Maybe Justin’s not a Walker
I know, this sounds like crazy talk. But I’ll tell you, there was a moment there in the “36 Hours” episode, when Nora and Justin were dangling their feet in the pool, where I almost expected that Nora was going to tell her son that William Walker is not his father. The moment passed without revelation, maybe because Nora decided the time wasn’t right, maybe because I’m off my rocker with this. But for the first time, the idea didn’t make me see sharks.
When the notion of Justin’s paternity being other than advertised was first floated as a way to let Justin and Rebecca be a couple, I thought it was unbearably soapy. We’d had no indication that Nora had an affair, and any flip-flopping of fathers would seem to be ditching character in service of plot. But now, I don’t know. I think there may have been enough dots that, if this is where the writers want to go, we could go back and connect them. Rather like Saul’s sexuality storyline, just because something wasn’t intended from the beginning doesn’t mean there couldn’t be some subtext to support it.
Here’s a few things that make me go hmmm:
- Nora has always treated Justin differently from her other kids. She gives him an awful lot more rope than she gives everybody else, even though he’s constantly hanging himself with it. When he did something she didn’t approve of — enlist — she got mad at Kitty instead of him. Sure, it could be that he’s just the baby of the family. Or it could be because he’s hers in a way the other kids aren’t.
- Justin had a different relationship with William, too. Let’s see, we have four driven achievers, and … a druggie bum. Plenty of families have a bad seed, and a youngest who falls farthest from the tree. But the older kids seem to respect their father’s legacy — even while reviling some parts of it — in a way that Justin doesn’t. They seem more invested in him, and William seemed more invested in them. Maybe he had a reason beyond just letting Justin be Justin.
- Remember that scene in “Affairs of State,” after the big party blow-up over Holly, when Kitty reassured her mother that William loved her? And Nora said, with bitter anger, “But he didn’t give up anything to do it.” Maybe Nora did give something up, and a portion of her feelings of betrayal is that she followed the rules and abandoned a relationship that meant something to her, and William said he would but didn’t.
- Back to “36 Hours,” I’m thinking about that scene in which Nora talks to Kevin and Tommy about their dad. And the way she says, “You were as good a dad to Justin today as William Walker ever was.” Something about that phrasing, maybe the using of his full name like that, gives, for me, a little cover to the idea that maybe William Walker was being a dad to Justin without actually being Justin’s dad.
I’m just speculating wildly here, of course. I have no idea if the show is ever going to go in this direction. But, like Saul said, they all have their secrets. Why shouldn’t Nora have one, too?
Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Nora Walker, Sally Field
November 17th, 2007 at 5:55 am
There is a huge age gap between Justin and the four others.
I think it’s quite realistic that four children who were born within five years would have a different relationship to their parent than a child who was born about ten years later than everybody else.
My interpretation that Justin is a secret hint to the audience that the Walker family life wasn’t all that great, Justin was the only one who was still a child when Nora found out about Holly and William, so maybe his drug problem is meant to show that it had some effect on him. He also was also the only one who immediately knew who Holly was, whereas the Kitty and Tommy just couldn’t believe that their überperfect father would ever do something wrong.
I think an affair of Nora would turn her character into a farce.
November 17th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
I agree with Laura.
Justin’s unique position within the family is easily explained by the birth order and the large age gap between him and the other 4 siblings.
To ruin these fascinating interpersonal dynamics by saying “Oh, it’s because Nora had an affair” would not only irreparably damage Nora’s character, but also feel inconsistent with what we’ve come to know about this family.
I also see no evidence of the writers going down this path. Just my opinion.
November 17th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
While this is a good idea, I believe that Nora isn’t the kind of person to seek revenge in such a way. I think Justin was born so late because Nora wanted to try to get William back. You know, the…”If I have his baby, he’ll be with me” deal. That’s always possible. But I think we wore out the illegitimate child storyline last year with Rebecca, we don’t need another.
November 18th, 2007 at 4:25 am
Well, I think it’s possible, and I wouldn’t be too upset if it did happen. I kinda feel like we have to accept that B&S is pretty soapy, and I wouldn’t mind them exploring it as long as it was well-written - we know the actors can deliver.
November 18th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
The biggest sticking point for me is that, in my opinion, it would ruin Nora’s character and make her into a lying hypocrite. And I love Nora way too much to want that to happen.
November 18th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
In response to what Emma said, it doesn’t quite make sense that Justin exists because Nora wanted to try to get William back. Justin was born about five or six years befoer William even started seeing Holly. And Nora didn’t find out until Justin was about eleven. So that wouldn’t work. And there’s no evidence to suggest that Nora would ever tried, at all, to get William back–when she did find out, he tried to get HER back by insisting he’d ended his affair with Holly.
November 19th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Btw didn’t Nora tell Kitty in “Northern Exposure” that she and William had made Justin in Ojai?
Plus, wasn’t Nora’s character - at least in the beginning - all about being the little housewife who’d always been at home, catering to her man and taking care of the children? An affair just wouldn’t fit into this picture.
And finally, Sarah and Kitty are supposed to be 13 and 12 years older than Justin, so wouldn’t they know if their mother had had a relationship with another man.