Brothers & Sisters

Still reeling from that emotionally powerful episode last week? Here’s a cold splash of water to the face: Tommy. In Lena’s apartment. Sneaking out without sleeping over. As he has before. Now, if after his leaving, Lena had choked to death on a piece of her famous french toast that she actually buys from the diner across the street, this scene might have been tolerable. No such luck, though, because she’s back later in the episode to flirt drunkenly with Justin.

It wasn’t Rebecca’s idea to get them together, exactly; Nora had suggested finding a nice single friend for her half-brother, but it appeared she was planning to go out with her old friend alone before Justin invited himself along. And golly, if he and Lena didn’t hit it off. Justin wasn’t drinking, but he was pretty free with the pills when Rebecca walked away from the table, and Lena was pretty happy to get him to share them with her. Later, when Justin went so far as to kiss her, Lena asked him to back off — I mean, she’ll sleep with a married man, and she’ll flirt with his brother, and she’ll take prescription medications not meant for her or the person dispensing them, but the girl’s got some scruples, you know?

What the Justin-Lena action is good for is kicking Rebecca in the rear and getting her moving out of the Walker house. When it was Holly telling her she should stop playing nursemaid and do something for herself, Rebecca was having none of it. But seeing Justin, obviously high despite his giving her grief for suspecting it, and flirting with another pretty girl besides, is enough to make her realize that watching The Hills all day is not, in fact, a life. Despite Justin’s incredibly lame excuses and self-justifications, she packs her things and moves home with mother. (Hope Kitty’s going to count those shoes and make sure none walked away.)

Also in for a change of lodging is Scotty, who paid his cooking school tuition instead of paying his rent, and is now essentially homeless. Kevin comes to the rescue with the offer of an air mattress on his floor, and although I’m sure we all fervently hope in our hearts that he immediately called Jason and explained the situation and got the Reverend Boyfriend’s blessing, there’s plenty here to make us worry that the big flashing Plot Device sign that Lena shared with the Ridges is now being FedEx’d to Scotty.

On the move as well are Paige and Cooper, who we find here on their Sarah weekend. Since no judge or lawyer requested Paige’s personal opinion about the custody arrangement, she’s forced to provide it to her parents using such time-honored tween-type methods as moping, sullen quietude, pulling the fire alarm at school, and running away (but just to Grandma’s). When she first goes missing, Joe is all, “This happened on your watch!� to Sarah, and it seems like we’re going to get a repeat of legal recriminations for Sarah’s alleged inattentiveness.

But, wait, no. During the commercial break, the Resolution Fairy apparently bonked Joe on the head, and even as Paige is returning to Sarah’s house, he’s on the phone with the barracuda making sure joint custody shall once again be the law of the Whedons. You know, to protect myself against plot whiplash, I’m just going to fanwank that Paige and Nora had some sort of secret plot to put the heat on Daddy and get him to change his mind, and it worked beautifully. You go, girls!

Newly moved into the Walker universe is Danny Glover as Isaac Marshall, a cutthroat political advisor much loved by Kitty and much hated by Robert. Kitty’s called in a favor and brought Isaac on to handle the illegitimate child/shotgun wedding situation, or, as the couple has taken to calling it, Operation Puppy. Isaac’s immediate suggestion is to get married immediately, and when Nora bursts into the meeting to protest the plan to tie the knot at City Hall, he smilingly puts the job of planning an at-home wedding in two days in Nora’s hands. One of the few ways for a Republican to win Nora’s heart, for sure.

Plans proceed apace, with Tommy and Saul rearranging furniture, Sarah folding napkins, and Paige agreeing to be Kitty’s flower girl. But in the middle of it all, it apparently occurs to somebody that a campaign ought not to be thrown into upheaval over a pregnancy without a medical professional actually, you know, checking that pregnancy out. And, in fact, when Nora and Kitty do go to the doctor to get a sonogram, they get the sad news that there’s no fetal heartbeat; the pregnancy is not viable.

That puts the brakes on the wedding plans, and also on Isaac’s service to the McCallister campaign. As a kind of parting gift, Isaac tells Robert that one of his opponents has a developmentally disabled son who has been institutionalized since birth, and whose father goes right ahead and supports legislation harmful to people with special needs. Robert has no interest in that, nor in Isaac’s troubleshooting suggestions for the possibility that his political foes will find out he went with Kitty for the post-miscarriage D&C and spin it that she had an abortion.

Why is Robert so resistant to Isaac’s counsel? For one thing, Isaac was the one who outed Jason during one of Robert’s earlier campaigns — when Jason was not even out to his own family — and nearly ruined the brothers’ relationship. For another, Robert is really not all that sad about the loss of the baby, not having wanted more kids after all, and he has to absorb the personal ramifications of that before he can deal with the political ones.

How long will he be able to keep that secret from Kitty? Well, next week looks like a good time to spill it, since according to the preview Justin’s drugging, Tommy’s infidelity, and maybe even Saul’s sexuality are all going to be on the table. With all those explosive secrets detonating, a simple little “Hey, Kitty, that thing I said about nothing making me happier than starting a family with you was really not so true� should be able to sneak right on by, right?

For more recaps of “Two Places,” 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}

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Two Places, recap