"Brothers & Sisters" Episode 310 Recap: "Just a Sliver"

Meanwhile, Nora, Sarah and Kitty are waiting outside. Nora says she wishes she could donate a portion of her liver herself, but Sarah puts the kibosh on it.

Sarah: You’re not her mother, you’re her grandmother. Therefore you have an older and much less desirable liver. There. I said it.
Nora: Yes, you certainly did.

Frankly, I don’t know that any of them are going to look like such desirable donors once the doctors get a glimpse of how they tend to treat their livers. I’d think they’d have to hack away through several successive Walker livers before they finally found a sliver that’s not marinating in red wine.

Sarah wonders how Kevin and Justin must feel waiting to find out which of them is “the father.” And Kitty, given her current experience with adoption, is sensitive to these issues of language and correctly corrects her that Tommy is Elizabeth’s father. Sarah gets defensive about not knowing the proper terminology, claiming that she doesn’t want to use the term “sperm donor” because she doesn’t like to think about her brothers’ sperm. I had a similar reaction when my mother-in-law once tried to get my partner and me to consider surrogacy and said, “You could even mix your sperm together,” and hearing her use the word “sperm” made me unable to ejaculate for about a year.

Outside the hospital, Justin is walking with Rebecca, who helpfully says, “You must be freaking out!” He tries to pooh-pooh it as being minor surgery, saying it’s especially nothing given he was shot at in Iraq. I wonder if he’s always bringing this up to make himself sound cool, like, “Oh, this papercut is nothing. COMPARED TO BEING SHOT AT IN IRAQ!”

Rebecca wonders how it will be if he finds out he’s “the father.” He correctly corrects her that Tommy is Elizabeth’s father. But she keeps pressing him to acknowledge that this all may raise certain feelings, and warns that once it comes “out of the bottle” it can’t so easily be put back in.

To me, this just demonstrates that she’s inherited her mother’s “stirring up trouble for no reason” gene. What does she think Justin’s supposed to do — not agree to give his niece a life-saving transplant in order to spare his own feelings? He seems at peace with what’s going on (as he puts it, even if he’s living in some kind of “denial land,” he doesn’t want to do anything that would interfere with Tommy’s role as a parent), so what good is it to try and get him all rankled? Sometimes I think she wants him to be more messed up than she is just so she can gain the upper hand in their relationship.

Cut to Kitty on the phone with Robert, who tells her “we’re all out in the backyard,” by which he clearly means enjoying the usual McCallister Thanksgiving tradition of playing Pilgrims and Indians. With actual working muskets.

He asks how she’s doing, and she says the whole biological parenting thing is bringing up issues for her. But she adds that it’s actually nice how they’re all there together to support Tommy, and he gets all, “Nag, nag, nag! Sheesh, I’m sorry I’ve got a house full of my own family to deal with, why don’t you put a sock in it already, you freaking ball and chain.” I’m paraphrasing. Anyway, Kitty says she really is fine and not saying this to make him feel guilty, which is clearly aimed at making him feel guiltier. Nobody is raised by Nora Walker without learning a thing or two about how to expertly wield guilt.