"Brothers & Sisters" Episode 308 Recap: “Going Once … Going Twice”

Cut to Sarah in her kitchen busily preparing for the Scotty dinner. She looks harried, but at least creepy Paige isn’t around bothering her for help on her “corn husk doll” school project or whining about how come mommy won’t let her watch American Psycho.

Instead, she’s got Kitty to contend with, who shows up with the proposal all marked up with what Sarah assumes are typos. Kitty says these are more substantial problems, adding that, “Any monkey can fix typos,” and I’d think she’d better watch out with the monkey insults, because I have it on good authority that our own Flying Monkey can’t stand her as it is, and if he hears about this, there’s no telling what kind of monkey army he might raise up against her.

Cut to the Real Estate Auction. The first house on the block is one that Nora wants, although Kevin keeps haranguing her with all of his own tips and concerns.

I’m disappointed the auctioneer speaks in a normal voice, because I was expecting one of the more colorful characters typical on TV, you know, the ones who sound like they’re officiating at a square dance and talk with the rapid-fire pace of an old FedEx ad. In other words, I was expecting, “Do I have a bid? Do I have a bid? Do I have 350? Do I have 350? I have 350 there. Sold. To the stuffed-shirt nancy-boy and his suffocating mother.”

Instead, the auction proceeds rather sedately, and Nora starts to bid, although Kevin stops her, telling her she has plenty of time and shouldn’t kick off a bidding war that will raise the price. That’s actually good advice, as anyone who’s ever shopped on eBay very well knows. He and Nora continue to debate bidding strategy, and in the midst of all their bickering, the house goes to someone else. Nora is furious at him, but he claims this one wasn’t meant to be and she should just set her sights on the other house she wants.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen with Sarah, she’s madly whacking away at a chicken cutlet so that she won’t do what we all want to do and whack Kitty instead. At the same time, though, I can’t help but side with Kitty on her criticisms of Greenatopia and be relieved that at least someone’s pointing out what a dumb idea this is.

Tommy shows up at the door with the case of free wine (obviously the only reason they bother inviting him to anything), and Sarah whispers to him that she needs him to help her not kill Kitty. “Who’s Kitty?” we hear a voice say. It’s Paul, who has shown up a full two hours early.

It soon becomes clear that Dave Foley’s role at this dinner is to make various self-involved and inappropriate comments and succeed in irritating the hell out of each and every Walker. In other words, he’s there to act as a surrogate for we, the viewers, and finally do to them what they’ve been doing to us all season long. I love him.

Paul introduces himself to Sarah and Tommy as Justin’s friend and explains that he’s there on a fix-up with gay uncle Saul. Then he asks if Saul is more the “emotional, sensitive sort” or a “strong man of few words.” Then he mentions how he hasn’t dated in a while, and hasn’t felt that “hot, burning sensation” in ages. So those creams and ointments are clearly working. Tommy kind of starts gagging at hearing his beloved old uncle rendered into someone’s hot gay sex fantasy, another reason to love Paul.