Desperate Housewives Ending, Explained

The Desperate Housewives ending wraps up eight seasons of mysteries in the picture-perfect suburban neighborhood, Wisteria Lane, and the ending answers big questions about what happens to main characters Susan Mayer (Teri Hatcher), Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman), Bree Van de Kamp (Marcia Cross), and Gabrielle “Gaby” Solis (Eva Longoria). Although Mary Alice Young’s (Brenda Strong) friends have many happy times together, it was clear that the conclusion would be just as emotional as the rest of the series, as most episodes focus on the intense personal lives of the four main residents of this seemingly peaceful street in the small town of Fairview.

There are several mysteries in every season, from why Paul Young (Mark Moses) comes back home after a decade away to what Angie Bolen (Drea de Matteo) is hiding from. The best shows like Desperate Housewives have series finales that are gripping, memorable, and wrap up every major storyline, and the final episode offers up an impressive ending. So, how does Desperate Housewives end? It ends with a lot of characters getting a chance to start over — away from Wisteria Lane.

The Main Characters All Leave Wisteria Lane

The End Of The Show Marks The End Of Their Time In The Central Location

In season 8, episode 23, “Finishing The Hat,” the final episode of Desperate Houswives, the main characters move away from Wisteria Lane, which is bittersweet. Each woman is on a new life path that makes sense for her personality, hopes, and dreams, and it feels like the right time to make a change. Susan shares that she will move first.

Susan is grieving her husband Mike Delfino’s (James Denton) passing, which happened halfway through season 8 and is one of the most emotional Desperate Housewives deaths. Susan also wants to be there for her daughter Julie (Andrea Bowen), who has a baby in the finale. It makes sense that Susan would want to start over.

Bree and Trip Weston (Scott Bakula), her former lawyer, get married and relocate to Louisville, Kentucky. Lynette and Gaby both move to start new careers. All four of the main Desperate Housewives characters are given the opportunity — and make the decision — to leave Wisteria Lane, a place that holds just as many bad memories for all of them as it does good. The Desperate Housewives ending promises that all of the ladies get a fresh start somewhere they can leave their pasts behind.

What Happens To The Ladies After Desperate Housewives

The Tight Social Circle Is Finally Broken

It’s made clear that when most of the main characters of Desperate Housewives leave Wisteria Lane, they drift apart. Though they get together in the finale, and promise to do so even after they leave, Mary Alice’s voice-over makes it clear that the group of friends, thrown together by dramatic circumstances, never find their way back together.

When Bree and Trip move to Kentucky, Bree eventually becomes a state politician, which works perfectly given her confidence, bravery, and ambition. Earlier on Desperate Housewives, Bree is a caterer and cookbook author, and she has two terrible marriages. Bree gets the happy ending that she deserves, as she has found love and a purpose in life.

Of the best characters on Desperate Housewives, Lynette and Gaby are passionate, hard-working, and feel like their suburban existence on Wisteria Lane has been holding them back. They have always felt destined to ask for more out of their lives, and the change of location allows them to dream bigger.

Lynette and Tom Scavo (Doug Savant) relocate to New York City and have a penthouse near Central Park, and Lynette is now a CEO. She stays there for years as it’s revealed that she even takes her grandchildren to the park. Gaby relocates to California and becomes a host on the Home Shopping Network, which allows her to share her love of fashion, something that gradually progresses through the show as she tries to figure out what she wants to do with her life.

Susan is the only one of the main characters whose future the audience doesn’t get to see following the Desperate Housewives ending. Her storyline in the series finale is firmly grounded in the present and in her getting the chance to start over. Hopefully, she gets a happy ending, just like her friends from Wisteria Lane do.

The Contents Of The Box Are Never Revealed

The Show Ended With A Key Mystery Unsolved

While the series finale does end each main character’s arc, the final scene sets up a new mystery. A new housewife character, Jennifer (Lindsey Kraft), begins living in Susan’s home and puts a locked box in her kitchen. Mary Alice’s final line in Desperate Housewives is her memorable voiceover, “Most people just go on, day after day, trying in vain to keep secrets… that will never stay hidden.” The series doesn’t reveal what is in the box, and while it can be frustrating not to receive answers to mysteries, this works since it allows the show to end on a powerful note.

The final bookending scene of Desperate Housewives is reminiscent of the last moments of Pretty Little Liars when a new group of teenage girls has a sleepover. Since the tone of both series is often dark and foreboding, it would be unsatisfying if the endings were too happy or peaceful and there was no hint of a new problem. The creepy town of Rosewood is just like Fairview, as both locales look nice but attract people who are hiding something from their past. It’s riveting to suggest that the cycle of mysteries will continue.

Katherine Comes Back And Inspires Lynette

The Desperate Houswives Finale Sees A Key Character Return

Katherine Mayfair (Dana Delany) returns in the series finale of Desperate Housewives after having moved to Paris and tells Lynette that she wants her to be in charge of the U.S. part of her company, which makes frozen desserts. It’s compelling that Katherine comes back so she can change Lynette’s life and inspire her to achieve her dream of having an important career, which is something that she has wrestled with for a long time. This is a smart storyline that forces Lynette and Tom to think about their relationship, as they have struggled because of Lynette’s dissatisfaction with being a stay-at-home parent.

Because Delany’s character leaves Desperate Housewives in season 6 and starts a more exciting life in France, it makes sense to have her help Lynette find a way to be happy moving forward. While the characters have never been as close as Lynette is to the other women on Wisteria Lane, it’s moving that Katherine sees a kindred adventurous spirit in Lynette and knows that she would also benefit from moving away and having an exciting career.

The True Meaning Of The Desperate Housewives Ending

The Shows Theme Of The Power Of Friendship Comes Full Circle

The ending of Desperate Housewives is about the power of having meaningful and close friendships, as the characters say that they will keep in touch even though they are moving. The finale also touches on the passage of time and accepting changes in life, as the main characters play cards and say that they will continue to spend time together. The highly-rated Desperate Housewives episode is particularly emotional as it’s evident that Bree, Lynette, Gaby, and Susan aren’t going to see each other as often as they would like, if at all. This time in their life is over, and they have to be okay with that.

The end of Desperate Housewives also has themes of grief and coping with death as the main characters still miss Mary Alice, whose passing kicks off the pilot episode. Mary Alice narrates via voiceover as the ghosts of beloved characters like Mike and Karen McCluskey (Kathryn Joosten) stand on Wisteria Lane and say goodbye. Given the high kill count of Desperate Housewives, this is a smart way to include these characters. As Mary Alice is proud of her friends for following their dreams, the ending shares that while life goes on, people never forget those who have passed, and those loved ones are never truly gone.

How The Desperate Housewives Ending Was Received

The Desperate Housewives Ending Was Successful Overall

Finale episodes of any show often draw mixed reactions, and the Desperate Housewives ending was no exception. Some critics and viewers felt it was a fitting end for the women of Wisteria Lane, whereas others parted ways with the show wanting more or feeling generally unsatisfied. A regular criticism seems to fall around the final five minutes of the episode. Many felt that revealing the central characters never found their way back to each-other nullified the emotional impact of everything that had come before.

While the characters of Desperate Housewives parting ways for good did add a touch of realism, as this is often the way things pan out in real life, in the eyes of many viewers, keeping to the fantasy that the ladies of Wisteria Lane would be friends for life would have been a much more fitting sendoff. Outside this, though, the response to “Finishing The Hat” was more positive than it was negative.

Critics were especially praiseworthy when it came to the ending of Desperate Housewives. While some fans and viewers may have had chagrin with a few of the decisions, this sentiment didn’t seem to apply to reviews of the episode. It’s also worth noting that the episode was a key part of Kathryn Joosten’s Emmy nomination for best supporting actress at the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards, which goes to show that Desperate Housewives ended on a strong — if mildly controversial for some corners of the fanbase — note.

Did Desperate Housewives Have A Satisfying Ending?

Viewers Also Found The Ending Worked

Desperate Housewives ran for 8 seasons between 2004 and 2012, building up a significant fanbase with every viewer having their favorite character. What’s more, the show ran on soap-opera-level drama in its narratives, with jaw-dropping twists and turns throughout all 180 episodes. In these circumstances, the finale of Desperate Housewives walked a tightrope. However, despite the fact that many similar shows have dropped the ball when concluding, Desperate Housewives ended on an incredibly satisfying note.

Aside from not explaining what was in the box, Desperate Housewives managed to conclude in a satisfying way for more-or-less every character. The women of Wisteria Lane all going their own separate ways was an incredibly natural way to taper off the wider narrative, on none of the reasons the characters moved away felt contrived or forced. The return of Katherine was an incredibly nice touch too, and added to the general feeling of the surprising realism that came in the final Desperate Housewives episode.

The show rightly deserves praise for ending with a solid and satisfying send-off. Desperate Housewives could easily have leaned too hard into its soap-opera inspirations and concluded with a bombastic and jaw-dropping finale for the sake of shoehorning in one final shock. It didn’t though, and instead ensured the show’s legion of fans would feel they’d made the right choice by investing so many years in the show’s characters. Yes, there are some who felt that the ending could have done more, though it’s difficult to envision exactly how the ending of Desperate Housewives could have been better.