Is Drea Soon to Be Really Desperate?

There are more questions than answers about Drea de Matteo’s reported exit from Desperate Housewives

First the tabs say Drea de Matteo, not even halfway into her new Desperate Housewives deal, is leaving. Then ABC sends out its sanctioned reports claiming nothing of the kind's going down. Pretty weird sitch for the soap, which at the moment is rife with big cliff-hanger stories getting leaked right and left, often by us!

But this I can assure you (about how things look for the toughie Italian who plays another toughie Italian, just like she did on The Sopranos):

"Her character wasn't in the table reading today," said a Desperate Housewives insider, regarding the script that will be shot later this week, apparently with no Angie Bolen, the troubled and secretive New Yorker de Matteo plays. "That ain't good."

Gotta say: Just caught Housewives the other night, and the only thing more annoying than watching Marcia Cross' perpetually yo-yoing tight ass was trying to figure out what the hell the superbly talented de Matteo was doing on this show in the first place. It was almost as if The Sopranos was doing a dream sequence in which Adriana decided she was going to become a cheesy soap opera actor. It's very gangster meets General Hospital, most weird.

But the good news is: Eva Longoria Parker's still very bitchy-funny (the funniest, as far as I'm concerned), and Susan, the skele-mom I love to hate, is actually looking pretty damn good. Either that skinny broad decided to eat a half burger or she's screwing the lighting techs, one or the other.

As to de Matteo's future? Who knows with this wacky set, but my D.H. moles tell me, investment-wise, de Matteo's gotta be makin' at least half what the main gals are ($400,000 per episode), and that's still a crapload of moola, if you don't really like where your character's going.

What say you fine boob-tube watchers about Ms. de Matteo? You all into this broad or not?