Brothers & Sisters

It’s “Date Night,” ladies and gentlemen. Let’s meet our lovely couples.

Couple #1 are Kitty, the conservative TV commentator, and her long-distance boyfriend, Jonathan, who appear to be having phone sex when we first see them. But, what’s that? Jonathan’s not across the country where he’s supposed to be, but lurking in the shadows of Nora’s kitchen, waiting to surpise Kitty? Folks, that’s not romance, that’s stalking. Jonathan’s come to try to Make Things Work with his sweetie, and after Nora realizes she doesn’t need to bean him with that frying pan, she insists that of course he must stay at Chez Walker, and even though there are giant “Bad Idea” signs flashing all around, Jonathan goes ahead and says yes. Further demonstrating his brilliance, Jonathan determines to cook cassoulet for the whole family the next day — which proves that this guy never watches TV, because dude, the quickest way to get in bad with a materfamilias is to usurp her role in the kitchen. Kitty’s siblings are predictably jubilant over the awkwardness of this family meal, and Nora steps right up and makes cracks about Jonathan’s work and the irony of eating a peasant stew while discussing his multi-million-dollar dealings. ‘Cause she’s really hoping her daughter will marry a poor person; that’s her motherly dream, some poor but honest gent who spent his last pennies getting his ACLU membership card laminated. You’d think that Kitty and Jonathan’s date night would be all about getting some blessed time alone, but no, Kitty’s determined to use her night away from Mom to squash the romantic future of

Couple #2 — Warren, her liberal counterpart on her TV show, whose one-nighter with Kitty was what broke Kitty and Jonathan up the last time, and Amber, the young blonde internette. When Kitty gets wind of their dinner date, she invites herself and Jonathan along, solely to protect Amber’s virtue, of course. And of course they go to the same restaurant where Warren and Kitty dined before their tryst, and of course the waiter remembers what she drinks, and of course Jonathan figures out that his girlfriend and her co-worker were here before and why, because he may be too stupid to see flashing warning signs but he knows how to read a script. Amber’s all “Wow, I’m out with the grown-ups!” and taking pictures with her cell phone and inviting the gang to go clubbing after, and maybe she and Warren do. He’s a happening guy with a good rug, he’s up for anything. Kitty and Jonathan, on the other hand, just go home and break up again. Which still makes their date better than that of

Couple #3, Nora, the recently widowed mom, and David, her contractor, who comes to fix a broken shelf, stays to apparently redesign large portions of the house, and ends up proposing a not-a-date when he finds he and Nora are invited to the same restaurant opening. Man, I can’t get a contractor to come to my house for any amount of money, and this guy does small repairs, redesigns, and dates, too? What a shame he’s soon to leave contracting for medicine. This whole not-a-date scenario is just an excuse for Nora to switch from bossy and manipulative mode to total blithering idiot, and as scary as I find the former, it’s much preferable. She blithers through the not-a-date set-up, through the meeting at the restaurant, through many a martini, and through the ultimate admission that she thought it was a date and David thought it was a not-a. Not helping at all is the fact that at the onset of the is-it-a-date?, she spies

Couple #4, her very own brother, Saul, out with her very own husband’s mistress, Holly. “Who are you, you couldn’t be my brother here with her tonight,” Nora hisses to Saul when she catches him. “You couldn’t be my sister, my sister’s husband just died and you seem to be out on a date,” he replies, proving that brothers and sisters may grow up but they never get that much more mature. Also fighting on date night are

Couple #5, Kevin, the lawyer brother, and Scotty, his client. After bantering a bit about the night Kevin stood Scotty up to go out with his mom and they ran into Scotty with Some Other Guy, the two decide to make another date. And it all goes nicely — no ill-considered double-dating, no excessive martini drinking, no siblings showing up with inappropriate escorts — until Scotty kisses Kevin right in the restaurant. And it’s not that Kevin’s not comfortable with his gayness, or anything, or that Scotty has bad breath. It’s just that he’s not comfortable with Public Displays of Affection. Circumspect people, these Walkers. Prim. Proper. Obsessed with decorum. Until you get a couple of martinis in them, anyway, but that’s a different date night. Scotty gives Kevin the whole “I am more evolved than you” speech, but he comes by Kevin’s apartment the next day to apologize and admit to feeling out of his league with Kevin, and things go better from there. Because Private Displays of Affection? Or Displays of Affection witnessed only by the nosy neighbor lady with the cat? They’re A-OK.

And what of our married couples? The ones who could kiss in a restaurant with no one caring? The ones who could go out with no misunderstandings over who really wants to be sleeping with who? Don’t be silly. Married couples don’t date. They have real-world things to worry about, like a business going under or a daughter going into diabetic shock. Tommy seeks out Jonathan’s help for the business troubles (and not for nothing, guys, but he gives his business advice after a humiliating breakup with Kitty, and, um, you’re getting a second opinion, right?), and Sarah gets help for the diabetes troubles from Justin, who turns out to be a whiz with insulin injections. Why everybody’s so shocked that Justin has a way with a needle is a mystery to me, but I guess it is about the first time he’s been allowed to look competent at anything. So we end the episode on a quiet note, with Sarah injecting saline solution into Justin’s stomach for practice, and Kitty crawling into bed with Nora, spooked by the Santa Ana winds and by the fact that she may never be able to love anybody. You know, it’s a good evening to snuggle up with Mom and watch The West Wing on DVD, and think about that dreamy Sam Seaborn, and how cool it would be if he was a Republican.

Original air date: 10/22/06

_{Photos: ABC.com}