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

Cut to Stately Walker Manor. Nora’s in the kitchen with Saul, who explains that he cut his trip short with their own mother because she couldn’t tear herself away from playing dominoes long enough to acknowledge him. By which he clearly means he still hasn’t come out to her and got tired of her asking why he can’t just settle down already with some nice widow or divorcee, even a shiksa would be fine at this point, just so long as you’re not some faygeleh, you’re not a faygeleh, Saul, are you, ARE YOU? Oh my God, you are, I’ve failed as a mother. Etc.

(Heh. I just amused myself imagining Marion Ross saying the word “faygeleh.”)

Anyway, Nora’s in the process of disemboweling a pumpkin, and says, “I always feel like I need to take a shower after doing this.” Which, oddly enough, is exactly what William used to say whenever he walked in the door after one of those mysterious 20-minute meetings with “Holly Harper Consultants.”

The reason Nora is cooking up a storm is because she’s convinced everything will be fine at the hospital and everyone will then be hungry, and if she feeds them they might forgive her. She admits to Saul that she behaved badly when they told her they were ditching her. Now she realizes she’d have been happy for everyone to spend Thanksgiving wherever they wanted just so long as they were healthy and safe.

Saul assures her that as powerful as she is, what’s happening to Elizabeth is not her fault. He advises her to do what she always does, which is comfort everybody else. It’s a really sweet scene between the two of them. Until Nora says that since Saul has shown up she now needs to make a whole extra pie, which is basically calling him fat. I’ve stopped speaking to my own sister over far less than that.

Back at the hospital, the boys are scarfing down cafeteria food, and Scotty the Chef with the Sensitive Palate gags that the hospital food is just awful, not even real food but “some horrible facsimile of food.” He doesn’t understand that the hospital is simply trying to keep costs down by conserving resources; all those bad livers and kidneys in the transplant wing were being thrown in the dumpster, and what a waste is that?

Tommy comes in with the totally not surprising news that Elizabeth is not getting better and will indeed need the transplant. Oh, and Kevin’s the biological father. Yes! Team gay scores! Conclusive proof that gay sperm are better than straight sperm! Woo-hoo! Clearly Kevin’s inherited his father’s virility, given he’s a gay man who managed to knock up a woman without even trying. That Scotty is one lucky man. Just so long as Kevin also didn’t inherit his father’s “Inability to Live Monogamously” gene.

After Tommy ushers Kevin away for pre-op tests, Justin asks Scotty if he’s okay. And it’s just heartbreaking when Scotty says, “No.”