“Brothers & Sisters” Episode 212 Recap: "Compromises"

By all accounts Nicholas Gonzalez is straight, and I don't know much about the other actor, but based on the youtube videos Mitch Silpa has done (he's a member of the Groundlings too)...I don't think we can assume he's straight. Definitely check out his "ex-gay" video -- it's hysterical. He's also in a new video entitled, "Gay Roommates."  However, he's most famous for his David Blaine parodies. 

 

As for Scotty's friends, sure they were cliche--but I wasn't expecting in-depth characterizations given their limited screentime. I agree the use of "girl" was overdone, but overall I didn't have much of a problem with them.  If they were the only representation of gay men on the series, it might pose more of an issue.  But given the full-fledged characters of Kevin and Scotty (and to a lesser extent, Jason and Saul), I think B&S shows that there is a wide spectrum where it concerns gay men.

The scene where a drunk Kevin sings "Always on My Mind" to Scotty was very endearing, topped only by Scotty's kissing him and Kevin waving to the audience.

Great recap dude!

Let us take a moment to remember that when we fist met Scotty at the beginning of Season 1 he also affected the persona of a flamboyant queen, and also dissed Kevin for trying to "pass" and being a stuffed shirt.  The prissy speech, effeminate gestures and all the rest of the stereotype applied there.  So in this regard Scotty's friends are functionally the same as he was when we first met him.  Why is it that Kevin's bitchiness seems to fail him in these situations?  I would have said to valet boy: "Oh yeah, I think I did give you a lousy tip the last time you parked my car.  But you looked so hungover that I figured I might as well put the money towards my insurance deductible."

Naturally I hated Scotty's friends as you can tell.  But what do you expect from the crowd at a bottom-rung gay bar?  "Cinnamon Jack's" indeed!  I suppose things could have been worse.  We could have seen what kind of lower-order drag queens this place attracts.  Somehow I'm not expecting the more talented ones.

As an aside, I once dated a guy who was way too into Karaoke night.  There is nothing more humiliating than having your boyfriend "croon" Barry Manilow songs at you in public.  Fortunately no friends I really cared about braved Karaoke night.  However, I guess Scotty was flatted by Kevin shaming himself on his behalf.  Now Scotty needs to make a compromise and never drag Kevin to that lame bar again.

Sarah, of course, is a born fag hag/local gay diva.  We already know how much fun she is in bars.  The U.S. Army loves her!  In fact, maybe she should head back to that base in Nevada and go look for that soldier boy from the last time.

At this point do we even care about Rebecca?  Other than the fact that she can f*ck Justin if it turns out that she's not a sister there's not much purpose to her (or her mother) in the story these days.  Something has to give.

Meanwhile, at this glacial pace Saul might finally come out for real in a flash-forward finale episode set 20 years in the future when he's on his deathbed.  God, those writers had better get back to their keyboards!  I can only hope they were brainstorming on the picket line!

The whole Robert/Jason/Kitty/Isaac thing was just so lame I wonder why they even bother other than the fact that Callista Flockhart and Rob Lowe presumably have contracts.  The Robert/Jason tiff was so weak and short-lived it doesn't even merit screentime.  And Kitty and The Kids was equally weird because, yes, as I recall Bad Seed did hate her passionately not that long ago and it's weird that she's now decided she likes Kitty.  Then again, maybe she wants to live in the White House after all.

All-in-all a mediocre episode.  It hurts that we won't see any new ones until late Spring or early Summer.

I kind of liked this episode, despite the bitchy queen stereotypes. I thought it was an encouraging development in Kevin & Scotty's relationship that they were dealing with their cultural and emotional differences and trying to mesh their lives together. To me it showed Kevin was willing to step out of his comfort zone and take some risks, which many gay men are either too unwilling or afraid to do. I'm thrilled we get see complex, grown-up gay characters having the same ups and downs that the heteros have. How refreshing!

For the record...the last string of episodes this season should start airing in late April.

Kevin and Scotty at Jack of Broken Hearts hanging out with Dennis and Benji and Cole and those guys. That would be a neat episode.

OK first off: Dennis: great review! I loved it and all the hilarious asides.

I appreciate your observation about the Bohemian friends bcz, as many of our friends following along will attest, my panties were in a bit of a proverbial wad over what I referred to as a "vapid and vacuous" group of men being used to propogate a stereotype that, while certainly visible in our community, does not represent all of us or reflect a positive image, instead propogating that all gay men are catty and shallow. [And as I asked--or are we??] 

"OMG did #2 just refer to his bohemian posse as “girls?” Who is writing this crap? These are just terrible caricatures of gay men. What are we going to hear next, "Two snaps up?" "Talk to the hand?" "Oh Mary?" I should clarify that I really don't care at all that these characters are effeminate. What bothers the hell out of me is that they're such a cliché."

I completely agree with your appraisal. Apparently my sons do, too. More than once, they have watched a "clichéd gay caricature" on TV and have said, "Dad, please don't act like that." I'm like: "Guys--not all gay men act like that!" (The experience is still new for them as I've only been out for 18 months. But for many years they've observed that I was "different" from other men, yet never judged me. Interesting, though, that they have always reacted negatively to the stereotype at issue.)

While I still appreciate the purposeful and honest character development of the gay principles in the show, I am disappointed that they stopped there and took the easy, clichéd route with the friends.

"Bohemian" (not all poor or service-industry gays act like that either) or not.

__________________________
whoever you are, just be you

Is Calista Flockhart pregnant? It seems like the last two episodes have been bending over backwards to show her in heavy coats, hiding under covers, behind desks, or otherwise shot from shoulders up.

 I understand where you're coming from, but again I ask: Where did the show propagate the message that all gay men are like this--particularly in an episode where it contrasted their personalities with that of the core gay character (Kevin) and where his boyfriend (Scotty) was portrayed as somewhere between those two extremes? If they were the only gay men in the episode, perhaps I would have more concerns. But the fact that they had a total of 4 gay characters (Kevin, Scotty, Jason and Saul) who are all different and are to varying degrees fully realized characters in their own right, I think they offset any message you propose.

 

Furthermore, I think it would have been more problematic if they were just a random group of gay guys that Kevin/Scotty came across. But they were specifically Scotty's old friends. And given the way Scotty was when introduced as a cater-waiter in Season 1, they pretty much conformed to my view of what his friends would be like. (And in that sense, I could see Scotty drifing away from them as he becomes career-focused and moving up to estabish himself as a chef.)

 

As a final note, I grant that thet could have crafted their characterizations with more care (though it's not like they were sex-starved or drug-addled--much worse stereotypes are out there). But as I see it, this show has and continues to do so much positive visibility for the gay community in depicting fully realized gay characters who actually have a personal life, that in the grand scheme of things this was pretty minor in my book.  We're halfway into Season 2, and the writers are still developing Kevin's character in ways that are equally real and complicated as his other siblings.  (For example, I loved how in this ep Kevin agonized over whether he was uptight.  And Sarah's quick response when asked:  "Uh yes!" Heh.)

I liked Kevin hanging out with other gay people, even if Scotty's friends are a bit too much. Being effeminate is fine but being over-the-top is a little annoying. I certainly like that Scotty has mellowed out in that regard from the first season. Even more important though, does Kevin have any friends? You really do not see any of the Walker clan hanging out with anyone outside of family, work, or sex partner, but Kevin is the only one I can actually imagine friend-less. Hopefully, if Kevin does have friends we can see their reaction to Scotty. One final note, I still think Jason is as gorgeous as a Greek god, but Scotty was looking adorable in his underwear. Definitely has some nice legs.

Loved your review as usual, Dennis. I had high hopes on 2 things: The McCallister-brothers fight and the Walkers at karaoke bar.

And as suspected: The Walkers delivered where the McCallisters didn't. It looked so promissing. There was a good built up to Jason's anger and then nothing... (Sigh)

Luckily there were two Walkers who did what they do best. Get drunk! I loved it, allthough it was a bit over the top. AND I do believe that Matthew can sing better than that. But in all it was a lot of laughs!

I loved Scotty, from the manic smile, to the 'early morning, just awake' look, to the meeting with Sarah and Kevin, to his encouraging Sarah, the horrified look on his face when Kevin starts to sing and how he puts Kevin out of his (and our) misery.

I liked Saul. Hope this storyline with Evan is going somewhere in next episodes or will it be Milo that comes back? The whole Kitty/McCallister-brats story was utterly predictable and I would have gladly traded one of those scenes for some more Nora/Isaac. Rebecca/Holly/Whatever just doesn't seem to get my attention. Didn't miss Justin, Julia and Tommy at all.

Psionycx wrote:

"Let us take a moment to remember that when we fist met Scotty at the beginning of Season 1 he also affected the persona of a flamboyant queen, and also dissed Kevin for trying to "pass" and being a stuffed shirt. The prissy speech, effeminate gestures and all the rest of the stereotype applied there. So in this regard Scotty's friends are functionally the same as he was when we first met him."

 

Absolutely, that was a very striking first impression I got from early Scotty too, although it seems they tried to tone him down as soon as he became a viable candidate for Kevin. But it did seem realistic that one of the things that kept Kevin away from him, even when he was attracted, was the flamboyant persona. I still like Scotty, and I know so many people like his friends, I wasn't offended in the least. After all, this is no "Two and a half men" or " According to Jim". The show has enough gay credentials to be able to afford some not-PC gay characters.

I've gotta tell you, I liked this episode overall and upon reflection. Which was also one of the gayest overall, with the gay bar action, Saul's storyline finally showing some progress, Sarah's "Believe" ( hillarious!), and even the boring campaign storyline having some Jason in it.

And I've found Enrico Collantoni hot since the Just shoot me days, and I also really like him as an actor, so this was nice. Also nice that he seems age-appropiate for Saul.

Also speaking of hot...Ken Olin. The man is aging wonderfully. And just how beautiful was Patty Wettig some 20 years ago? I tell you, I don't remember her that pretty in the thirtysomething days. I guess suffering Nancy couldn't afford to be pretty.

It was an enjoyable recap, but I did miss the Mr. Mumbles comments.

Certainly this show is about a group of enmeshed siblings who spend a lot of their time with family members, but I think the main reason we don't see characters with friends is because of time constraints. You have a very large cast at work here. Unless a character's friend will serve some sort of plot purpose, it's hard to justify wasting that screentime when there are so many characters who the writers are trying to fit into a 43-minute episode. IIRC, the only friend we've seen of a Walker was Nora's pot-smoking pal Emily (played by Margot Kidder).

In other words...I think we can rest assured that the rest do have some friends, but we just never see them. Though I agree that it's likely, given Kevin's workaholic and reserved nature, that his group of friends isn't that big.

Don't care too much about the 'bohemian' clichés and I'd prefer Jason over Scotty any time. Hell, I'd even prefer Chad (I know, I'm the only one) over Jason and Scotty. But - yay! - there was Saul (and Evan)! I am really looking forward to this storyline!

And there was Ken Olin. And Steven Weber! In a gay bar! That's enough to keep me going until the neeeeeext episode..

When's that shown? There will be a long wait, right? 

•  R.I.P. - Heath Ledger [1979 - 2008] - an old soul gone forever!

The review was great and I am only about three weeks too late but I have to agree with the others who mentioned that Scotty's friends in that odd gay bar were very stereotypical and made me quite uncomfortable. For a moment I thought I was watching "The Boys in the Band". After all their great progress B&S took some serious backward steps showing these men acting like girls. Just my opinion.