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

Cut to the hospital waiting room, where everybody’s trying to kill time without killing each other. Rebecca is playing “Go Fish” with Justin, who mutters that he hates this game, which of course he would, what with all those complicated rules and having to count higher than ten without stomping his foot.

And I’m wondering if Nora’s somehow slipped into the hospital’s painkiller closet, because she’s thinking so unclearly that she actually asks for Justin’s help on her crossword puzzle. Unless the clue is something along the lines of “Three letter word for ‘canine,’ rhymes with ‘fog’ and starts with ‘d’. And is spelled ‘d-o-g’,” there’s really no chance he’ll be able to help. But it turns out that Rebecca actually does have the correct answer (“Absinthe!”), and when Justin glares at her, she says, “What? Can’t people know things?” Sure they can, honey. It’s just that in your case it’s so utterly unlikely.

Scotty comes over and says he’s going back to his Fab Gay Pad to get stuff for Kevin. Nora offers to do it for him, and he’s all, “GOD NO!” because he’s clearly worried about her stumbling on all the porn and S&M gear they’ve got lying around. But she insists, and he agrees to make her a list of items they’ll be needing.

But first she has to take care of Justin, who’s gone off in a huff to the vending machine. She asks him if he’s disappointed or relieved about Kevin being Elizabeth’s bio-dad, and he gets all, “I’m disappointed and I’m relieved. She’s my daughter! She’s my niece! She’s my niece and not my daughter! AACK!”

What he really says is that he doesn’t know what he’s really feeling, other than bad. Which is totally realistic. Not everybody can articulate complicated emotions as poetically as characters on TV tend to do. What’s even more impressive is that Justin’s issues aren’t neatly resolved this episode, and he’s left to feel whatever he’s feeling for however long he’s feeling it, which is usually how things go in life.

Cut to everybody moving Kevin into his hospital room. You’d think given his personality he’d immediately start criticizing it (“Well it’s certainly not the W. And this lighting is horrible for my skintone!”), but his only issue is that he’s not so happy about being all hospital-gowned and bare-assed in front of everybody, something that I’m sure, his husband aside, doesn’t exactly thrill them either.

Nora unpacks the stuff she brought from the Fab Gay Pad, saying “I’ve got you’re dop kit, and your pajamas, and your Boy Butter, whatever that is, and your c*ck ring, whatever that is. Oh, wait. I know what that is. Did you get this from your father’s nightstand?” Scotty starts to have a hissy fit that Nora brought his PJs instead of Kevin’s, but Kevin says it’s fine, he loves Scotty’s pajamas. Am I the only one disappointed to find out that Scotty sleeps in pajamas?

Nora has also brought Kevin’s iPod, and Justin snarks, “Great, now we can listen to showtunes all night.” Listen, Justin, just because they’re trying to make Kevin stereotypically gay doesn’t mean you have to be so stereotypically straight. Give musicals a try. You might like them. Some of them even have nudity.

Sarah proceeds to order up Chinese food for everybody, which you’d think might be a sore spot given how the nation of China pretty much ruined the family business. She’s making a point of only ordering shrimp items, since Kevin’s allergic and can’t eat anything anyway, when Tommy comes in. And the way he reacts to everybody you’d think he walked in on them munching on liver sandwiches and talking about how it’s only sensible to hold off on buying Elizabeth any Christmas gifts. [Editor’s note: Bwa-ha-HA!]