There are scores of TV shows out there, with dozens of new episodes each week, not to mention everything you can find on Hulu Plus, Netflix streaming, and HBO Go. How’s a viewer to keep up? To help you sort through all that television has to offer, Flavorwire is compiling the five best moments on TV each week. This time, Jane the Virgin ends its first season with a fittingly soapy twist, Mad Men celebrates the world’s most depressing Mother’s Day, and Scandal reunites its central couple.
Welcome to the World, Mateo (Gloriano Rogelio Solano Villanueva)
Jane the Virgin has made its name on its masterful combination of heartwarming family show and campy, dramatic telenovela. The ending twist of Monday’s first season finale perfectly combined the two, finally integrating the drug lord plot with Jane’s in a way that felt natural: by having Sin Rostro, aka Rafael’s former stepmother Rose, kidnap Jane and Rafael’s newly born baby Mateo! The birth scene, of course, was just as heartwarming as the show had led us to believe it would be. But the kidnapping? That’s as good a cliffhanger as we’ve ever seen.
Bye Bye, Betty
Mad Men saved one of it biggest sucker punches for second-to-last. This week, while Don was off finding his protégé in Kansas, Betty Draper Francis learned that she had terminal lung cancer and less than a year to live. The scene where her doctor and husband discuss her fate like she isn’t sitting in the same room is horrifyingly reminiscent of the early discussions between Don and her shrink; the sit-down with Sally and subsequent letter were devastating in how unemotional they were. Goodbye, Betty. You may have been hated, even for a Mad Men character, but you’ll still be missed.
Funny Ladies
As far as mediocre SNL episodes go, Sunday’s was even worse than usual, but with one major twist: the monologue, of all things, was the highlight of the night. That’s because, instead of making Reese Witherspoon burst into song, the writers had every cast member (and Reese!) bring out their moms. The results — fake apologies for childhood misdeeds — were predictably adorable.
M. Night Shyamalan Has Landed
The director has apparently used up all his goodwill in the film world, so now he’s moved on… to television. His Fox series Wayward Pines features a cast that includes Matt Dillon, Melissa Leo, and the network’s current favorite person on earth next to Lee Daniels, Terrence Howard. It also features the kind of creepy, small-town vibe we’ve come to expect from television shows in the Twin Peaks lineage: Dillon, as secret service agent Ethan, stumbles into the Idaho hamlet in search of two missing coworkers, and mysteries upon mysteries ensue.
Fitzlivia, Round 593205732
Scandal‘s fourth season finale saw a decisive development in Olivia’s love life: she chose Fitz over Jake; Fitz kicked out his wife for causing the deaths of innocents; and the couple the Internet loves to hate are now set to shack up together in the White House, which is bound to go over well with the American public. #Fitzlivia lives, and Scandal enters its fifth season with its main pairing on their best terms in years.