Ben Mark Holzberg/The CW Summer TV is starting! Our lives are back! Tonight saw the return of both Mistresses and Beauty and the Beast, and gave us a pretty awesome episode of 24: Live Another Day. Plus, MasterChef gave one contestant all the power, and also made us hungry, as usual. Welcome to Monday! Now join us as we take a trip through the night's biggest TV moments.
Beauty and the Beast: It's back and our lives have meaning again! Vincent's been arrested for murder and that's basically a huge disaster for multiple reasons. Cat, of course, didn't have her badge with her, so she had to try to convince the officers to let her back to see Vincent, while JT and Tess had to cut their morning after short to help find the gem to keep Vincent from causing a few Beast-ish problems while in jail. JT was sure Gabe was to blame for setting Vincent up, but Gabe swore he had nothing to do with it. Cat also confronted her father, who claimed the same thing. Vincent later Beasted out in an ambulance after a fight with another prisoner and managed to escape, eventually showing up to tell Cat goodbye, because he refuses to let her testify for him.
Then they showered together, but it was super lame and they were fully clothed. (Teases!) Gabe then showed up after discovering a money trail that seemed to imply that Reynolds was involved, but even Reynolds told Vincent to protect Cat from whatever new and crazy villain they're dealing with. Vincent goes on the run, alone, while someone snuck up on Cat in her apartment and threw a bag over her head and we need next Monday to get here riiiiight about now before we hyperventilate.
Mistresses: Who else is glad to have this bit of soapy summer fun back on your TV?! The end of the first season was intense and now it's time for the ladies to live with what happened. Savi chose Dominic over Harry and seems to be determined to remake herself after she lost her baby and nearly lost her life. She got her job back, but was a little let down when she had to start sharing her office with another attractive woman. Meanwhile, after an encounter with a new young patient, Karen was considering re-starting her private practice and Joss had to turn to Harry when she was in need of a caterer. Plus, April had a great time with a new fling, and it looks like things are going a little better for her this season.
24: Um, Kate Morgan is the badass CIA lady we've always wanted ever since Chuck ended and we had no more Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski, how we love thee) in our lives. The plan was for her to spend most of an operation knocked out so she wouldn't be interrogated, while Jack got Rask to load a virus onto his laptop. Instead, she was nearly electrocuted and electric-drilled before freeing herself by wrapping her legs around a guy's neck and stabbing him with his own knife. What?! That was awesome! We also learned that Navarro helped frame Kate's husband for selling secrets and it's probably not gonna be good for whoever finds that out.
MasterChef: Tonight was a lot of fun for one contestant and not so much fun for a few others. While the first challenge sent Astrid home with an underbaked dessert, Courtney's dessert was declared the best, giving her the chance to sit in the judge's pantry, decide what the contestants are cooking, and decide who cooks. So half of the contestants had to cook meatloaf for the judges, while the other half – the half Courtney didn't feel threatened by – are automatically safe. Francis ended up winning the meatloaf challenge, and Courtney correctly predicts that Whitney will be the one going home, after the judges declared her meatloaf to be "bland," even though there were others that Gordon Ramsay either spit out or called "disgusting." Hmm.
Real Housewives of Orange County: Shannon and Heather continued to have it out about that chair incident from a few weeks ago. Shannon feels like Heather is condescending, Heather feels like Shannon's life revolves around her and that her perceptions are basically more important than Shannon's feelings. It's ridiculous. Meanwhile, Tamra heads to the doctor to find a way to cure her aging and to get her son to stop taking growth hormones. Just a typical day in Orange County, we guess.
So what did you think of tonight's television offerings? Which ones did you watch? Are you super glad to have some summer shows back? What shows are you still waiting for? Head to the comments to discuss!