ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” this Sunday arrives not with a whimper, but with a bang.

That’s the name of the episode – “Bang” – and it’s so named because that’s the sound of a gunshot that claims the life of one of the “Housewives” characters.

The episode, being televised at 9 p.m., is a pivotal one for the series. The script, by wry “Frasier” writer-producer Joe Keenan, manages to inject significant and welcome twists into the story lines involving Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) and Lynette (Felicity Huffman). It also provides some moments of drama in a show whose confrontations have become more cartoonish, while delivering some laugh-out-loud exchanges along the way.

Fittingly for an episode called “Bang,” guns figure prominently. There’s the dream Lynette has about Mary Alice (Brenda Strong), the suicidal neighbor who continues to narrate the events on Wisteria Lane.

“She dreamt of the last time she saw me, and of the last time we spoke,” Mary Alice recalls in her omnipotent voiceover. “Moments later, I would enter my house and put a bullet through my brain.”

The gun providing the danger in Sunday’s hour, though, is one wielded by another troubled neighbor: Carolyn Bigbsy (Laurie Metcalf), who last week upset Bree (Marcia Cross) by providing photographic evidence of her new husband Orson’s abuse of his ex-wife. This week, Carolyn learns of some transgressions by her own husband, Harvey (Brian Kerwin), and reacts by hunting him down in the grocery store he manages.

In a plot contrivance both worthy and reminiscent of “The Nine,” Sunday’s “Housewives” traps many of the show’s characters in a hostage situation – then shifts time between past and present to underscore the story’s suspense. By the show’s midpoint, virtually all the show’s characters (save for James Denton’s Mike Delfino) are either taken hostage in the grocery store, or being served fancy snacks while watching the live TV coverage at Bree’s house.

“Attention, shoppers,” Carolyn shouts agitatedly while chasing down a customer trying to flee the building. “We’re having a special today on not getting shot, but it’s only available at the back of the store.”

Metcalf does a fine job with the emotional mood swings of her character – as does Huffman as Lynette, especially, as one of the more confrontational hostages.

When it’s all over, someone has died, but it helps to breathe even more life into a show that has bounced back from the erratic plotting of last season. One trick, though, continues to be overlooked: the idea of having the narration of “Housewives” inherited by a dearly departed Wisteria Lane resident other than Mary Alice.

There certainly have been enough of them, and, after this weekend, at least one more.

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DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES

9 p.m. EST Sunday

ABC

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AP-NY-11-02-06 0819EST