At the risk of sounding spoiled, a-noo
Parker was introduced in the first season as one of Lynette's three rebellious sons, along with his older brothers, twins Preston and Porter. Their main purpose was to engage in shenanigans and give their mother, one of the protagonists of the series, a lot of problems. However, as the series progressed, Parker was shown to be the most sensitive of the Scavo boys, and as a teenager became the only one his mother rarely ever has problems communicating with, and is presented as a clever kid. Parker was conceived by series creator Marc Cherry, who based Lynette's life around his own childhood. The character was originally portrayed by Zane Huett, but due to the five-year-jump that occurred at the end of season 4, Joshua Logan Moore took over for the role.
Parker refuses to get out of the pool. ("Pilot")
Lynette struggles to take care of her four demanding children, Parker, Porter, Preston and Penny on her own while her husband, Tom, is away for business. While walking to the wake of Lynette's friend, Mary Alice Young, Lynette threatens to call Santa and put Parker and his brothers on his "naughty list" if they do not start behaving. At the wake, Parker and his brothers decide to go swimming in the pool. After being warned by Martha Huber, Lynette climbs into the pool in her dress and collects the boys. When Tom returns home from work for a short while, he's greeted by Parker and his brothers by being climbed on. When they ask if he brought any presents, he gives them a football and tells them to go outside and practice with it, giving him and Lynette a quick chance to have sex. ("Pilot")
Parker and his brothers are left on the side of the road. ("Ah, But Underneath")
When Lynette takes Parker and his siblings with her for a car journey, the boys misbehave continuously, even when their mother asks them to stop. She is eventually pulled over by a police officer. When he comments on her parenting skills, she yells at him and tells him how hard it is to have four children. After seeing how stressed Lynette is and how unruly her children are, he decides to let her off without a ticket. Later on, when the boys continue to misbehave, Lynette leaves them on a random street and drives away. She immediately comes back and is horrified to find they're missing. A woman says she took them into her home. When the woman threatens to call social services, Lynette and the boys escape by attacking her. When they rush back into the car, Lynette is pleased to see Parker and his brothers had learned their lesson and put on their seat belts. ("Ah, But Underneath")
When Lynette gets back to work, Parker is the most affected of all her children, as he'd been used to having his mother around the house most of the time. He specially misses her presence during his first day at elementary school, when Tom has to substitute Lynette because her boss Nina won't allow her to go. Lynette still manages to get through to her child and help him along, via a cell phone camera. Parker concocts a new friend for him, Mrs. Mullberry, a Mary Poppins-esque British nanny who serves as his companion through the day, even sleeping with him and hanging out with him in school. When Parker demands a new desk for Mrs. Mullberry in school and doesn't get one, he hits the teacher with his/Mullberry's umbrella. Lynette is called over by the headmaster to be informed of the situation, and breaks down in front of him, the teacher and Mrs. Truesdalebecause she realizes her child simply misses her, which is all her fault for going back to work. Lynette then does the best she can to get through to Parker, letting him know that her new job doesn't necessarily have to change anything for them. Parker doesn't make it easy on her, so Lynette dumps the umbrella in the trash, hoping to make it all easier, but when the garbage is picked up the umbrella is dropped onto the road. Inside the house, Lynette tells her son that Mrs. Mullberry has moved on from him, because she needs to go and help other children, considering he no longer needs her. Parker is saddened by this, but comprehensive nonetheless. However, when they step outside, he notices the umbrella and is happy to know that Mullberry's back... until a truck drives by and runs over it (thus killing Mrs. Mullberry). Parker is devastated, and Lynette feels guilty. In "We're Gonna Be All Right", Parker and his siblings get the chicken pox, and their father must prevent himself from getting it too because he never had it as a child and chicken pox is dangerous for adults. Lynette gets called to speak with Parker's teacher one day because he has developed a curiosity for sexuality, going so far as paying a female colleague to show him her vagina. Lynette tries to persuade her son to stop asking about sex because it is inappropriate, but Parker can't understand why, so, in order to distract him, Lynette gets him a dog.
In season three, Parker welcomes the two new additions to his family: his half-sister Kayla, and her nut-job mother Nora, whom he refers to as "auntie Nora". In the episode "Like it Was", Lynette learns that Parker has quit the baseball team because he didn't like it very much and wasn't good at it, which doesn't please his mother, because she doesn't want her kid to grow into a "quitter". Therefore, Lynette tells Parker he has to go to baseball practice, and they practice themselves in the backyard by tossing a few balls. Tom notices this and tries to discourage his wife from encouraging her son, but Lynette won't budge, even though Tom tells that Parker kinda stinks at baseball. During the big game, Lynette bribes the star pitcher from the opposing team, Nicky Abbott, into throwing slower balls so that Parker can hit them with his baseball bat, but he still misses it the first two shots. Nick throws the ball a third time, even slower, and Parker manages to hit it... and send it straight to Nicky's head, throwing him off balance. People rush to Nicky's aide, and someone notices the bill in his pocket. Nicky points at Lynette, and she and Tom flee the scene, embarrassed. Later, Lynette tries to convince the coach/umpire to get Parker back on the team, after he's been kicked out due to her recklessness, but the only way he can get back in is if Lynette pays for their ecquipment. She does so, and Tom is less than happy to know this, because he knows his son hates baseball. He finally gets to Lynette, who then tells Parker he doesn't have to keep doing something he doesn't want to. However, Parker's self-esteem has been boosted by that ball he hit, and he wants to continue playing baseball. During the following game, he hits a ball and as he is running the bases, he trips and falls, spraining his ankle. When Lynette and Tom attend to him, they manage to tell their son he probably won't be able to play baseball anymore. Parker is dissatisfied, but his parents are relieved. During the hostage shooutout, Parker and his siblings (excluding Kayla) stay with Bree Hodge at her home, unbeknownst to the fact that their mother has been taken hostage, along with auntie Nora. Nora winds up getting shot in the chest and killed by the hostage taker, Carolyn Bigsby, whereas their mother gets shot in the arm. This leads Parker to be overprotective of his mom once she comes back from the hospital, never leaving her side over fear that she might get hurt again. Lynette had told the kids that she hurt her arm by engaging in a fight with a bun, but they learn in school that she was shot at the supermarket. Parker doesn't even want his mom to go to the store anymore, and so Lynette introduces him to Art Shephard, the man who saved her life in the grocery store by throwing a can at Carolyn. Lynette tries to pass him off as some sort of superhero, because she knows how much her kid loves superhero comics, and Art passes himself off to be "Protector Man", but Parker doesn't believe him. However, Art gives out that exact impression when he opens his shirt, revealing a big letter "P" in his second shirt, apparently from some college. Parker believes him, and his mom tells him he no longer needs to worry about her because "Protector Man" has kept her safe once and he'll do it again. Parker is relieved, and Lynette is thankful. She then decides to bake a cake for Art, as she had previously promised him she would, and drops it off at his house, along with Parker. They come inside because the door was unlocked and no one answered, and they see that Art and his sisteraren't there. Lynette leaves the cake on the dining room table and leaves a note, whereas Parker finds a train and sets it in motion, following it to the basement downstairs. Lynette goes after him, and is delighted to see the basement is full of toys. Parker couldn't be happier, but Lynette's cheer dissipates once she notices the wall of pictures of half-naked boys. She quickly assumes Art is a pedophile, and rushes her son out of there. In the following episode, Lynette tells Art she never made it past the entrance while in his house, even though he assumed she had and didn't mind it, but Parker blows her cover when he tells "Protector Man" he'd like to play with his arcade again. Later on, Lynette dozes off in the living room while her kids watch TV, and when she wakes up, Parker's gone. The twins say he went out, and Lynette grows concerned and immediately rushes over to Art's house, assuming he had kidnapped Parker. She makes a scandal, but Rebecca notices that her son is right outside with his father. The pedophile arc later ends with Lynette apologizing to Art for wrecking his life, but then he makes it appear as though he truly is a pedophile, and he tells her to watch over that "beautiful family" of hers. When Kayla comes to live with the Scavo family, Parker is obligated to give her his room and share one with the twins. He and the twins aren't happy when Kayla is given special treatment because she is in a new home and lost her mother recently. Lynette asks for their help when she can't get Kayla to leave a coffee shop before finishing her ice cream, promising them they can have dinner in front of the TV for a week. They go into the shop and drag Kayla out, kicking and screaming, and force her into the car, much to Lynette's pleasure. In "Come Play Wiz Me", Parker learns that his mother is getting back to work after getting shot and he isn't happy to see her go because he'd grown accustomed to having her around more often. Lynette appreciates his sweetness, but she must go back to work anyway. Parker is the first person on the lane to witness the dead body of Gilbert McCluskey, stashed in Karen's freezer. He inquires Karen over the dead body when he visits her at the hospital (after she fell down her basement stairs), and Karen tells him what happened. When Ida Greenberg goes to check on her house and finds the body, she calls the police, who meet with Karen, leading her to believe that Parker was actually the one who ratted her out. In the following episode, Parker tells Karen, who's been released from prison, to tell everyone on the street the truth so they will stop saying bad things about her, but Karen is reluctant to. When some kids attending Travers McLain's party decide to spray-paint the word "Witch" on Karen's front door, Parker tries to stop them and they tease him, throwing him to the ground as well, saying he his Karen's boyfriend. Mrs. McCluskey rushes to his aid, and Parker repels her, saying none of that would happen if only she told people the truth, which she then does, making him proud. During breakfast one time, Parker notices his parents are awfully quiet. They've been going through a rough patch following the dismissal of Rick Coletti, their pizzeria's assistant manager. In the season finale, Parker's grandmother, Stella Wingfield, comes to visit, after learning of Lynette's cancer, and she brings the kids gifts, after having gone on without seeing them for five years. However, the gifts she brings are for pre-schoolers, and they argue that they're too old to play with them. Stella replies she's too old to remember what kids their age play with. She notices Kayla, and asks Parker if she's his girlfriend. Parker is disgusted and tells her Kayla's his sister.
In the forth season premiere, Stella and Lynette, who's been keeping her disease from her children, attend a school production of "Robin Hood", in which Parker plays the part of "Friar Tuck" (which Stella dismisses as a "thankless role"). In "The Game", Stella takes advantage of Parker's sweet nature: she asks him to bring some brownies she prepared to his mom, who's been refusing to eat anything lately, and Lynette finally gives in after Parker announces that he made them specially for her. Stella is overjoyed, because she knows her brownies will make Lynette feel better: they were baked with marijuana in them. After the kids learn that their mom has cancer, they usually retreat inside their yard's treehouse, a safe place in which they aren't exposed to talks of cancer and treatments. When Katherine Mayfairruns for president of the homeowners association so she can keep her street looking better, Lynette worries that she might rule to take down the treehouse, which her kids need. During Halloween, Parker, the twins and Kayla go out trick-or-treating, and they accidentally witness Adam Mayfair, disguised as the Frankenstein monster, assisting in the birth of Benjamin Hodge. When a tornado hits Wisteria Lane, the entire Scavo clan reunites in Mrs. McCluskey's basement, but unfortunately the house collapses on top of them, and Ida Greenberg tells the kids to get under the stairs, because they'll be safe there. She ends up dying in the wreckage because there was no room left for her, and so she was killed saving the Scavo family. Afterwards, Lynette tries to get her family to attend church masses more often. In "Mother Said", Parker is regarded by the series' narrator, Mary Alice Young, to be one of the few witnesses of an event people would later refer to as "the incident": Bree confronting Edie Britt over the fact that she kissed the former's husband, and Bree subsequently slapping Edie across the cheek. In the season finale, Parker and his brothers watch as their mother is taken under arrest, presumably for abusing Kayla.
After the five-year jump that occurred at the end of season 4, Parker should be about 15 in season 5, and has grown into a mature young man who doesn't hassle his parents as much as the rebellious twins do. Parker has become a bit of a "nerd", who hangs out with the less popular crowd at school and doesn't have much luck with the ladies. His role in season 5 is significantly small, smaller than that of any of his siblings, including Penny. Parker only appears in one third of the episodes, despite the fact that his new portrayer, Joshua Logan Moore, is billed as a series regular in every episode. Grown-up Parker is first seen in the episode "We're So Happy You're So Happy", assisting his mom with her doubts regarding "SilverFizz", a social networking website akin to Facebook, which she then uses to see if Porter was friends with a kid at school who was arrested for selling drugs, and to socially interact with her son to find out more about him, as he's stopped talking to her. In his following appearance, Parker attends his mother's first breakfast with the whole family in years, but just as he's about to discuss his science fair project, his brother Porter is arrested for supposedly burning down The White Horse Club. After Tom is forced to let go of his entire staff at the pizza place because he can't afford to keep them anymore, he hires his children to work for him, free of salaries, after school and on the weekends, to which they object. However, a reluctant Lynette encourages the children to go along and help their father. Parker is put on cashier duty, but Lynette demotes him to taking over for Penny in the salad bar after she learns he's been giving the customers incorrect change without them noticing. In the season finale, Parker congratulates his father for being accepted at college, and offers to help him study, but Tom gently declines, stating he couldn't be of much help because he'll be studying Mandarin.
Parker takes on a slightly more prominent role in season six. In the season premiere, Parker attends Mike Delfino's wedding to Susan Mayer, and therefore he also witness Katherine Mayfair's crazy scandal. When Lynette and Tom break to their kids the news that they're expecting a new set of twins, Parker simply points out to them, after Porter's long speech about safe sex, that it's gross that his parents are still "doing it". Parker is one of the first people to learn that Emily Portsmith, The Coffee Cup's employee who had been popular in his school, had been strangled to death, and he warns his classmates on the school bus after he gets the call. During the local holiday block party in "Boom Crunch", he and Tom are the first people to notice that a plane appears to be crashing down. He and Porter later give a testament to a newscaster for airing on television. He is also one of the survivors of the crash, but loses his unborn baby brother Patrick, whom Lynette is forced to miscarry after saving the life of Celia Solis. In "Lovely", Parker notices the new neighbor, Robin Gallagher, a very attractive former stripper living with the Delfinos, and, after constantly watching her showering in her bathrrom via binoculars (even going so far as to having his friends over to spy on her too), Lynette learns about this and meets with Robin, to tell her to have some decency and shut the blinds of her bathroom, because she is perverting her decent son. Robin announces that he's not so decent, as he had offered to give her some money to sleep with him, which she refused to, because she's not a hooker. Lynette is shocked and appalled by this, and she and Tom are forced to give Parker a speech about how he is not ready for sex yet, and he will lose his virginity when the time is right and when finds the girl worth losing it to. Parker claims that girls don't look at him that way, and Tom reassures him that he will eventually find such a girl and they will have lots and lots of sex... after they get married. Parker feels more confident afterwards.
In the season premiere, Lynette has Parker and the rest of his family pose to welcome Renee Perry, a former college roommate and best friend, to their home. Parker is excited, along with his siblings, because Renee married a Yankee player, and is therefore filthy rich. He invites Renee to stay with them when she announces she doesn't have a hotel booked yet, and she agrees on the spot, much to Lynette's shagrin. When his maternal grandmother, Allison, comes to visit and help take care of baby Paige, Parker gives his mom a dirty look, like the rest of his siblings, when she treats Allison harshly, rubbing in her face that despite her commitment to her husbandand her need to always serve him, he still cheated and walked out on her. During Thanksgiving, the Scavos and Delfinos head over to Renee's house for the meal, and Parker, his sister Penny and MJare relegated to the kids' table, which was set on the driveway.On one occasion, Parker questioned the methods and motives of the Halfway House protesters. While he does not question Paul Young's motives for opening the home, Parker does question whether or not people should be given a second chance, and tries to make his mother think about this fact, regardless of Paul. Though his question is ultimately not heeded, it certainly made Lynette think before proceeding with the protest.
In "Where Do I Belong?", Parker and his brothers exchange some back-and-forth as they tease Penny, saying they won't come to her soccer game. This leads to Tom and Lynette silently making amends following the revelation of his involvement with Renee twenty years before. When Stella Wingfield marries Frank Kaminsky, a curmodgeonly old millionaire, Parker and his family all attend the wedding, and also the taking of a family portrait that Frank wants to rub in the faces of his previous families. However, he dies from natural causes before the first picture is even taken, and his body sits in the sofa the whole night through, something which disgusts Parker.
In "Then I Really Got Scared", Tom announces that he has booked a luxury family holiday to Hawaii. Lynette is disappointed because she has spent ages planning a two-week road trip and complains that Tom didn't talk to her first. That night, in bed, Lynette continues to moan about Tom booking the holiday. He points out that the kids were really excited and Lynette says it is only because they've never had a lavish vacation. The pair agree that they will each pitch holidays based on the same budget and the kids can decide. The next day, Lynette starts her pitch with the Grand Canyon and a national forest in mind, but the children seem bored. However, they perk up when they see her show off photographs of a huge rollercoaster and a luxury vehicle called the Road Juggernaut which was used by Justin Bieber. Tom is next up and shows them a helicopter tour of a volcano and swimming with dolphins. However, Lynette puts them off with images of a shark and a helicopter crash. The kids head upstairs to decide.
In the eighth season premiere, it is revealed that Tom has been sleeping in Bree Van de Kamp's office, trying to keep from his kids the fact that he and his wife have separated. However, by the end of the episode, the Scavo couple decides to come clean to Parker and Penny. Afterwards, Tom moves out, and Lynette is left at their house with the kids, including Parker, who seems to adjust well to the new lifestyle brought on by her parents' separation. In "Making the Connection", Lynette learns that her husband has been trying to win their kids over by showering them with gifts and treats, and she tells him he has to learn to say "no" to their demands. Tom won't listen to her, because he feels like he doesn't have to obey her anymore, now that they're separated. The following day, Parker comes home and asks his mother if he can go to a party hosted by a troubled Jewish boy who always throws the wildest parties. She spots Tom heading towards their house, and tells Parker he should ask his father. When he does, Tom wants to know what Lynette said, and he soon catches on to her game: she's trying to get him to say "no". Even though they both know it's a bad idea for Parker to go to the party, they're still stubborn enough to not say "no", and so Parker apprehends that he is allowed to go. The result: he gets drunk to the point of vomiting all over himself (unless someone else vomited on top of him), and his parents have another squabble. Eventually, they realize that they've both been trying to please the kids because they don't wanna lose them to one another, but they settle their differences and decide to leave the kids out of their own mess. The following morning, they both sit down with Parker and have a talk about his behavior.
- Parker was originally going to be named Preston, which was changed to be the name of one of his older brothers.
- Parker told Mrs. McCluskey in "Love is in the Air" (episode 1.14) that he was 5 years old, and therefore in season 4 he should be about 8 years old. However, in "Mother Said" (episode 4.15), Mary Alice refers to him as a boy "who was not yet 11". This adds up to some extent, as he couldn't possibly be 11 at the time, but gives out the impression that he should be turning 11 soon. He is also said to be 16 in "Making the Connection" (episode 8.02), which would kind of add up with the info given in 1.14, but not the info given in 4.15.
- Despite the fact that Parker was introduced as being only one year younger than Porter and Preston, they have gone off to college and yet there's no mention of Parker, who is clearly smarter than they are, being in college yet, and he is constantly regarded as one of the kids, considering that's the status he acquired during Renee's Thanksgiving dinner, and the fact that he wasn't even present at the neighborhood meeting to discuss Paul Young's half-way house opening in "Down the Block There's a Riot", although his older brothers were there.
- Zane Huett, the actor who plays the 1st Parker is only 7 months younger thant Joshua Logan Moore, the actor who plays the 2nd Parker, despite there being a five year gap.
Gallery of photographic stills released to promote the character.