"Brothers & Sisters" Episode 301 Recap: “Glass Houses”

Cut to Sarah knocking on a bedroom door that’s answered by a mopey Senator Prettyboy. Blocking her entry, he implies Kitty doesn’t want to see her. Sarah, in turn, explains how badly she wants to right her wrong, and how upset she is about having hurt her sister.

McCallister: Nobody can slide the knife between the ribs quite like the people who love us.

Thank you, Robert, for such an insightful yet bizarrely gruesome observation. It’s like something Dexter might say if he were subbing for Dr. Phil.

Sarah says, “You’re not going to let me off the hook, are you?” Without cracking a hint of a smile, McCallister responds, “Is that what you came for?” I’m thinking that now that he doesn’t have all the excitement of a presidential campaign to occupy his time, he’s amusing himself by doing whatever he can to screw with his wife’s relationships with her family members.

Sunrise at Laguna Beach. Scotty busily waits on Nora, Justin, and Kevin, who are lounging around outside eating breakfast. Now comes my absolute favorite line of the episode. It’s so good that I’m even looking forward to typing it. Ready? Here it comes …

Nora: Scotty, this frittata is wonderful.

Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!

Something about that line just strikes me as hilarious, and I’m not even sure why. I think it might be because it so perfectly illustrates the hoops that poor Scotty always seems to be jumping through to ingratiate himself to the Walkers, which they’re only too happy to exploit. Like right after breakfast, he’s also going to style Sarah’s hair and personally attempt to impregnate Kitty.

Sarah joins them, and it comes out that Kitty, Tommy, and Rebecca have all high-tailed it out of Dodge. Sarah says she’s got no appetite for breakfast, but Nora sings the praises of Scotty’s frittata and insists she try a few bites.

You know how actresses in meal scenes typically just move stuff around their plates so they don’t have to actually ingest anything? Well, Sally Field, bless her heart, is just wolfing down food in this scene. It’s like the director told her they needed to squeeze in a few more takes before lunch, and she was like, “Screw it. There’s toast and jam in front of me. I’m going to town.”

Anyway, Kevin and Nora get all pissy with Sarah for having blabbed about Ryan to everybody. Sarah apologizes and says she’s finally figured out that it’s not her place to make decisions for everyone; it’s Nora’s, given she’s the head of the family. Between bites, Nora tells her it would have been nice if she’d come to that conclusion a day earlier.

Cut to Justin entering Rebecca’s new pad. She’s wearing one of those head kerchief things that’s the international TV symbol for, “Look how much fun I’m having painting my house myself!”

Justin apologizes for blabbing about their relationship, and says he should have been more sensitive to what Rebecca’s going through. She fesses up to being scared of losing him and his family. He says he’s scared too, but thinks they just need to risk it.

He suggests they start over. She suggests he start painting the wall behind him. He agrees, but first criticizes her choice of color. She just laughs and kisses him. I’m sure that when it come to interior design, she knows better than to listen to one of the non-gay Walkers.

McCallister Ranch. Sarah’s been phoning trying to reach Kitty, but Kitty refuses to answer. Robert actually does the decent thing here and tries to get Kitty to talk to her, saying that Sarah was obviously sorry about the letter.