Brothers & Sisters

As a follow-up to yesterday’s recap, here are some memorable lines from the “Domestic Issues” episode.

Travis: (as debate opponent) Senator, do you believe in evolution, or is it, as the Bible said, that God created the world in six days?
Robert: Well, that’s a little before my time.
Travis: That’s good! Use humor. It makes you seem like a real person.
Robert: I am a real person.
Travis: (Laughs)

Robert: If you’re asking me whether or not I believe in God, the answer’s yes.
Kitty: (Throws up)
Travis: What, is she an atheist?

Nora: Robert’s the best … of that awful bunch.

Lena: Are you firing me? Because I just bought a really amazing purse that cost me a fortune.

Nora: How about Ainsley? Alika?
Kitty: Mom, stop naming my nonexistent baby. And since when are you so adventurous with names? You threatened to disown Sarah when she named Cooper Cooper.
Nora: That’s different. Cooper’s a last name. I just didn’t think anyone wanted to have two last names.

Kevin: Joe’s hired a barracuda. I’m a guppie compared to that woman.

Justin: I overheard Mom on the phone, and she definitely used the word pregnant, and Kitty’s the only one of us having sex right now … wait, unless you’re …
Rebecca: Me? No, no, no. Are you?
Justin: No. God, I feel sad for us.

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Spooky! It was a scary episode for the Walkers, with all sorts of shocks and dread. Despite the Halloween theme, though, it wasn’t ghosts and goblins or even egg-wielding teens doing the damaged; far worse, it was loved ones, trusted and untrustworthy.

Joe couldn’t have been any bigger a figure of terror if he was dressed as the grim reaper himself. Here, he was dealing death to Sarah’s self-confidence, her self-image, her belief in the decisions they made together and in his essential goodness. Recent history aside, Sarah had clearly been assuming that the Whedon divorce was going to be civilized, with the former spouses working together to raise their children in an atmosphere of respect and compromise. The kind of thing you could get your non-divorce-lawyer brother to handle, something all in the family.

So she thinks nothing of calling Joe to help her out when she has to reschedule a meeting for school drop-off time in order to make their lawyerly get-together. That’s what civilized divorced folks do, right, help each other out? But that nothing becomes a big something at the meeting, when — after Sarah’s allowed Joe to keep his guitar collection, and Joe’s made no claims on Ojai Foods stock, and things seem to be all agreeable-like — Joe’s smug lawyer uses it as an example of the sort of work-before-kids behavior that is prompting Joe to demand full custody. Kevin quickly retreats, huffing about an ambush, but lets Sarah know that she better get herself a file full of character references but quick.

Funny thing about those character references, though — everybody Sarah calls, all the teachers and mothers and coaches and caregivers, has already stood up for Joe. Clearly, the guy’s been planning this for a while, maybe even back when he was canoodling with Sarah on the washing machine. Which makes him look like a grade-A weasel, but it also sounds like it’s lifted directly from the Divorce Lawyer’s Playbook: Let the other spouse think everything’s cool so she doesn’t assemble her own case while you’re assembling yours. Blindsiding stinks on a personal level, but on a legal level, it tends to work well.

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Well, now that was more like it. What a gorgeous episode. This show has done fine in the past few weeks with bringing the funny, and bringing the drama. Last night, it brought a sort of aching subtlety that’s been missing, and that really makes the show in my mind. Things aren’t black and white. Relationships are complicated. People make decisions and find that there are unintended repercussions. This is an episode in which big things happened, but quietly. And yet there were still laughs, and certainly drama aplenty.

I wondered earlier whether the preview teasers were accurate, or just teasing. No gotchas this time — everything happened as advertised. Sarah lost custody of her kids. Tommy lost custody of his sanity, if you ask me. Kitty is indeed with child. Might have been better if we had been able to take these changes at face value, without being told ahead of time exactly what was happening. But it worked, regardless.

Poor Sarah. My heart aches for her. The scene where Joe and the kids leave and she just sinks to the ground was masterful work by Rachel Griffiths, as was the rest of the episode — the mix of hurt and disbelief and anger and humiliation constantly at work on her face. It’s easy to think of Joe as the black-hat here, but if you believe being with you is what’s best for the children and you have a sharp lawyer, this is what you do. If the roles were reversed, and Sarah was the stay-at-home mom and Joe was the guy making five times more than she ever could, and he was having trouble juggling child issues and work issues post-separation, the Walkers wouldn’t have thought half a second before rallying to muster the best possible case against him.

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The previews are promising a night of tricks, treats and surprises for tonight’s new Brothers & Sisters episode, “Domestic Issues.” Accent on tricks, because the previews have been lying and misleading before. That funeral fake-out was like a bunch of eggs hurled at our doors, or maybe TP in our trees. So take the following apparent plotlines with a grain of salt, and your weight in candy corn.

Apparent Plotline #1 centers on Joe demanding full custody of the kids, and … well, that’s not such a surprise, is it? He kind of had full custody of them when he and Sarah were married, what with her workaholic ways. It’s hard to argue for Joe and against Sarah, given how scummy he’s been behaving lately, but how exactly is she going to manage being the primary caretaker half the time? Both for consistency for the kids and Sarah’s very real need for a break, I wouldn’t mind having those rugrats around alternate weekends only, freeing Sarah to pursue more varied and interesting stories. If they were my kids, on the other hand, I’d be leaning across that conference table and tearing that weasel’s heart out. So who knows.

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Rachel Griffiths didn’t get an Emmy award for Brothers & Sisters this year, just the honor of being nominated. But she’s got another chance to take home a trophy for her portrayal of Sarah now with the Australian Film Institute Awards … excuse me, that would be the L’Oreal Paris Australian Film Awards. A little strange to have a product that mentions the capital of another country naming your country’s awards, but hey, sponsorship money is sponsorship money.

That’s not the only odd thing about these awards, actually. The “International Award for Best Actor” and “International Award for Best Actress” group together performances in both movies and TV shows, with the apparent only criteria being that the product is not native to Australia but the performer is.

So, in the Best Actor category, the nominees are Eric Bana in the movie Lucky You; Julian McMahon in the TV series Nip/Tuck; Hugh Jackman in the movie The Prestige; and Dominic Purcell in the TV series Prison Break. And Griffiths, nominated in the Best Actress category for Brothers & Sisters, competes against Rose Byrne in the TV series Damages; Jacinda Barrett in the movie The Last Kiss; and Toni Collette in the movie Little Miss Sunshine.

Those International awards seem largely intended to garner a little international press, because the rest of the nominees for AFI awards are for movies and TV shows, and performances therein, that you’ve probably never heard of if you don’t life Down Under. But hey, an award’s an award, and an award from your home country sweeter still. Best of luck to Griffiths in bringing this one home.

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Rachel Griffiths, Sarah Whedon, Australian Film Institute

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Tommy Walker, and how this new plot that has him apparently having an affair with the office manager while his wife struggles with depression at her faraway parents’ house, presents a decidedly different model from the one we met last season.

Tommy was originally established as the stable, steady brother with the good marriage and the business sense who could be sort of a viewer surrogate in rolling his eyes and smiling at the outrageous doings of his brothers and sisters. He had a few challenges — infertility, anger at Justin — but he seemed in general the least neurotic and most down-to-earth of the bunch. And I’m not saying this just because I am Tommy, according to the “Which Walker Are You” quiz.

The show certainly needs one bemused voice of reason among the chaos. But I think something happened around midseason last year that brought Tommy to the reason-free rounder he is now: The arrival of Robert McCallister. He’s kind of taken over that, “Well, they’re nuts, but they’re family” attitude that grounds the Walker shenanigans in an amusing way.

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Five questions — and a couple of answers — about last Sunday’s episode, “States of the Union”:

1. Was that the same dress Sarah was wearing at the Matriarchy engagement party? The color and cut and fit and style just looked very familiar to me. So I popped in the DVD for that episode (how great to have the DVDs to refer to!) and can report that it is not, in fact, the identical frock. The party number had a subtle pattern to it and a button-over piece at the neck, and probably was ruined by the jump into the pool anyway. Maybe Sarah went out and bought this somewhat similar one in an effort to replace it. I do like it that the sisters have their own styles, with Sarah wearing classic, tailored dresses and Kitty wearing skimpy little low-cut things with sweaters. You know, come to think of it, Sarah dresses a lot more like a political wife than Mrs.-McCallister-to-be.

2. Did Nora parachute down into Sarah’s house? Or have we established somewhere, and I missed it, that the Whedons lived within easy walking distance of the Walker homestead? Nora must have some sort of stealth capability for Kitty to have walked into her sister’s house not knowing that their mother was there. You’d think she might have been tipped off by the presence of the woman’s car out front — though you kind of have to love the idea of Nora parking, like, around the block so as to effectively sneak up on her offspring.

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As a follow-up to yesterday’s recap, here are some memorable lines from the “States of the Union” episode.

Justin: Mom, don’t you have like four other kids to worry about? Seriously, I mean, mom, Sarah’s going through a divorce, Kitty’s planning a wedding, Tommy’s got a newborn, and Kevin’s in, like, a long-distance relationship with a minister, which is possibly the scariest thing I’ve ever heard. Do you feel like spreading it out, at all?

Sarah: I am so pathetic. All I am missing is a Lionel Ritchie song and a pint of ice cream.

Sarah: You know what you get for ten years of marriage? Daffodils, diamonds, or an aluminum paperweight. That’s correct, ladies and gentlemen, ten years and all you get is a stupid paperweight. And you know, the tragic thing is? I didn’t even get that.
Kitty: Have you been day-drinking?

Sarah: I’m just going to spend the evening watching my wedding video and howling. [Nora beeps in] Don’t tell me. We should never have set up her speed dial.

Sarah: You got rid of her?
Kitty: Define “rid.”

Tommy: Space? She’s in another state! How much more “space” does she need?

Saul: You said just a few people.
Milo: You know what they say. Thirty’s the new few.

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This was kind of a patchwork episode, with scenes flowing back and forth among four different plots: The Walker women’s spa vacation; Justin’s rehab and relapse; Kevin’s confrontation of Saul; and Tommy’s business mistakes. The spa plot recurred the most, 13 scenes by my count, with six each for the other three. But since the subject of those three sub-plots were much heavier, it sort of felt like they had equal weight.

I’ll look at each plot thread independently here, since aside from a little lap-over of Nora interacting with Justin at the start and Tommy toward the end, they were largely self-contained.

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At least that’s what I hope this news means: After a poorly rated first showing on Thursday, and a dismally rated second one on Sunday, CBS has pulled the plug on Viva Laughlin, the crime drama/musical whose prior claim on actor Eric Winter’s services sent Jason McCallister on indefinite assignment to a far-off land.

According to discussion in the Television Without Pity forum (warning: not for the spoiler-phobic), Brothers & Sisters is working about five episodes ahead, so don’t expect the Reverend Boyfriend to make a reappearance next week or the week after. But the producers sure as heck better be getting that actor under contract but quick. A return in time for Christmas, if not his brother’s wedding, would be a very nice gift for Kevin and viewers alike.

Along with the bad news for Viva Laughlin, the Season Pass blog at Variety.com has some good news for Brothers & Sisters. On the subject of Sunday nights, Cynthia Littleton writes: “One success story that’s emerging on the night is ABC’s drama ‘Brothers and Sisters’ in its sophomore sesh. The 10 p.m. drama is holding a good chunk of its ‘Desperate Housewives’ lead-in (last night ‘Brothers’ averaged 11.9 million viewers and 4.8/11 to ‘Housewives’ ‘ 17.7 million and 7.1/16), and IMHO is a whole lot more watch-able than its flashier companion.”

IMHO, too.

(Thanks to Nathan for alerting me to Viva Laughlin’s demise in a comment on the previous post. I’ve been keeping an eye out for news of the show’s doom, but I didn’t think it would happen this fast.)

_{Photo: ABC.com}

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Viva Laughlin, CBS, Eric Winter

Well, I stand corrected. When I was looking at this episode before it aired, I was sort of dreading the spa silliness, but as it turned out, it was really the least painful plotline. It seemed less slapstick-y to me than it looked in the previews, maybe because different scenes were pushed together, and maybe because some of the preview scenes didn’t turn up (did I just miss Kitty tackling someone for flowers?).

I’m still not crazy about the crashing a wedding business — do people really do that? people with family members running for president? — but it wasn’t as excruciating as I expected. On the other hand, Sarah’s kick-ass attitude has always been the most fun part of Walker road trips, and she was kind of a sad sack this time around. Hope she gets her groove back soon.

Man, they didn’t waste much time messing Justin up, did they? And making Rebecca totally useless. Girl was all “You’re going to have to watch him, he’s not going to be Justin for a while” last week, but now she can’t figure out he has a stash? So much for her touted experience with addicts. They seem to be working hard to take the edge off Rebecca — even her hair was smooth ‘n’ shiny this week — and I think that’s a mistake. She was so tough with Justin back when he was newly sober. The last thing he needs is for her to go easy on him now.

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So, are you all excited about tonight’s wacky road trip with Kitty and Sarah and Nora acting nutty at a spa? Crashing weddings! Being noisy in the quiet room! Silly, silly Walkers!

Personally, I’m kinda dreading it.

No show does road trips better than this one, but I like Nora least when she’s doing her passive-aggressive, bossy-oblivious thing, and it looks like we’ve got that in spades tonight. Maybe it will be more fun than the previews make it appear — and surely there are many, many fans who think the previews appear to be a hoot. Me? Meh.

Fortunately, according to ABC’s press release on tonight’s episode, “States of the Union,” there’s more going on than just Walker woman wackiness. Unfortunately, one of those plots involves Tommy crossing “a dangerous line in search of companionship.” Since Emily Rose is listed as a guest star, presumably the line crossed involves Lena, the new office manager/Harper-associated bad-news woman. Really, I would rather be locked in a sauna with Nora at full blather than see Tommy cheat.

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Or as it shall be known in these parts, “The show that sent the Reverend Boyfriend to Malaysia.”

I had all good intentions of watching Eric Winter’s new show last night, and reporting back on it here in detail. Really, I meant to. But then I got a late start watching Grey’s Anatomy, and by the time I finished the DVR playback on that and started flipping around, Viva Laughlin was already half over. Nothing that I saw in the ensuing half-hour made me feel the least bit motivated to watch the online playback and see what I missed. (Though you certainly can, on CBS’s Innertube player.)

From what I did see, I’m making the following, possibly unfair judgments:

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Five questions on last Sunday’s episode, “History Repeating,” still rattling around in my brain today.

1. Can Kevin and Scotty be friends? Do we want them to be? This looks like the kind of thing that seemed like a good idea at the time — bring Luke MacFarlane back! Everybody loved him! — but, in point of fact, they have nothing actually to do with him now. I can’t see friendship being a compelling enough storyline to earn screen time against all the heavy-duty plots being juggled already. But setting up a situation in which Kevin cheats on Jason with Scotty — unless Eric Winter turns out to be gone to Laughlin for good — would just be disappointing on so many levels. I kind of wish they had saved Scotty’s return until he had an actual reasonable reason to be there.

2. Do the writers thing we forgot about Justin’s drug problem and pain problem and drugs for pain problem? It was pretty neatly spelled out in his homecoming episode. So why they thought we needed that deadly dull scene in the kitchen, in which Nora explains to Kevin what the problem is and Kevin tells Nora she should keep talking to Justin about it, I have no idea. Isn’t this what the “previously” clips are for? It was a waste of screen time — and, far worse, a waste of Sarah, who appeared only in this scene, and only briefly, and contributed virtually nothing.

3. Does Nora know what Rebecca told Sarah about “the kiss”? It would be nice to know if that particular bomb is still out there ticking, or has already been detonated in a safe place. I mean, it’s not like Nora hasn’t had a lot of warning that Rebecca is Troubled and Unreliable and Not As She Seems. But having all these “you are a part of the family” dialogs without knowing whether she’s still a part of the family after admitting complicity in her brother-in-law’s bad behavior is kind of like waiting for the other shoe to drop. Not sure whether it’s deliberate on the part of the writers, or sloppy.

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Good news! According to TV Guide, Jon Robin Baitz, creator of Brothers & Sisters and co-writer of this past Sunday’s episode with Jennifer Cecil, has signed a two-year, seven-figure contract with ABC to keep up with the Walkers and also develop new shows.

Apparently, one thing that contract does not include is an obligation to appear on the “Writer’s Room” videos ABC’s got going, because although Cecil makes the scene to discuss “History Repeating,” her co-writer is nowhere to be found. Taking his place for the vodcast is show runner and executive producer Mark Perry.

Knowing Baitz is locked in for a couple more years is good news. And there’s more news to celebrate for B&S fans:

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