Brothers & Sisters

We begin with Nora recording a video message to Justin, and it turns out that since we left the Walker siblings in June, they haven’t been home much. Without us there to watch them, they apparently don’t have the heart to get together. It’s kind of sweet, really.

But they have been busy little Walkers on their individual paths, as Nora helpfully expositions to her far-off son.

• Sarah and Joe are separated, and Sarah apparently has custody of the snotty mothers at the playground.
• Kevin is happily coupled with Robert’s brother Jason, in a way that makes me worry that the only way they can work up a healthy relationship for Kevin is to have it take place off camera and present it as a done deal.
• Kitty and Robert are on the campaign trail, where the first fiancee is shocked, shocked to learn that the domestic issues candidates’ wives are expected to be interested in have to do with cookies rather than health care.
• Tommy and Julia have just brought their surviving twin home from the hospital, but Julia’s fixated on the one who never made it home.
• Rebecca has busied herself with being the light of Nora’s life, and with boxing Kitty’s shoes, which seriously could have taken her all summer.

And Nora? Nora has of course been worrying about Justin, to the exclusion of all other interests. But she can’t be expositing that in the message to the soldier, can she?

Now that we’re back, though, the family just can’t stay away from the fold. Kitty comes home to try to bond with Nora through the time-honored mother-daughter tradition of wedding-dress shopping. Alas, Nora’s distracted; she’s so ticked at Kitty for not getting Robert to pull strings and find out if Justin’s okay that she’s withholding her opinions on bridal finery. The two wind up squabbling in the middle of the store, with the to-do caught on camera-phone by a jerk who, if you read the ABC blogs, works for the senator’s competition. When Robert views the whole thing on YouTube and asks Kitty why she didn’t just tell her mother that she’s asked, many times, for Robert to do said string-pulling and he’s the one saying no, she says she wants mom to like him not dislike him more than she already does, and then asks a whole bunch more times.

Kevin’s going to have plenty of time to hang around the homestead because his boyfriend’s been sent by the bishop to go on a mission to Malaysia, for at least as long as it takes Viva Laughlin to fail, maybe a month, maybe a year, though looking at the previews, I’d say closer to a month. Kevin gets all sulky and sensitive and Kevin-like, and Jason wonders why he’s so upset when he hasn’t even been able to say “I love you” yet. Aw, Jason, he’s been waiting for us to be watching, silly!

Sarah’s needing a sibling sounding board after she and Joe have some ex sex on top of the washing machine. Unfortunately, she picks Tommy as the one to mention it to, ’cause since he’s starting a new business and has a new baby at home, he’s probably got a lot of free time to talk about his sister’s sex life. Wait, what’s that? No, he doesn’t, and Sarah is not pleased. But really, even in good times, would Tommy be the go-to guy for sex talk?

This is not good times, though, because what Tommy’s not telling anyone is that Julia is really not doing well, to the point where she doesn’t even want to go out to dinner with the Walkers! Oh my gosh, check that girl’s temperature, get her some Prozac, something, anything! I mean, sure, post-partum depression, baby grieving, lack of sleep, annoying in-your-face in-laws, I understand the reluctance. But doesn’t she know that if she’s not going to family events, she’s going to be seriously lacking in screen time? Has last season taught her nothing?

The family dinner in question is a birthday get-together for Kitty, who once again does not want a party but has one pushed on her at the instigation of Rebecca, who also annoys Kitty by living in her room, putting her shoes away, and finding last year’s birthday gift from William in her dresser. Attending the dinner are all the siblings, Nora, Saul, and even Holly, without whom no party is complete, right? Nora and Holly met up accidentally at William’s gravesite — because if it’s Kitty’s birthday, it’s also William’s deathday — and bonded over their missing of him, and also over their fear that the attractive woman walking their way was yet another secret mistress (or daughter, I suppose). Relax, ladies — she walks on by. No way would a classy show like this unearth another William dalliance … this soon. Season 4, Season 5? Anything goes.

The Walkers gather at the Mexican restaurant where Rebecca was sure she could get them a table, except not so much. This leaves them plenty of time to get drunk and bitchy in the bar, which is really what we wanted anyway, right? Kevin gripes about his broken romance; Saul, who got a visit earlier from his old Key West traveling companion, gripes that Kevin doesn’t realize how lucky his out self is; Sarah gripes that Tommy wouldn’t gossip with her, and then that he’s gossiped about her; Tommy gripes that he’s got enough problems what with Julia crying all the time; Kitty gripes that Tommy didn’t want Sarah to tell her that Julia is crying all the time; and it takes a U.S. senator and presidential candidate to get them to shut the heck up.

Meanwhile, Nora is off yelling at the people who are monopolizing their table, berating them to get lost so her family can eat a damn burrito (but not a g–damn burrito, because she’s learned her lesson). Her tirade stops when Robert informs her, rather publicly, that he did in fact pull those unethical strings and can assure her that Justin is A-OK. Where’s that guy with the cell-phone camera now?

The birthday party/Justin’s OK! party moves to the Walker home, where all parties should be anyway. Even Julia manages to make it over to introduce Elizabeth to the family that will dominate her life. The gang enjoys a birthday cake constructed entirely of donuts (and I totally want that for my next birthday), and dances and goofs around together in such a way that you just know, when Robert’s cell phone rings, that it’s going to be bad news. And, indeed: On the way back to their base, Justin’s unit was hit by a roadside bomb and gunfire and there are casualties, although we don’t know who those casualties are (but we do know who they’re not, really, don’t we). That pretty much puts the damper on the family partying right there.

There’s a little more bad news before we’re through: While Sarah thought the ex sex meant that Joe wanted to get back together, he explains that he was really just “confused” (a word which, in this context, means “a manipulative horny jerk”), and that he does not want to move in and move on at all. But there’s some good news, too: Kevin says those three little words to Jason (and no, not “Quit Viva Laughlin!”), and their relationship will go on despite their time apart. Leaving Kevin free to spend lots of family time and not worry about having to run through multiple crummy relationships like last season.

Finally, just to bookmark things neatly, we end with Rebecca recording a video message to the now-possibly-dead-but-probably-not Justin, with perceptive glimpses of each of his siblings and the admission that not only do they need him, she needs him too. Um, in a sisterly way, right ‘Becca? Right? Right? Yikes.

For more recaps of “Home Front,” check these sites:

• TV Guide
• Entertainment Weekly
• TV Squad
• Television Without Pity
• AfterElton

and come back here tomorrow for a round-up of memorable lines.

_{Photo: ABC.com}