Brothers & Sisters

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.

4. Was this the first time the Ridges saw their granddaughter? When Tommy explained Julia’s absence to Nora, did he say something along the lines of her mother never having seen the baby? We’ve heard Julia talking on the phone to her parents, but no reference to them being around. Which begs the question: Where do they get off criticizing Tommy when they’ve been so absent from the situation themselves? Phone calls from a depressed adult child do not give you a complete or accurate picture of what’s going on, and it would have been nice if they’d tried to find a way to be present and helpful without making things worse. Of course, it would have also been nice if Tommy didn’t play so firmly into their plan by taking on Ben. Why didn’t he just bring his mom over to do it instead? Perhaps with a nice cake to throw in his face?

5. Is Saul, like, the best golfing partner ever? They gotta get this guy on a road trip pronto.

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, History Repeating, commentary

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