Southern California's heavy April rains fell hard on Wisteria Lane, but the residual effects are pleasing to the eye. The trees are full, and the thick green grass in front of the Desperate Housewives homes on the Universal Studios backlot is almost crying out for a good mow from lawn boy John Rowland (Jesse Metcalfe), who (contracts permitting) will return in Season 3.
Likewise, this past season's general sense of discontent — on and off the set — with Housewives' story lines, plus a slippage in the ratings from the stratospheric levels of the first year, have planted seeds of change for the 2006-07 season. Though Housewives remains ABC's top show with an average 22.1 million viewers, last year at this time, 25 million were watching. The show has lost younger viewers, and ABC's increasingly popular Grey's Anatomy is threatening to take over the top spot.

A tease of what's to come next season is offered in Sunday's two-hour finale (9 p.m. ET/PT), which will be the swan song for at least six characters and feature the returns (via flashback) of three favorite faces from the past.

The theme of the episode, says show creator Marc Cherry, is Moving Day. "All of these women will be leaving certain parts of their life behind and moving on," says Cherry, believing it made sense to "juxtapose that (through flashbacks) to the time when they moved onto Wisteria Lane with all their hopes and expectations for their future."

Felicity Huffman (who plays ambitious working mom Lynette) says the flashback sequences are a great device for viewers "to experience the history and see what these characters were like before we first met them." Not to mention what they were like before Season 2 spun the women off into disconnected side stories.

Back to the future

But this early May day on Wisteria Lane feels just like old times as Teri Hatcher (the accident-prone Susan), Marcia Cross (uptight widow Bree) and Brenda Strong (future suicide victim Mary Alice) film a 1998 flashback to their characters' first meeting with new neighbors Lynette and Tom (Huffman and Doug Savant).

Work-focused Lynette has just learned she is pregnant with twins and is none too pleased. For fun, Huffman (wearing long hair extensions) screams expletives at Savant that she knows will never make it past ABC censors. "You're playing Russian roulette with my ovaries!" she yells at Tom in front of their horrified new neighbors, who have come bearing welcome gifts.

Dissatisfaction also has troubled the Housewives cast behind the scenes this season as the show weathered last year's departure of executive producer Michael Edelstein and this month's exit of executive producer Tom Spezialy, both over creative differences. Everyone on the show agrees Season 2 was a letdown from the breakout success of the series' freshman year.

Cross, back in October 2004 when Housewives was just becoming a phenomenon, said that the minute she had a problem with her character's story line, she would "be in the writers' office begging for a change." This season, she has exercised that option on several occasions. "I love this part and what they have me do, but I've been at Marc's door plenty of times going, 'You've got to be kidding,' " she says.

Other cast members point to specific problems in Season 2.

"The cast got a little thick," says James Denton, whose character, Mike the plumber, had virtually nothing to do this season. "We had 19 regulars this year, even more than Lost, so there were a lot of characters to service."

Denton was so frustrated that at one point he went to his producers to discuss his future. "I had conversations about what their plan was for Mike to give them an out," says Denton, who is now in Santa Fe filming a zombie Western movie, Wanted Undead or Alive, with Chris Kattan. "I told them I'd be happy to go explore other things if they really weren't sure what to do with Mike."

Part of the character explosion was a new family with a new mystery, the Applewhites, and viewers had trouble warming up to them, Denton says. "Viewers were pretty vocal about what they liked and what they didn't — like bringing in a new family with no connection to the neighborhood."

Denton also says Season 2 lacked the "sweet romance" of the first year. His Season 1 love interest, Hatcher's Susan, had the least-defined story arc of all the housewives. While the others faced alcoholism, work crises and miscarriage, Susan just sort of went on some bad dates.

Asked what Susan's arc has been, Hatcher says: "She hasn't had one. Marc has said it has been a giant problem from the beginning. They've sort of thrown some things up against the wall and tried to see if they'd stick, and they haven't. It is hard to invest in the arc of what you are trying to do with your work when you literally show up and there's no script to shoot. That's kind of the way this year has gone."

Cherry remembers Hatcher coming to him, begging, "Let me sleep with someone!" He jokes that she is "always complaining that she doesn't have a boyfriend in real life, so I think she pushes me to have her date on the show because it's the only action she gets."

Hatcher, resting her head on Cross' shoulder in between takes, tries to stay optimistic, stressing, "I love Susan more than anything. When they write her well, there is nothing more fun. And I really would love to do this show for as many years as it runs, so I have no interest in anything but this show being as good as it can be. That all said, I have nothing to do with the writing."

The man who does is Cherry. When he arrives on the set in a golf cart, he's greeted with cheers. "Here's the king!" Huffman proclaims.

Though Cherry acknowledges that mistakes were made, he also says, "I see some other shows on TV and think, even the most boring episode of Desperate Housewives still has more twists and turns in it than your average hour of TV."

He has laid out a plan to recapture the first-season magic. "We're going to focus on domestic drama at home," Cherry says. "And I'm going to work much harder to criss-cross all the women's stories so that their lives bump up against each other."

Susan's new directions

To help make that possible, Lynette will eventually end up back home, a change that makes Huffman happy. "I loved being at work, but maybe it was time to work my way out of the office," she says. "But I can't just go back to being a stay-at-home mom, because we've seen that done and after a while it's not that fun to watch."

Although he's still formulating a Season 3 story line for Susan, Cherry says the character will be dealing with her daughter, Julie, growing up and beginning to date. And Andrea Bowen, who plays Julie, says she's more than ready. "It's time for something a little more spicy," she says. "Julie's just so good."

As for romance, all Denton will say is, "I have a lot to do in the finale" — Mike and Susan "sure are cozy." But everyone is keeping mum about whether that might continue in Season 3. "I have no idea where Mike ends up," he says.

There will be another big mystery in Season 3, but unlike the Applewhite story, Denton says, it "involves a number of people in the neighborhood that you already care about."

One thing that won't change: Mary Alice as narrator. Cherry says he was pitched the idea of having a new "dead" character narrate the show each year, and he briefly considered Steven Culp (killed off as Rex in last year's finale) as a replacement. But he opted to stay with the familiar and will use Mary Alice's voice-over to move the story forward six months into the future at the start of Season 3. ("A smart move," says Huffman, who, like many, felt that Season 2 lagged in getting off the ground.)

About 15 minutes of the season premiere will catch viewers up on the missing months: "A whole lot will have happened," Cherry says. "We come into their lives at breaking points."

"The writers are bringing the future into the present," Strong explains. "This finale builds to a much stronger season with a much clearer arc."

And next season, Savant hopes, "will be back to being audacious — stuff you can't see anywhere else on television."

One thing that won't change: Mary Alice as narrator. Cherry says he was pitched the idea of having a new "dead" character narrate the show each year, and he briefly considered Steven Culp (killed off as Rex in last year's finale) as a replacement. But he opted to stay with the familiar and will use Mary Alice's voice-over to move the story forward six months into the future at the start of Season 3.

I have little confidence that whoever is left writing this show can turn things around. The problems started in the first season finale, so it isn't just a second year slump.

Denton, who is now in Santa Fe filming a zombie Western movie, Wanted Undead or Alive, with Chris Kattan. "I told them I'd be happy to go explore other things if they really weren't sure what to do with Mike."