Karen McCluskey

Karen McCluskey
Kathryn Joosten as Karen McCluskey.
Portrayed by	Kathryn Joosten
First appearance	"Love Is in the Air" (episode 1.14)
Created by	Marc Cherry
Profile
Aliases	Karen Simmons [1] (maiden name) Karen McCluskey (married name)
Occupation	Housewife/Babysitter
Residence	4358 Wisteria Lane Fairview, Eagle State
Relationships Sibling(s) Roberta Simmons (sister) Gale (sister) Spouse(s) Gilbert McCluskey (husband; deceased) Romances Roy Bender (boyfriend) Children ? McCluskey (son; deceased)

Karen McCluskey (née Simmons) is a fictional character on the ABC television series Desperate Housewives. The character is played by Kathryn Joosten, who won the Emmy Award twice for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series in 2005 and 2008.

Appearances

Season 1

Karen McCluskey, born in 1943, is introduced in the series as a neighborhood nemesis of Lynette Scavo. In the season one episode Live Alone and Like It (episode 19) we learn that she suffers from severe arthritis and how Lynette helped her when she collapsed soon after they became good friends. Known as the bickering old woman of the neighborhood, Mrs. McCluskey can be constantly known for bickering and causing ruckus. However, deep down Mrs. McCluskey is a really good woman full of love. It was revealed that she had a son that died at a young age. She offered to babysit the Scavo kids only to be sent home because Lynette found her to be 'ancient'. Throughout the entire show, she is referred to mainly as Mrs. McCluskey rather than Karen.

Season 2

One time, Mrs. McCluskey accidentally tasered Lynette's co-worker Stu when she believed he was trying to "abduct" Lynette's kids. She was reported to have seen Matthew Applewhite and Danielle Van de Kamp making out at the county park. In episode 15 of season 2, she found Bree passed out on the front lawn. She subsequently alerted Lynette that Bree was drinking while babysitting her kids. Bree's drinking problems inadvertently improved Mrs. McCluskey's relationship with Lynette, as she now frequently babysits the Scavo kids. Towards the end of Season 2 she supported Lynette, who followed Tom Scavo to Atlantic City in a bid to find out the truth behind Tom's supposed infidelity.

Season 3

She has emerged as a more prominent and visible character in Season 3, often involved in social roles with members of Wisteria Lane and even forming a friendship with Edie Britt. It has also been notable that due to the very separate story that Bree Hodge has this season, Mrs. McCluskey is often seen gathering with the other three main housewives Lynette Scavo, Gabrielle Solis and Susan Mayer. Recently, Mrs. McCluskey gave Mike Delfino his toolbox back (which later got him arrested despite her hiding it), and helped form the protest against the pedophile Art Shephard. In the episode Liaisons, it was revealed that Mrs. McCluskey has her own secret: she has the dead body of her husband, Gilbert, stored in a chest freezer in her basement. In the following episode, God, That's Good Karen breaks her arm, and is taken to hospital. In the mean time, first Parker Scavo, then Ida Greenberg discovers Gilbert's dead body. Karen manages to persuade Parker to keep quiet, but Ida goes to the police, and Karen is put into jail. Mrs. McCluskey is the talk of the town after the news spreads about her husband's body being found in the freezer. She becomes hassled by local kids, who throw eggs at her house, and paint 'Witch' on her door. Lynette also changes baby sitters to keep her away from her children, but Parker continues to defend her and tells Mrs. McCluskey to just tell the truth to make it stop. She goes to Travers' birthday party while the other Wisteria Lane residents are cleaning up and reveals her actions. She explains that she came home at 2 am from a weekend away to find Gilbert had died. Waiting until morning to call the Funeral Home, she checks his pension plan to see he'd signed everything off to his first wife. Mrs. McCluskey, in fear of losing everything, kept his body in the freezer and kept cashing the checks. Lynette then hires Mrs. McCluskey back as her babysitter. Lynette tells Mrs. McCluskey the family missed her, and Mrs. McCluskey says she missed them too. As she walks into her house Mrs. McCluskey says that she will need a raise as she has a lot of money to pay and holds up bills.

Season 4

Mrs. McCluskey asks to speak to Carlos and complains to him about the garbage he left out being late and almost foils Edie's fake suicide plan but notices her at the last minute. Later at Katherine Mayfair's barbecue, she questions Katherine as to why she left town twelve years ago without saying any goodbyes to anyone and Katherine is shocked that she remembers so much.^[2] We are told that Karen used to babysit Dylan Mayfair, and knew something about her father, even though Dylan insists her father left her when she was a baby.^[3]

Karen later gives her opinion on new neighbour's Bob and Lee's water fountain by saying it's "crap". When Katherine and Lynette both run for the job of the leader of the home owners association Karen casts her vote for Lynette although Katherine wins anyway.^[4]

In Something's Coming, Mrs. McCluskey reluctantly invites Lynette Scavo and her family to take shelter in her house because of a tornado. But when she invites Ida Greenberg and her pet cat Toby to also take shelter, things get complicated as Lynette's husband Tom is allergic to cats. So Lynette tries to smuggle Toby out of the house. When Karen catches Lynette smuggling Toby from the basement, Lynette angrily accuses her of choosing a cat over Tom. Suddenly the door blows open and Toby escapes. As Karen tries to get Toby back into her house, Lynette catches her and then they see the tornado coming. They try to get back into the house, but when things block their way, they enter Lynette's house and take refuge in the bathtub. Later, when the tornado ends, they step outside, only to find Mrs. McCluskey's house in ruins.^[5]

In Welcome to Kanagawa, Mrs. McCluskey sees Lynette's children and husband recovered safely from the ruins of Karen's house. But unfortunately, Ida didn't survive the tornado. As Lynette and Karen pack Ida's belongings, they think of spreading the ashes inside a baseball stadium, but things get complicated as Ida's niece and nephew take the urn back to Omaha, Nebraska, not knowing that Ida's ashes were replaced by dust from a vacuum cleaner inside the urn. Later that night, Mrs. McCluskey and Lynette break into the baseball stadium and spread Ida's ashes around the field, but get caught by the police. The police let Mrs. McCluskey and Lynette off with a warning. Karen almost had her third strike as she and Lynette know that it wouldn't be enough.

In the season finale Free the show skips five years later and by this time Karen would be 69.

Season 5

In the five year leap for the fifth season Karen is shown to be alive and well. When Edie returns to Fairview with her new husband, Dave Williams, Karen welcomes her back and continues to tease and make jokes to her like they used to. Edie begins to get upset and Dave asks Karen if she could stop, but Karen refuses. Later on, Toby mysteriously goes missing and whilst searching for him Karen asks Dave to help her look for the cat, but Dave refuses, however, when Karen refuses again to apologize to Edie. Karen then begins to suspect that Dave had taken Toby. Karen apologizes to Edie and asks Edie to tell Dave she did so, and when returning home that night Toby was back. Karen's suspicions of Dave begins to grow and she enlists the help of Katherine in order find out more information.

A few episodes later it's Karen's 70th birthday and the residents organize a surprise party for her at Susan's house. However, when Dave breaks into Karen's house and moves stuff around in order to annoy her, Karen arrives at the party with a baseball bat and goes to attack Dave, but is stopped. Everyone looks on worried as they believe she is going crazy as Karen is taken away in an ambulance. Dave tells her to take care and she gets driven off. In the hospital Edie visits her and Karen apologizes, saying her pills had made her accuse and attack Dave. Edie accepts the apology and after she leaves Karen reveals it was all an act and she rings her sister Roberta asking her to come down. Together the two of them try to find out more information about Dave's past and they discover he was a patient of a psychiatrist. When they visit, however, the doctor is not there (he was actually killed by Dave the episode before), and Roberta then tells Karen she's had enough and that she cannot help anymore and she leaves. Karen returns to Fairview and later on in the eighteenth episode of the season hangs out with Edie and she tells Karen about his past and how he lost his wife and daughter in a car accident. Karen apolgizes, saying she wouldn't have done what she did to Dave if she knew that as she lost a child herself and knows what it can do to a person.

In the following episode Edie dies due to being electrocuted and Karen, along with Susan, Gabrielle, Bree and Lynette, are asked by Dave to take her ashes to her son Travers. When they arrive and tell Travers, he is not visibly upset by Edie's death and he tells them she was not a good mom and that she did not even attempt to raise him. Karen gets angry at this and tells Travers how some years back Edie had comforted Karen on the anniversary of her son's death and Edie told her about Travers and that he wanted him to be brought up properly and that she knew she wouldn't have been a good mother to him. Travers then becomes upset over her death and tells the ladies they should take the ashes. Karen, being the closest to Edie, stays up trying to figure out what to do with Edie when suddenly her front door gently blows open, Karen looks down the street at Wisteria Lane and comes up with the idea to spread Edie's ashes through the neighborhood.

In the fifth season finale Karen and Roberta once again try to find out more information about Dave by breaking into Edie's house after Roberta got a call from Dr. Heller's receptionist saying he died in the fire. Karen and Roberta are caught by the police and taken to the station where they discover Dave's ex-wife and daughter were the ones killed in the accident which involved Mike and Susan. Roberta then mentions how freaky it was that Dave changed his name to live with the people who were involved with his family's death.

Season 6

In the sixth season, Karen begins dating a steak salesman named Roy Bender. She happily falls in love with him. She witnesses Danny Bolen and Julie Mayer's argument one evening. She and Roy then find Julie after she is strangled and left for dead.

Behind the Scenes

Kathryn Joosten mentioned on the talk show The View and subsequent interviews that Marc Cherry promised her not to kill off her character. Joosten explained that Marc Cherry felt badly about all her previous characters being killed off.^[6] However, her character could be written out by moving away at any time.

Recently, Kathryn Joosten was promoted to series regular by Marc Cherry at the start of Season 6. Mrs. McCluskey's first official storyline as a regular is her new love interest, Roy the steak salesman.

References