"Brothers & Sisters" Episode 311 Recap: "A Father Dreams"

Meanwhile, upstairs, Justin puts on the shower, shuts the bathroom door, and generally moves around looking guilty as hell. Scotty comes in and asks what he’s looking for, leading Justin to desperately seize upon the closest object he can grab. What I wouldn’t have given if it had been a copy of Blueboy. Instead, it’s a boring old trumpet, which Justin claims he desperately needs even though he can’t play and never could. Scotty looks adorably perplexed.

Downstairs, Nora corners Justin and bitches about the love-fest between Roger and Saul, showing once again that there’s nothing anybody’s sneaking past her steely gaze …

Nora: For God’s sakes, I don’t know why the two of them don’t just shack up and get it over with. I can’t believe I have to sit there and listen to this pompous nonsense just because Saul wants a boyfriend.

Justin tells her she’s all wrong about Saul, explaining that Saul told him a big secret. He asks her to check and make sure Saul isn’t about to come in so he can tell her what Saul told him. As soon as her back is turned, Justin grabs Kevin’s pills from the lunch tray.

The army must have trained him how to do this kind of stealth maneuver at super-speed, because you should see how fast Nora comes running back to hear the juicy gossip about her brother. From the eager look on her face, you’d think she was hoping for something really big, like learning that Saul is a CIA spy specializing in seducing KGB operatives. In drag. Code name: Saully Bowles.

Justin tells Nora that Saul has a boyfriend who he’s been seeing for a while, and gets Nora to promise not to let on that she knows. Clearly he’s never actually watched this show, or he’d know that somebody keeping a secret is about as likely an occurrence as Holly dressing tastefully or Kitty having a good hair day.

Justin runs outside, hops in the car, and hands Kevin the pills. Kevin wonders why Justin only brought his antibiotics, explaining he needs the painkiller as well. For a second, Justin looks totally panicked and defeated. Then he starts the car and tells Kevin that unless he wants to go back in the house himself, he’ll just need to “man up.” Throughout this whole sequence, Dave Annable is really funny and absolutely adorable. It reminds me how, once you get him away from Rebecca, he’s actually a decent, likeable character.

Anyway, he and Kevin drive off, and it’s just like one of those movies where a bunch of old geezers like Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman and Bruce Willis escape the cancer wing to go off skydiving or wine-tasting or something equally life-affirming. Groan, groan, groan. Not to mention that, now more than ever before, Scotty would be fully in his spousal rights to totally strangle Kevin. There’s not a jury in the world that would convict.