Brothers & Sisters

Five questions about the unaired, DVD-only episode “State of the Parties” still rattling around in my brain after my viewing of it last Sunday:

1. Is the actress playing that blithery style-obsessed TV staffer the same one who played gossipy Noreen in Senator McCallister’s office later on? Looks like. The photo above, from the ABC site’s selection of shots from “Affairs of State,” the episode that style storyline eventually aired in, identifies the actress as Ryan Michelle Bathe. And the show’s IMDb page lists an actress by that name as Noreen’s portrayer. Bathe’s IMDb page lists her Brothers & Sisters appearances as Noreen in “Love Is Difficult” and “Sexual Politics,” without any mention of earlier episodes. Maybe she was embarrassed by how dippy that dame seemed, too.

2. Have we seen that piano before? Or anybody playing it? And where in the house was it supposed to be, exactly — off that little parlor where Kitty and Nora were talking during “Matriarchy,” when Rebecca came in and told them Justin was gone? There looked like a little balcony or courtyard out the window. Maybe we’ve been through there bunches of times and I just don’t remember, but I’m wondering if that’s just kind of a piece of set that got axed along with the episode.

3. How did Justin know where Holly lived? When he saw her as a kid, it was at the Ojai house. He didn’t seem to have followed her home from the funeral — he wasn’t even driving his own car there, so he couldn’t have sneaked after her then come back later. Even if she was in the book, how did he know her last name? Maybe he Googled “Mysterious Blonde at My Dad’s Funeral” and a map to her house came up.

4. Speaking of Holly, what’s with the white dress at a funeral? Okay, maybe it was kind of tannish, it’s hard to tell. But it was too not-black for the occasion, scarf and jacket notwithstanding. Then again, maybe that’s the point: Nothing says “Mistress Who Should Not Be Here” like standing off to the side of the crowd in an inappropriate outfit. Is there a Mistress Manual that spells these kinds of things out?

5. What, no wake? If ever there was a family who needed to have a big roaring-drunk party after laying a loved one to rest, it’s the Walkers. I grew up in the same general part of California as the Walkers, and I know funeral gatherings aren’t as regimented there as they are in my transplanted home of New Jersey, where repasts are big business. But certainly, oh, certainly, the family would have gathered back at the house for food and alcohol. And we missed it! Oh, cruel writers.

_{Photos: ABC.com}

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, State of the Parties, commentary