As we told you a few weeks ago, Desperate Housewives is about to introduce a little girl-on-girl action to the neighborhood in the form of a romance between Dana Delany‘s character Katherine and guest star Julie Benz‘s character Robin.
The storyline gears up this Sunday at 7 E.T. on ABC. Here’s a little background, in case you haven’t been watching this season. In a Big Tragedy earlier this season, a plane crashed right smack dab into the middle of a Wisteria Lane party and killed Karl, ex-husband of Susan (Terri Hatcher). Part of Susan’s inheritance, to her unpleasant surprise, was a strip club.
Susan sells her interest in the club, but not before meeting stripper Robin (Benz) and talking her into quitting her job to make something of herself. Unfortunately, Robin’s only skill is stripping. How can Susan help? By inviting Robin to move in with the family, of course. Susan’s son M.J. will forever count this as the moment he started believing in God.
That brings us to now. This week finds Wisteria Lane getting to know the new stripper on the block. We don’t know details, but at some point this week, Katherine will invite Robin to move in with her, not knowing that Robin is a lesbian. Dana Delany recently talked to The Advocate about what’s in store for Katherine.
According to Delany, Katherine’s journey is a bit like Meredith Baxter‘s coming out – she never ruled out being a lesbian; it just didn’t occur to her until she fell for a woman:
I think it’s going to take her by surprise, the feelings she’s having. I think that she’s still so emotionally vulnerable from getting out of the loony bin [laughs], and I think she and Robin [Benz] connect on a kind of wounded, emotional level. And I think if anything, she’s feeling this kind of emotional solace with her, and that draws her to Robin in a physical way, and that’s confusing to her.
The fact that Julie Benz is hot certainly doesn’t hurt Delany’s feelings.
Oh, my God … and not only is she gorgeous, she’s a really good actress. I think people get so lost in her looks that they don’t realize how good she is.
Delany reiterated what Benz told AfterEllen.com: The gay storyline is not just a stunt.
I just want it to be true, you know. I think it would be fun if Katherine did decide that she was gay. I don’t know if that’s going to happen, though, because story lines change a lot on the set. If anything, I think Marc [Cherry] is interested in playing the complexity of that.
She also talked about her role in The L Word, which all of us remember very fondly.
You know, I have to say … even though it was only one episode, I will never forget, I arrived on a Sunday in Vancouver and they were shooting and Jennifer Beals asked me to come to her trailer and talk to her about the part.
So I went there and she was adamant that we not kiss because, she said, “You know, I’ve been cheating on my girlfriend for so long, now we’re finally back together, and I just wouldn’t do that. I really have to protect the integrity of this relationship.” I was so disappointed [laughs]. I said to her, “Why else do you do The L Word … if you don’t get to kiss a girl?” So I said to her, “Could we almost kiss? Cuz that’s even more sexy in some ways.” And she said, “Yeah, that’s fine.” So that’s what it ended up being, and I think, in some ways, it was sexier.
It certainly was.
Sunday, though, we will get to see an actual kiss, not a tease. And even though it starts as a kind of joke – a way to avoid men who are coming on to Robin and Katherine, we have been assured that it doesn’t stop there.
We will have mini-recaps of the lesbian episodes of Desperate Housewives starting next week. Are you planning to watch?
