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

I like how this episode portrayed a conflict between Kevin and Nora, because I don’t think we’ve seen this before, and lord knows there are issues between gay sons and their mothers, even when they’re as PFLAG flag-carrying as Nora.

But my favorite part is that during it all, we see Kitty and Tommy sort of holding their heads during the uncomfortable scene, while Sarah just sits there calmly eating. She’s obviously smart enough to have figured out that if everybody stopped eating during family fights, they’d all be starving to death. Which is clearly what’s happened to Kitty.

Anyway, Nora tells Sarah that the dinner is lovely but she can’t stay to enjoy it. And then she gets up and leaves. Paul, of course, gets the punchline …

Paul: Wow … dinner and a show.

Later, back in the kitchen with Sarah, Kitty is helping clean up and tells Sarah she should really get this amazing food storage system she discovered that just closes with a “snap.” Leave it to Kitty to discover something as ordinary as Gladware and think it somehow makes her special.

Sarah gets in a dig about how Kitty’s now moved onto criticizing her food storage choices. So Kitty finally figures out that Sarah’s mad about her proposal feedback and questions why she asked for her advice if she didn’t really want it. Sarah fesses up that it was all a Walker family plot to distract her.

Kitty wonders why they didn’t just ask her how she was feeling, and Sarah makes the valid point that she made it clear she didn’t feel like talking. Kitty says that that’s true, but that nothing could have helped prevent the pain she’s feeling, particularly this dopey plan they came up with. In fact, the whole time she was reading the proposal, she was beating herself up over Trish. It’s just something she’s going to have to deal with over time, as well as her anxiety over whether or not she’ll successfully adopt.

Sarah then offers Kitty some advice about how to weather the adoption process emotionally, and as someone who’s been through it himself, I was genuinely impressed with her (and the writers) for so accurately articulating this idea …

Sarah: I know that whatever pain all of this is causing, it’s worth it. The moment you have your child, you’ll be so grateful for every screw up, every disappointment, all the uncertainty. Because in the end, it’s all led you to your daughter, your son.

This is an absolutely accurate observation about how adoption works, one that’s almost impossible for the person going through the process to understand (as was certainly the case for me at the time) but makes sense when the baby does come along. And I’m going to chalk up the fact that I’m genuinely moved here to my own personal investment in adoption storylines, even though this whole scene is sort of barfy, and only gets barfier when the two of them embrace and say they love each other. But I actually do get all choked up. What can I say? Underneath all the snark, I’m a huge sap.

Cut to Uncle Saul’s Fab Older-Gay-Man Pad. Have we ever seen Saul’s place before? Because it’s actually pretty hip, although nothing inside screams gay the way Kevin’s Liza pillow does. Instead it’s quite handsome, all woodsy and full of phallic art and very, very masculine. Which is why it’s so amusing to me that when Justin shows up, the two of them curl up on the couch together like a couple of tweeners on a sleepover.

Naturally, they proceed to talk boys. Justin says he wanted to make sure that Saul made it home OK after driving Paul home and also to apologize for the fix-up. Saul says that Paul wasn’t actually a bad guy, although no one he would ever date. But in the end, he was genuinely touched by Justin’s gesture.