"Brothers & Sisters" Episode 306 Recap: “Bakersfield”

Previously on Brothers & Sisters … WTF? No previouslies? But I love the previouslies! Hey, ABC, don’t go and change the format on us like that. It makes me feel all anxious inside, like anything might happen without warning, and I just can’t handle unpredictability right now (Note: this recap was written on election day eve).

McCallister Ranch. Senator Prettyboy is prepping for some emergency meeting in D.C. with a bunch of …  I think he means “sheiks,” except he pronounces it “shakes,” which I admit tickled me because it gave me a mental image of a bunch of politicians having an urgent summit with Mayor McCheese and those talking Milkshakes and Fries he keeps on his payroll.

Robert says they’re meeting to beg for increased oil production, but snarks that they’re still going to drive around D.C. in a hummer. I take this as a little indication of the kind of president he would have made … big government that’s soft on efficacy but strong on irony.

Kitty, meanwhile, isn’t happy about him rushing off, since she’s getting all antsy sitting around waiting for her book to be published and/or a baby to come along. Now that she’s quit her job to be a writer, shouldn’t she be spending her time actually writing? Surely there’s more dirt on her family she could expose for bogus allegorical purposes. Or if that’s no good, maybe finally find the time to do something about her hair? [Editor's note: As a published novelist, I can attest that writers frequently behave exactly like this. Except we're usually sobbing and beating the floor with the pillow.]

Cut to a guy wearing a hideous women’s robe. Why is it that women’s robes, especially on TV, all look like something a madam might be wearing in an Old West bordello? Is this what women really like to wear in the morning? Something to make them feel awake and refreshed, and totally whorey?

The cross-dresser is Justin, who approaches Rebecca in bed to tell her he couldn’t find his clothes (!). I’ve heard of losing the clothes off your back, but only Justin would take that so literally. If it were anybody else, I wouldn’t have believed this was even possible. And this is when he’s not even on drugs. Can you imagine what sorts of things he lost track of when he was a stoner?

And speaking of when he was stoned … Justin invites Rebecca to come to his one-year-sobriety-anniversary ceremony. They marvel over how much things can change in a year. Like, back when Kevin and Tommy were holding his head while he puked his way through detox, who would have guessed a year later that those two wouldn’t even be speaking? Or that one day Justin would discover that the girl he thought was his sister was a fantastic lay?