Retcon Patrol: 1-01 “Patriarchy” Part 4
Today we continue our look for inconsistent or comment-worthy moments in the Brothers & Sisters first season with a look at the fourth part of Episode 1. Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 if you need to catch up, then dive right in here with Part 4.
28:05
Jonathan describes the job Kitty’s rejecting him for as “being an 11:30 smartass on TV.� So this was a late-night show? I didn’t realize that. Surely it’s not 11:30 a.m., because the smartasses stay up late.
28:28
Kitty asks if marriage-job is an either-or thing, and Jonathan says, “I see our life together in New York. That’s just the way I see it.� And the first time through, I thought he was being really controlling, but this time — maybe because I know how short-lived Kitty’s commitment to being an 11:30 smartass was — I’m thinking he’s not necessarily a beast for wanting her to want him more than a job. Maybe it’s just his extreme hotness, lying there in bed in his T-shirt, that’s distracting me.
28:39
This is incredibly petty, but … there’s like a huge splotch on the carpet in Kitty and Jonathan’s hotel room. I’d like to believe it’s a shadow of something, but given the way the light’s coming into the room and the lack of shadow around it, I can’t figure out how it could be. Really just looks like a big ol’ stain. Jonathan should complain to the management.
28:44
William Walker, man of the people! Knowing the names of the folks at the lunch cart! Everyone in this town knows him, but do they really know him? No.
29:34
Okay, I’m no fan of Saul’s after his defensive rant when Sarah and Tommy questioned him earlier, but … it’s really pretty evil of William to coolly spin this whole story of the financial shortfalls being due to Saul’s mismanagement. Evil, and yet, I like this explanation so much better than the solution that was actually settled upon. It makes me wonder whether, when the writers wrote this, they hadn’t a clue as to where this mystery was going to go. The piece-of-property conclusion always seemed to me like something that just got thrown together to get that plotline the heck over with, already.
30:25
And conveniently, we now see William clearly colluding with Saul. He threatens Saul that he needs a solution by Monday, but Monday never comes for William, does it. See, if this were Columbo or Monk, Saul would totally be guilty of having somehow slipped a heart-attack-faking poison into something at the house there that only William consumes. The fact that he’s not at the birthday party only implicates him more. Oh, well, that’s a nice batch of retcon for Season 12 or so.
33:08
Kitty to Nora: “You can’t love me, and I don’t know what it’s about, but it’s not about the war.� Boy, has the dynamic between these two changed, or been reconceived. I’m thinking about that speech at the end of “Separation Anxiety,� with Nora saying that she was afraid to say “I need you� to Kitty to keep her from going to New York. That conversation, as I recall it, made it sound like they had a relationship before Kitty went to NY, and this makes it sound like they never did. A missed opportunity, I think, that Kitty’s status as Not Mom’s Favorite got resolved away so fast.
Photo: ABC.com
Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Patriarchy
May 30th, 2008 at 11:30 am
One of the great things about a tv series is that there is the time to explore character’s personalities and relationships. People do not always act consistently and they may change over time. We may not always like how the characters “expand” but it’s fullfilling when done well, like Nora/children and Kevin/Scotty.
May 30th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Just wanted to add a thanks for doing this. You are very insightful.