Murphy returns to FYI after ""drying out"" at the Betty Ford clinic. The show has undergone some changes while she was gone, including the addition of a beauty queen to the anchor desk and a new young executive producer. In her first week back she isn't sure whether she still has her edge.

Miles schedules Murphy to interview her radical ex-husband. Murphy & Jake's feelings for one another begin to ruin the chance of a professional interview.

During the Christmas holidays, a mother abandons her children to the care of Murphy Brown. Murphy goes all out to help them out.

Murphy's having a rotten day, complicated by a gunman who interrupts the show and demands they read his statement on the air and it gets capped off by the painter she hired to do her kitchen sticking around to finish ""extending myself.""

Murphy's overbearing mother comes to visit for an unspecified length of time.

Eldin meets Corky for the first time and becomes infatuated with her. Phil reflects on the first time he met Murphy, when she first came to Washington to audition against Linda Ellerbee & Frank Fontana for FYI.