Brothers & Sisters

Well, I certainly enjoyed that episode well enough, but I gotta ask: Did it seem to anyone else like there were some scenes missing? Like, pretty much the entire Nora-Isaac subplot? And something that explained what was going on with the whole Rebecca-David-Holly situation? On the former, we were teased with a story that never arrived; on the latter, the story seemed to be heading somewhere but stopped short.

Speaking of heading somewhere, I was pretty certain all the way through that we were coming to the end of the McCallister for President campaign. It was set up so nicely for him to quit on principal, man, I was practically writing his speech in my head. But instead … he won! Okay. Another rally, another town, when will this candidate finally step down?

The title of the episode was “Compromises,” and I’ll probably figure out how that applied to each of the plot threads, but my first impression is more along these lines: “We have a script that’s not quite right — overlong, or underwritten, or unable to be shot as is. Normally we’d have the writers fix it, but they’re on picket lines right now. So we’ll make some compromises. We’ll throw out some scenes, and we’ll hope that our loyal viewers will be so distracted by Wild Sarah and Croaking Kevin that they won’t even notice.”

And ya know, that’s not such a bad strategy. ‘Cause those scenes were pretty lively. Sarah hasn’t been this much fun in a long time, and Kevin was a pretty adorable stuffed shirt. It was all I could do not to hit the mute button when the poor guy was up there crooning to Scotty — but it was sweet of him to do it, and sweet of Scotty to put him out of his misery. The Sarah-Graham hotness was pretty distracting, too.

So, good enough. I’m glad there were no major cliffhangers, and that most of these stories could go any old way the writers feel like taking them when they get back. We’re not committed enough to the David intrigue that it couldn’t just go away. Nora and Sarah have started relationships but not taken them very far. Robert’s still in the race, but he has an enemy again who could knock him out of it. Kevin has proven his devotion to Scotty by humiliating himself in public, but the door isn’t quite slammed on any future Jason action. Saul’s met a guy, but he could be a romance, a friend, or never heard from again. At least one of our idle young people is making noises about getting a job or going to school. And Tommy and Julia are apparently off somewhere getting ’round-the-clock marriage counseling, so their problems should be on the run.

Come back soon, Brothers and Sisters! But don’t hurry back. Take your time. Get it right. And write more scenes in bars. They’re Walker gold.

Share your own first impressions of “Compromises” in the comments, and come back later this week for a recap, memorable lines, and five questions.

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Compromises, commentary