Brothers & Sisters

I often wrestle here with the meaning of Brothers & Sisters episode titles, and have found some of this season’s particularly wanting. But I gotta say, after looking up the meaning of “moral hazard,” it’s a pretty clever label for this particularly hazardous episode. Here’s how Investopedia, a Forbes Media Company, defines the term:

“The risk that a party to a transaction has not entered into the contract in good faith, has provided misleading information about its assets, liabilities or credit capacity, or has an incentive to take unusual risks in a desperate attempt to earn a profit before the contract settles.”

This applies most obviously to Ojai Foods’ deal with Golden Plum, in which the latter’s bad faith has Ojai on the brink of collapse. But it also applies to Saul, who provided misleading information about Sarah’s consent, and had an incentive to take unusual risks because he is so unhappy with the way he’s lived his life. And it applies to Sarah, who intended to provide misleading information to Graham about her dousing of his deal to continue their dating relationship. And further, to Sarah as she attempts to hide Saul’s role in Ojai’s potential implosion by claiming she made the risky decision herself.

Nora, who I would say is providing misleading information by pretending to be a loving mother and then drop-kicking Sarah like she was a recalcitrant employee, advises Sarah that she’s not allowed to make mistakes, and insists on going to Tommy and Holly to beg for Keep Ojai Alive money. ‘Cause Sarah doesn’t feel bad enough already. She keeps up the misrepresentation of the misdeal as her fault at the meeting with the Walker Landing team, allowing Tommy to trash her for sleeping with Graham. Holly asks for a proposal to consider.

Of course, as we but not the Walkers know, Holly has not been dealing in good faith in personal matters, and Rebecca has been providing misleading information about her personal genetic assets. That’s causing some tension with Justin, who for a minute there thought about what it would be like if Rebecca was his girlfriend instead of his sister, and is having trouble stuffing those feelings back into the box. Rebecca, having lied about her discovery that David’s her dad in order to keep up just that sibling relationship, is all wanting to hang out, but Justin’s worried about the unusual risks that entails. He confesses to Kevin, who is appropriately freaked out by the incestuousness of it all, and advises Justin to just stay away from the girl.

Unfortunately, Rebecca catches Justin in a lie about dating some made-up girl, and there’s nothing for it but to take a sibling night at the movies. But Justin is so hyperaware of every touch and every innuendo that he finally has to come clean about the misleading information he’s been supplying about everything being the same. It’s not, and Rebecca runs off after hearing that he’s got unbrotherly feelings for her.

When she gets home, Holly finally calls her on the sullen crap she’s been pulling, and Rebecca reveals what she’s learned about her paternity. Holly claims she didn’t know, and when she accuses her daughter of sending David away, Rebecca doesn’t deny it, since David’s absence makes her desperate attempt to remain a Walker that much easier. Finally, Holly’s had it with Rebecca’s constant ingratitude for these enormous duplicitous sacrifices her mother has made, and kicks the girl out of the house.

Rebecca’s knowledge of the truth opens up a bit of a moral hazard for Holly, though, since once the Walkers get wind of her misrepresentation of Rebecca’s paternity, her grip on power’s going to slip fast. So she makes a quick proposal: Rather than loaning the needed $20 million, Walker Landing will merge with Ojai Foods, with Tommy and Sarah sharing the presidency and Holly serving as CEO.

Despite the fact that Saul has confessed to Nora that it was his mistake and not Sarah’s, and Nora has sympathized with Sarah over the weight of carrying William’s legacy, and said it might be just as well if the business died and released her from it — even knowing all of that, and knowing, surely, what hell these working conditions would be for Sarah — even then, Nora all but puts a gun to Sarah’s head to accept the terms. What none of them know, of course, is the bad faith Holly is negotiating in, the misleading information that is about to slip out, and the unusual risks Holly’s willing to take to gain a business advantage before something nasty hits the fan.

Speaking of hitting things, Saul — who, after getting the same degree of sympathy from Nora that Sarah got, has apparently been off getting drunk — drives his car into a tree, and calls Kevin to come bail him out. Finally, then, in the car, he admits to having made the Ojai deal for his own selfish reasons, and to being a gay man, and to having no idea how to go on with his life. Kevin is glad his uncle’s finally out, and assures him that the family will not turn on him.

Rebecca, on the other hand, has no such luck. She tries to fix her transaction with Justin by taking the unusual risk of telling the truth, but he’s not overjoyed to know that he can now lust after her worry-free. He’s angry that she’s lied, thinks it makes her just like her mother, and kicks her out of the Walker house, too. Geez, Rebecca — maybe you shouldn’t have sent David away so fast, ’cause seems like he’s the only one who still likes you. Also getting sent away is Graham, as Steven Weber takes the fast train to the Land of Lost Love Interests. Bye, Steve! Nice knowin’ ya!

When Nora comes home from doing the merger deal, Justin breaks the news that Becca’s not a Walker after all — too late, alas, to thwart Holly’s plan. Yet there is one good thing to rise from the ashes of all this business risk and deception: Kevin, legal advisor to Ojai throughout the whole ordeal, has seen what a mess various family members have made of their lives, and what Saul has lost by not having a soulmate, and realizes how lucky he is to have somebody waiting at home who loves and accepts him and changes the lightbulbs. He proposes to Scotty, the right way this time, on bended knee and for reasons having nothing to do with health insurance, and Scotty accepts. No bad faith or misleading information here, no desperate attempt to close a deal before something bad happens. At least for this week, the one who looks the least like a Walker is Kevin.

And that’s the episode. Or it should have been, because all those plot lines held together perfectly. But for some reason, the writers felt that we also needed to see Robert and Kitty getting it on. No, seriously, that was their entire plot — trying to make a baby the old-fashioned way. No phone calls from family at inopportune times, no interaction with Robert’s kids although they were supposedly there, just a visit with the doctor giving the go-ahead for non-IVF activity and some bedroom talk at the beginning and end of the episode. But to tie it in — if Robert went into the marriage partnership in bad faith, providing misleading information about his desire to be a father, that’s all over now. He seems to be entirely on the baby boat, reassuring Kitty that motherhood will happen for her. Unless he’s taking the unusual risk of giving Kitty some potion that renders her eggs chromosomally abnormal. Never put anything past a politician.

Photo: ABC.com

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Moral Hazard, recap