Eva Longoria Parker Shines on Wisteria Lane
Parker Emerges as the New Bright Spot of "Desperate Housewives"
Oct 19, 2009
When Desperate Housewives premiered in 2004 to high ratings and critical acclaim, it was TV veterans Teri Hatcher (Lois & Clark), Marcia Cross (Melrose Place) and Felicity Huffman (Sports Night) who garnered much of the credit and awards attention. The three were each nominated for a Golden Globe in 2005 and 2006 as well as an Emmy in 2005. Hatcher prevailed at the Globes and at SAG in 2005, while Huffman took home the Emmy in 2005 and a SAG Award in 2006 with additional SAG and Emmy nominations in 2007.
In the shadows was the show's fourth co-star, the then Eva Longoria -- who was the only housewife not to be nominated for that 2005 Globe. Though a Globe nomination came through the following year, her inclusion seemed just as much about the press generated from the previous years' snub as it did her increasingly great work on the show.
It's Not Easy Being "Desperate"
Longoria-Parker played the self-centered shallowness of her Gabrielle Solis with such comedic perfection that it was easy to write off both her performance and the character itself as equally one-note. Those early storylines of a not-so-secret affair with her gardener (however motivated by a husband putting his work before their marriage), battles with the mother-in-law from hell and her lack of desire for children on account of wanting to maintain her supermodel-era figure all played into that perception.
Subsequent storylines over the next few seasons showed us an evolving and growing Gabrielle Solis. A trick pregnancy in the second season perpetrated by a determined husband who tampered with her birth control pills revealed the possibility that she is not as child-averse as previously thought. A miscarriage later in the second season and a hysterically ill-fated attempt at surrogacy in the third season led to a hilarious divorce from husband Carlos after it was revealed that he was having an affair with the surrogate. In the fourth season, Gabrielle's found herself in an unhappy post-Carlos relationship with a mayoral candidate who ultimately drove her back into the arms of her then ex-husband. It was through these evolutionary storylines that revealed the true caliber of Longoria's performance which had previously gone largely unnoticed.
Gabrielle Comes into her Own
Gabrielle's turning point occurred following her reunion with Carlos toward the end of the fourth season when the couple found themselves broke in the wake of a tornado that injured Carlos and rendered him blind through the middle of the fifth. Contrary to Carlos's expectation, Gabrielle not only stayed with him but also stepped up and maintained their household. When the extent of her efforts was seen once surgery restored his sight, the growth and previously unseen strength of Gabrielle Solis' character was also seen.
Gabrielle's turning point came in the wake of the five-year jump into the future at the beginning of season five when it was revealed that she and Carlos had became the parents of two girls in the interim. Shades of early Gabrielle that resurfaced in her efforts to slim down her elder daughter by having the young girl run alongside the car gave way to a latter-day Gabrielle who later told that same daughter how beautiful she was after the youngster got into Gabrielle's makeup.
Longoria-Parker Shines
Longoria-Parker excels in both sequences as she subtly establishes the conflict between who Gabrielle Solis was and who she has become. That conflict comes to a satisfying head in the October 11 episode when her newly-single former gardener/lover John makes a return appearance and Gabrielle decides that their past relationship is to remain just that.
That same episode provided another great moment for Gabrielle to face that part of her lengthy relationship with Carlos -- a part that still brings him pain and anger. During John's first appearance in the episode, Carlos took notice of Gabrielle fixing herself up and letting her hair down while she and John were briefly catching up at a restaurant that it turns out he now owns. Worried about residual chemistry between Gabrielle and John, Carlos calls her to task -- prompting Gabrielle to show up at a client dinner looking unkempt and homely in order to rightly prove the point that after everything they've been through, he should think better of her.
It was an even greater moment for Eva Longoria Parker, who now gets to shine in a role playing a character whose evolution and growth has finally caught up the caliber of the performance delivered by an underrated actress whose own growth as an actress has long been overshadowed by her long-established and well-respected co-stars.
Let's hope the Academy is also paying attention.
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