3 takeaways from Savannah Guthrie's return to the 'Today' show

After 64 days off the air — amid the investigation over the disappearance of her 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie — Savannah Guthrie returned to "Today" on Monday morning. Here are three takeaways:

It was a quiet reentry

If there's a playbook out there explaining how to bring back a major morning talent — after an unusually traumatic absence — then "Today" viewers got Chapter 1 Monday morning. It was as if Guthrie had never been gone at all: "Welcome back," said co-host Craig Melvin. "Thank you," said she. Then, a slight touch of hands, scarcely yet adroitly acknowledging what everyone in the world already knows. And it was on to the lead story. That's the way it went all morning. Lot's of "welcomes" — no hugs, dramatics, or fireworks. Those have already happened. Back to work, and to the crush of news. In fact, if there is a right way to do this, then this was the right way — a tactic to manage nerves, expectations, and (above all) emotions. No one feels good about what Guthrie has gone through, of course. No one feels good about what she's going through now. But no one needs to get constant reminders either. Instead, it's best to remind viewers that she's back at work, a portrait of courage, grace and perseverance. Chapter 1 — the hardest chapter — has been written. Now on to the rest of the book.

Could she have left the show?

In late February, there was in fact considerable speculation that Guthrie would never come back to "Today." It wasn't a drumbeat, but a widespread assumption, expressed as a "how could she?" possibility. The newsletter Status got a lot of traffic out of a report that didn't flatly declare her departure but strongly indicated that outcome. Here's the pull quote: "Speaking to Status News, one executive said, 'there’s no way Savannah’s coming back. I can’t imagine she would even want to.' " Who knows? That may have even been true in the moment. NBC News certainly didn't know the ultimate outcome, and there was plenty of internal discussion about the "what next?" The answer quickly became apparent, however. There was no Plan B, and no easy exit for either NBC or its co-host. She joined NBC News as a legal analyst in 2007, became co-host of the third hour in 2011, and co-anchor of "Today" (7 to 9 a.m.) a little over a year later — effectively rushed into the job because NBC and then co-host Matt Lauer were anxious to get Ann Curry off the show. Lauer was dumped in 2017, then the Hoda Kotb/Savannah era began, a stabilizing one for "Today," ultimately a growing one too. "Today" actually got a Guthrie bump over the last few months — drive-by viewers wondering about her news, or how the show would handle her news — while the net is that "Today" now has a slight lead over longtime rival "Good Morning America" in total viewers (3.1 million to 3 million). NBC wants to keep the momentum going, and how to do that? Bring back the host who got the momentum going in the first place. There was simply no way for Guthrie not to come back.

What's next?

Here's the easy read — the Guthrie bump continues, viewership builds, the show maintains, then builds, that thinnest of leads over "GMA," and life on morning TV goes on, brighter than ever for "Today." But that's also the cynical read. (Hey, this is the TV business — you expected something other than cynicism?) Here's the more urgent one. Guthrie is — one can reasonably assume — still in agony. Her mother remains missing. A huge part of her life is on hold, and could be for months, years ... or days. The uncertainty persists. How does she handle this? How do her colleagues? How does the show? (How do viewers?) Guthrie is only human, grappling with the unknown — her personal existential crisis in full display, masked only by her professionalism and the well wishes of her co-hosts. Morning TV may be the most fungible of all forms of TV — here today (pun intended), forgotten by tomorrow. The tone can range from glib to facile, serious to silly. But there Guthrie remains, a constant reminder of her own tragedy, of her own unfinished story. What happens in the other chapters of this book? Who knows? They've yet to be written.