Brothers & Sisters

We open on the Walkers engaging in a perfectly nice little birthday party for Nora. She gets a lovely picture frame, and some slippers, and she chirps through it all the way your mom does when she wants to look like a good sport but still wants you to know that she’s really, really disappointed. “I love storebought white coconut cake! It’s my favorite!” she declares, and you know these siblings are going to be paying for this, in small ways, for a very very long time. Except: We’ve known Nora for, what, half a season? They’ve known her their whole lives. Is it possible they would be giving such a high-maintenance mom such a low-profile party for her 60th birthday? Nah, it’s pretty clear they’re planning a surprise bash even before we see them off to themselves, crowing over having fooled Nora.

What’s also clear is that the party will be a disaster. How big a disaster? Let us count the ways.

1. Everybody’s taping their own little video tribute to Nora, but while Joe’s taping Sarah doing hers, he gets a little frisky, and what winds up getting taped is the two of them having sex on the couch. Which is totally okay, because Joe switched the tapes. No, honey, it’s not the same tape that is going to be shown at your mom’s big birthday party. That sort of thing never happens, right? I ask you: Has making a home sex tape ever, in the history of video, been a good idea?

2. Nora’s mother shows up at her door. Nora’s mother, who didn’t come to the funeral. Nora’s mother, who is even more manipulative and controlling than Nora, if that’s even possible. Nora’s mother, who immediately ruins the surprise by telling her daughter she’s here for the party. There is some satisfaction, I guess, in seeing Nora playing the part of the beleaguered child to someone else’s steamroller mama; but I don’t enjoy watching steamroller mamas, even if they’re played by Mrs. Cunningham. If Saul thinks it’s such a good idea to invite her to the party, why isn’t she staying with him?

3. Sarah gets sick (no, not from thinking of people watching her sex tape) and can’t do all the cooking she’d planned to, so at the last minute, on the day of the party, a caterer must be found. Now, if only one of our siblings worked for a man who had his own personal chef who could be ordered at a moment’s notice to … hey, what about the senator? He graciously offers his cooking staff to save the day, and in return Kitty invites him to her den of Democrats, where he manages to charm Nora with his Kitty-appreciation and good taste in chefs, but Kevin? Not so much.

4. Sarah ordered the “Mid-Level Package” from the party set-up and entertainment people. Right? Wrong. What she actually ordered was the “Medieval Package,” leaving the Walker residence looking like a set from Camelot, full of wenches and serfs and goblets with no wine in them and a big ol’ coat of arms. Just what you want for someone turning 60, right? In case she’s not feeling quite old enough. Kevin’s so flustered by the feudal remodeling of the family home that he blows off the video guy who’s called to say, “Hey, do you really want this sex scene in the middle of the video tributes to your mom?” What … you mean Joe sent the wrong tape in? Who could have ever imagined such a mishap?

5. Justin gets to come home for the day, but only on condition of there being no alcohol readily available anywhere he’s at. Um, do these rehab people know the Walkers at all? You’re asking the Walkers to hold a social function without free-flowing booze? Silly rehab people! They hide the boxes of wine in Kitty’s closet, causing wine-sneaking Kitty and the senator to have a highly subtexed conversation about shoes and Nora and Saul to scour the kitchen for tiny airplane liquor servings. Justin, apparently unappreciative of the trouble everybody’s going to to keep him dry, heads off to a bar to meet Tyler and apologize for his behavior. He gets the guts kicked out of him, of course, when she announces she’s seeing someone else, and her realization that he fell off the wagon when he found out he was going back to war doesn’t change that. Justin doesn’t drink his way out of his sadness, though; he heads back home, to the bosom of his family, which at the moment is hiding in a closet guzzling wine. Their reaction to their lost brother’s romantic misfortune? A toast to Tyler!

6. Having the family all together is just the kind of heartwarming occasion that leads to a meltdown, which in this case involves Kitty telling Grandma that Kevin’s gay, Nora telling Grandma that William had an affair, Saul telling Grandma off in a big way, and everybody having a nice big ol’ shoutin’ match in the kitchen, one that is explosive enough to even drive away professional politicians and their armed guards. Now, if this was really the Middle Ages, they’d be able to behead someone or something, but I guess the “Medieval Package” only goes so far.

Yeah, okay, so at least the cake is nice this time around, and you know that eventually, after the feuding and the fussing and the fighting, and after the completely independent subplot involving Kevin still sleeping with Chad and Chad getting a tiny bit less paranoid about being caught but not really (now here is where that sex tape storyline would really pay off), everyone will realize that they pretty much love each other, and Nora and her mother will make up, and it will be a Very Happy Birthday After All. And perhaps the best gift of all for Nora comes the next day, when Kitty and Tommy and Kevin have all caught Sarah’s flu and are lined up on the couch for Mommy to take care of. It gives an old girl a reason for living, it does! And it turns out that, in California, your elected officials will even deliver soup to your house. Here in New Jersey, all they’ll deliver is industrial waste.

Original air date: 1/21/07

_{Photos: ABC.com}