Desperate Housewives: Why did they kill Mike Delfino in the show ?

Desperate Housewives was a soap opera show that originally aired between 2004 and 2012 on ABC. Unlike other soap operas of its time, Desperate Housewives was notorious for inflicting death on many of its primary and secondary characters. Desperate Housewives featured a quartet of four housewives who were constantly getting mixed up with infidelity, treachery and illegal businesses.

Among the several characters bumped off by the creators of the ABC show, the character of Mike Delfino, played by actor James Denton, was particularly poignant.

Mike Delfino met his end on Desperate Housewives Season 8 Episode 16, titled You Take For Granted. Delfino was shot by a loan shark named Donny. As shown in the episode, Donny drove around Delfino's house, screaming out his name and with a gun in hand. He then shot and killed Delfino. A memorable montage consisting of Delfino's previous moments on the Desperate Housewives flashed out before the bullet reached its target.

Delfino's neighbor Renee Perry owed Donny a lot of money, which the latter had borrowed to set up a real estate business. Although Delfino's death meant Denton's exit from the show, the actor was looking forward to it, as he wanted to move his children out of Los Angeles. Read on for some details.

---

Desperate Housewives: James Denton reveals the reasons behind his exit

Desperate Housewives actor James Denton spoke in an exclusive interview with Entertainment Weekly back in 2012 where he revealed that his exit from the show had been on the cards since the ABC show's seventh season. Denton revealed:

"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. 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.”

He added:

"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.”

Denton then proceeded to express his regret for not being able to join the ABC show's finale episode:

"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.”

---

James Denton wanted to move out of Los Angeles

Denton's decision to have his children grow up away from the tumult of Los Angeles was a reason that motivated his exit from Desperate Housewives. In an interview with The Morning Show, he had explained:

"We thought maybe we should get the kids out of L.A. It's not a great place for kids. It's tough. The schools are really expensive, so we decided as soon as Housewives ended, we'd come up here and let them grow up in a little more normal suburban American neighborhood. It was a conscious decision to get them near family and out of L.A."

Desperate Housewives is available on Hulu.