Best and Worst TV Moms for Mother's Day

There's been a rich assortment of moms on TV, so we're handing out prizes for the best and worst for the holiday. Chime in with your choices as I reveal my picks for the best and worst TV moms. In no particular order, here's how I'd place six of them:

BEST: Tami Taylor, Friday Night Lights

You can't get better than either half of the Taylors, who seem to exist to be absolutely great at everything, from their jobs to their marriage to their parenting (not even just their own kids, often doling out advice to every teenager in Dillon). But Tami in particular is an attentive, supportive, encouraging, yet firm and no nonsense mom at the same time- she's everything you'd want in a role model.

WORST: Skyler White, Breaking Bad

It's not that Skyler doesn't love her kids, and sure, every single audience member wanted her to join up with hubbie Walt's evildoings all along, and she tried to protect Walt Jr. and Holly by sending them away for a short time, but...in the end, choosing to partner up with the meth-making Walt, launder their money, stay quiet about his murders, collaborate in blackmail videos, and turn against her own sister and brother-in-law- well, she's not exactly mother of the year material.

BEST: Clair Huxtable, The Cosby Show

One of TV's most sophisticated moms, Clair got to have it all without breaking a sweat, from the fabulous career as a lawyer to the brownstone in Brooklyn to the five perfect children and wonderful marriage, so she must have been doing something right. Always organized, smart, and above all self-composed, she's the kind of idyllic woman that probably doesn't exist in reality, and that makes her the one you most wish that you yourself could be like.

WORST: Betty Draper/Francis, Mad Men

Of course, Betty had to make it onto my worst moms list. Selfish, childish, manipulative and cold as ice, her own children don't love her and she still doesn't see why. From being at turns jealous of and competitive with her own daughter to moody and sullen like the worst of teens, if Betty was your mom you'd elect to send yourself off to boarding school too, just like Sally did.

BEST: Laura Petrie, The Dick Van Dyke Show

One of the many happy homemakers from TV's golden age, but Laura Petrie was never just a simple housewife, frequently participating in her husband's showbiz activities herself and enjoying such a playful and flirty relationship with her husband Rob that the two often seemed to forget they even had a kid. Indeed, little Richie seemed to appear less and less as the series went on, and no problem he had was ever big or distracting enough that it couldn't be solved in an instant and him shooed off to his room so that Rob and Laura could go back to hanging out with each other. Sigh- if only being a mom was really that easy.

WORST: Irina Derevko, Alias

She may take the cake for the most evil of all TV moms, as the KGB agent who married Jack Bristow under false pretenses, had Sydney and then faked her death and disappeared for most of Sydney's life, only to turn back up and wreak havoc on the family again until her ultimate demise. Always with an unknown ulterior motive, Irina went back and forth so many times it was impossible to ever know whose side she was really on, but one thing she was always doing was certain- and that was betraying daughter Sydney, which makes her one of TV's worst moms.

Honorable mentions: Oh there are so many, but maybe we'll get to these next year, as there is certainly room on the list for Carmela Soprano (The Sopranos, right), Lorelai Gilmore (Gilmore Girls), Samantha Stephens (Bewitched), Lucille Bluth (Arrested Development), Carol Brady (The Brady Bunch), Julia Baker (Julia), Ruth Fisher (Six Feet Under), Roseanne Conner (Roseanne), Jillian Darmody (Boardwalk Empire), Lucy Ricardo (I Love Lucy) and many more. You decide under which category these various women belong, as some are kind of ambiguous and you can make arguments for why they might be one of TV's best and worst moms. Happy Mother's Day everybody!

RECAP: SNL 5/10 "Charlize Theron"

Ugh. After a brief respite during Andrew Garfield's episode last week, tonight we return to the doldrums, with a lazy, pointless and unfunny episode with exactly one highlight that you'll see below. Sigh- let's get on with it.

COLD OPEN: A message from Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, now that they have someone to actually play Michelle, and it looks like the task of portraying Hillary for the next election cycle will fall to Vanessa, who doesn't do much of an impression here (to be fair, neither does Sasheer). Yeah- I hope they transfer this over to Kate actually, because I'd rather not be stuck with a lackluster Hillary for what could potentially be the next ten years.

MONOLOGUE: Charlize Theron, who hasn't hosted since 2000, comes down and sings a song about not being able to sing. It's pretty lame. Not worth posting about.

MOTHER'S DAY GAME SHOW: Kate hosts a game show as a mom whose kids have to guess things about her- the jokes are things that moms do but it's SO mild as to feel completely pointless. Not painful but not funny either.

GIRLFRIENDS TALK SHOW: Ok, you know what? Fuck this sketch. You all know how I feel about it, it deserves no more words.

DRAGON BABIES: An HBO first look at a fake animated kids movie, where one of the characters is voiced by a retired cop, who's apparently a character of Mike O'Brien's. Eh. It's kind of boring, but I'll post it anyway in case you want a look. I haven't laughed at any of Mike's bits this entire season, but he must be friendly with the rest of the cast members or something (apparently that's how you get airtime on this show, which explains Aidy as well).

MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER: Hey, it's what's her name! Oh right, Nasim. She makes what feels like her third appearance all year long (she is so being pushed out right now) and unfortunately it's one of her awful characters that again, I have never once laughed at. Tonight is not the exception to the rule. By the way, Charlize has shown up in all these sketches but I'm almost forgetting because she hasn't made much of an impression, good or bad. She just kind of blends into the background.

WEEKEND UPDATE: Again, after a good update last week, tonight falls completely flat, even though Barbara Walters (the real one) finally shows up to own all the jokes and impressions of her over the years. She's given nothing funny to say and it was a total waste of a real celebrity. Thankfully, Drunk Uncle comes on to save the whole segment, and he's the one funny thing in this episode.

BIKINI BEACH PARTY: A TCM spoof of an old Gidget movie where Taran woos Charlize next to an exploding dead whale filled with gasoline. This falls flat too, and they do the whale exploding thing twice.

WHISKERS R 'WE: Kate and Charlize are eccentric cat ladies selling off kittens (where'd they get all those real cats?), and the two of them are pretty good here and definitely trying (Kate's one of the most naturally talented performers they have right now and she's not nearly used enough), but the writing, as per usual, sucks.

TOURISTS: A pre-taped bit with various cast members and Charlize disguised and accosting people on the streets asking for directions in fake accents. This isn't funny at all, nobody did anything weird enough- and I just have to ask, in a world where The Daily Show and Sasha Baron Cohen have existed for years now and done this sort of thing better, how they could possibly think that this mild bit of tape was good enough? Where's the risk?

So that was it. Charlize was a lackluster host to a really boring episode that felt phoned in at the worst level, which continues to be the terrible, terrible writing. I've said it before, I never believed this show could actually get worse when Seth Meyers left, but it defied all the odds. I give tonight a D. Andy Samberg comes back next week to host the season finale and I couldn't be happier that this season is ending. Hopefully they can make some major changes before the start of next season (I'll be listing some tips next week) because SNL's in dire straits right now and something's got to give.

Larry Wilmore to Replace Colbert on Comedy Central

Awesome news! One of my favorite Daily Show correspondents is finally getting his own show, having been tapped to take over The Colbert Report's timeslot starting January 17th. Larry Wilmore will host The Minority Report with Larry WIlmore, which will also be produced by Jon Stewart, like Colbert was. Larry Wilmore was the co-creator of The Bernie Mac Show and has been great for years on The Daily Show- I can't believe I didn't even think of him as a possible contender to replace Colbert (my money was on Samantha Bee), but he's perfect.

Here he is on the recent Donald Sterling/Cliven Bundy controversies:

The Daily Show
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TRAILER: "Gotham"

The trailer for Fox's Batman prequel show Gotham is here. This is kind of like their answer to Smallville I guess, but it looks like Jim Gordon (Ben Mckenzie from The O.C. and Southland) will be the main character. I think it's a little strange that they chose to set this at a time when Bruce Wayne is only about 12 years old. At least on Smallville, Clark Kent was a teenager and there was the promise of seeing him grow into Superman- at this age, Bruce can't even be much of a character, can he? Same goes for all these supervillains in their "before" stages- does anyone really want to see a pre-adolescent Poison Ivy or Catwoman? Seems kind of pointless. Won't this just be Gordon fighting street criminals? What's so special about that?

RECAP: 24: Live Another Day "11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m." / "12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m."

Jack is back everybody! And better than ever? Well, that depends on how much you missed 24 in its four year absence, because this new iteration looks, sounds and feels exactly like 24 down to its bones. For me it's exciting to welcome back old friends in the form of super-spy team Jack and Chloe and have them be every thing they once were (well, more or less, as those two in particular have some wrinkles to iron out, as we'll soon see).

It's been four years and Jack Bauer is a fugitive from the law for murdering those Russian diplomats and going on that revenge spree at the end of Season 8 (remember that?) Now, he shows up again in London just as President Heller and his daughter Audrey are there in order to sign a treaty with the British over extending a lease on the American military drone base (ahh- those familiar real world problems rearing their heads as always in a typical 24 season). But Jack arranges for his own capture by the CIA London station, populated by new characters in the form of chief Steve Navarro (Benjamin Bratt) and Agent Kate Morgan (Yvonne Strahovski from Chuck). Kate is the female version of Jack at this place, currently being let go because her husband was arrested for selling secrets to the Chinese, but out to prove herself, and as such, is the only person to realize Jack intentionally set himself up to be caught. Of course no one listens the one person who's always right, also in typical 24 fashion.

I like the touch of a cool, calm and collected Jack staring everyone down for a full forty minutes of the episode before he says anything, and we get the real reason he  let himself get taken in when we cut late in the first hour to a gothed out Chloe being tortured (!!) for the first time with injections in the "special activities" unit. So yeah, Jack's there to rescue his own personal Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and as soon as he gets escorted to where he wants to be he takes out everyone and everything, stabbing Chloe full of adrenaline and blowing up the building to get them out. Awesome! It's nice to see Jack Bauer kicking ass and taking names again. Jack and Chloe make their escape, Navarro re-instates Kate to bring them in (of course) and Jack tricks Chloe into leading them to her new WikiLeaks-esque organization, where he reveals that he's there to stop an assassination attempt on President Heller that originated from their hideout. This place is headed by a shady Assange-type figure in Adrian Cross, who seems to have a special relationship with Chloe that Jack firmly disapproves of, as he finds out that Chloe has been radicalized and is now a document leaker having turned against the government (but we don't find why yet- my guess is it has something to do with her husband and kid, who get no mention tonight- might they be dead?)

But she's not so angry that Jack's hold on her has completely disappeared, as she immediately offers to help him catch the hacker named Derek Yates, who they booted out of the group for breaking into military bases through satellites. They track him to a rundown building where the two quickly fall back into their old roles (there's a nice moment where they put in the earpieces and check coms, as though it's official CTU business again) and Jack's once again kicking some serious ass while he takes out seven or eight guys in the hunt for Yates (who escapes with his girlfriend just in time). The CIA show up and slow Jack down, so he has to temporarily knock out Agent Kate (but not before letting her know she's after the wrong guy) while he escapes again with Chloe, who hotwired and stole a car, much to his surprise and admiration (lol).

So that's the first two hours with Jack tonight, and on the government front we get some new characters in Mark Boudreau (Tate Donovan, who fits into the 24 universe so well I have to stop and remember whether he's actually been on before- but he hasn't) as Heller's chief of staff and husband of Audrey. We find out he helped her through her catatonic state that we saw her in last (way back in Season 6) and for that reason hates Jack and is colluding with Navarro to get rid of him so that he won't ever have to tell the President or his wife (which means they'll find out very, very soon). And Heller is deteriorating mentally from early stages of what appears to be Alzheimers, and that's kind of sad because I always liked him. 

Moving on to the villains, of which there are always multiple on any given season of 24. For now we get let in on Yates, who managed to hack in and take control of a drone being piloted by new character Lt. Chris Tanning (John Boyega, soon to be of rebooted Star Wars fame), who he frames for aiming the drone at his own convoy and killing four people. But Yates is only an underling of course and apparently being hired by the mysterious Michelle Fairley (Lady Stark from Game of Thrones) to develop the technology. After the successful test run, she has her daughter kill the guy in the men's room at the end of the episode and steal the device (turns out she was posing as his annoying girlfriend this whole time- ok that was pretty obvious) before Jack can get to him. Jack does manage to get what was left behind in the building though, of which Chloe decrypts only a fraction of a "schematic" (one of 24's all time favorite words- I'm serious, binge watch this show and try to mark how often everything hinges on a convenient "schematic" of some kind).

So that's it guys! What did you think of 24's big return? It's familiar, but exciting and entertaining, which is the level on which I've always enjoyed this show, and I like how they set up the Jack/Chloe relationship this season so that they have to repair the rift between them in some ways. On another note, does anyone find it slightly creepy how much Yvonne Strahovski resembles Elisha Cuthbert? I really hope there's no Kate/Jack attraction or anything because of that. She also looks a lot like his love interest from Season 2- so much so that I presume that's why they gave her the same name (seriously, they did miss that?) I should refer to her as Kate 2 from this point on.

RECAP: Mad Men 7x04 "The Monolith"

Not a good night for Don at the office, but what can we expect after what happened last week? Basically Don has been given nothing to do except hang out at his desk all day ever since he came back to work. This week though, Harry Crane has gotten his wish, thanks to Jim Cutler, and the office is now losing its entire creative space to make room for the new "computer." Of course, back in 1969 the installation of such a thing involves drilling holes in the ceiling and is going to take up an entire room, as strange as it is to see that now. So the whole office is under construction all day and Peggy is very unhappy about it, badmouthing Lou to Stan and Ginsberg behind his back for not fighting for them (unfortunately it looks like he hears her). 

Meanwhile out in LA while on a date with his girlfriend Bonnie, Pete runs into an old pal from Vix, who tells him his former father-in-law had a heart attack (which Pete didn't even know about) and that he's now in charge of the fast food chain Burger Chef, which he wants to bring to the firm. Pete's thrilled to finally be of use, and while on one of their conference calls with the partners, Ted suggests they give it to Peggy, which Lou nods along with like the lazy lapdog that he is. Pete wants Don on it though, and Roger agrees, so they informally decide to have both work on it. Cutler gives a pissed off Lou the authority to delegate, so nasty little Lou decides to call Peggy into his office, make her believe it was his idea to encourage her, raise her salary by $100 a week, and then tell her she's in charge, with Don working under her. Ugh. I hate Lou.

Peggy's pretty thrilled at the prospect of ordering Don around (in case we hadn't gotten the message yet, she still hates him) and seizes the chance to lord it over him, calling him in for a meeting with another underling and ordering them both to come up with 25 tags for her. Don is needless to say, extremely not thrilled by this and proceeds to ignore Peggy entirely, refusing to come up with anything. He tosses his typewriter into the window in Lane's office out of frustration and finds an old Mets banner he then hangs up on the wall for symbolic value. While moping around he meets Lloyd, the guy installing the new IBM computer, who takes a liking to him and lets Don in on the fact that the new fledgling industry is about to explode and no one has any advertizing. The lightbulb goes off in Don's head and he tries to bring the idea to Cooper, but he's shot down, as Cooper asks him why he even came back, seeing as they were doing fine without him. This upsets Don so much that he immediately goes to Roger's bar and gets drunk (nooo!), right after he was told not to ever drink in the office again. This time it's Freddie Rumpsen to the rescue, as he quickly comes over when Don basically drunk dials him, and helps him get out of the office, avoiding any of the partners. But he can't get him past the IBM guy, who Don goes over to and accuses of being a liar for some reason, and that's all kind of mysterious, so I'm guessing we haven't seen the last of Lloyd.

Peggy's super pissed about Don ignoring her orders and bitches to Joan about why she got stuck with him, but Joan tells her to just report to Lou, who's on the look out for Don to implode anyway. Finally, Freddie gets Don home and essentially acts as his sponsor, telling him to shut up and do the work in order to prove he doesn't belong in the lowly position they've placed him in. Don takes the advice to heart and arrives early the next morning to tell Peggy he'll have her tags by noon, and then presumably goes on the write the best damn tags she'll ever read in her life. I do wonder where all this is going though- obviously Don will come back on top, but to what end? He didn't have a very good answer for why he wants to stay so badly, other than that he started the agency. Does he want them to beg him so that he can refuse and go off to California on his own terms? Remains to be seen.

In the B-plot tonight, Roger's daughter Margaret has run off to a hippie commune, and Mona and Magaret's husband Brooks come to him for help. Roger would prefer that Brooks be a "man" and handle the situation but Brooks lands himself in jail instead after getting in bar fight. This leaves Mona and Roger to head out to the commune themselves (and hilariously decide to leave Brooks in jail for two more days), where they find that Margaret has renamed herself "Marigold" (hee), and is firmly sucked into her new life communing with nature. Mona gets fed up pretty fast and storms off while Roger decides to take her up on her invitation to join them, at least for a bit. He thinks he's now open-minded and knows these kinds of people enough to hang out for a while, and to a degree he is. He even has a nice moment with his daughter as they look up at the stars in the hay that night, but when he realizes that Margaret is casually fooling around with the guy who runs the place (although he says it's run by "consensus"), he's had enough too and tries to drag Margaret out of there. She won't have it though and when Roger invokes her son, she doesn't care, saying if she survived his absence in her childhood then her own kid will too. Yikes. Roger is defeated and sadly leaves Margaret where she wants to be.

Other tidbits:

-Getting annoyed with Peggy's constant pissiness this season. I prefer it when she and Don are pals and working together, but I'm going to assume that she will quickly realize that Don is way too good for the stuff he's doing, and is still the best person there at what he does.

-I used to like Ginsberg but he's become nothing but shouting comic relief now. Why can't they give him a real storyline again? Instead, he's relegated to shouting about a couch.

-I can't believe we're already past the halfway mark and there are only 3 more episodes left in the season. This is ridiculous. Why, AMC? Why did you do this? The previews tell us nothing as usual except that Betty is in the next one (great). Tune in then to see the second half of all those clipped conversations they're so fond of cutting.

RECAP: SNL 5/03 "Andrew Garfield"

Sweet relief! After the unbearably bad run of recent SNL episodes, I'm more than happy to say that tonight was at last tolerable. Of course, my standards could not possibly be any lower at this point (I'd been growing to slowly despise this cast, so it's a good thing tonight was decent) therefore I'm not sure that it qualifies as good. But maybe it's a start? But there's now just two episodes left in the season, so if it is a start it's pretty late. 

COLD OPEN: Taran starts off as NBA commissioner Adam Silver talking about the Donald Sterling scandal, and we get Bobby as Sterling, Sasheer (in her only appearance tonight) as his new mistress, Jay as Dennis Rodman and Kenan as the outgoing head of the NAACP. It's ok, they had to address this of course, but it's pretty mild overall.

MONOLOGUE: Andrew Garfield comes out very excited and brings on Emma Stone (who's a great host herself) to make him even more flustered, and right away they're cute and adorable together just like in the Spider-Man movies. Makes me want to see them in something else, like a romantic comedy. 

STANX: An ad for an underwear that acts as spanx for men with Beck doing most of the honors. It's ok. At least the end was chuckle-worthy.

FAMILY FEUD: A so-so sketch that Kenan hosts as Steve Harvey, but mostly this showcases one of the major ongoing problems with the show right now. There are WAY too many people in this cast at the moment. Seriously, I think they need to cut the numbers by half. I know at least that many people are doing nothing week after week, and even in this skit, there are like ten people on the stage at once and most with no lines. The highlight is Andrew's pretty good Justin Timberlake. 

OLIVER TWIST: Kind of a weird fake Masterpiece Classics that has Cecily showing up in the middle of the Dickens story as "Deirdre," the full grown woman who wants more. Sorry, but her character just didn't hit it here. Not funny, although both she and Andrew were trying.

BEYGENCY: Hey, I kinda liked this one! A pre-taped bit about a shadow agency who tracks Andrew to the ends of the earth after he dares to semi-diss Beyonce, but with cameos from Jack and Chloe from 24! Love seeing Kiefer and Mary-Lynn back in action.

WEEKEND UPDATE: After a lame last few Updates, it's actually good tonight! The jokes are solid and Kate shows up as her Russian village woman (she's funny as always- she's somebody they would feature a lot more if they'd slice this cast in half). We also get Taran as Jebediah on the Tony noms (always good) and a new person, "image consultant" Leslie Jones, who appears to be one of the writers they hired back when Sasheer first came on in January. She's a big presence, that's for sure and she seemed to be a hit with the crowd- I thought she was decent in her debut. Wonder if she'll be back.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2: Emma is back! Of course, you should always use her if you can. And, wait, could it be? A good sketch? Yes, I think it is! Emma and Andrew are great together as they can't figure out how to kiss while filming a scene from the movie and it's hilarious. Even better is the payoff when Chris Martin shows up. God, it's been so long since they had a genuinely good sketch, not just decent or passable. Bring Emma back more, she raised everything up a notch. Or better yet, have them co-host!

WEDDING TOAST: Amusing bit where Andrew gives the worst best man wedding toast in history, while the crowd is horrified. Andrew's really giving it his all tonight and you can tell. He may not be as naturally chameleon-like as Drake and Emma, but he's certainly energetic.

BIRD BIBLE: Final bit of the night is a rerun of that bird bible ad from a few weeks ago. Meh. It's always lame when they re-use stuff.

So that's it. Andrew was fun, Emma was better, and I really want to see the two of them do a comedy together. Maybe I'll get my wish, since they don't seem to be shy about appearing and doing things as a couple and they've got great chemistry and timing that shouldn't be wasted on the recycled Spidey franchise. I give tonight a B-, since even though it felt like an improvement, it wasn't exactly grade A material (I mean, one good sketch in a whole episode really shouldn't be the benchmark of quality, right?) Next week we have Charlize Theron and The Black Keys, so until we meet again everyone!

Craig Ferguson Calls it Quits

In what's going to be the final shift in late night for a very long time to come (probably), Craig Ferguson announced last night that he'll be stepping down from the The Late Late Show after his contract ends in December. He says of course this has nothing to do with him not getting (or apparently even being considered for) Letterman's job, that he decided awhile ago to move on, but he also acknowledges that's what everyone will think anyway. It's too bad, because he has his own cult of fans and is actually one of the more creative, goofier personalities out there. His interviews are some of the weirdest and most offbeat (and SO much better than the other talk shows becaus of that) but clearly CBS thought he was just too eccentric for the earlier time slot. When he's replaced, we'll have a new lineup of late night hosts for the foreseeable future, capping off quite the busy moving around of the last two years. Any suggestions on this one? I'm thinking they ought to give an unknown a chance in this later time period.

Here's Craig's announcement from last night:

TEASER: "The Knick"

I don't know what's going on with Steven Soderbergh's supposed "retirement," but this new Cinemax original series is 10 episodes, all of which are directed by him, so he hasn't exactly thrown in the towel yet. Or maybe he meant strictly film, in which case he left himself quite a loophole. Starring Clive Owen as a doctor in turn of the century New York, this show is about the advances in medicine at that crucial time and is set to air sometime late in the summer. We'll be able to tell more from the full length trailer when it comes out, but it looks promising.

RECAP: Mad Men 7x03 "Field Trip"

Tonight marked Don's big return to the office, and boy was it awkward. We'll start out on the Don front tonight, as he tries to have other Dawn catch him up to speed over the phone on what's been happening, only to find her swamped in her new position and unable to attend to him. This annoys him but he quickly receives a call from Megan's agent, begging him to tend to his wife, because she's growing desperate in her auditions and apparently accosted a director in public. So Don flies out to surprise her and she's at first happy to see him, but things go south very quickly when she finds out he only came to check on her, and she starts immediately calling him out about his probable cheating while he's in New York. To calm her down, Don finally admits to her he lost his job, but this only angers Megan more, as she realizes this means he hasn't even wanted to be with her for months. She tells him it's over between them and Don goes home, but to his credit he does seem regretful about their relationship and calls her later to tell her he's trying to fix his job situation. Megan says the only way to fix things is for him to move out there and get a job, but Don doesn't sound willing to do it. So it appears things are over for Don and Megan, but I still took this whole thing as being somewhat ambiguous- I wonder if Don will eventually, by the end of the season (and I mean the whole season, not this half season) end up moving to California after all, leaving the door open with Megan for the future, since he does tell her again that he still loves her.

The apparent break-up with Megan does prompt Don to get back to SC&P somehow, so he finally goes to Roger's apartment and has it out with him. The two argue over what he did and the fact that Don didn't answer Roger's Christmas card (lol), but Roger is really pretty easy to sway and quickly agrees to let Don come back to work because he misses him (awww!). I love Don and Roger's friendship. So Don, with some trepidation, heads back into the office the next day and things get awkward really fast. Roger isn't there yet and hasn't told a single other person in the office, leaving Don to enjoy some very weird and tension-filled reunions with Joan, Cutler, Peggy (who, still pissed about Ted, snarks to him that he hasn't been missed) and a run-in with Lou Avery, who immediately cries to Cutler, telling him he's got a two-year contract and they can't fire him. When Roger finally saunters in, Don yells at him for not getting everything straightened out, but Roger at last gets to assert his own authority, claiming it's his name on the door and he can do whatever he wants. At the partner's meeting sans Don, he finds out that basically every other person was under the impression that Don's "leave of absence" meant he was fired, but he shoots down every argument for not letting him come back and states the reasons they need him- the creative department is dying (because obviously Lou sucks) and most importantly, firing him would mean buying him out, which they can't afford to do. Go Roger! This is certainly his best episode in a long time. Cutler is adamantly against it (turns out Lou's his guy), but outvoted in the end. The partners welcome Don back but under the conditions that he not be alone with the clients, no drinking in the office (ha- can he pull that off?), and finally, he must report to Lou (ouch, that one's gonna hurt). After a beat, Don agrees, and that's that (to the sounds of Jimi Hendrix over the end credits).

Elsewhere in the Mad Men universe, this episode also marks the return of Betty, who I personally have never missed. But she's back, and just as nasty and haughty as ever. She has a fabulously passive-aggressive conversation with her old neighbor Francine, who's now working part time as a travel agent, and completely disses her desire to do something with her life besides being a mother. And then she goes on a field trip to a farm with Bobby's class as a chaperone, where she seems to be getting along with a child of hers for once, even bonding with another mother over mocking the teacher's braless status, until Bobby commits the unforgiveable sin of trading his mother's sandwich away for some gumdrops. And yes, he will pay dearly for this for the rest of his life. Betty forces him to eat all the candy and hours later, the kid is still suffering when Henry comes home to the all the nastiness still floating around in the air. Betty blames Bobby again and storms out of the kitchen, while Henry sits down to dinner with the kid, shooting him an understanding glance. When he goes to see Betty watching TV with a sleeping Gene in her arms, she says Bobby destroyed a perfect day for her (oh for fuck's sake), and wonders why her children don't love her. Wow. The long suffering Henry simply shakes his head and continues to ask himself why he married such a horrible woman (or at least that's what he's thinking).

Other tidbits:

-We also saw Harry Crane's first appearance of the season tonight, continuing to complain about SC&P totally ignoring their media department, a fact that finally seems to win him a supporter in Jim Cutler when a client wonders why they don't have a computer like other agencies. Harry of course lies smoothly that they do, but Jim finds out he's a born liar ("the most dishonest person he's ever met"), and that Harry is so fed up with the way he's treated that he's basically checked out of his duties. Nice to see you again, Harry. You haven't changed one bit.

-There was a very strange moment tonight where Don is approached and propositioned by a young blonde who claims they know each other, in front of two rival ad agency guys who were interested in hiring him. He thinks it's a joke at first but they assure him they know nothing about it and Don looks after her, pensive. I had NO idea what this scene was about, and it was never referred back to again. I feel like I missed something, so if anybody caught that, please, I'd love your interpretations.

-Peggy is in a perpetual bad mood this season, first because Ginsberg is winning a Clio and she wasn't even submitted, and then because Don's coming back, and she smugly insults him like I mentioned earlier. I really hope Peggy's success isn't concurrent with her becoming more and more unlikeable. There are more than enough of those characters around already, and if Betty's back I can only take one irrationally evil person at a time.