"Brothers & Sisters" Episode 312 Recap: "Sibling Rivalry"

We open on … oh dear. There seems to have been some sort of mistake, and my TiVO recorded Regis and Kelly. Which is not just a simple case of DVR malfunction but more evidence of how much my TiVO hates me and is actively trying to drive me insane. Why else would it constantly be suggesting I try watching Ghost Whisperer?

It turns out that Kelly and the Reege have taken time out of their busy schedule shilling for whatever bank Commerce is this week to offer up a B&S cameo. Which makes it exactly three-fifths less irritating than if it had been The View. I’m looking forward to the part where Kitty clamps her hand over Kelly’s mouth, and Kelly says, “Put that away, dear. I don’t know where inside your husband it’s been.”

Kitty is on TV hawking her crappy book that nobody will ever read, and she offers up this deeply profound observation: “Politics is everywhere.” Yes, just like smog and a**holes. Then Kelly “jokes” about whether or not Kitty’s family is still speaking to her after the book, and Kitty says they’re actually being “very supportive.” Right. Like at that dinner party where they were so “supportive” an innocent social worker was practically water-boarded in the cross-fire.

Cut to Sarah freaking out to her business partners, the wunderkinds. I don’t know if it’s a case of absence making the heart grow fonder, or the mid-winter hornies, but I’m suddenly finding the two of them kind of hot. There have been subtle changes made in their hair and clothing, and they’ve toned down the quirkiness, and I’m somewhat shamefully finding myself fantasizing about being in the middle of a hard-drive and laptop sandwich.

Best of all, they seem to have screwed up royally. There’s apparently some sort of glitch in the matrix, and the site keeps crashing, and Sarah’s realizing they’re not so wunderkind-ful after all. Now she needs to scrape up like a gazillion dollars to farm out the coding they need and “lease extra server space,” whatever that means. The reason for the urgency is that there’s a Plot Contrivance Conference coming up where, as Kyle helpfully expositions solely for our benefit, “Every big tech investor will be there! If the site crashes, we’re done!”

So Sarah does what every successful business executive does in just this situation; she cries about it to her mother. Actually, Nora’s the one who calls her first. She tells Sarah that Roger Grant, Ojai Architect Extraordinaire, has been delinquent in delivering the Hell House Makeover plans he promised, and now she needs Sarah’s advice on “how to handle an employee who doesn’t live up to expectations.” Like she hasn’t had decades of imperiously giving instructions to belligerent cleaning women. Believe you me, she hasn’t been dusting Stately Walker Manor herself all these years.

Sarah barely listens to her, then talks about how she’s got her own crisis, with Greenotopia having “one foot in the grave.” Awesomely, she says this right in front of the not-so-wunderkinds. Ha hah! Not so quirky now, are you boys? Don’t feel bad, though. I’d be happy to come around and drag and click your mouse until you’re feeling perky.