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A thumbnail sketch of the episode until the full recap goes live.
By Evany Season 2 Episode 23 Aired on 2006.05.21

Okay, so here's the whole two-hour season finale in a nutshell: Tom is desperately trying to find Lynette, but she's well hidden in a hotel with the four Ps. Then a P breaks his arm and Lynette is forced to call Tom. In the hospital, he finally gets to explain his side of the story: apparently, he had a one-night stand with a woman twelve years ago, back before he met Lynette, and now it turns out that he has an eleven-year-old daughter. Lynette gamely agrees to meet the daughter and her mother, but only the mother shows up for the visit. Over lunch, the mother -- who is crazy -- screechingly demands that Tom back-pay eleven years' worth of child support. Lynette and Tom dig deep and manage to come up with a check for $30k, which the woman promptly uses for a down payment on a house in Fairview, surprise!
Gabby begins to suspect that Carlos and Money are sleeping together, so she gets a doctor to check Money's oven and discovers that the once-immaculate virgin has turned whore. So then Gabby plants baby monitors all over the house and totally catches Carlos and Money in the act. Gabby makes the maid help her throw all Carlos's clothes out the window; then she screams at Carlos to go find somewhere else to live (even though, as Carlos is quick to point out, she'd given him permission to sleep around). When Money tries to leave, too, Gabby tells the maid that she isn't going anywhere -- not with Gabby's egg inside her, nope.
Zana visits CreePaul in jail, and CreePaul bitchily commands him to go get money from Noah to pay for a fancy lawyer to help find a way out of Felicia's crazy finger trap. Zana begins to suspect that CreePaul maybe did kill Mrs. Huber, but nonetheless, he pays Noah a visit. Noah is barely hanging in there, yet he has just enough strength to manipulate Zana (by calling him chicken, basically) into turning off Noah's breathing machine. Now a cold-blooded murderer himself, and also a zillionaire, Zana completely turns his back on CreePaul -- stops visiting him, stops taking his calls. He also petulantly orders that the pond at Noah's house be filled in, huh?
The newly independent Susan gets an RV so that she and Julie have a place to stay while their blackened house gets rebuilt. Mike is so impressed with Susan's hot display of a backbone that he races out and buys her a wedding ring. Unfortuconveniently, Karl spots Mike browsing in the jewelry shop. Karl, in a pique of calculated jealousy, races out and buys Susan and Julie a house. When the apparently-not-so-independent Susan accepts the house gift, Mike is so disappointed that he punches Karl. In the tussle, Mike's tooth gets chipped, and Susan sends him to Kyle McOrsonlan for some tooth-doctoring. McOrsonlan comments that Mike's mouth is full of prison dentistry, which gets Mike thinking that he recognizes McOrsonlan from somewhere, perhaps from prison? McOrsonlan hastily denies the connection. Meanwhile, Susan, who picked up on the fact that Mike was fixing to propose to her, decides to pop the question herself. She hearts-to-hearts with Karl, and -- using the "if you love someone, set them free" argument -- she gets him to sign the divorce papers. Then she invites Mike to a big romantic dinner. On his way to dinner, Mike stops to get flowers, and as he's crossing the street, a mysterious red car completely mows him down. And the driver? None other than the dark dentist McOrsonlan!
Caleb gets arrested, and he immediately confesses to the murder of Melanie Foster. Down at the station, the police show Betty the crime-scene photos of Melanie's body, which the murderer had covered with his jacket. Betty recognizes the jacket; it belonged to Matthew, not Caleb -- meaning Matthew is the murderer! Betty leaves a message for Bree, who's still off on her self-imposed mental-health retreat (where, incidentally, it turns out Kyle McOrsonlan comes thrice-weekly to visit a catatonic woman in a wheelchair), about how Matthew is maybe not the greatest escort for runaway Danielle. Bree immediately goes into mama-bear mode, but when she tries to leave her padded facilities to go save Danielle, she's captured and restrained. After some tricky maneuvering (she throws sand from a relaxing desktop rake garden directly in the face of her brain doctor), she makes a break for it. At home, she finds the cash-starved Danielle and Matthew breaking in to the Van de Kamps' family safe. When Bree tries to stop them, Matthew pulls a gun on her. But before Matthew can do anything, a SWAT team sharpshooter (called in by Betty) kills him dead through the window. Oh, but also? In flashback, we discover that while Matthew did kill Melanie, he only did so because she was threatening to tell the police that Caleb hit her with a stick (after she rejected his advances and hit him a bunch of times), meaning Matthew is a murderer, but not the creepy serial kind, so maybe his execution was unjust. right. though the writers didn't seem to suggest this did they? seems like we were supposed to be glad that Danielle saw his true colors when he held his gun pointed on her mom.. and anyway I haven't felt good about Danielle since she whined to Matthew about she didn't need a phone buddy, she needed a boyfriend. (again the writers don't seem to be suggesting, but we could see smarts in -from the flashback- a pattern of Matthew picking weirdly~crazily~needy~controlling girlfriends. ALSO? McOrsonlan shows up at Bree's house with a bouquet of flowers to congratulate her on her great escape, meaning that Bree's unlucky streak with creepy, damaged men is still in full effect. exactly. Have a great summer!

well done.