Susan Mayer

Susan Mayer
File:0000007752 20060920145122.jpg Teri Hatcher as Susan Mayer
First appearance	Pilot (episode 1.01)
Created by	Marc Cherry
Portrayed by	Teri Hatcher
In-universe information
Gender	Female
Occupation	Children's book artist
Family	Sophie Bremmer Flickman (mother) Morty Flickman (step-father) Addison Prudy (biological father)
Spouse	Karl Mayer (ex-husband) Mike Delfino (fiancée)
Children	Julie Mayer (daughter)

Susan Mayer (née Bremmer) is a fictional character on the ABC television series Desperate Housewives. The character is played by Teri Hatcher and is one of the leading characters of the show.

History

It was common knowledge on Wisteria Lane that where Susan Mayer went, bad luck was sure to follow. Her misfortunes ranged from the commonplace, to the unusual, to the truly bizarre.

— Mary Alice Young

Life Before Season 1

Susan Bremmer grew up believing her father died at war. Her mother's erratic love life led to some distance between the two of them but she has always been very close to her daughter. She was valedictorian at high school and married Karl Mayer as she was still quite young. It turned out to be a mistake as he kept cheating on her until he finally got divorced and left her for his secretary. Julie was then her only shoulder to cry on and their relationship has strengthened ever since but both of them still have issues about being sometime in a role reversal with Julie playing the adult and Susan making many mistakes. Mary Alice Young also supported her which brought her to question how she could have committed suicide.

Season 1

Susan sees new neighbor Mike Delfino as an opportunity to find a better life than the one she is living. Apparently clumsy by nature, Susan, at one point was locked outside of her own house completely naked and wet in broad daylight after ex-husband Karl drove off with her towel caught in the car door; she had to cover herself with a plant pot as she made a mad dash for the back door, only to fall into a bush and be discovered by Mike, who managed to unlock her door. She also accidentally burnt Edie Britt's house down. Susan is naturally inquisitive and is perhaps the driving force behind the housewives' efforts to discover the truth about Mary Alice Young's suicide which hit her hard. She is particularly suspicious of Paul Young. She dislikes Zach Young and worries about the threat he poses to her daughter, describing him as "rampage crazy" (whilst admitting that she herself is "adorable crazy"). Susan is also a neighborhood gossip and busy-body as she hires a private investigator to uncover the dark secrets of the Youngs and Mike Delfino with whom she ends up in a relationship anyway.

Season 2

She also has a long-running competitiveness with Edie which was one of the key plot point of season 2. She is dumped by Mike after he discovers she sent Zach, Mike's natural son, away. She also discovers that she is the result of her mother's one night stand with the owner of a feed store. When she attempts to make contact with him and tell him who she is, he has a heart attack but survives. She later meets her stepmother and discovers her father to be a heavily cheating husband. Meanwhile her ex-husband tried to win her back by sabotaging all her relationships but dates Edie all the way. After she slept twice with her ex-husband Edie burns her house down as a revenge. This works as a trigger and she finally gets over Karl and is about to be asked in marriage by Mike Delfino when he suffers a hit and run by Orson Hodge and falls into a coma.

Season 3

At the beginning of season 3, Susan claims that Mike can still wake up after 6 months of being in a coma as everyone says the opposite. In the hospital, Susan meets a man named Ian Hainsworth. She begins to go on dates him as Mike doesn't wake up. After they had sex, Mike Delfino wakes up out of his coma. He then rejects Susan because of all the lies Edie told him to get with him and she reunites with Ian, whom she had left after Mike woke up. She is also having trouble adjusting to her daughter being in a relationship with Austin McCann and she and Edie Britt soon catch him cheating on her with Danielle Van De Kamp.

Although she is obviously still in love with Mike, she has agreed not to see him anymore so that Ian would do anything to get him out of prison. She slowly falls in love with Ian and he proposes to her. Problems become to surface as Ian gets more and more uncomfortable and tries to lock Mike out of Susan's life by playing her at a poker game (and winning). All of this leads Susan to believe he doesn't trust her, even more when Ian's mother has her sign a prenup which she dodges by blackmailing Ian's father, a crossdresser, with his secret.

Nevertheless, despite his loss, his feelings for Susan continue to grow. He is constantly seen as a threat by Ian, especially after Mike saves Susan and him from their car, which was overturned in a lake. After a heated argument between Ian and Susan, she walks over to Mike's for consolation, and they share an intimate kiss. This renews Mike's belief in the possibility of winning her back, and so he continually forces his way into her and Ian's lives, even confessing to what occurred at the poker game. After learning about this, Susan sends both of them away and cancels her wedding with Ian. She would continue to ignore their advances (including having her daughter turn the two men away on one occasion), but admitted to a counselor that she was deeply in love with both men. She eventually decided to go through with her marriage to Ian and informed Mike. While Susan listened to what was essentially a voicemail Dear John Letter, however, Ian called off their engagement and decided to return to England. He did this citing that Susan was in love with him, but that she was more in love with Mike. As she was being left by Ian, Mike moved away from Wisteria Lane in the middle of the night leaving Susan alone.

Mike is on a camping trip, so Susan goes to the woods to find him. On the way Susan complains to her wilderness guide, Toni about her complicated love life, and Toni tells her that she doesn't think Susan can handle a permanent relationship because she invites in too much drama. Susan decides to sneak off while Toni is sleeping and try to find Mike on her own. Back at the campground, the one hiker is reported lost, and Mike recognizes Susan from her description. Susan leaves a message on Mike's cell phone promising him that if he takes her back that she will not make their relationship dramatic and they will be a normal couple. In the morning, Mike finds Susan and picks her up and they kiss.

Trivia

• Susan was originally planned to be named 'Susan Meyer' (stated in the book, "Behind Closed Doors").
• Both Courteney Cox and Heather Locklear turned down the role, Cox because she was pregnant (but she was Marc Cherry's first choice for the role) and Locklear because she was starring in LAX. Michelle Rodriguez, Calista Flockhart and Mary-Louise Parker were also considered before the part went to Teri Hatcher.