Brothers & Sisters

Today continues our 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, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, 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 9, “Mistakes Were Made Part 2.”

1:07
After the previouslies have finished, and we get a caption that says it’s September 19, 2001, we seem to be right back in the same scene from the end of the previous episode, in which Justin announces he’s enlisted. Indeed, Justin does make that announcement, but in a completely different way than in the last episode. What the hell?

At the very tail end of “Mistakes Were Made Part 1,” we see the Walkers flashback-style around the dinner table. William says “Amen,” as he does here. From there, the scenes proceed very differently. In the earlier episode, we get quite a bit of mostly silent action around the table, including a longish shot of Kitty still praying. Finally, we get this dialogue:

Justin: Guys?
Nora: What?
William: You want to say something?
Justin: I do … um … Look, I love you guys more than anything in the whole world. And I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over the past few days. I can’t just sit here and let these people tear apart my family like this. I mean, God, Kitty, they almost killed you.
Kitty: No, Justin, I’m fine. I’m here now, it’s OK.
Justin: I know, OK, but the same thing could happen tomorrow, or they could do something even worse. It’s just not right.
Nora: Justin, what’s the matter?
Justin: Nothing’s the matter. I enlisted today. (blackout)

Compare that to the recreation of this scene here in “Mistakes Were Made Part 2.” William says “Amen,” and after a few seconds of round-the-table shots, there’s the following dialog:

Nora: Justin, what’s the matter?
Justin: Um, nothing’s the matter.
William: You want to say something?
Justin: Yeah, I, uh, I enlisted today.

At which point, his family proceeds to make fun of him.

What’s up with that? How can you open the second half of a two-parter with a completely different version of the same dinner? It can hardly be a different dinner, because I don’t think Justin could have announced his enlistment twice. Seems like kind of a cheap shot on Justin, though, to remove his rationale for the sake of yet another round of “what a worthless silly brother we have” jokes.

1:43
Not that I disagree with Nora that Justin should not go to war, but … right here, lady, right here is why your son is a good-for-nothing loafer. He’s how old, and your answer to his enlistment is, “No, you may not”? Of course, the way they’ve introduced it here, without Justin’s rationale, it seems like much more of a whim.

1:56
Nora says, “I will not have a child of mine putting themselves in harms’ way,” to which Justin rightly responds, “I’m not your child.” He’s not the most mature-acting fellow, for sure, but Nora’s an enabler.

2:39
William gives him the go-ahead, which shows more respect than anybody else at the table is giving Justin. I guess this is in keeping with William always being harder on Justin and trying to get him to be responsible, the kind of thing that made Justin mad in earlier episodes?

2:56
And now Nora is back in the present time, in the ER with the family, coming out of her memory of that dinner. I really thought we were going to get Justin’s cut speech in there somewhere, just rearranged, but nope. It was an alternate-universe dinner. And in fact, the lighter version was more amusing, and established Justin’s dysfunctional place in the family rather well. But again … how do you do two completely different versions of that scene? As I recall, these episodes were not originally conceived as a two-parter. The first was originally an episode called “Glass Jumps.” Justin’s speech is much more in keeping with the more melodramatic tone of that episode, and the jokes-around-the-dinner-table version much more in keeping with this road-trip-rific one. Perhaps they felt they needed a bridge between the two, but one that veered off in a different direction? I’d be ticked off that they thought no one would notice, except that … in previous viewings, I didn’t notice.

3:20
The doctor says the medicine they’ve given Justin is going to leave him “pretty out of it for the next 24 to 48 hours.” And that will be distinguishable from his normal personality … how?

3:50
Looking at the brochures for detox-’n'-spa facilities, Sarah wonders if they can have a family rate. If they address alcohol dependency … wouldn’t be a bad idea.

3:52
The forensic accountant says, “Using the password we discovered … ” Who’s this “we” he’s talking about? Sarah discovered the password, and I think she needs to get Ojai’s money back from this guy if it never occurred to him to put the sibilngs’ initials with Rebecca’s once they knew of her existence. Isn’t that, like, among the first batch of things you’d try?

5:13
Sarah tells Kevin, “Stop saying legal things just to piss me off.” That’s the Sarah I like to see.

5:45
Kitty says, “Divorce is not news.” Yeah, I bet Balthazar Getty’s wishing that was true right about now.

6:05
At this point, according to Kitty, McCallister is a front-runner for the vice-presidency. Well, she put a stop to that.

6:46
Does Amber know Warren went away with Kitty in “Northern Exposure”? Because she looks stricken to see them hugging, but it’s a pretty tame, workplace sort of hug. I know it’s needed to set up her ratting on Kitty later, but they could have set this up better.

7:10
All these years later, Nora’s still treating Justin like he’s five, doing his laundry and getting him videos. But I do like her response to Justin’s snarkiness, “Nice to see attempting suicide hasn’t hurt your sense of humor.”

7:27
Nora promises to tear Justin’s head off when he’s feeling better, but does she? I think that maybe has to wait until the next drug crisis.

8:06
Flashback, in which Justin overhears Nora saying he doesn’t have his father’s strengths and capabilities. You know, Nora had a lot of nerve accusing Kitty of sending Justin to war, because she was really pushing him. Has she never heard of reverse psychology? Nora may be a good mom overall, but I think her babying of Justin has paid off really badly.

Continue on to Part 2.

_{Photo by Terri Mauro}

Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Mistakes Were Made 2