Lynette Scavo

Lynette Scavo
Desperate Housewives character
File:Lynette 39.jpg Felicity Huffman as Lynette Scavo
Portrayed by	Felicity Huffman
First appearance	Pilot (episode 1.01)
Created by	Marc Cherry
In-universe information Other names Lynette Lindquist (maiden name) Lynette Scavo (married name) Occupation Pizzeria co-owner and manager former Vice President, Accounts, Parcher & Murphy Advertising former Housewife Family Stella Wingfield (mother) Mr. Lindquist (father) Glen Wingfield (step-father; former) Lucy Lindquist (younger sister) Lydia Lindquist (sister) Spouse Tom Scavo (husband; possibly deceased) Children Preston Scavo (son; possibly deceased) Porter Scavo (son; possibly deceased) Parker Scavo (son; possibly deceased) Penny Scavo (daughter; possibly deceased) Kayla Huntington (step-daughter; possibly deceased) Other relatives Rodney Scavo (father-in-law) Allison Scavo (mother-in-law) Dave (brother-in-law; via Lydia)

Lynette Scavo (née Lindquist) (born April, 1963) is a fictional character on the ABC television series Desperate Housewives. The character is played by actress Felicity Huffman, who won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for the role in 2005. She drives a Nissan Maxima for the show.

Character history

I always tell him I want him to have what he wants. No. I want him to have what he wants as long as it's what I want. I'm a bitch.

— Lynette Scavo

Season 1

Lynette used to be a high-powered advertising executive but now her husband Tom travels almost all the time and her ADHD afflicted boys and infant daughter are driving her crazy. It is as though she took a new job she thought she would love, and now she desperately misses her old one but she is so driven that she tries to apply the same go-getter methods she used at work to being a mom. And it doesn't always work. Worse, Tom seems to have no idea how harried she is. He's oblivious to her plight, and his cluelessness only fuels her frustration. Lynette is fearless and able to say it like it is. When the world's scariest stay-at-home mother, Maisy Gibbons, insists on a politically correct version of Little Red Riding Hood the impressionable Lynette gives Maisy a talking-to, even offering to "throw down" outside. But Lynette, although a toughie, is also an intense overachiever, and in her frenzied attempt to get the costumes made on time, she winds up getting hooked on her sons' ADHD medication. Her life then begins to unravel as she realizes she's not cut out for the life she leads.

Strung out and exhausted, she hallucinates that Mary Alice Young is offering her a revolver. When she finally calms down, she admits to Bree Hodge and Susan Mayer, that she thinks she's a terrible mother. This admission itself only becomes more painful to Lynette when her friends confess that they too found motherhood challenging. For the first time Lynette realizes that no one has an easy time with motherhood, and she sobs to the girls, "We should tell each other this stuff."

Seeking a solution to their problems, Tom and Lynette hire a nanny, but she turns out to be a little bit too attractive to keep around. Then, when Tom is offered a lucrative promotion that entails him traveling for work even more, Lynette finds a way to ensure that the offer is retracted. Nostalgic for her old days on the career path, she is ambivalent and frustrated with the challenges of what is supposed to be a placid, ideal life.

Season 2

As she begins to see what's right for her family might not be right for her, Lynette displays determination we haven't seen before. When Tom quits his job and decides to be a stay-at-home dad, Lynette is torn by her desire to return to work and anxiety about leaving her kids.

In the ending of season two, Lynette thinks that Tom is having an affair with a woman living far away. She follows Tom and sees them hug and kiss. Lynette then leaves Tom and takes the kids with her. Tom finds her after their son broke his arm from jumping off of a balcony and proves that he did not cheat, but instead he has a daughter that he never knew about. Her name is Kayla and she is currently 12. He had a one night stand with a woman named Nora Huntington and Nora got pregnant, before he was with Lynette.

Season 3

Not long after Lynette got to know about Kayla, she and Nora moved to Fairview to be closer to Tom. Nora's constant interfering in Lynette's life pretty soon had Lynette desperately trying to find a way to get rid of her.

Lynette forbade Nora from talking to Tom after catching her trying to move in on him. In response, Nora stopped by their house to tell them that she was moving to Mexico and was taking Kayla with her. Lynette and Tom then decided on taking Nora to court to get legal custody over Kayla. Later in the day, however, plans changed when both Nora and Lynette found themselves on the wrong end of a hostage crisis in a supermarket. During this situation, both Lynette and Nora got into an argument that caught the attention of Carolyn, the woman who was holding them hostage after trying to kill her own husband for having an affair. This resulted in Nora telling Carolyn that Lynette was trying to steal her child and Lynette countering in response telling her that Nora tried to steal her husband. This remark sent Carolyn over the edge, shooting Nora. Whilst Nora was drawing her last few breaths, she told Lynette to take good care of her daughter, Kayla. Nora's death sent Lynette into a rage, leading her to tell Carolyn that maybe she deserved to be cheated on. Carolyn drew her gun, aiming at Lynette to shoot her. Lynette's new neighbor Art Shephard threw a can at Carolyn's head while she was shooting, causing her to only shoot Lynette in the arm instead of the chest. Carolyn was shot by another one of the hostages. Afterwards, Lynette was hospitalized for her injuries.

She is now struggling to get her stepdaughter to feel at home, though she overheard Kayla saying that she would never love her. She was also upset when Kayla destroyed a doll, given to Lynette by her grandmother, as a peace offering. Recently, Lynette decided to quit her job and work with Tom at their pizzeria and helps celebrate with everyone when Ian and Susan announce they're getting married on the Pizzeria launch night.

In "My Husband, the Pig" it's Lynette and Tom's ninth anniversary and Tom has a big surprise for both of them. Lynette says she doesn't want a surprise and just wants to have an early dinner and a bath. Tom upset by her reluctance to celebrate, cancels the limo and carriage ride and they celebrate their anniversary in a diner and drink to nine years and Lynette tells Tom she's loved every minute of it.

Afterwards she has a disagreement with Tom over the color of the uniform at their pizza place because "orange means something bad is gonna happen". Indeed, Tom hurts his back and Lynette has to take care of the whole pizza place for at least 4 months.

Meanwhile, Tom and Lynette's relationship continues to regress with the new manager, Rick, on the scene. He attempts to bring in new types of food and to change the menu at the pizza parlour. He cooks for Lynette's family at her home, and everyone seems to enjoy it including the children, even though it contains spinach. Despite Rick's cooking skills, Tom doesn't feel the need to change the menu. Lynette and Tom argue about this and despite Tom's decision, Lynette goes over his head and changes the menu. Kayla then finds a review of the pizzeria in the paper and reads the report on how they've become a much better place now they've changed the menu to Tom, who feels threatened and inferior by this. Lynette begins to have growing feelings for Rick and stays late at the restaurant every night. Tom and the kids come to the pizzeria to surprise her, where Kayla sees chemistry between Lynette and Rick. Kayla tells Tom she thinks Lynette likes Rick, and Tom suggests to Lynette that he come back to work and fire Rick, only to receive objections from Lynette. Tom becomes aware of the dangers of Lynette cheating.

Scavo Pizzeria is robbed while Lynette's there. Lynette and Rick are stuck in the walk-in freezer, where they grow closer to each other. Later, while Tom, Lynette, Rick, and a security guard are looking through security tapes, Tom is unpleasantly shocked to find Lynette having dinner with Rick. Tom confronts Rick and tells him to quit working at the pizzeria because he's interfering with Tom and Lynette's marriage. Lynette realizes that she's in love with Rick. Lynette fires Rick and tells Tom that Rick quit his job to work somewhere else where they're offering him a better salary. Tom tells Lynette that he's coming back to work, as the doctor gave him permission to. In her bathroom, Lynette quietly cries to herself because she misses Rick.

Lynette and Tom’s marriage continues to decline and Lynette doesn't speak to Tom for five days. In an attempt to rebuild their marriage, Tom hires a marriage counselor without Lynette knowing, but Lynette finds out anyway becomes even more frustrated with him. With Tom’s doctor informing him on his back recovery, Tom suggests to Lynette that they have sex as it's the only way they can communicate unless they talk instead. Lynette agrees to sex and refuses to talk but becomes violent with Tom, straddling him, tearing off his shirt and kissing him roughly. She says "I said I'd have sex, I didn't say I'd make love," as Tom gasps in pain. Then she begins to unbutton Tom's jeans, when he seizes her wrists, and asks why she's mad at him, and she reveals it's because he had lunch with Rick and because she had to fire him. Lynette then shoves Tom back onto the bed, hurting his back even more. Tom starts having back spasms and he moves suddenly causing Lynette to fall off the bed, banging her head on the side table. She goes to hospital for her injury and Tom finds out Lynette fell for Rick and misses him. The doctor performs a CAT scan on Lynette and finds swollen lymph nodes and suggests they do a biopsy as it could be lymphoma.

In the season finale Getting Married Today, Lynette informs her sister Lucy during a telephone conversation that she has been diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma and also informs her that they are having money troubles. Lucy, however, is unable to help as her husband Dave just lost his job and doesn't have the $10,000 to lend. To get the money they need, Tom arranges for Lynette's mother, Stella Wingfield, to lend them the money---much to Lynette's chagrin. It was explained that Stella is a breast cancer survivor and that they are not on the best of terms with one another because of Stella's actions and implies that they were mistreated as children (as well as that Lynette essentially raised her own two sisters because of Stella's abusive ways). Lynette also blames her mother for driving away her beloved stepfather, Glen. At the end of the episode, after her mother learns about Rick from Kayla, Lynette realizes that she and Stella are going to have to learn to live with get along as she will need help to manage her family while undergoing chemotherapy.

Season 4

In the fourth series, Lynette is now bald due to her cancer and has resorted to wearing wigs. Lynette has opted not to keep it secret from everyone except Tom and her mother that she has cancer. A woman from Parker's school pesters Lynette about getting decorations done for the Gala/Ball, which is Lynette's responsibility. After finally realizing that Lynette cannot handle the same responsibilities as a cancer-free parent, Lynette takes off her wig and explains that she has cancer and the woman says she'll ask someone else and walks away shocked. Bree, Susan and Gabrielle notice her bald and Lynette tells them about her cancer and all four of them decide to no longer keep secrets from each other. Katherine Mayfair, Bree, Susan and Gabrielle run Lynette a lunch and Lynette tells them that she kicked Tom out of her chemo sessions for being too emotional and she asks if anyone would like to join her. Everyone but Gabrielle offers to do it and Lynette confronts Gabrielle who tells her that she doesn't like hospitals but eventually gives in and decides to be there for Lynette anyway. During the sessions, however Gabrielle is awkward and uncomfortable and always trying to leave the room with excuses; however, Lynette asks her about it and Gabrielle tells her about her father dying of cancer and how she's scared of losing Lynette from it and Lynette promises her she'll survive. In the third episode "The Game" Lynette suffers badly from her chemo and her drugs to stop her from being sick don't help. So Stella gets Andrew Van de Kamp to sneak some weed into the brownies she made. Lynette soon after does not get sick and attends Susan's party; however when the drugs kick in, Lynette is furious with her mother and tells her never to pull a stunt like that again.

In Episode 4.06, Lynette's doctor comes to her house and it is revealed that her cancer is clear. Lynette shares a personal emotional moment of regaining her life and breaks down after seeing a dead possum she was trying to exterminate realizing she just got her life back when the innocent creature died.

Lynette soon began to ask her mother to leave due to her risque' behavior. She contacted her sisters and asked one of them to take Stella but they wanted nothing to do with her. Lynette was appalled at the way her sisters were acting in regards to their mother so she agreed to let her mother stay. However, her mother had taken off in a taxi.

After a desperate search for her mother, Lynette was contacted by her old stepfather. He was contacted by Lynette's mother. They met at the park and Lynette confronted her mother. She learned that her mother was not the cause of the breakup between her and her stepfather. Her stepfather left her because he was gay. Lynette offered her mother to come home but her mother refused. However, she did agree to stay with Lynette's former stepfather. It is unclear whether their renewed relationship was platonic or otherwise. Lynette was relieved that her mother would be safe.

A short time later, a tornado warning was declared for Fairview, and Lynette persuaded her neighbor, Mrs. McCluskey to let her family use her basement as a shelter. When the Scavos arrive, Lynette notices Ida's cat, and asks to get rid of it due to Tom's asthma. Mrs. McCluskey refuses, but when she is trying to fix the TV (used to find weather updates), and everybody else is asleep, Lynette sneaks the cat upstairs, but gets caught by the doorway by Mrs. McCluskey and an argument ensues. Mid-sentence, the door flies opens from the wind and the cat runs out. Mrs. McCluskey runs outside to get the cat, with Lynette following her. Lynette finally persuades McCluskey to get back into the house when a Funnel Cloud appears mere houses down from them. They start to run back to Mrs. McCluskey's house, but when things flying around almost hit them, they go into Lynette's house and hide in the bathtub under a mattress. After the tornado ends, Lynette and Mrs. McCluskey go outside only to find Mrs. McCluskey's house in ruins. Whether or not Ida or Lynette's family are still safe within the basement isn't known.

Trivia

• Lynette's four children were originally planned to be called Peter, Paul, Preston and Patsy instead of Porter, Preston, Parker and Penny.
• While Bree's family is based on Marc Cherry's teen years, Lynette's is based on his childhood life.
• Lynette mentioned in season 1 and in "Getting Married Today" that she and her sisters were hit by her mother.