"Brothers & Sisters" Episode 302 Recap: “Book Burning”

Stately Walker Manor. Nora is in the kitchen going over menu options with Kitty for her classy “Suck Up to the Social Worker” dinner party.

Kitty nixes a bunch of items because she doesn’t want the Social Worker to think she’s not conscientious about health. I’d be more worried about giving the impression you’ve essentially enslaved your own mother to handle basic household tasks. They decide on “Chicken Paprika,” because nothing says “good parenting” like a slaughtered farm animal camouflaged in flavorless red powder.

Kevin comes in barking on his cell phone, and Nora gets upset because she thinks he’s still trying to contact his long-lost half-sibling when it’s supposed to be her decision.

For some reason, even though he was just plain old “Ryan” last week, he’s now been upgraded to “Ryan Lafferty,” and every time his name comes up, it’s now delivered in full and completely forced and awkward. As in, “I told you not to contact Ryan Lafferty! It’s my decision when we contact Ryan Lafferty!” I’m wondering if they’re going to keep adding some little detail about him each week that gets repeated ad nauseam until they finally cast an actual actor. Like next week, we’ll hear, “I told you not to contact Ryan ‘Juvenile Delinquent Now Institutionalized In Ohio’ Lafferty.”

Kevin says he wasn’t trying to contact Ryan Lafferty, but argues once again that he thinks they should. For one thing, he says that after Rebecca came along, he got used to the idea of there being six of them, “kind of like the Brady Bunch.” This leads Kitty to get catty and call him, “Jan.” And he snarks back, “Marcia.”

First of all, if Kitty is indeed the Marcia of the family (and she totally is), then I wish a football would fly into the kitchen and smack her in the nose already. And second of all, why all the hate all the time for poor Jan? By the time the last season aired, Eve Plumb was way hotter than Maureen McCormick and she had the good sense not to appear in that trainwreck of a variety show, instead opting for such artistic endeavors as the made-for-TV classic Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway. Kevin should be damned proud to be a Jan.

Kitty: I can’t believe that we are even having this conversation. Why don’t we just open up a foster home for all of Dad’s illegitimate offspring?
Nora: There’s only one. Please. God!

Heh heh. Okay, it’s little exchanges like that one that redeem even so-so episodes of this show for me.

After Nora leaves to go shopping for the fancy kiss-ass dinner, Kevin wonders why Kitty’s so nervous about the adoption, given she’s married to a senator and can “just cut the line.” Kitty insists it doesn’t work that way, then fesses up to what’s really worrying her. She lamely says she “accidentally” wrote a book about Robert and the campaign.

Kevin logically wonders how a book gets written by “accident.” I don’t know if they all started out as accidents, but there are certainly plenty of books I could name that ended up as miscarriages.

Kitty explains how during the campaign, she used to jot down her “thoughts” each evening, and she happened to mention this to a book-agent friend at lunch. I’m guessing this friend had quite a few martinis at their lunch since she decided these random musings would actually make a good book.

By the way, AfterElton.com has received an exclusive advance excerpt from Kitty’s book that I’m pleased to present to you now:

March 18, 2008 — Four Points by Sheraton Hotel, Schenectady, New York

Hair: v.g.

Diet: v.v.v.g. Haven’t eaten solids since January. Yay me!

Sex life: v.b.

Campaigning is so hard! I just want to collapse in a warm, bubbly bath, but the stress of the campaign has turned R. into a total horndog. Every night, he insists we climb into bed and play “Missile Launch Into Mother Russia” again. I finally had to break it to him that his missile is a little too stealthy for my taste, and there hasn’t been an explosion in the motherland since our third date.

Been thinking a lot lately about mom. And about Sarah. And Kevin. And the others whose names escape me right now. I’ve been thinking about how none of them think enough about me and my life and my problems and everything I’m going through. It’s so hard being the only one who’s always thinking about others.