Brothers & Sisters

Today continues what I hope will be a summer-long journey through the first season of Brothers & Sisters, from our perspective here at the end of Season Two. As with our re-view of Episodes 1, 2, and 3, I’ll be looking for contradictions between where the Walkers were then and where they’re at now, and also commenting on how the episodes look in retrospect. I’ll time my observations to the playback of the DVD, for those who want to view along. Share your own reflections in the comments.

And now, Part 1 of Episode 4, “Family Portrait.”

0:37
Four siblings are checking out the new picture Mom’s hung up in a prominent place, and the one sibling that’s missing is the siblings that’s missing in the picture, too — Kitty. They can’t imagine why Mom would put it up. Have they ever met their mother, the Queen of Passive Aggression?

0:50
Sarah says Kitty was missing because she had a speech to give in NYC, Kevin says it was the Kitty-Mommy Cold War … wait, Mommy? Does anybody ever call Nora that? Mom, certainly, and Mother when fed up, but Mommy? I guess he just wanted it to rhyme, kinda.

1:00
Kevin admires his haircut in the picture. Man, are the men on this show obsessed with hair.

1:07
Justin’s comment on the photo: “Julia is a babe!” And the Tommy-Justiny Cold War continues.

1:37
The diabetes anvils start falling: Paige is very thirsty!

1:55
Actually, come to think of it, Joe could use to be a little more hair-obsessed.

2:17
Nora says it’s a really good picture, and Kitty was busy that weekend. And you know, it is a really good picture. Should it never see the light of day because one person is missing? Tape a wallet-size headshot of Kitty in the corner and be done with it.

3:07
Tommy officially becomes Justin’s father, taking on William’s role of finding demeaning jobs for Justin and expecting him to shut up and take them.

3:32
Julia gets a line! Not just a babe, but a babe who can talk.

3:47
Two lines! You go, Sarah Jane Morris!

3:58
Kitty says Kevin plays golf. I thought Tommy was the one who golfs? Wasn’t Kevin the most hopeless and pathetic of the brothers when they were out golfing with Isaac in “Separation Anxiety”?

4:01
We now learn that Kevin played on the high-school golf team — which, even if he just did it for a guy, should have given him a little more ability than he showed on the course with Isaac, no?

4:48
Between the “Mommy” and the way Kitty’s teasing Kevin into golfing with Mom, both of these siblings have regressed to about five years old.

5:00
At least we’re consistent with Saul hating golf.

5:18
Kevin’s inability to give Sarah the satisfaction of telling her he has a tentative date with Scotty leads him to be stuck going golfing with Nora. Honestly, Paige is more mature than all of them.

5:51
No line for Julia, but she gets a nice solo laughing shot.

5:57
Nora says “the house we paid for is now Holly’s.” I thought she told Saul to sell it to Holly for a reasonable price? Are they just giving it to her now?

6:05
Nora thinks Holly should sell the house and move somewhere cheap and sleazy on the other side of the world. And how much trouble would have been saved if she had! Guess Nora’s all over feeling ashamed for her party outburst.

6:20
Okay, so here Nora is being pretty unambiguously intolerant of infidelity, which I guess blows a hole in my thoughts that perhaps she had at least a temptation in that direction herself. Though actually, all she says is she never touched anybody else’s husband, so I suppose somebody else’s brother or nephew or cousin would still be fair game — or heck, on this show, wife.

6:41
Saul is defending Nora from her own self-righteousness. Something that he himself has never ever demonstrated ever.

6:42
Now Saul launches into a speech that can easily be retroactively interpreted as pointing the way to his coming-out plotline: “Life is lonely, Nora. It’s long and lonely, and there are so many genuine evils in the world. I would think that you would at least let someone off the hook for falling in love with the wrong person.” At the time, though, it seemed to spin in the direction of him being in love with Holly.

7:08
Wow, how long has Jonathan been split from the woman he wanted to marry and move to L.A. for, and now he’s dating? I guess that kind of hair doesn’t stay off the market for long.

7:23
“So what’s the skinny?” says Jonathan. And since I can’t imagine somebody using that casually in real life, it’s hard not to take it as another Calista Flockhart weight reference.

8:19
Now Joe’s spilling to Kitty about his problems with Sarah. Should he really be complaining about his wife to her sister? Do he and Kitty have that kind of separate friendly relationship? Next thing you know, he’ll be asking her for a letter of recommendation for his custody case.

8:37
It is pretty funny, though, when Kitty says Sarah is just like their dad … but no, wait, not that way!

9:07
Kitty finally notices the picture, and is immediately upset. She asks “When was that taken?” so apparently it was not a case of her being asked and unavailable, as Sarah thought, and was indeed a case of the Kitty-Mommy Cold War, as Kevin suggested.

9:43
Gotta give Kitty credit for coming right out and asking Nora, “Why did you hang up that picture? I’m not in it.” And yet, although I know Nora did it for symbolic reasons that will be worked out over the episode, I still can’t help but feel — “Hey, girlie, if you move to the other side of the continent from your family, you might get left out of a picture sometimes. Are they never allowed to get a portrait taken because you’ve chosen to live someplace else? Get over yourself.” But that’s just me.

Continue on to Part 2.

_{Photo by Terri Mauro}

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Family Portrait