Brothers & Sisters

Five questions, and a bunch of sub-questions, about last Sunday’s episode, “Domestic Issues”:

1. Does this mean Paige is in the phone chain? I am so dying for the day when the ditzy grown-ups are calling around about their various screw-ups, and Paige beeps in to complain about some boy at school or Cooper’s antics (”I can’t be seen with him!”) or daddy’s mean ex-wife. Just to play devil’s advocate, though: Isn’t giving a child Paige’s age a cell phone the sort of thing that parents would want to decide together? Wonder if Joe’s scary lawyer will find a way to spin this as circumventing the spirit of the custody agreement by secretly giving the child a fancy communication device without the consent of the custodial parent.

2. Speaking of that lawyer, though — if she’s such a barracuda, and so expert at orchestrating this custody ambush, couldn’t she, like, persuade her client to invest in a razor and use it? I’m just saying, if you’re standing up for hearth and home, you might want to look like you didn’t sleep in a gutter last night. And speaking of where Joe’s sleeping, is that his ex-wife’s house he’s at now? Sure hope Sarah’s sharp new lawyer is going to go about getting some anti-character-references on her. One more lawyer-related question here: Is it just me, or did the fact that Joe’s lawyer is obviously a dedicated professional woman herself make her smackdown of Sarah more terrible, somehow? Yeah, I know, it’s her job to do that, and having a female lawyer makes it look less like guys beating up on a girl. But I kept flashing back on that speech Callie made to Izzie on Grey’s Anatomy a couple of weeks ago, about “You did this to another woman.” Sleep good, barracuda lady.

3. Is Nora losing her grip? Don’t look now, smothering one, but all of your grandchildren are gone, repossessed by the in-laws. Maybe she’s still too involved in the lives of her own personal offspring, and William’s one extra, to be concerned overmuch with the next generation. Still — it’s a pretty stunning development, over these past few weeks, for a family with such a controlling mom to leak members this way. As much as I adored the softer Nora in this episode, and wish we were able to spend more time with her, and think her comportment was perfect during the Joe pick-up … pretty soon, you know, pretty soon, I’m going to need her to put her Mad Mama boots on and go kick some Joe and Julia butt. Seriously. We hear enough about the power of The Family on this show. Get those grandbabies back in it.

4. Was Travis wrong to share his Kitty pregnancy suspicions with Robert? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad he did, because it sped up a storyline that could have moped along for miles. I suppose, from a professional point of view, it was his job as campaign manager (have we established that’s what he is?) to identify a potentially devastating issue. From a personal point of view, wow, do you want to be the one pointing out to a man that his fiancee is pregnant? Wouldn’t you at least say something to the fiancee, your colleague, first? At least he didn’t yell it out in a meeting in a fit of annoyance, as his behavior before this episode would have suggested. He seemed a little more human this time around, so I’ll give him a pass on this. But man, his looseness with that secret was almost Walker-esque.

5. Was Tommy actually talking to Julia on the phone? It seemed to me that he was having a conversation with her, and I was stunned that after getting to that point, he blew her off for someone beeping in. (Did he know it was Lena? Don’t remember if he checked Caller ID.) Maybe he was just leaving a message on an answering machine? Clearly, one way or the other, he’s disgusted enough with the situation that he’s no longer begging for a chance. Whatever happens with Julia, I wonder if he’s fully considered the absolute ass-kicking that he’s going to get when his family finds out about his dalliance. I’m thinking Nora and Sarah in particular are going to be pretty outraged. And Justin, depending on whether he’s high as a kite or not, is probably going to have some thoughts on how the mighty and moral have fallen. William was already dead by the time his kin learned of his indiscretions; Tommy’s liable to get Dad’s share of anger as well as his own. Dude, no girl is worth that grief.

_{Photos: ABC.com}

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Domestic Issues, commentary