Brothers & Sisters

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

1. What happened with the rings? Did Kevin and Scotty really forget that little detail while they were busy making canapes and driving to Arizona? Did they buy rings, but forget to bring them? Or did they not think to tell Kitty that wasn’t going to be part of the ceremony/ritual/whatever? It did create a nice opening for Tommy and Robert to chip in their rings, sort of as a gesture of inclusion in the family. How lucky that everybody had the appropriate finger size!

2. What do the writers have against Arizona? It’s the Land of Bad In-Laws, with both Scotty’s and Julia’s folks in residence. Does this mean Holly has to move there if Justin and Rebecca get hitched? Maybe there’s some value to speeding up that storyline after all.

3. What did Tommy, Justin, and Kevin do all night? It was dropped at least once that it was a five-hour drive to Arizona. It was nighttime when they declared “Road Trip!” but presumably late enough in the morning when they rolled up to the Wandells that the couple was dressed and open to receiving visitors (though not so late that Kevin couldn’t get back well before his ceremony/ritual/whatever). If they drove all night and then slept in the car for, like, five hours, I’m with Justin — worst bachelor party ever!

4. Didn’t Scotty’s mother look a little young? Yeah, I’ve done the Googling and the math, and Jayne Brook is about 20 years older than Luke MacFarlane and therefore technically age-appropriate to play his mom — but should our thought during that scene really be “She looks too young to be Scotty’s mom!”? Either an older actress or one who doesn’t look so dang good for her age — and I speak as someone just a little older than Brook, so I know what 47 looks like — might have been appropriate, especially considering that the other parental units we’ve seen have a decade or more on her. (Okay, Michael O’Keefe, who played Scotty’s dad, is closer than that, but he looked a lot older, didn’t he? Through the efforts of wardrobe and styling, if not of time.)

5. Should they stop having flashbacks with William Walker? I’ve wished for them, I’ve thought of unfinished business I’d like to see played out, and I’ve been happy to see Tom Skerritt … but since we’re talking about age and looking it, if they’re going to keep bringing him back in memories of younger days, they’re going to have to invest in some spackle to make William look less aged. I’m glad they didn’t go for a bad hairdo this time to signal a flashback, just kind of a washed-out tint, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that Kevin looked exactly the same age and William looked ever so much older. I guess we can suspend disbelief and all, but … whoa, you know, death does not become him.

_{Photos: ABC.com}

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Prior Commitments, commentary