Brothers & Sisters

I still owe you all five questions about “Family Portrait,” and we’ll get to that tomorrow. For today, one more post about the Emmys, because it was an exciting night for Brothers & Sisters, you know?

1. Did Sally Field know Fox censored her? Not until she got backstage, according to reports. At which point she said, basically, oh well. Then admitted she probably shouldn’t have said quite the word she did. Then lamented not saying more bad words. Sounding more and more like Nora every minute.

2. Did Sally censor Fox, too? When she was onstage presenting with Patrick Dempsey, it looked like there was supposed to be some cutesy banter between the two of them, and she cut it short. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention, granted, so distracted was I by their mutual adorableness. But it seemed that maybe she just dispensed with the scripted prattle and moved on. To which I say, “Yay!”

3. Am I the only one who wondered, “Who is Sarah Caplan?” I’m clearly displaying an area of Brothers & Sisters ignorance here, and am duly ashamed. But when Sally Field thanked “the mother of the show, the real mother of the show, Sarah Caplan,” I had no idea who she was talking about. According to IMDb, she’s the co-executive producer of the show, and according to Barnes & Noble, she does the DVD audio commentary for the “Matriarchy” episode along with Ken Olin and Balthazar Getty. So I guess I’ll be getting to know her better.

4. Why do people get so outraged about what celebrities say? Personally, I’m not a fan of stars using acceptance speeches as political platforms, although at least Sally Field’s speech was consistent with the character she plays and against wars general and not specific. I also think she could have well made that point without the expletive. But the heat of the complaints I’m seeing in comments around the Web seems all out of proportion to what she actually said, and way more offensive. Why, for example, would a bunch of people who have likely never read this blog before stop by to say hateful things about Sally Field in my comments? Folks, I hate to tell you, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t read this blog, either.

5. So, if mothers ruled the world, would there really be no more wars? If those mothers were like Nora Walker, I guess mankind would be too busy getting drunk and squabbling to wage formal warfare. But I don’t know. Mothers can be loving and nurturing, but we can also be fierce. It’ll be peaceful enough until your kid says something that hurts my kid’s feelings, and then, I am bringing my army down on you, sister.

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Sally Field, Emmy speech