Melissa Harrold, Staff Writer

If being an adult means that a girl has to own up to her mistakes, then this week's episode of "Desperate Housewives" showed that attempts at maturity don't necessarily mean exemption from embarrassing, immature situations.

Take Susan (Teri Hatcher) for instance. Unhappily single and desperate to change her situation, Susan still holds a massive grudge against ex-husband Carl (Richard Burgi), who dumped her for a younger, blonder woman.

After an embarrassing scene in her front yard, unfortunately witnessed by her hot neighbor, Mike (James Denton), Susan decided to swallow her pride and have a conversation with the father of her daughter in order to facilitate a more civil relationship.

Unluckily for Susan, however, Carl shows up when she's wearing only a towel and the conversation doesn't go as planned. As he's speeding off in his red sports car (another accessory to his mid-life crisis, no doubt), her towel gets caught in the car door and takes off with Carl, leaving Susan naked and locked out of her house.

Maybe this wasn't such bad luck for Susan, though -- it did get her a date with Mike.

While her exposure wasn't of the physical sort, Bree (as well as Bree's husband, Rex) also ended up in an embarrassing situation. Unlike Susan, however, Bree came one step closer to admitting she was wrong after this humiliation.

Slideshow: Episode 3

Bree and Rex threw a dinner party in honor of Mary Alice (Brenda Strong), the show's deceased narrator, and Bree was adamant that her friends be kept in the dark about their marriage counseling sessions. The prim and proper Bree was horrified when Rex divulged her little secret, but managed to get even during dinner by divulging a sexual secret that Rex would have rather kept on the down-low.

I'm not sure this is the place to divulge exactly what she said, but needless to say, it was enough to cause Rex to pack up and move out.

Can you blame him? Your deepest, darkest sexual secrets are not the polite conversation you expect between the appetizer and main course.

Even though this low blow ended up being bad news for Bree, it did lead her to seek out the help of Dr. Goldfine, their counselor. Admitting she needs help could be the first step toward liberating herself from the shackles of Stepford wifedom -- or not.

One of the men, too, owned up to his faults, although the picture that Lynette found of her husband partying on one of his "business trips" might indicate that he has some skeletons in his closet that we don't know about yet. Foreshadowing perhaps? Lynette's husband did admit that taking care of the kids wasn't exactly the cakewalk he had imagined it to be, after spending just one evening with them.

On the rest of the block desperation prevails, and not all of the characters owned up to their mistakes. Susan still hasn't admitted to burning down Edie's house, and Gabrielle remains in her escapism from a passionless marriage. She even bought the little neighbor girl a bike to bribe her not to tell Carlos that she saw Gabrielle making out with the cute teenaged gardener.

Beneath all the comical, embarrassing happenings among the residents of Wisteria Lane, however, resides something more sinister than these comical scenes, although it still wasn't addressed in this episode. What did Mary Alice's husband dig up from under their pool? Why is he selling their house? And what was up with that creepy note addressed to Mary Alice, saying "I know what you did"?

It seems like something must come of these questions in the future. Mary Alice's son came upon the gun she used to kill herself, and asked his dad, Paul, why it was still in the house.

"Because I thought we might need it some day," was his disturbing reply.

It also remains to be seen whether it will come to light that Susan burned down Edie's house, though the scenes from next week's show indicate that a nosey neighbor might have discovered the secret.