hears the screech of a car and looks out the window to see Andrew running to the house. He runs to the top of the stairs calling his mother when Gloria hits him in the face with her cane knocking him down the stairs and unconscious. She goes back to finish off Bree.

Orson who has escaped from the hospital finally reaches his house and as he enters he sees Andrew on the bottom of the steps. He revives him and then rushes upstairs where he sees what his mother has planned for Bree. He realizes that his mother killed his father the same way all those years ago and then manipulated him with guilt. An emotion that she does not seem to feel.

Gloria quickly tries to cut Bree's wrist but Orson grabs her and they fight over the knife before he finally throws his mother to the floor one last time. He quickly picks up Bree whose head had slipped under the water and he takes her to her bed. Gloria calls him and she seems to be having a stroke and wants help but as Orson explains to her, there is no one in that house who would dream of calling an ambulance for her. He takes his mother outside and tells Andrew when he asks that he doesn't want her dying in their house.

Once he walks across the street he sees Alma. Her fall off the roof killed her. He quickly places his mother by her side and later as he speaks to Bree we find out what happened next. He put the bag of teeth next to Alma's body along with the original note she had left him when she had disappeared years ago. The police will now think that Alma the jealous wife murdered Monique Pollier and that his mother collapsed with a stroke when she found Alma's body. The police now realize that Mike is innocent and he is free to go without looking over his shoulder. Bree comments that it's not fair that Gloria will get away with everything. Orson knows differently.

We see him in the hospital visiting his mother. He explains that she is completely paralyzed by the stroke and that she cannot move or speak but her brain is functioning normally so her body has become her prison and hell. He turns her head to face the door because as he tells her, this is the last time that she will ever see him and he wants her to enjoy watching him walk away. As the scene plays out you can see the pain on Gloria's face as she is now completely helpless and has no one.

The weirdest thing about this season was that even though the mystery is over, this was not the season finale. There are still a number of episodes to go and people are confused as to why they have solved the mystery so quickly when season three is still rolling. It might have to do with the actress Marcia Cross who plays Bree Van Der Kamp. She is pregnant in real life and her doctors have put her on bed rest, which meant that the show had to tape some scenes at her home for a short while. It could also be that it was specifically written this way and that there are more surprises to come.