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Although Andrew’s sociopathic coming-out may be unusual, it is not unprecedented. In Season 2 of FOX’s Boston Public, teenager Jeremy Peters (Kaj-Erik Eriksen) came out as gay but then later dated a girl, suggesting that he was bisexual. Although Jeremy’s mother was uncomfortable with her son’s homosexuality and initially reacted with much homophobia, eventually the two reconciled—to a degree. Because before Jeremy came out, his mother had been in the practice of locking him in their basement to punish him for misbehaving. Jeremy became so incensed about this abuse that he later tied up his mother and left her in the basement without food or water. His mother ended up cutting off her own hand in order to escape, and had it replaced with a hook. It was also revealed that Jeremy was suspected of killing his own father.

In the words of a Television Without Pity recapper, “Jeremy may have killed his father due to jealousy issues over possession of his mother, who used to have orgasms while nursing him and who is missing a hand which she lost after he locked her in the basement in retaliation for a similar practice of hers, but now she's dating his vice principal, who he may therefore want to kill…and he's gay.”

Desperate Housewives’ Andrew seems almost tame by comparison.

What is disturbing is that both Andrew and Jeremy are suggestively bisexual. No definitive categorization has yet taken place, which means both characters are swimming a vague pool of sexual innuendo. Bisexual characters are typically portrayed as confused, psychotic, and over-sexed—an emotional and psychological condition which seems (at least in television dramas) to lead to a life of crime. This is an unfortunate stereotype that continues to this day. One Tree Hill’s Anna (Daniella Alonso) is one of the few bisexual characters on television to be portrayed as a normal human being.

The one thing that might prevent Andrew from slipping into stereotypical evil bisexuality is the fact that he is a character on Desperate Housewives, a campy, melodramatic soap opera. This genre of television regularly creates despicable characters, both male and female, and elevates them to the level of the bitch-we-love-to-hate.

Although our culture’s romance with self-empowerment psychotherapy makes heroes out of people who go out of their way to be good while overcoming great obstacles, on soap operas, the villains get the most respect. Desperate Housewives is a throwback in many ways to the top nighttime soaps of the 1980s, including Dynasty, with its queen of mean, Alexis Carrington (Joan Collins). On Buffy the Vampire Slayer—which crossed several genre lines, including the soapy one—it wasn’t until happy-go-lucky lesbian witch Willow turned evil that she really became a three-dimensional heroine.

Andrew’s potential for evil must also be considered in the context of his relationship with his mother, who utters such lovely lines as “I would love you even if you were a murderer” and “the way, the correct word is not ‘gay,’ it’s sodomy.” In this situation, Bree comes off as a caricature of the far right, and Andrew could even be seen as the underdog or victim of her bigotry. There must be those in the viewing audience who are rooting for him to make his mother prove that she will love him even if he is a murderer—a clear illustration of the ridiculous nature of the comparison.

So while Andrew’s nasty qualities might, on first glance, seem like a step backward in time and tolerance, they should be read in the context of Marc Cherry’s authorship of the campy Desperate Housewives.

An evil Andrew, in the end, is more powerful than a sympathetic one.

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