What is this new show, Dirty Sexy Money? Do I want it anywhere near my television? This currency that's covered in the kind of dirty and sexy that makes those CSI crime-lights glow?

Lynette is home from the wedding of the Mayor to the Latino Vote -- no sign of Tom, weird...but I'll take it (he really hasn't been much fun this entire season, has he?) -- and she finds Stella sitting on the couch, sipping on some kind of Drink drink. Lynette makes a mildly snarky comment about how amazed she is that all the kids are asleep with cough syrup miraculously untouched. Stella: "Boy, you're just waiting for an excuse to give me the boot." Lynette: "Well, if history is any indicator, I won't have to wait long." Stella, baiting her hook: "So, you don't think people can change?" Lynette thinks that "at a certain point, people are just who they are." Stella, on the other hand, is sure people change, why just look at Lynette, always so perfect, "and then along came Rick." The shot hits home, and Lynette turns around and stares at her mother, all wide-eyed. Lynette, with a glass of wine swinging wildly in her hand, admits to there being some Tootie trouble, but unlike her drunken slut of a mother (I paraphrase), she never actually put the needle on the record with Tootie. They jab at each other -- At least Lynette has a husband like Tom to come home to! Stella had a husband, too! But he was boring! And so Stella cheated on him and drove him away, even though he was the only stable influence Lynette and her siblings ever had! Etc.! Etc.! -- and then the fight reaches its sickening climax, when Stella reminds Lynette what she, as a little girl, said to Stella when Stella was diagnosed with breast cancer: young Lynette said Stella had "earned it" and that "it was god's punishment." Hoo boy.

Lynette pours herself another glass of wine and knocks it back in a violent jolt. Stella, tauntingly: "How you feeling now, Lynette? You think you're being punished?" Lynette stands there, looking like she's just been slapped, and then she weakly reminds Stella that she "never did what [Stella] did," as in, she never actually consummated anything. Stella, gleefully: "No, you just wanted to." Lynette, all business now, tells Stella to take her money and shove it, more or less, and Stella responds with this impassioned speech about how Lynette doesn't know what she's in for with the cancer, and that Stella is going to stay, "holding [her] hand every damn minute," no matter how bad it gets. And when it comes right down to it, Lynette won't be strong enough to fight both her mother and the cancer; it's one or the other, cookie. Stella heads upstairs, and Lynette just stands there, looking defeated. I can't...quite...tell...is this a threat or a loving, motherly gesture disguised as browbeating? Either way, I think it's going to be pretty painful to watch, and I'm not looking forward to witnessing this whole bitter tale drag out into Season 4. Yay?