“Brothers & Sisters” Episode 122 Recap: "Favorite Son"

Kitty and Saul pull Nora away to let Tommy talk to the doctor in private.

The doctor tells him the little girl is doing fine but the boy, well… “maybe your wife should be present for this conversation.”

Uh, that would require they include Julia in an actual scene. They only trot her character out when her presence is absolutely essential – like when she’s going into labor.

Tommy cuts away from the doctor and addresses his family. He lies and says the kids are “fine” and he wants them to all go home. They protest, but eventually all agree to head back to LA. Tommy quietly pulls Nora aside and asks her to stay. That's so ominous he might as well make a slashing motion across his neck.

Cut to the Senator’s office. He is in the midst of an interview and the journalist is yet again going over that helicopter incident—the one where Senator McAllister let everybody believe he was a hero when actually he wasn’t.

Reporter: So, was there ever a moment when you thought “I just want to leave. I could leave?”

The Senator looks like he’s suffering from intestinal distress.

McAllister: You know I think that most people in that situation would try to find the courage to make the right choice.

Like misrepresent what happened after the fact to make yourself out to be a hero?

Reporter: Well you certainly did.

Did he ever. Just an aside, but taking credit for someone else’s heroism (in this case the dead co-pilot’s) is a particularly distasteful act. Its worse than the original cowardice. In a very real sense, he’s stealing something from that dead co-pilot. Shouldn’t the co-pilot’s family know that he was a hero and not simply along for the ride? What about the POWs they rescued? Shouldn’t they know who to truly be grateful to? Sorry to be griping about this, but this helicopter incident storyline makes the Senator McAllister character pretty much irredeemable to me. They should just go ahead and make him a villain because his good guy creds are shot beyond repair. I'm just saying.

But back to the scene. Kitty arrives and McAllister asks her how the twins are doing. Kitty doesn’t know yet that anything is wrong with the baby boy so she shrugs things off as fine and asks how his interview went.

McAllister: I think I came across as the love child of Winston Churchill and Dan Quayle.

Let’s hope he’s got Quayle’s hair and not, say, his spelling prowess.

A staffer comes in and tells Kitty a man is there to see her.

Staffer: He wouldn’t give his name but he insists on seeing you. He says it’s personal.

This piques the Senator’s interest.

McAllister: Exactly how many guys did you kind of, sort of, but not really propose to while I was away in DC?

Cut to Kitty’s office where she’s meeting with the mystery guy. His name is Alan Cole. He’s a retired air force sergeant, and he says he served with McAllister during the first gulf war. He’s very cagey and disparaging of the Senator. Finally, he tells Kitty that he knows all about the helicopter crash. He knows that McAllister is no hero.