Desperate Housewives had a habit of killing off its characters, including James Denton’s Mike Delfino in the final season.
ABC’s hit drama Desperate Housewives, which ran for eight seasons from 2004 to 2012, was a soap opera to its core. The four women who made up its main cast were constantly finding themselves involved in betrayal, petty backstabbing, infidelity, and illegal activity.
Throughout its run, many of Desperate Housewives’ primary and supported characters dropped like flies, including Mike Delfino, husband of Teri Hatcher’s Susan Mayer.
Why Did Desperate Housewives Write Out Mike?
In the eighth and final season of Desperate Housewives, Mike Delfino, played by James Denton (also known as Dr. Sam Radford in Good Witch) was killed by a bullet from the barrel of loan shark Donny’s gun.
In a poignant sequence, flashbacks of Mike’s key moments in the series are shown in quick succession, before the gunshot reaches its target. As Mike starts to bleed out, a distraught Susan rushes to his side, but there is nothing that can be done.
Although Susan Mayer was devastated by the loss of her husband, James Denton himself was very much on board with creator and showrunner Marc Cherry’s decision to off Mike.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly in 2012, whilst Desperate Housewives’ last batch of episodes was still airing, Denton revealed that Marc Cherry elected to end Mike’s time on the series midway through Season 7, despite Denton’s assumption that his role was safe:
“Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, last year. Marc [Cherry] asked, ‘Could I talk to you for a minute?’ I had no idea what it was about. I had finally—after seven years of worrying about being killed off—I'd realized, well, I made it till the end. [Fellow Desperate Housewives husbands] Doug [Savant] and Ricardo [Chavira] and I made it till the end. That was the first time Marc has ever given me the ‘we need to talk’ line and I didn't think it was me getting killed because it was so close to the end of the series. Then, he called and he said, ‘We have this idea,’ and he told me.”
To the surprise of Cherry, James Denton was overjoyed when he received the news that Mike was dying to the point where he had to stop himself from laughing:
“God bless Marc. He wants so badly not to hurt anybody's feelings. He didn't want me to be unhappy about it, so he was breaking it to me gently. The whole time I'm biting the inside of my cheek because I was trying not to crack up because it's fantastic for me. We're almost through, anyway.”
In Denton’s eyes, his character had a good run, even though he regretted not getting to be present for Desperate Housewives’ final episode wrap:
“Oh yeah, because when he first told me, I was really surprised. Any other year, I would have been disappointed, but at this point I figured, well, we made it. But as soon as he told me, it was a little bit like, "Oh, it's a bummer because I won't be around for the wrap." We've got such a great crew. We're all such good friends. That's kind of a drag because there's six or seven episodes left.”
Shortly after, the actor reflected on his exit from the show to Entertainment Weekly, noting that because he no longer had a series regular commitment, it freed him up for pilot season:
”Delfino gets this really big exit, and I’m free for pilot season. It’s the best gift I could have gotten.”
How a Legal Battle Spoiled Mike Delfino’s Death
Desperate Housewives die-hards who were avidly tuning into the program while it was on TV would surely know how a court case leaked Mike’s demise, but newer fans might not be privy to the story.
It all goes back to 2010 when former Housewives star Nicollette Sheridan filed a lawsuit against Marc Cherry for intentional infliction of emotional distress, along with battery gender violence, and wrongful termination following Sheridan’s character Edie Brett getting jettisoned from the series in Season 5.
The violence and battery charges ultimately didn’t stick, but Sheridan pressed on with her wrongful termination suit against Cherry.
Fast-forward to early 2012: The press got ahold of the fact that a major character from Desperate Housewives would be killed in a March episode. The character in question was, at the time, meant to be a mystery.
During an executive producer’s testimony at Nicollette Sheridan‘s trial, just two days before the episode featuring Mike Delfino’s death, the producer spilled the beans that Mike would indeed sleep with the fishes in the next installment. By all accounts, Marc Cherry was visibly unhappy that the plot twist was spoiled (via Inside Edition).
Despite Desperate Housewives being broadcast during primetime, it was undeniably a soap opera. Characters and cast members depart from soap operas with extreme regularity, often through grisly means.
At the end of the day, Desperate Housewives was on its way out when Mike was gunned down. Season 8 was long intended to be the last. Mike’s ghost was also seen during the closing minutes of the series finale, watching his wife drive away Wisteria Lane for good.
Desperate Housewives is streaming in its entirety on Hulu.
