The episode opens with Lynette and Tom’s therapist posing (what seems to be) the biggest question of the season thus far — are they in therapy to work things out or are they simply trying to find a graceful way to exit the marriage? The two don’t have an answer, but when Tom answers the sex question with “not yet,” the challenge is on and Lynette feels challenged to find a boyfriend.

Step No. 1 is making a pretty sorry excuse for a dating video. But Renee is quickly to the rescue; she tells Lynette how God-awful her dating video is, and goes with her to a bar to hit on guys. Lynette has such a bad attitude about being back on the dating scene, though, that she pushes Renee to head home early and is forced to endure the cheesy come-ons and friends of her sons (!) on her own. However, on her way out the door, Lynette meets one nice guy — a divorcee with kids of his own and they decide to go back inside. The two end up back at his place and Lynette is eager to put the moves on the nice, unassuming guy, but when he suggests that they move the action to the bedroom, she accidentally loses her wedding ring in his ugly shag carpeting and freaks out. It’s always been clear that Lynette was in therapy to repair the marriage — but it was fun to see her back on the dating scene, albeit briefly. How will she handle Tom’s dating now that she finally knows that she wants her husband back? We’re guessing she won’t be keeping her mouth shut for long, and it will be great to see Lynette have to fight for what she wants for the first time in a long time.

BREE The local pastor comes to Bree’s house after she misses an alarming five Sundays in a row. She says she feels unworthy of God’s love, and the pastor recommends she find guidance in neighbor Ben (oh hey, almost forgot about that guy!) because of his work with the homeless. When she shows up for duty at the local soup kitchen, Ben tries to get out of Bree her guilty deed, but she’s far too smart to reveal anything and she instead focuses on spicing up the menu.

However, her efforts are quickly quashed when 20-something hipsters begin to take over the place and she realizes the soup kitchen is no longer helping the people it was meant to service — because the homeless no longer feel welcome there. Ben educates Bree further and she ends up helping him with a presentation to help set up housing for the poor in Fairview, despite her previous hesitation. (Um, does this sound at all similar to Paul Young’s botched halfway house program gone horribly wrong from last season?) Everything seems all well and dandy until Ben shows Bree the site where they hope to build the housing: It’s where the ladies buried Gaby’s stepfather, which means the men coming to overlook the land may very well find the body — and soon. This is an important next step in the struggle to keep the murder covered up, but why do all the complications (Chuck, Ben) have to come back to Bree? Let’s spread the problems around a bit. No? A few weeks ago when the letter first surfaced and Ben first moved to the block, some commentators theorized that Ben may be more shady than Chuck and I’m starting to see that reasoning after the look on his face in the episode’s final moments when he showed Bree the site (not to mention his eagerness to use Bree to sell the idea of housing to local community leaders).

SUSAN Susan can’t contain her laughter when everyone is forced to paint a nude model to study light and shadows.? Her teacher then informs the class that the nude model is out and nude artists are in, which means Susan parading around the kitchen with no clothes on to let go of her inhibitions. Susan and Mike share a nice heart-to-heart about letting go of said inhibitions, but Susan ends up scaring Lee’s mother-in-law and then walking in to class naked without knowing the college killed the idea of naked artists days earlier. (Read your e-mail, Susan!) The teacher laughs at Susan, and she quits the class.

Her teacher pays her a house call and miraculously reads right through her and says she’s constantly running away and giggling because she’s hiding something. But, he feels she’s a “bizarre car crash that oddly fascinates me” and sees the potential in her nonetheless. I don’t see where he gets that — but all righty then! Susan, naturally, returns to class. As mentioned last week, it’s good to see that the writers have found an avenue for Susan’s craziness, but it’s a little unclear where this story line is going at the moment.

GABY Gaby — surprise! — doesn’t take her duties as PTA president seriously, showing up 45 minutes late to a meeting because of a spa appointment. The women walk out when she needs help planning something, so she (tries) to win them back by bringing in her stylist and massage therapist for individual appointments. However, she still leaves another meeting early to plan her next vacation to the South of France, so naturally the other women are out to sabotage her.

When the women won’t help her and there’s only two hours left, Gaby calls Carlos to help her, but it’s quickly clear that she isn’t interrupting him at work. The camera slowly pulls back and shows Carlos in sweats in the middle of the day drinking (he’s drinking to get rid of the guilt). He stumbles in, obviously drunk, and suddenly the women respect Gaby because they realize she has problems just like the rest of them. How did it take this long for Gaby to realize Carlos’ serious guilt problem?

“The Art of Making Art” is the 162nd episode of the ABC television series Desperate Housewives. It is the fifth episode of the show’s eighth season and will be broadcast on October 23, 2011

All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License