IMHO "Brothers & Sisters" (3.19): "Spring Broken"

This week was the infamous Kevin-Scotty “appointment sex” episode, the one that’s been as hotly debated in AfterElton.com postings as whether or not Milk is a better movie than Slumdog.

Personally, I don’t think the idea of appointment sex is so bad, just so long as sex of some kind is being had. If Kevin and Scotty get creative, they can even work the appointment angle to their mutual gratification. Maybe a game of “Tax Time with Scotty the Randy Accountant” … “Why hello there, Mr. Walker. Let me put my well-endowed stimulus package to work for you.”

Anyway, the appointment sex is Scotty’s idea, because as he points out, Scotty’s super busy with his job, and Kevin’s busy with his family. I love that in his mind dealing with the Walkers is equivalent to the miseries of full-time employment. Kevin, being the free-spirited Casanova we all know him to be, frets that this is just too unromantic. Instead, he tries to initiate some spontaneous afternoon delight, and we get to see a gratifyingly passionate kiss and a quick view of a tank-topped Scotty’s right bicep.

Then, wouldn’t you know, just as their fab gay pad starts a-rockin’, Sarah comes a-knockin’. Scotty refers to this as “Sarah interruptus,” which I’d like to propose we make the universal slang term for any occasion when gay intimacy is quashed by the tedious concerns of self-involved breeders.

While Scotty proceeds to set a sex appointment on Kevin’s blackberry, Sarah tells Kevin she needs his help ridding her house of the stink of Tommy’s hypocrisy and egomania. Plus, he’s got a potty mouth. Kevin says he thinks Tommy’s best bet is to plea bargain. Since he’s got no priors, he’d probably get a “slap on the wrist” and some “Martha Stewart time.” Meaning he’ll be sentenced to 20 months of hard crafting.

Sarah thinks the only way to get Tommy to even consider this plan is for Kevin to take him away for a few days of R&R to put him in a more open frame of mind. So a reluctant Kevin enlists Justin’s aid in a Walker Brothers Road Trip, telling Tommy they want him along to help Justin get over his breakup with Rebecca. Kevin, natch, wants to go for spa treatments, but the other two doofuses insist on going to some surf mecca in Baja.

I’m confused by this … Is our justice system really so screwy that an indicted felon can leave the country whenever he wants to go surfing? And is Kevin really such a lousy lawyer that he doesn’t realize how it’s going to look to a jury when they hear that the smug asshat accused of embezzling thousands from his family business spent his pre-trial days partying it up south of the border?

Anyway, they arrive in Baja and discover it’s Spring Break. Meaning it’s morphed into the seventh circle of hell, the eight circle being fraternity parties, and the ninth any stint as a reality show contestant. Kevin is horrified by all the bare boobies, and Justin by the rampant drunkenness, but Tommy thinks it’s awesome, especially as a way to help Justin boff his way out of mooning over Rebecca. So he recruits these three bimbettes currently enjoying a few blissful moments of peace and quiet between table-dancing and hurling.

Strangely, they’re all into Kevin, even though he announces himself as 100% gay. They carry on about how much they love gay men, and one of them says she’d pay anything to see two guys make out. Is this a thing now? Drunk sorority girls being into gay men? Because if it is, it would explain the careers of any number of contemporary pop stars.

Just then, they squeal with delight as somebody called the “Shot Hottie” comes over. The sight of him made me feel like Veruca Salt when she spied her first Oompa Loompa: “Daddy, I want a Shot Hottie, and I want one NOW!” The Shot Hottie is a muscular, hairless hunk of man-meat done up in Speedy Gonzalez drag. He proceeds to shoot his tequila load right into Kevin’s mouth, and Kevin tries to gargle some words of protest. But then he lies back, thinks about Scotty, and swallows.

Justin’s had enough of this whole drunken scene, so he finally outs the real reason for the road trip, trying to help Tommy with his legal troubles. Tommy is grievously offended, and launches into this whole martyr routine about how he’s the only one man enough to do what needs to be done for the family blah blah blah. At this point, I don’t know if I can stomach Tommy’s insufferable character for another second. Where’s the Shot Hottie when I need him?

Meanwhile, Justin’s managed to find a brainiac bimbo who, get this, is pre-med and selfelssly offers to help him on his college application essay. Justin better hope whatever school he’s applying to is impressed by the topic “The Person I Admire Most: Kim Kardashian.” They’ve barely flirted when her neanderthal ex-boyfriend sees them. Enraged, he and his posse of fratboy barbarians proceed to chase the Walker Brothers like angry villagers in a 1950s monster movie.

The brothers barricade themselves in their hotel room, and pass the time waiting to die by bickering. In the midst of it, Kevin’s blackberry starts beeping, and Tommy announces, “You’re supposed to have sex in five minutes.” Kevin, looking absolutely miserable, admits that appointment sex is starting to look pretty good right around now. “I could be spooning,” he wistfully whines. To paraphrase something Charo said last week on RuPaul’s Drag Race, spooning is nice. But not as much as forking.

Tommy decides he needs to be the man and go out and kick some fratboy ass to defend his brothers. Awesomely, he proceeds to get his own ass kicked, although sadly, we don’t get to see said ass-kicking actually take place.

After the beating, the brothers sit around a campfire reminiscing about what a dick their father was. And Tommy starts waxing philosophically about how spring break is all about having your whole life ahead of you, and wouldn’t it be nice to start over with a clean slate, and does anybody have a few spare hundred dollars in cash and an untraceable pre-paid cellphone they could loan him. Lucky for him, one of his brothers is too drunk and the other too dumb to figure out where all this is going.

The next day, Kevin calls up Scotty and asks for a sex appointment. Scotty is all, let me check and see if I have any openings you might fill. Being Saint Scotty, he’s also not at all upset that Kevin blew off the last appointment and he was stuck making an appointment with Mr. Internet and his buddy, Monsieur Hand.

Then Kevin and Justin make the surprising discovery that what they thought was a fast-asleep Tommy is actually a cantelope and burrito he’s cleverly buried under a blanket to fool them into thinking he’s sleeping in. Instead, he’s gone on the lam just like Prison Break season two, and good luck with that plan, Tommy. Why do I get the feeling you’re about to become the concubine of a Mexican drug lord?

MEANWHILE, back up North, Nora hosts a lovely “Meet Your Bastard Half-Brother” luncheon, attended by Sarah and a surprise guest … an exhausted Kitty, who Sarah and Nora quickly realize is pretty miserable in her marriage even if she won’t admit something is wrong.

Sarah, who’s being surprisingly nice given what a beyotch she was when Rebecca was the half-sib in question, asks Ryan if he’s got a girlfriend. And I love Nora just a little bit more when she diplomatically says, “Or a boyfriend?” Ryan says he’s unattached … and straight. Eh, I’m not so sure I’m buying that. The mouth says het, but the eyes say ‘mo, you know?

Ryan awesomely demonstrates a bit of a mean streak, too, when poor, exhausted Kitty nods off on the kitchen counter, and rather than let her sleep, he keeps poking her awake. I loved that part. He’s apparently thinking of majoring in poly sci and wants to practice his debating skills with Kitty, what with her being a political “celebrity” and all. She’s all flattered by this, even if he’s a flaming greenie and throws around the word “hegemony” to try to impress her. But then she says something about how mother love is not a social construct, and his lower lip starts quivering and his eyes moisten up and he flees the room.

It was then that I realized Ryan is actually a heroine in a Victorian novel. You know, how in those books they’re always going to visit some distant relative in a big house somewhere, and they catch a chill on the carriage ride over and have to stay in residence for like five months? And Ryan’s all pale and sickly looking and nervous and sensitive, like the slightest venture into unsavory conversation is enough to send him in search of a fainting couch.

In this case, the fainting couch is Rebecca, who he seeks out for solace from the Walkers. She says, “Let me guess. Somebody let out a secret, then everybody started yelling.” Heh. But he admits, au contraire, he’s the one with the secret! I figured they’d string this secret thing out for another four episodes before finally letting the cat out of the bag in the finale, and it would be something like Ryan’s a cross-dressing hermaphrodite eco-terrorist. But instead, he gives the big reveal right now … and it’s that he suspects his mother committed suicide and that William had something to do with the reason why, and he’s there to figure it all out. Wow, that’s certainly … what’s the word? Oh, yeah. That’s certainly uninteresting.

So what did y’all think? Are you as happy to see Tommy go as I am? And are you as miserable as I am about the snail’s pace dissolution of Kitty and Robert’s marriage?