8 ‘Desperate Housewives’ Characters We’d Love to See on ‘Wisteria Lane’
The world of Desperate Housewives is coming back to TV, but you might not see Susan Meyer (Teri Hatcher), Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman), Bree Van de Kamp (Marcia Cross), or Gabrielle Solis (Eva Longoria) again. Actor Kerry Washington and writer Natalie Chaidez are collaborating on Wisteria Lane, a new TV show inspired by the 2000s-era ABC comedy.
The 20th Television-produced project is a “fun, sexy, darkly comedic soap/mystery … set among a group of five very different friends and sometimes frenemies who all live on a picture-perfect cul-de-sac called Wisteria Lane,” according to a logline shared by Deadline. “On the surface, all the Wisteria neighbors are living the dream: beautiful homes, gorgeous families, shiny SUVs in the driveway. But behind those white-picket fences and smiling Insta posts are secrets.”
Washington teased the project on The View last week. “The idea is that it’s new times, there’s new challenges,” she said. “It’s like, what happens on that cul-de-sac now?”
We hope the following characters haven’t strayed too far from that cul-de-sac, though. Here are supporting characters we’re Desperate to see again.
John Rowland (Jesse Metcalfe)
This one feels like a gimme. John was the teenage gardener who did more than mow the lawn for Gaby, and his shirtless scenes made him a sex symbol for Desperate Housewives viewers. (At least Metcalfe, unlike his character, was an adult at the time.) In the reboot, he could be a businessman whose wife cheats on him with their gardener — that sounds like fertile land for drama to us!
Lee McDermott (Kevin Rahm) and Bob Hunter (Tuc Watkins)
Wisteria Lane’s first openly gay couple were actually not as stereotypical as their neighbors believed — or as we expected them to be on 2000s-era television. (For starters, their taste in art is atrocious — remember that fountain they installed in their front yard?) Bob is a lawyer, and Lee is a real estate agent, so the reboot would keep their calendars full as new neighbors move in and cause trouble on the lane.
Roberta Simonds (Lily Tomlin)
Karen McCluskey (Kathryn Joosten), the brusque broad of Wisteria Lane, has departed for the cul-de-sac in the sky, but a reboot can at least bring back her chain-smoking sister. Roberta and Karen are the ones who realized that Dave Williams (Neal McDonough) moved to Wisteria Lane to exact revenge on Susan and Mike Delfino (James Denton), and the neighborhood needs a nosy neighbor who happens to have a nose for the truth.
Andrew Van de Kamp (Shawn Pyfrom)
Andrew’s relationship with mom Bree was one of the most edifying Desperate Housewive transformations. Bree went from being a homophobic, withholding mother to an out-and-out gay ally, and in turn, Andrew went from being a troublemaking teen to a business partner in Bree’s catering business. But the reformed Andrew, like his mother, isn’t above the occasional scheme, and Desperate Housewives’ underhanded plots provided many of the show’s laughs.
Juanita Solis (Madison De La Garza)
Juanita had one of the deeper storylines of the Wisteria Lane kids: She was switched at birth in the hospital with another baby, and just after Juanita met her birth parents, they had to flee the country to avoid immigration officers. Plus, Juanita’s relationship with mom Gaby exposed the latter’s body-negative prejudices. With that backstory, Juanita could return in the reboot as a progressive-minded social worker trying to get her neighbors on the right track.
Sophie Flickman (Lesley Ann Warren)
How great would it be for one of the original housewives’ parents to be a new Wisteria Lane resident, especially when that parent is played by Warren? Sophie is undoubtedly Susan’s mother — on Desperate Housewives, she was just as romantic, unlucky, and clumsy as her daughter. And Sophie was last seen getting treatment for cancer and enjoying her marriage to husband Morty (played by the late Bob Newhart), so perhaps the reboot could show her finding a new life (and perhaps a fifth husband) in the suburbs.
Zach Young (Cody Kasch)
Yes, Zach rates high on the creep scale. He got obsessive about Susan’s daughter, Julie (Andrea Bowen) and blew up their kitchen. He killed his grandfather Noah (Bob Gunton) after the man insulted him. He pretended to have had sex with Gaby. He even shot his father, Paul (Mark Moses). But Zach was also a character traumatized by the death of his mother, Mary Alice (Brenda Strong), and the family secret that led her to desperation. The reboot could delve into whether Zach can rise above the sins of his parents…
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