IMHO "Brothers & Sisters" (3.16 & 3.17): "Troubled Waters"

Your regular B&S recapper Steven Frank is on a well-deserved though suspiciously timed vacation, so I'm filling in this week. Wouldn't you know it, he saddled me with a friggin' two-hour episode. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I think he planned it. Curse you Steven! 

Recap after the break ... and warning: This post reveals (and mostly mocks) all of last night's plot twists.

The show begins with Nora (Sally Field) running in slow mo through the halls of a hospital. ("Run Forrest Gump's mother, run!") She rounds the corner to see Robert (Rob Lowe) getting the paddles ... and not in a fun way. He's hooked up to a heart monitor, and like this show of late he seems to have flatlined.

Cut to 24 hours earlier and it's another one of those interminable Walker family dinners where everybody is squabbling and Nora is being a fussbudget.  Robert and Kitty retreat to a closet so they can squabble privately (which is right away your clue that this is to be a Kitty-centric episode). When they come back, Robert announces that he's running for Governor.

Like the television viewing audience, no one at the Walker dinner table seems particularly enthusiastic about this.

Nora upstages his news to announce that she's been to see their half-brother Ryan Lafferty, and he's "a great kid that just needs some help growing up." And possibly a haircut.

Later that night Kitty and Robert have sexual relations, and I hope wildly that his ticker will give out while he's on top of her, but just my luck he survives the scene.

Next day at the office Robert tells Kevin that he's doing a "great job" (I think this is to demonstrate how closely Robert and Kevin have bonded, though I don't believe this bit of character development for one minute). Then Robert schedules an impromptu rooftop press conference to announce he's running for Governor. 

We cut across town to the Tommy/Holly corporate intrigue story: Justin, after two weeks of inexplicably keeping his mouth shut, tells Sarah about Rebecca's claim that Tommy is trying to push Holly out of the family business. Meanwhile, Holly hears from her lawyer who tells her that Tommy's shady deal has been finalized and unless she finds a smoking gun or something, he now has controlling interest in the company.   

Rebecca comes home, with real father David (Ken Olin) in tow.

Side note: Ken Olin produces this show and he also directed this episode and, is it just me or has the guy slimmed down quite a bit since we last saw  him on the show? You go, Ken!

Frankly, I'd rather be watching the Holly, Rebecca and David reunion special, but instead the show sends us back across town where we catch up with Kitty and Nora acting all cutesy in the kitchen when Kitty receives word her birth mother has gone into labor. Their phone treeing to all the Walker siblings and the giddy and absent-minded excitement of all family members to collect up geraniums, sandalwood candles and music CDS and get to the hospital reminds me of when Ricky Ricardo found out Lucy was going into labor. I want to slap all these characters silly.

Kitty and the rest of the Walkers head to the hospital to hold birth mother Trish (Sonja Sohn)'s hand. Robert and Kevin get stuck at the rooftop press conference.

Trish dilates to 8 centimeters which I guess in OB/GYYN-speak means the baby is about to pop at any moment.  At the same time, Robert and Kevin are in the parking garage rushing to get to the hospital. Before they can get to the limo Robert, who is sweating and flushed, mirrors my own reaction to this episode and throws up a little in his mouth...

With Coldplay's "Fix You" as a backing track, Robert hits the pavement and Trish pops the baby. We have perfect symmetry — life and death — and possibly the most clichéd and annoying Brothers & Sisters episode in its three year history.

This two-hour special event is only half over at this point. So far, the only highlight for me was watching Robert McAllister spit up on himself like a belchy baby. Now that was sorta fun.

In hour two, Robert survives his heart attack and open heart surgery. Boo! I thought we were finally rid of him. Trish has her baby and rather tidily exits stage left. Kitty decides to name the baby Evan and when she goes to show Robert the baby for the first time he has the strangest expression on his face. He's supposed to be registering fatherly joy, but instead it reads like he's thinking...

"I didn't realize he'd be quite so ethnic"

We are treated to at least one Kevin/Scotty scene this epsiode, but unfortunately it has Kevin getting all weepy over Robert.

Kevin: I didn't like him when he became my brother-in-law, and
now that he is my friend ... and God knows how that happened ...
I can't bear the thought of losing him.

At this point I'm throwing the remote at the TV screen. 

I guess it's a testament to Kevin (Matthew Rhys)'s popularity on the show that his extremely emotive reaction to Robert's heart attack is allowed to upstage even Kitty's. But for God's sake, does anyone believe that Robert & Kevin could be such chums?

At least we get some closure on the the Tommy/Holly storyline. Holly gets the evidence she needs to prove Tommy stole from the company in order to finance his shady transaction, and she has him arrested. 

The show ends with Ryan Lafferty showing up on the Walker doorstep.

Okay, Tommy's arrest and the appearance of Ryan at least have me interested in what's going to happen next on Brothers & Sisters, but honestly, last night's two hour extravaganza seems like a real lowpoint for this show. 

Have an opinion? Please share in the comments.