Lane closure

Eva Longoria, the always fashionable Gabrielle of “Desperate Housewives,” is marching onto a soccer field in wobbly high heels for a confrontational scene set to air on tonight’s season finale.

It’s the final day of filming on the Universal Studios back lot, and series creator Marc Cherry has just pulled up in a golf cart for one of his rare on-set appearances. Sprinting up a hillside, the 43-year-old writer deals with malfunctioning lawn sprinklers, then encourages Longoria to exaggerate the fury she’s expressing toward Jesse Metcalfe, who plays her hottie gardener – and quite possibly the father of her unborn child.

Faced with this pregnancy of uncertain paternity, a husband in the slammer and a lawn-boy lover who earns $50 a mow, Gabrielle is more desperate than ever.

But desperate no more are Cherry and his harem of mostly fortysomething actresses.

“It was a good first year,” he says in a gross understatement.

Days earlier he got the keys to his new home – a San Fernando Valley mansion on a street not unlike the show’s Wisteria Lane and worth, he says, “a lot more than my condo.”

The comedic ABC hit premiered in October to juggernaut ratings and went on to win multiple Golden Globes, People’s Choice and Screen Actors Guild awards.

Just seven months later, the very relatable “desperate housewife” moniker has become so ingrained in the American lexicon that first lady Laura Bush recently joked that she was one.

Now comes the daunting challenge of ending the season on a high note while laying the groundwork for Season 2.

Tonight’s finale, culminating with a cliffhanger, will show the events that led Mary Alice Young to shoot herself in the opening episode, introduce a new housewife with a major mystery of her own, and place the futures of several characters in serious jeopardy.

“The way this all comes together at the end of this season is so fantastic,” says Marcia Cross (who plays Bree Van De Kamp), standing in the shade on the soccer field and wearing a sun hat to protect her porcelain skin.

But going into the next season, there is genuine concern over the public continuing to believe these actresses are as close as their neighborly characters appear on TV.

That perception was challenged by Vanity Fair’s May cover story, which exposed a catty cast photo shoot, resulting in bruised egos and cold shoulders. Working to put the ugly incident behind them, the leading ladies have been offering each other expressions of goodwill as they say goodbye for their summer hiatus.

Teri Hatcher (Susan Mayer) broke the tension by coming to the set with homemade banana bread and champagne baskets she had made for each of the ladies. Cross spent the previous days shopping for goodbye gifts (“yummy, smelly things like candles”) for her co-stars. Longoria has been busy creating a collage poster (“of our amazing year”) for each of the women.

Brenda Strong (Mary Alice) presented Hatcher, Cross, Longoria and Felicity Huffman (Lynette Scavo) with charm bracelets containing photos of each of their faces.

And putting to rest tabloid rumors of feuding with Hatcher, Nicollette Sheridan is considering asking Hatcher to be maid of honor at her upcoming wedding. “We’re tight,” Sheridan says.

The Vanity Fair article, Cherry asserts, “truly does not reflect how our gals treat each other.”

“What really (angered me) about the Vanity Fair shoot is that it was an argument between us and Vanity Fair. Not within us,” Longoria says. “We are going to have better understanding of our publicity next year.”

Cherry tries not to concern himself with gossip beyond his control. His biggest challenge will be trying to top an addictive first-season story line that has been consistently pulling in a weekly average of 24 million viewers.

The show, he says, can keep its connection with viewers only if it retains the “small, real, everyday issues” without becoming all soap opera.

“I want to keep finding new ways to talk about issues that relate to everyday women,” Cherry says. “Lynette will have a job next season (returning to her advertising roots), so I want to address how difficult it is to go to work all day and then come home and be expected to also take care of your house.”

While Cherry is sticking with his original seven-year concept for the show, Hatcher says she’ll be surprised if it runs that long.

“I don’t feel this is going to go seven years,” she says. “Television shows are delicate things, and no matter how big of a hit you have, you never know when it could fall. Look at a show like ‘Twin Peaks,’ that was super hot,” then canceled in its second season.

But unlike “Peaks,” which peaked too soon and drew out its Laura Palmer murder mystery way past viewer interest, “Housewives” is wrapping up the mystery of Mary Alice’s suicide.

And tonight’s episode will introduce a new housewife: the protective and religious Betty Applewhite, played by familiar big-screen actress Alfre Woodard.

Applewhite’s son, Matthew (played by 24-year-old actor/model Mehcad Brooks), has gotten himself into some trouble back in the old neighborhood. The Applewhites will be introduced to Wisteria Lane by real estate agent Edie Britt (Sheridan).

All Cherry will say about the Applewhites is that “they come on the street; they seem like nice people – but they’ve got a secret. And it’s pretty gothic. It’s real and human and awful all at the same time.”

Because of viewers’ (read: male viewers’) strong reaction to Sheridan, her character next season will be given a never-before-seen ex-husband and a 6-year-old son. But Cherry insists Edie will continue serving only as a spoiler to complicate the other women’s lives.

And despite the addition of Woodard, the opening credits next year will continue to feature only the faces of Hatcher, Cross, Huffman and Longoria.

“Edie’s an outsider,” Sheridan admits. “She’s never going to be one of them. But as far as looking at the show as a whole, I see her as one of the five desperate housewives.”

While a champion of Sheridan’s work, Cross believes “it’s nice for the duration of the show to watch the paths of the four women. I think (the foursome) is the through line.”

That is, if all four agree to stay put on Wisteria Lane.

“My goal would be to always have the four women stay with the show until the very end, and follow their journeys much in the way ‘Sex and the City’ or ‘Golden Girls’ did,” says Cherry, a former writer for “Golden Girls.”

“But I’m also cognizant that at any point one of these women could say, ‘I want to go home and be with my kids,’ or ‘I want to go off and be a movie star.’ “

Legally, Hatcher says, that decision is not really up to any of them: “I guarantee you we all signed five- or six-year contracts at the beginning of this thing.”

The future appears far bleaker for the show’s male cast; only breakout stud James Denton (who plays mysterious plumber Mike Delfino) is a likely candidate for series longevity.

As the season winds down, nearly all of the desperate husbands are placed in jeopardy as Rex Van De Kamp (Steven Culp) unwittingly takes sugar pills to treat his serious heart condition; Tom Scavo (Doug Savant) harbors a secret that threatens to destroy his marriage; and Paul Young (Mark Moses) faces his comeuppance for the murder of Mrs. Huber.

And putting into question the fate of Gabrielle’s current men – lover John and husband Carlos (Ricardo Antonio Chavira) – Cherry and his writers are conceiving a new suitor for her in Season 2.

“It’s very tenuous existences for all of us,” says Denton, who has bonded with his male co-stars. “Nobody wants to be the guy left behind, but I don’t see how we could all be back.”

With some of the men probably on their way out, expect the ladies’ faces to be featured prominently on an onslaught of “Housewives” merchandise set to hit stores later this year, including the Season 1 DVD in September (packed with deleted scenes, cast commentaries and a computerized tour of Wisteria Lane); a board game; a wall calendar; a coffee-table book; and a record featuring songs inspired by the lives of desperate housewives that will be available in time for Christmas shopping. (So far, no plans for a talking Mrs. Huber doll with bludgeoning blender.)

Might all this be too much, much too soon?

“It’s a lot very fast,” Sheridan concedes. And Huffman acknowledges that the show’s heavy exposure already has left her feeling “a little sick of us.”

“Sure we’re concerned about overexposure, but what am I going to do about it?” asks Cherry, who denies reports of a spinoff series (at least for a couple of years).

“Next season, there’ll be some other hit show,” he says, “and people’s attention will drift over to it.”