Brothers & Sisters

Five questions from Sunday’s episode still rattling in my brain today.

1. Why does nobody else get to interact with Emily? Personally, I could do without the character altogether; Nora seems like too sensible a gal to continually fall for her bad advice. But goodness, if you’re going to have this loose a cannon rolling around, why not fire it at somebody? Think of the fun of siccing uncensored Emily on Holly! At the very least, she could smack those smug, mother-baiting Walker kids around a little.

2. Where were Rebecca and Justin breakfasting? Was that Holly’s kitchen? It didn’t look familiar, but maybe we’ve just never seen that angle before, with the blackboard in the background? The follow-up to this question, of course, is why were they having breakfast together? Justin just stopped by for some ancient cereal? I’m pretty sure his mother would have whipped him up some nice scrambled eggs and English muffins at home.

3. If Robert’s so great, why do women keep cheating on him? Maybe it’s because living up to a saint is too darn hard to do. Or maybe it’s because he gets all emotionally withdrawn when things don’t go his way, then acts like it never happened and pushes the relationship on to the next level. Perhaps the speechwriter can take a moment away from downplaying the war hero record and try writing the senator an “I apologize for being such a jerk last week” speech.

4. Can Kevin have a worthwhile relationship now? I’m okay with him having a couple of failed relationships so that he can Learn and Grow, but it’s about time for one to work for a little while, isn’t it? Kevin’s so good at apologizing when it’s too late — maybe he can help Robert learn how to say “I’m sorry,” and Senator McSpeedy can help him move a little faster with it.

5. Did Tommy get a one-way ticket to Julia-ville? I’m not one to demand that every regular character gets a walk-on in every episode. Holly and Saul-y can go missing for weeks at a time without explanation or regret, and spouses Julia and Joe don’t need to be constantly featured either. But when you have an episode in which an anonymous slutty college student gets more screen time than a Walker brother, that starts to look like a problem. Maybe Tommy should ask his mom to write a story about him; there seems to be plenty of screen time for writing class.

_{Photo: ABC.com}

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Three Parties, commentary, Margot Kidder