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

Stately Walker Manor. Kitty shows up at the door to return the empty Tupperware from the night before. Nora invites her in and says she was just writing a letter to the Social Worker apologizing for the ice-water crotch dousing.

Kitty says it doesn’t matter, since she and Robert already have plenty of strikes against them, like being bi-coastal, and being married for only a year. She reiterates that they don’t get special treatment, claiming that in fact she feels like their status in the public eye means they’ll be examined even more closely. Which makes me all the more mystified why she’s not worried about going ahead and publishing a tell-all book filled with all the gory details of her family’s depravity. Does she think social workers don’t read book reviews?

Nora apologizes for the horrible dinner and not coming through for Kitty. She adds that when she got home after the dinner, she took out the short stories she’d written for creative writing class last year. To me, this means she must have been feeling completely suicidal.

But what Nora says is that those stories were the only things she’d done in a long time that weren’t all about her children, and that she realizes she needs to find something to do with her own life. She talks about how much it meant to her that Kitty wanted her advice and support through the adoption process. Welling up, she says that just when she thought Kitty had started looking up to her and valuing her, she read what Kitty had written about her and felt like she still saw her as the person who used to make her lunches. It’s a testament to how good Sally Field is here that I am genuinely moved by this scene even though there’s nothing here we haven’t heard before on this show.

Kitty gives Nora back the manuscript and tells her she needs to read the first page. Nora obeys the International TV Law that dictates that everything which is read on television must be read out loud even if it’s just to oneself. Kitty has, of course, written this totally pandering dedication to her mother. It’s painfully obvious, at least to me, that Kitty knocked this sentimental drivel out right before she showed up at Nora’s door as a weak-assed peace offering to her family. But Nora chooses not to see it that way and seems rather pleased by it.

Cheap Motel of Hot Young Abstinence. Justin and Rebecca wake up and do all those cutesy couple-y things, like gazing at each other and being all “Sleep well?” and not appearing to mind each other’s stanky morning-after breath. Rebecca says she doesn’t want to linger, since she feels they should get back to Nora after the blow-out the night before.

Stately Walker Manor. Rebecca enters and finds Nora reading Kitty’s book. Nora raves about how good it is and what a smart perspective on contemporary politics it offers, and says that what Kitty writes about the family isn’t even so terrible. Oh, barf again. I just hate when TV shows and movies introduce a painting or a book like this and everybody raves about how brilliant it is and we’re supposed to take that on faith, which is especially hard to do when every indication we’ve had is that it’s totally mediocre at best.

Nora asks why Rebecca wanted to see her, and Rebecca passes over the papers for her trust. She says that since the money came from William, the Walkers should really be the ones to have it, maybe even Ryan. Nora says she’s not even sure if she’ll ever even contact Ryan, and Rebecca wonders why.

Nora rather bizarrely brings up Kitty’s book again. She tells Rebecca that she’s mentioned in a teeny, tiny little paragraph (unlike the footnote that apparently went to Uncle Saul), where Kitty called her “collateral damage.” Nora says she thinks that’s true, that Rebecca really suffered for the Walker family missteps, and she doesn’t want to make Ryan suffer as well. As far as the trust, Nora says she’ll hold it for Rebecca in case she changes her mind.

So let me get this straight. A young character with little aim in life presents a check for two million dollars to an older character similarly searching for a purpose but who has articulated big dreams of opening up some sort of retreat for families of cancer patients. Gee, I wonder where all this is possibly going? Double barf.