Brothers & Sisters

Looks like I can’t take a week off of the Brothers & Sisters beat without all heck breaking loose. The gossip sites were buzzing yesterday with news that Balthazar Getty will not be a series regular if/when Brothers & Sisters returns next season:

• Michael Ausiello of Entertainment Weekly writes “According to sources, Balthazar Getty … was informed last week that producers were not planning on picking up his option as a full-time series regular next season.” He also hints that this was the story behind a blind item from earlier in the month.
• Isabelle Carreau of TV Squad checks that out, going through each hint in the blind item and comparing it to the B&S facts. Yep, sounds right.
• Marc Malkin of E! Online quotes a source as saying of Getty “He’s leaving the show.”
• Access Hollywood, however, says not so fast: “Rumors that he is leaving the show are not true, a rep for the star told Access.”

Now, it seems to me that you could easily downgrade Getty to recurring character without anybody noticing — he’s been the least regular of the regulars, hasn’t he? He’s gone missing from episodes without actually being missed. If it’s true that, in addition to being the least compelling character, he’s also a pill on the set, then the downsizing’s understandable.

I do wonder, though, what this means for the upcoming Take Holly Down plot. If the apparent second-stringing of Tommy translates somehow into Holly winning — sending him to jail, or to business opportunities elsewhere — I’m going to be plenty ticked.

_{Photo: ABC.com}

A New York Post column named Rebecca the most useless character on Brothers & Sisters, but if a recent round of gossip is to be believed, a vote among his fellow Walkers would name Balthazar Getty the most useless member of the cast. According to Mark Malkin of E! Online, the Tommy portrayer is “Losing Friends & Alienating People.” An excerpt:

“Sources tell me that the actor’s unsettling behavior has alienated him from most—if not all—his Brothers & Sisters costars. ‘No one on set is a fan,’ one source reports. How bad is it? I’m told Getty has been late to set and he’s been in foul moods. ‘They often have to move shooting schedules around to accommodate [him],’ a source says. Getty was so ‘difficult’ on Monday that one costar was reduced to tears, according to the sources. When shooting was delayed, he appeared to become impatient. According to a source, he barked, ‘When are we going to shoot this?’ When they did start filming, Getty was ‘forgetting his lines,’ a source says.”

Also showing the actor little love is TV Guide, where today’s Mega Buzz spoiler column included the reader question, “Tommy Walker is the most annoying sibling on Brothers & Sisters — in a family chock full of annoying. Will he ever get a storyline that will make me like him more?” Responded Mickey O’Connor:

“Tommy is definitely the weakest Walker link. Try this: Cover up Balthazar Getty’s eyebrows with your hand and then tell me if you still see any acting going on. Nevertheless, his role in the ensemble works for me, but only in the way that every family has a not-quite-as-interesting sibling, right?”

I do like Tommy better when he’s the not-quite-as-interesting-sibling, as opposed to the cheating, brother-firing sibling. As for the actor’s shenanigans, the gossip may be as misleading as an ABC promo, but let’s hope it stops soon before B&S turns into Grey’s Anatomy.

Variety has a nice article today about thirtysomething, the classic 1987-1991 series that starred, among others, two members of the Brothers & Sisters creative family, Ken Olin and Patricia Wettig. I think I may have trouble hating Holly Harper as much as I’m supposed to because I still have Wettig’s performance as Nancy Weston so seared into my brain. Yeah, it was a lot of yuppie navel-gazing, but it was good yuppie navel-gazing, and powerful, well-written and well-acted, a touchstone.

In the Variety piece, Olin and thirtysomething co-star Timothy Busfield reminisce on how their early directing experiences on the show, working with creators Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, got them off to a good start. An excerpt:

While Busfield and Olin still ply the acting trade, they also spend a lot of their time as directors. They learned the craft because of the chance Zwick took on them behind the camera. Busfield helmed three “thirtysomething” episodes and Olin six, and both say it was often arduous but worthwhile.

“I experienced Ed as a teacher,” Olin says. “He couldn’t have been more generous and communicative to me as a pupil, a student of directing. He told me to think of directing as a lab and find out what works and doesn’t work. He would take the time to go through the work with me, and not just as we were approaching a script.

“I remember my first episode wasn’t very good and thinking I was going to die. If Ed had said to me, ‘I’ll finish this for you,’ I would’ve said, ‘Yes, I don’t need this.’ In terms of staging and storytelling, he was generous and incredibly articulate.”

He says Zwick was a disciple of Woody Allen, and many of the long tracking shots of “thirtysomething” were very Allen-esque. Olin continues that tradition. “One thing Ed said that I never forgot is that Woody would withhold something so the anticipation of the payoff would be great,” he says.

Makes me wish there was a DVD set I could go and watch right now. Why isn’t there one? Or re-runs? Or episodes on Hulu? Or any way to currently view this show that, as Variety says, altered the TV landscape? Hmph. Seems there’s been lots of less-worthy contenders that are all the heck over the place.

Photo: Variety

Another awards announcement, another kudo for Sally Field, another dis of the rest of the terrific ensemble. Do the people who keep passing over this cast for prizes ever get a load of those group cell-phone scenes? That’s your Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble right there, folks.

But, no. No recognition for the greater body of Walkers in the SAG award nominations. Not even a nod to Rachel Griffiths, the second-most recognized cast member; probably because, while there are supporting performer awards in movies, there aren’t for TV. So it’s just Sally Field, holding down the same Outstanding Female Actor in a Drama Series turf she had last year, when she lost to Edie Falco of The Sopranos.

Falco’s out of the category now, so Field’s foes are Mariska Hargitay for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit; Holly Hunter for Saving Grace; Elisabeth Moss for Mad Men; and Kyra Sedgwick for The Closer.

The list for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series, which it would be nice to have somebody from the series snare one of these years, is Michael C. Hall for Dexter; Jon Hamm for Mad Men; Hugh Laurie for House; William Shatner for Boston Legal; and James Spader for Boston Legal. Boston Legal just finished its run, right? Does that mean we’ll be free of these two nomination hogs soon?

And, robbing the Walkers in the Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series category are the casts of Boston Legal, Dexter, House, Mad Men, and The Closer. I’ll admit to watching none of those shows. Can those casts do a full-ensemble snippy dinner party/shouting match the way our folks do? Can they do a phone chain with as much panache? Are they as sharp with the lived-in background reaction shots? I doubt it.

Best of luck, once again, to Sally Field, and may she carry the lone banner of Brothers & Sisters proudly. Hope writing letters against union actions doesn’t count as a demerit.

_{Photo: ABC.com}

Brothers and Sisters, SAG awards, Sally Field

Considering how many major Brothers & Sisters plot developments have been left for the second half of Season Three, the rumblings about an actor’s strike are especially heart-sinking. Really, though, anybody who cares about the survival of original scripted television has got to be cursing the prospect of a work stoppage, however well-intentioned. No offense against actors, they deserve their residuals and pieces of the profit, but given the way the writer’s strike weakened a lot of programming, and the way the U.S. economy is already in the toilet, it sure doesn’t seem like a good time to put all of Hollywood out of work.

At least some of the folks in the Walker world agree with that sentiment. Sally Field and Dave Annable are among the members of the Screen Actors Guild who lent their names to a letter that begins, “We feel very strongly that SAG members should not vote to authorize a strike at this time. We don’t think that an authorization can be looked at as merely a bargaining tool. It must be looked at as what it is — an agreement to strike if negotiations fail. We support our union and we support the issues we’re fighting for, but we do not believe in all good conscience that now is the time to be putting people out of work.” The letter goes on to suggest that in three years, all entertainment union contracts will be up at once, and everybody can threaten to strike together. Something to look forward to for us viewers, then.

Also weighing in on the strike issue is Ken Olin, who crosses a lot of union lines by being an actor, director, and producer. In a letter to SAG head and strike proponent Alan Rosenberg published on the SAGwatch blog, he wrote in part, “I have been a member of the Guild for close to thirty years, as well as a member of AFTRA for as long or longer. For the past twenty years I have been a member of the DGA. For the past nine years I have been an executive producer. First on a series created for cable, ‘Breaking News,’ and then on ‘Alias,’ and now on a series I helped to create and continue to run, ‘brothers & sisters.’ In all those years I have never failed to support the leadership of any union of which I am a member. But at this juncture I feel compelled to do so. Not because I am loyal to the studios, nor disloyal to our union, but because I am vigilant when it comes to protecting actors. That means defending their rights as well as being truthful about their responsibilities.”

Protect us viewers, too, Ken. Keep our show on the air. And if you could arrange for fewer stupid subplots, that’d be good, too.

‘Cause that one after “Just a Sliver”? That one that’s supposed to keep us intrigued and eagerly looking forward to the next episode? Was just the sort of hostile over-the-top mean shot that we can usually count on Ms. Harper to aim at the Walkers. What did we do to deserve this?

Surely the goal of a promo, particularly one for an episode weeks away, should be to make the viewer say, “Wow, that looks great, I want to make sure to see that!” And not, “Wow, if that’s as bad as it looks like it’s going to be, I’m going to have to stop watching this show for good.”

It’s not that there shouldn’t be repercussions from Kevin’s discovery that he’s Lizzie’s biological father. While I would happily have done without an episode about it, it’s not unreasonable to have one. The “gotcha” scenes in the preview look like they might, within context, be part of a not insensitive look at the psychological adjustments involved for all concerned. Without context, they’re 1) sensationalized; 2) annoying; and 3) spoiled.

Spoiling seems to be all the rage in promos these days — certainly we’ve all seen movies in which every scene worth seeing was jammed into the coming attractions. But for a TV series, one that you want people to develop a relationship with and return to, spoiling’s bad and inaccurate spoiling’s worse. Maybe the Desperate Housewives audience likes these naughty-looking guess-what-this-means sort of baubles, but I can’t imagine that the Brothers & Sisters audience does.

Do you, readers? Did that preview raise your anticipation for the show’s return, or raise your reluctance to return with it? Loyal viewers will no doubt brush it off, but … gads, surely that’s not what ABC wants from their marketing dollar, is it? Ads that must be willfully ignored?

Bad enough we already have to willfully ignore Holly. Maybe this is her revenge.

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, promos

Five questions about last Sunday’s episode — “Just a Sliver” — still rattling around in my brain:

1. Do they really allow you to set up your own dinner from home in a hospital cafeteria like that? Although I suppose, since we’re talking about Nora here, and she even took on personnel at a military hospital to get things her own way, it wouldn’t really matter whether there were rules against it or not. Still, a little disconcerting for the families of other patients to have a full-blown Walker dinner right there in their midst, no? Plus, were they planning to eat that Chinese food in Kevin’s room?

2. What’s with all the Southwesterners? Ida’s in Albequerque, Scotty’s and Julia’s folks are all in AZ. Seems like there might be somebody related to the family in the Midwest, or the East Coast, or even the Pacific Northwest. Do all the difficult relatives need to be gathered in the desert for some reason?

3. Did Justin sneak some of Kevin’s morphine? He was pretty morose there at the hospital, scarfing chips and telling his mom that whatever he was feeling didn’t feel good. Then, suddenly, he’s all light and happy, rejoicing over admission to the grown-up’s table. What exactly was in that beef and broccoli besides shrimp?

4. Was it safe for Robert to leave the ranch? Presumably his family was still there, and we’ve seen what they can do to a place when left unsupervised. Hope there’s no furniture or landscaping Kitty was particularly attached to.

5. Those bizarre scenes in the preview for the episode we don’t get to see until January — they’ve got to be dreams, right? I’m normally suspicious of promos, but this one looks particularly untrustworthy. I refuse to get too upset about them until we see the real deal. These writers have broken my heart before, but I’m still trusting.

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Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Just a Sliver, commentary

If prizes were given to the Walkers instead of the actors who portray them, you just know Sarah would be getting major grief from her siblings for hogging all the award nominations.

Once again, a slate of television trophy nominees are announced — the Golden Globes, this time — and once again, Rachel Griffiths is the only one of the brothers and sisters to be nominated. Oh, well, of course, Mom is nominated, too, but do we even have to say that? There seems to be a Sally Field clause in most award line-ups that requires her name to be chosen.

But as has become usual, the show is passed over, the guys are passed over, Calista Flockhart is passed over, and you get the feeling Field and Griffiths are being name-checked just because they’re liked, not because anybody ever watches our show.

And I’m not complaining; Field and Griffiths are deserving, and any recognition is better than none. I’m just saying, there’d be a lot of hissy fits around the Walker dinner table if plaudits were this poorly apportioned.

Here are the relevant categories, the competition the Walker women are facing, and the shows and performers that shut everybody else out.

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA

• Dexter (Showtime)
• House (Fox)
• In Treatment (HBO)
• Mad Men (AMC)
• True Blood (HBO)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA

• Sally Field – Brothers and Sisters
• Mariska Hargitay – Law and Order: Special Victims Unit
• January Jones – Mad Men
• Anna Paquin – True Blood
• Kyra Sedgwick – The Closer

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA

• Gabriel Byrne – In Treatment
• Michael C. Hall – Dexter
• Jon Hamm – Mad Men
• Hugh Laurie – House
• Jonathan Rhys Meyers – The Tudors

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

• Eileen Atkins – Cranford
• Laura Dern – Recount
• Melissa George – In Treatment
• Rachel Griffiths – Brothers and Sisters
• Dianne Wiest – In Treatment

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

• Neil Patrick Harris – How I Met Your Mother
• Denis Leary – Recount
• Jeremy Piven – Entourage
• Blair Underwood – In Treatment
• Tom Wilkinson – John Adams

Brothers and Sisters, Golden Globes, Sally Field, Rachel Griffiths

As a follow-up to the recap, here are some memorable lines from the episode “Just a Sliver.” Did I miss one of your favorites? Share it in the comments.

Justin: All right, look, I may not be married, but you know what I’m doing right now? I’m vacuuming Rebecca’s floor. Yeah. I’m deep in this.

Tommy: I’d rather spend the weekend with your disapproving parents than spend another holiday with my equally disapproving brother.
Julia: I thought your feud with Kevin was over. You guys seem fine.
Tommy: Yeah, it’s because we’ve been faking it.

Julia: Alright, listen up, Walkers. In all the years I have been married to your brother, we have never gone to my parents’ for Thanksgiving. This time, we are. Everybody needs to get with the program. You’re adults. Stop worrying about your mother. Go over there and tell her the truth.

Sarah: You’re all dead to me.
Tommy: Come on! This — nobody did this on purpose.
Kevin: Yeah, it’s not like we planned this.
Sarah: Joe’s got my kids. Saul’s gone to grandma’s for Thanksgiving. And you’ve all just simultaneously decided to form your own little satellite states like a Balkan uprising. And my neighbor flies to Texas, leaving me with his geriatric cat. Now, you just expect me to believe that’s … a coincidence?

Justin: Sarah, you’ve gotta put a good face on this, alright? Just act like this’ll be fun. You know, it’s you and Mom, hanging out on Thanksgiving, you know, a couple of single girls, ladies’ night, you know? That way she won’t freak out on us.
Sarah: I hope you all get salmonella and die.

Justin: Mom, Holly already has all this stuff.
Nora: Well, how about a turkey. Does she have a turkey? Tell her it’s a gift from me.
Justin: Mom, she doesn’t want your used turkey.
Nora: It’s not used. It’s brand-new. It has no cooties.
Justin: It’s more about the psychological cooties.

Justin: Will it bother you to know … who’s able to help?
Kevin: Not really.
Justin: Yeah, me neither … You think it’ll bother Tommy?
Kevin: It’s not like he doesn’t know it’s either you or me.
Justin: Yeah, that’s true … Pretty sure he wants it to be me, though.
Kevin: Wow. Truly delusional.
Justin: Well, I mean, Kevin, let’s face it. I have better hair, and your nose on a girl? Tragic.
Kevin: You wanna talk S.A.T. scores, pretty boy?

Kitty: I wonder what Kevin and Justin are talking about right now. I mean, they’re about to find out who –
Sarah: Who the father is.
Kitty: No, Tommy is Elizabeth’s father, Sarah.
Sarah: You know what I mean.
Kitty: No, I don’t know what you mean, Sarah, I’m sorry, but words matter.
Sarah: Well, I don’t know what to call them — sperm donors? I don’t think about my brothers’ sperm.

Saul: If you cook it, they will come?
Nora: I cook it, and they’ll forgive me.
Saul: What, Nora? What do you think you need to be forgiven for?
Nora: Oh, I don’t know. I behaved badly. I got mad at everyone because they all made their own plans for Thanksgiving, and I just selfishly wanted the whole family together here like always. And now everybody is here, and I just wish they were all miles and miles away, and safe and sound and healthy.
Saul: Nora, you’re a very powerful woman, but you didn’t cause this, and you can’t fix it.
Nora: I feel so useless, I don’t know what to do with myself.
Saul: Oh, sweetheart. You know what to do. You do what you’ve always done. You comfort them, you support them, you let them know how much you love them. And then, you bake a pumpkin pie from scratch.

Scotty: This hospital has the worst food. It’s not even food. It’s some horrible facsimile of food.

(Kevin, having been ID’d as Elizabeth’s biological father, goes off to be tested)
Justin: You okay?
Scotty: No. … Are you?
Justin: No, not really.

Justin: Yes, I’m relieved, and yes, I’m disappointed. Ma, I don’t know what I’m feeling, okay? The only thing I do know is that it doesn’t feel good.

Nora: Hi, honey, how are you doing?
Kevin: Hey. I’m fine. Well, I’m wearing a dress with no backside. I’ve been better.

Sarah: Okay, I’m ordering Chinese.
Kevin: I can’t eat anything.
Sarah: I know. That’s why I’m going to order everything with shrimp, because you’re allergic.
Kevin: How thoughtful.
Sarah: Yes, I’d like to place an order please. One shrimp lo mein, one special fried rice with shrimp … what do you want, Justin?
Justin: Uh, beef with broccoli.
Sarah: Two beef and broccoli with shrimp.

Nora: When are they taking you in in the morning?
Kevin: Ugh. Some awful hour like 5:00.
Scotty: Kevin, I think what you’re doing is incredible. I don’t think I would be so brave.
Kevin: Well, you’re not a morning person, honey.

Sarah: Hey, Tommy, you hungry? I just ordered Chinese. You can have, uh, shrimp, shrimp, or shrimp.
Tommy: Well, you must be happy, Mom.
Nora: Why on earth would I be happy?
Tommy: Everybody’s here, together for Thanksgiving, just the way you wanted it.
Sarah: Tommy, that’s not fair.
Tommy: Well, then stop treating this like one of your dinner parties. I mean, this isn’t another Walker family get-together.

Kevin: This one needs to be notarized.
Scotty: What is it?
Kevin: Power of attorney.
Scotty: You’re an attorney.
Kevin: Not if I’m on life support. And as my husband, you’d be in charge of pulling the plug or not.
Scotty: Okay, this is all starting to get a little too, um … real.
Kevin: Yeah. I might sign that one in the morning. … It’s a good thing we are married. If it was up to my mother, she’d never pull the plug, and I’d be a vegetable for all eternity.

Nora: Sweetie, it’s gonna be over before you know it. Just relax.
Kevin: Mom, they shaved my chest. I look like Michael Phelps.
Kitty: Oh, I think he’s pretty relaxed.

Kitty: You don’t have to hide your feelings from me. I probably understand a lot more than you think I do.
Tommy: I doubt it.
Kitty: Okay, well, let me take a wild guess. What you can’t talk about is the fact that you’re angry because for some inexplicable reason, Kevin can father a child and you can’t. And now, after everything you’ve been through with Elizabeth, the one thing that she needs the most, you can’t give her, but Kevin can. And what really sucks is that, deep down, you — you resent him for it. And what makes it even worse is that even deeper down, you’re sick of this — this, uh, grudge that you guys are carrying on, and you really, really miss your brother. You know, Tommy, I really wanted to be pregnant, and I would think, well, how do people like Trish just go out … they don’t even want kids, they have a one-night stand, and she’s immediately pregnant. And of course, I’m very grateful that she’s bringing our baby into the world, just as you’re grateful to Kevin. But it — it’s just that — that little part of you that thinks it’s not fair.
Tommy: Maybe you do understand.

Tommy: How’s it going?
Kevin: Oh, you know, I’m on a morphine drip, so I can’t complain. But God … I keep thinking, what if it had been Justin?
Tommy: Well, as soon as he healed, we would’ve had an intervention.
Kevin: Might still need one, the way I’m enjoying this.

Tommy: I’m sorry I fired you. I really am.
Kevin: It’s okay.
Tommy: No, it’s not. Because I put business first, and you know what I figured out? That’s bad for business. Ojai Foods is not about fruit. It never was. It’s about us. It’s about our family.

Saul: Alright, everybody, attention. I have a bottle of sparkling apple cider, and it’s an excellent year.
Sarah: You know, everybody in this building is on some kind of drug, and we can’t even drink. That’s not fair.
Robert: And that’s not sparkling cider.

For more recaps and memorable lines, visit the pages for Season 1, Season 2, and Season 3.

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Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Just a Sliver, recap, memorable lines

Usually the title of Brothers & Sisters episodes bears a little interpretation — but this week, the writers must have thought we weren’t up for the job, so they had Kitty spell it out in a really unappetizing anecdote at the hospital-set Thanksgiving table. Just a sliver of pie, just a sliver of liver for Lizzie. So in keeping with the (belated) holiday theme, let’s look at this episode in terms of things that the Walkers are thankful for.

Nora is thankful to have all her children around her. Of course, it doesn’t start out that way. The episode begins with the sort of sibling conspiracy we so love, furtive phone calls establishing the fact that many plans have been made away from the homestead: Kitty and Robert are having his family at their place; Tommy and Julia are visiting the in-laws in AZ; Kevin and Scotty are planning to vacation with Scotty’s friends; and Justin and Rebecca are due at the winery to holiday with Holly. Saul is already gone to Ida’s, and that leaves only significant-other-less Sarah on Mom duty, much to her displeasure. Prodded by Julia — thankful, no doubt, for a speaking part — the siblings gather in Nora’s kitchen to plot their getaway, and Kitty draws the short straw of Tell Mom duty. Nora surprises them by coming home with groceries before they can all skulk away, though, and even Sarah feels the force of her annoyance at being abandoned and left with only one child as a consolation prize. Of course, it isn’t long before a medical emergency changes everybody’s plans, brings Saul back home, and puts Mom right back in the center of her bickering brood, feeding and worrying and giving thanks for being needed.

Tommy and Julia are thankful to have potential liver donors in the family. There may be downsides to having your brothers donate sperm to make your baby, but if you need to find a biological parent in a hurry when your child is dying and in need of a transplant, you don’t have to wrangle with sperm banks and seek favors from strangers. When little Elizabeth comes down with liver failure, Kevin and Justin must finally endure that plot contrivance we knew was coming since they made their contribution back in Season 1: Get genetic testing to determine which of them had the winning sample. A haggard Tommy delivers the news to his bros that Kevin’s the baby daddy, and Kevin is quickly whisked off to prepare for surgery. Justin looks sad that he’s not going to be cut open and relieved of a morsel of his questionably healthy liver, but more likely,

Justin is thankful that he doesn’t have to endure a dinner with Holly and Rebecca. You know, maybe his bummed look is the fear that, since he’s not actually undergoing surgery, Rebecca’s going to drag him to Holly’s table after all. Alright, he’s probably rude to her and snappish and binging on chips from the vending machine, rejecting her efforts to talk about his feelings, because he’s all Troubled and stuff. But either way, it manages to make her split to Mom’s house without him. We’re not so lucky as to avoid a Holly scene, but at least it’s short and self-contained, with a worthwhile acknowledgment that this whole paternity plotline resonates all over the place with William’s many fathering indiscretions. It’s got Rebecca thinking about David, and while Holly is back to being down on the guy, it doesn’t look like her daughter is listening too hard. Never know when you might need some liver, Mom.

Kevin is thankful to have someone to give power of attorney to besides his Mom. For all the good-willed giving up of organs for a niece/biodaughter, surgery isn’t a piece of cake. It’s a little scary, and Scotty in particular seems kind of freaked out by it. More so when Kevin is doing some late-night paperwork filling-out, and mentions that he’s giving Scotty power of attorney and the responsibility to have a better idea of when to pull the plug than Nora ever would have. When he finally notices that Scotty’s overwhelmed, Kevin puts the papers aside for the night, and they snuggle together in his hospital bed. Good thing the surgery’s a success, and Kevin emerges with no complications other than, maybe, an affection for morphine.

Kitty is thankful to have someone with whom to share her birthparent resentment. Just when Tommy’s sure that nobody could understand what he’s feeling, Kitty sits with him and talks about how much she resents Trish for just being able to get pregnant even when she doesn’t want a baby, while people like Kitty and Tommy who want one so much can’t make it happen. Tommy’s in the awkward position of being both grateful to and resentful of Kevin, but in the end, after sniping a bit over how the whole family is rallying around his brother and acting like this is some party or something, he does put a genuine end to their firing feud and admits he made a mistake.

We’re thankful to get a Very Walker Thanksgiving after all. Once Lizzie is officially out of the woods, Nora spirits Tommy and Julia away to get something to eat — and in the cafeteria, we find that this means a Nora-catered Thanksgiving feast complete with liquor Saul’s smuggled in a sparkling apple cider bottle. With Kevin wheeled to the table in a morphine haze, and all spouses on hand — Robert having finally left his family at the ranch and come to the hospital — it’s the best-attended and best-behaved Big Walker Dinner ever. Though surely, when the toasts are done and the camera has faded away, there are some dinner rolls thrown at least. It’s one thing to be thankful for health and family, but these folks have a tradition to uphold.

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Brothers and Sisters, Just a Sliver, recap

A few quick thoughts on last night’s Brothers and Sisters episode. Tune in during the coming week for a recap, memorable lines, and five questions.

• Well, that was unexpectedly fun. I assumed we’d abandon the lighter tone of the past couple of episodes once we got into the heavy territory of Baby Illness and Brother Paternity Testing, but I thought they managed the balance really nicely. Lots of good goofy group scenes, especially the extended “We’re not all going to Mom’s” phone chain morphing into an in-person conference and Mom-frontation.

• Kudos to the makeup person whose job it was to make Balthazar Getty look like hell for most of the episode. Tommy’s not an easy guy to feel sorry for, but his appearance told the tale of his feelings even when his words and attitude weren’t.

• Though we could have easily gone a whole episode without seeing Holly, I actually was grateful that they acknowledged the overlaps between this paternity plot and Rebecca’s paternity plot, as well as between Tommy’s and Kitty’s nonbiological parent storylines. I don’t know that it says a lot for the show that there are so many parallels here — really, there ought to be more sorts of stories to tell — but if you’re going to double up, might as well get some use out of it. Looks like we may be seeing a return appearance of David sometime soon, because Rebecca did not appear to be buying what Holly was selling. For a change.

• Sure hope we’re not going to be seeing a return appearance of Troubled Justin. Maybe finding out Elizabeth’s not his will spur him into wanting a child. I still think a Walker-Harper grandchild is the most logical way to keep Rebecca and Holly on the show without Holly having to be an Ojai menace forever and Justin and Rebecca never being able to have a serious fight. Plus, Justin could be a stay-at-home dad instead of just a stay-at-home jobless dude.

• Considering that Lizzie was the one in danger of death, it sure seemed like the family was doing a lot of rallying around Kevin and not much rallying around her. Maybe hospital rules in pediatrics, sure, a desire to respect Tommy and Julia’s privacy, Tommy shooing everyone away, okay. But dramatically, they seemed to be kind of abandoned. Perhaps the family just forgot they were there, as seems to so often be the case.

• This was a rare episode that didn’t really have a B-story; everything related in one way or another to Lizzie and her three daddies. Which means that the Ryan, Nora’s Cancer House, Greenatopia, Tommy and Saul’s Ojai re-takeover, and Kitty’s adoption storylines all received zero forward momentum while we dealt with a new medical crisis and an old family time bomb. Really, I’m not complaining, I liked the fairly singular focus. But we’re, like, halfway through the season here, and there’s a lot of plot threads blowing in the wind.

• Hey, Julia and Scotty were in the same episode! Even in the same room, there at the end! And, you know, each with nice scenes and stuff, not just standing in the corner of the scene looking underused. Every regular got something to do in this one, didn’t they? A little Thanksgiving gift from the writers, perhaps … though it would have been particularly nice if the episode didn’t come a week-and-a-half after Thanksgiving. Details.

_{Photo: ABC}

Brothers and Sisters, Just a Sliver, ABC

New episode tonight! Here’s what ABC’s press release says we have to look forward to:

“Just a Sliver - The Walkers encounter some scheduling conflicts on Thanksgiving, leaving Nora and Sarah to celebrate alone, until Elizabeth endures a medical emergency that brings the family together, on Brothers & Sisters, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7 (10:01-11:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network.

“Brothers & Sisters stars Dave Annable as Justin Walker, Maxwell Perry Cotton as Cooper Whedon, Kerris Lilla Dorsey as Paige, Sally Field as Nora Holden, Calista Flockhart as Kitty Walker, Balthazar Getty as Thomas Walker, Rachel Griffiths as Sarah Whedon, Luke Macfarlane as Scotty Wandell, Rob Lowe as Senator Robert McCallister, Sarah Jane Morris as Julia Walker, Matthew Rhys as Kevin Walker, Ron Rifkin as Saul Holden, Emily VanCamp as Rebecca Harper and Patricia Wettig as Holly Harper.

“Guest starring are Dierdrie Henry as Dr. Williams and Kim Rowe as the lab tech. ‘Just a Sliver’ was written by David Marshall Grant and Molly Newman and directed by Michael Schultz.”

Well, we all knew an episode like this was coming way back at “Northern Exposure,” when the whole borrowed-sperm plot got going. Personally, I could have waited for the payoff for another few seasons, easily. Do we really have to do another paternity story now, while we’re still in the middle of the Ryan paternity story and barely recovered from the Rebecca paternity story? Are they really so short on storylines that they’ve got to pull this one out already?

Yeah, I suppose, for Tommy and Julia, they are short on storylines. I suppose I’d rather have more Medical Drama for them than Infidelity Drama, but still … sheesh. The Walkers should forget the produce business and invest in a company that does genetic testing. They’d be their own best customers.

Brothers and Sisters, Just a Sliver

Five questions about last Sunday’s episode — “Unfinished Business” — still rattling around in my brain:

1. So what can Saul do to “get Holly out,” exactly? I mean, short of a shooting in the parking lot. I suppose the board is probably more loyal to him and the Walker family than they are to Holly; but is there enough of a majority there without her shares to oust her? Is there a hostile take-back-over in the works? Whatever it is, I want it to be good, and foolproof, and not outmaneuvered by Holly. It’s well past time for some feel-good Walker payback.

2. When the war between the Walkers and the Harper does engage, who gets custody of Rebecca? Talk about awkward — your boyfriend’s brother and uncle scheming to oust your mother from the position which she has recently used to give you a cushy though inappropriate job. Justin has made no secret of his mistrust for Holly, and Rebecca has been quick to resent him for it; they may want to believe it’s not their fight, but that won’t be so easy to do if there’s a coup. Holly’s going to have to show her true colors to Rebecca somewhere along the line to drive her back into Walker territory; and then we’re back into the endless cycle of repudiation and forgiveness. When they were emptying out the Walker garage, did anybody see that spine Rebecca used to have?

3. Does Sarah know Rebecca has her trust-fund money? Well, technically, Nora has Rebecca’s trust-fund money, but it’s there when the girl decides what to do with it. And what better to do with it than invest in a hip growing company with an environmental focus and youth appeal and two twentysomethings as founders? Since she’s apparently an advertising savant, Rebecca could bring more than a large investment to Greenatopia, she could help them draw those millions and millions of PVs. Rebecca’s likely to need a career change anyway if the Walker re-seizure of Ojai goes down — unless she’s hot to work her way back up from the warehouse — and wouldn’t it just fry Holly to see her girl go to work with Sarah and her magician friend?

4. What was that thing they found in Nora’s house? I thought at first it was some kind of tile wall, but watching it again to pull memorable lines, I saw it had some sort of frame around it. Couldn’t get a good enough look, though, to be able to figure out what it was other than some purty architectural detail.

5. Is there a new person picking out Sarah’s wardrobe? I’ve generally not been fond of what they’ve dressed her in in the past, but that suit she wore in this episode? Awesome. I kind of cringed when she started doing demolition in it, yet it held up pretty well, better than Kitty’s coat did, most likely. More sexy professional-looking duds like that for the Greenatopia CFO, please.

_{Photo: ABC.com}

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Unfinished Business, commentary

As a follow-up to the recap, here are some memorable lines from the episode “Unfinished Business.” Did I miss one of your favorites? Share it in the comments.

Nora: This will be the heart and soul of the center — the great room.
Kevin: If this is the great room, I’d hate to see the good room.
Justin: You know, you keep calling it “the center,” it sounds like a cult. You need to come up with, like, a proper name for this place.
Saul: Yeah, Nora, and make sure it’s not “Cancer House.”
Scotty: How about “Roach Motel”?

Nora: It’s really just some basic demolition.
Saul: No, basic demolition is what we do to each other at dinner, after we’ve drank copious amounts of wine.

Nora: Saul, you and William built Ojai from nothing. Why can’t we do that here? Build another family legacy, something that will live on way past us. Something that doesn’t include Holly. I’ve never done anything like this before. I’ve never believed in anything so strongly. This is my Ojai.

Sarah: I’m scrubbing my conference room, otherwise known as my kitchen.

Sarah: You have to be confident. Business is like dating.
Ethan: Oh, no.

Ethan: We’ve crunched some rough numbers.
Graham: Right, and, uh, now exactly, uh, how did you crunch, and what numbers specifically? What was the crunchulation factor in your crunchification?

Sarah: Graham Finch is very good at what he does.
Ethan: Thank God, ’cause for a second there, I thought you were going to tell me he was the one who almost flushed your family business down the toilet … Okay. Wow.

Kevin: Okay, does anyone know how much asbestos is too much?

Scotty: It looks like you have a termite infestation.
Kevin: Since when do you know anything about infestation?
Scotty: I used to work for a carpenter every summer when I was in high school. I can chisel, drill, and plane.
Kevin: That is hot.

Saul: All right, look, Nora, this is it. I think at this point we should just reevaluate.
Justin: Yeah, Mom, and maybe eat some lunch.
Kevin: And you know what? Get some air. This dust is really giving me a migraine.
Nora: Here, take some aspirin (tosses bottle to Kevin), eat a protein bar (tosses bar to Justin), anything else?
Saul: Yeah, a glass of pinot grigio.

Justin: You gotta admit, you’re not exactly qualified for that.
Rebecca: About as qualified as you four are for doing construction.

Sarah: How about you. Still got a girl in every city?
Graham: Yeah, I had to cut back to cities with over two million residents, ’cause I’m not as young as I once was.

Graham: You’d be making a competitive salary, full benefits package, and you’d have a conference room that doesn’t have a garbage disposal.

Robert: (talking about Trish) This is just messy and complicated.
Nora: Oh, would you guys stop nay-saying? The place isn’t complicated and messy. You haven’t even walked through the house.
Kitty: We’re not nay-saying the house, Mother.
Robert: (looking around) Although we’re not not nay-saying it, either.

Robert: I heard that you needed reinforcements, and nothing makes me happier than keeping Democratic bureaucrats waiting while I do a little honest work.

Rebecca: This is Saul’s old office. You think it’s okay for me to be here?
Holly: I don’t know. Would you be more comfortable in Sarah’s?

Kitty: Pulling out walls is much better than banging my head against the one that is my husband.
Nora: We’re here to fix up this house, not to dismember your significant other.
Kitty: Yeah, well, I can multitask.

Kitty: Why does she get the sledgehammer?

Sarah: His firm’s interested in the company, so we had a meeting, we discussed the future of the company, we had a drink, and we kissed.
Kitty: Wow, that must have been a doozy of a kiss if you got a million dollars out of it.

Sarah: Kyle and Ethan are furious with me. They think I tried to sell them out. I try to make them rich, and now they hate me.
Kitty: Well, did you try to sell them out?
Sarah: No. I made a necessary and financially lucrative business compromise. They’ll be thanking me when they’re 40.

Kitty: Mom, Mom, hey, you know what? You’re right. This house is a … well, it’s a, it’s a mess. It’s a complete and utter mess.
Nora: I just said that, Kitty.
Kitty: Yes, you did, but you know what? Maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s okay. I mean, a lot of great things come out of messy, complicated situations. Because, you know, they’re just meant to be, right?
Kevin: Well, yeah, but, you know, there’s a lot to be said for clean, orderly, simple.
Kitty: No, come on, Kevin, you love complicated. You — why did you go to work for Robert?
Scotty: Well, because he didn’t make partner.
Kevin: What? No! I wanted to make a difference.
Kitty: Right, right, because Mom has always taught us, for better or worse, that complicated things can — can be good.
(general agreement)
Robert: I get the argument.
Kitty: Of course you agree, because you ran for president. Nothing simple about that. And then there’s Sarah. Sarah is in business with two teenagers –
Sarah: They’re 28.
Kitty: She goes out to dinner with her ex-boy toy, she kisses him and she gets a million dollars. I mean, that’s complicated. And then, you know what, then there’s Justin. Justin’s an addict, and he went to war. Okay, and then there’s Uncle Saul. I mean, that … that is incredibly complicated.
Nora: I so appreciate your trying to cheer me up, but it isn’t –
Kitty: No, no! No buts. You’re not allowed to give up. You’re not allowed to give up because you believe in your gut that this is right. And besides, we’ve all inherited this — this — this absurd drive to make things that — that, yes, they seem complicated and they’re messy, but we can turn them into something great. And if you give up, well then there’s just no hope for the rest of us.

Sarah: I’ve taken a risk with these guys. Probably the biggest risk of my professional career. Because they inspired me to with their enthusiasm and their optimism. And I want to stay a part of that. I can’t sell them out because Mr. Handsome walks in and offers me a salary with benefits.

Sarah: (to Kyle and Ethan) Good news. We’re still poor.

Ethan: So you really turned down a million dollars?
Sarah: Oh, yeah. A million dollars, an actual salary, expense account, benefits, and an ongoing sex life.
Ethan: I could help you with that part.
Sarah: I’m good for now.

Robert: I think I see a hand.
Nurse: Right there, by the baby’s head.
Kitty: Oh, yeah! It’s running for president. It’s waving at us.

Tommy: Holly doesn’t respect this company’s history, she doesn’t respect my position, my experience, nothing.
Saul: Right. So what’s the problem, Tommy? You tried to make it work.
Tommy: Well, obviously I can’t. Look, I’m not going to stand by and watch her seize control while she shuts us out.
Saul: My offer stands. I will help you get her out.

For more recaps and memorable lines, visit the pages for Season 1, Season 2, and Season 3.

_{Photo: ABC.com}

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Unfinished Business, recap, memorable lines

Messy. Complicated. Those are words not unfamiliar to the Walker clan, who’ve survived all sorts of marital problems and parental deceptions and personal crises and lived to bicker about it. Never have “messy” and “complicated” been so literally enforced upon them, though, as when they try to help Nora renovate her cancer-house money-pit, full of termite-y walls and water stains and carpets to pull up and walls to knock down and ceilings to fall in. Those aren’t the only structural problems turned up in the episode, though, and there’s plenty of mess and complication to go around. Who’s got unfinished business?

Kitty has unfinished business with the birthmom Trish, and Robert has unfinished business with his conscience as to this whole baby thing. He’s gotten all gung-ho about the possibility of surrogacy to deliver a baby that’s genetically theirs, with no birthmom take-backs. Kitty’s still set on adopting, though, and when Trish calls and wants to get together, she doesn’t hesitate. Trish confesses that she reacted to Kitty’s questions the way she did because, in fact, she had not thought it all the way through, and didn’t particularly want to. Now that she’s been forced into it, though, by Kitty’s needling, she is at peace and more sure than ever that she wants Kitty and Robert to be her baby’s parents. That gives Kitty goosebumps, and Robert second thoughts, as he admits to Kevin that he doesn’t really know what he wants. But by episode’s end they’re watching Trish’s baby on a sonogram and cooing away, so it looks like adoption is still their option.

Sarah has unfinished business with Graham, who turns up unexpectedly as the representative of a venture capital firm looking to invest in Greenatopia. Graham makes it so obvious in a meeting that he’s more interested in Sarah than he is in Ethan and Kyle and anything they’ve created that the guys begin to panic — more so when Sarah admits that she and Graham have a past relationship, and that he is indeed the guy who almost ruined her family’s company. And they have good reason to, since, in two-person negotiations over drinks, Graham says that his firm’s offer will involve Sarah becoming CEO, with offices and benefits and perks, and Ethan and Kyle becoming figurehead founders, with money in their pockets but no say in anything. This does not go over well when Sarah tells them about it later, and her partners accuse Sarah of selling them out. After a little therapeutic sledge-hammering at her mom’s home-wrecking, Sarah tells Graham that she’s nixing the deal — and, give or take a quick fling, she’s nixing a relationship with him, too. A six-pack of beer, a pizza, and an apology gets her back in her partners’ good graces, but … they still need money, don’t they?

Tommy and Saul have unfinished business with Holly, and it looks like the time may finally be coming for a reckoning. The straw that broke the camel’s back in this case was Holly’s hiring of Rebecca — who made some good comments at a marketing meeting but doesn’t exactly have an advanced degree in it — as an executive in charge of advertising, working from Saul’s old office no less. That news doesn’t exactly go over big with the home-wrecking crew when she comes bearing pizza and job announcement, but most of the Walkers are gracious enough not to call her on her inappropriate promotion. Justin, however, boldly goes ahead and says, “Honey, you’re not exactly qualified for that,” sending him to the doghouse for the night. The next day, he makes up to her with the gift of an Advertising for Dummies book and an apology, but that’s not the end of the job drama. When Tommy, who evaded demolition duty by being out of town on business, returns to Ojai offices to find Rebecca in her new digs, he’s congratulatory to her and furious with her mother, who defends her nepotistic hiring practices even as Tommy points out that she made him fire his brother and drove his sister and uncle out. She dismisses his concerns, and that’s it — Tommy’s ready to go to war to take back Ojai for the Walkers. He invites Saul to the office late at night, calls him on his earlier offer to handle the Holly problem, and the game is on.

Nora has unfinished business with William, with Holly, with anyone who has ever kept her down, and with a big bad investment that she wants to turn into a warm home for the families of children with cancer. Having determined that professional contracting help was too expensive, she naturally guilts her family into doing the work themselves, despite the fact that there’s not a handyman among them. When her work crew of Kevin, Scotty, Justin, Saul, and occasionally Sarah, Kitty, and Robert flag in their duties, she whips them into submission with a plea that this will be Her Ojai, and they must help her build it. Finally, though, when stuff starts falling apart and almost killing people, she’s ready to throw in the towel. Kitty attempts to rally her with an impassioned speech about the way that good things come out of situations that are messy and complicated — a spiel at least as much for her husband as her mother — but the ongoing disaster that is the house is too much for Nora, and she gives up. … Until the next morning, that is, when the guys show her what they found when all that plaster fell off: A beautiful tiled wall. Well, okay. She’ll keep going. But she’ll hire professional help. Good plan. There’s a lot about this family that could do with some professional help.

_{Photo: ABC.com}

Brothers and Sisters, Unfinished Business, recap