Is Rex, dead or not?
Some reviews of the season finale speculate he may be alive
From the AP
Desperate Housewives Has Open Questions
By FRAZIER MOORE, AP Television Writer
NEW YORK - The desperate divas of Wisteria Lane have brought their first season
to a smashing close. So what's in store for Year Two for ABC's hit melodrama
from the 'burbs?
With viewers reeling from cliffhangers, there's nothing to do between now and
fall but ponder what twists might lie ahead.
A biggie: Will Bree (Marcia Cross) be a grieving widow? Is her husband, Rex
(Steven Culp), really dead? If so, will she have to defend herself against
accusations by Rex's doctor that she — in the past a vengeful, cheated-on wife—
was responsible for his death?
Or was the phone call she got from the doctor on the eve of Rex's heart surgery
(after a tender reconciliation scene in his hospital room) some sort of ruse?
Reminder: The audience saw no death scene and no body. When has "Desperate
Housewives" exercised restraint without an ulterior motive?
Meanwhile, viewers know there's another suspect for Rex's malady, fatal or not:
Bree's creepy suitor, George. He's a lovesick, jealously obsessed pharmacist who
tampered with Rex's medication for weeks. Or did he?
NY Newsday.com
Desperate' death, just not housewife
BY NOEL HOLSTON STAFF WRITER
May 23, 2005
Echoing last November's whacking of a significant cast member - Mrs. Huber,
Wisteria Lane's blackmailing busybody - the producers of ABC's satirical
mystery-soap ended its first season by killing off another recurring character:
Bree Van De Camp's husband, Rex.
What? You thought it would be Teri Hatcher's Susan Mayer? She was the one being
menaced with a gun in ABC's ubiquitous on-air promos. But if there's anything
"Housewives" watchers should know by now, it's that those teases are about as
trustworthy as an airline pension fund. Rex (Steven Culp) died in a hospital--
off camera. Apparently his weakened heart was fatally broken by the mistaken
belief that Bree (Marcia Cross), the series' uber-homemaker, has been poisoning
him. Key word: apparently
The Boston Globe
'Desperate' finale gives answers
By Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff
May 23, 2005
The show is not called ''Desperate Husbands," and so we've always known that
the men of ''Desperate Housewives" were fair game. We've known that series
creator Marc Cherry could eliminate any of them at any time without altering
the show's core cast and concept. But still, it was a hard moment in last
night's finale when we learned that Rex Van De Kamp had died in his hospital
bed. And that moment wasn't made any easier knowing that Rex (the likable
Steven Culp) had passed out of the world wrongly believing that his wife, Bree,
had murdered him.