Brothers and Sisters: In Which Kevin’s Head Does Not Stop Exploding

Previously on Brothers and Sisters: Apparently, nothing too important, given that ABC lets us just jump right into the episode.

Justin and Rebecca are hot and heavy, making with the moaning and grinding. His cell vibrates, and when they ignore that, his land line rings. Do twenty-somethings even use land lines any more? I know all of my friends just use their cell phones, but ok, I’ll go with it. Of course, it’s Chelsea and when she starts to leave a message, Rebecca sighs exasperatedly and rolls out of bed, while Justin quickly picks up the phone. While Rebecca puts on her clothes, Justin and Chelsea decide to talk after their AA meeting. What was the point of calling then? Ugh, I hate her already.

Justin hangs up and is shocked (shocked!) that Rebecca is no longer in the mood. Besides, wasn’t Chelsea supposed to have another sponsor by now? Justin says she’s in the process of getting one, but Rebecca thinks she’s too attached and dependant on him and is “into him.” Justin says he’s doing really well now, as evidenced by his awesome girlfriend. Um, Justin, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re awesome. Just FYI. Anyway, she asks if Chelsea even knows he has a girlfriend, and Justin FINALLY clues into the fact that Rebecca might be jealous. She does crawl back and kiss him before she leaves (twice!) and Justin asks her to pick him up after his meeting.

Also? Justin seems to be sleeping on a pull-out couch, which … gross.

Walker Manse. Paige has made a family tree, only instead of construction paper and markers like us oldies are used to, she did it on the computer. In fact, she’s made a whole video for Kitty’s baby shower. Y’all, she’s ten. I didn’t even own a computer until I was 14. I’m only 22 and I’m already getting all, “Back in my time, we had to use those damn Word Processors …”

Nora wants to play all those silly games that people play at showers, but Sarah claims Kitty wants it simple and chic. Paige then announces that she got an IM from Julia (an IM!), wondering why Tommy isn’t invited. (Why am I using so many parentheses and exclamation points?!) Nora says it’s because only girls get invited, which you know is Paige’s cue to wonder why Kevin, Scotty and Saul are coming. After a couple seconds, she gets it. Nora then tries to kick them out, because Rodger is coming over to “discuss plans.” Uh-huh. Sarah asks if she slept with him, and Nora’s impish grin confirms that. Sarah then asks if she took her clothes off this time, and I have to pause because I’m not sure if this is something that happened before, like with Danny Glover and I’m not remembering, or if this happened off-screen with Rodger. Either way, it’s kind of a weird statement and I’m trying not to think about Nora and Rodger and SEX too much, so I’ll just let it go. Someone calls, but hangs up when Nora answers. Sarah and Paige get the hell out of there, before they see anything they’re not supposed to.

Kitty is at her alma mater, discussing her book with the Dean, I suppose. She gets freaked out when she sees her dorm from the window, but calms down enough to hear the Dean offer her a job. Turns out they’re starting a broadcast journalism program, and would like her to run it. However, the board wants whoever is hired to hit the ground running, so does she have any prior commitments she should warn them about? You know, like anything in the near future that might be taking up a lot of her time and attention? She shakes her head spastically and is all, “No! No, no, no babies here!”

Kevin and Saul are eating out, while Kevin yells that Kitty is having a BABY, in case anyone missed it, and he simply has to go to the shower. Saul is offended by the concept of E-vite, but I tune him out because Scotty just showed up with more food, and look scrumptious in his Cook Apron. Aw, they’re eating at his restaurant! Anyway, Saul is actually upset about the three gay guys getting invited, while the straight men in the family were not. Kevin says (sarcastically?) that they’re gay and are therefore supposed to like these things, but Saul scolds him and says he did not come out of the closet to be a cliché. Hear, hear!

Saul starts talking about gay pride parades and leather chaps, and Kevin gets more and more frustrated. Scotty rightly tries to point out that this is probably a generational thing, but Kevin doesn’t see the point in being gay if you’re going to acct straight. Or something like that. Kevin brings up Saul’s Mystery Man, and figures out that Saul is really just afraid to let his new boyfriend meet the lot of them. “Can you blame me?” Saul says. Heh. The boyfriend’s name is Henry, and Saul gets increasingly uncomfortable and leaves.

Walker Manse. Nora and Rodger are finishing up (ew!), and just as she’s about ready to discuss those plans, Rodger informs her that he’s late for his next meeting. She has a shower to plan anyway, but Rodger will see her tonight. She looks happy for a second, but then sees that he left his briefcase. Inside, she sees invitations from “Wendy and Rodger Grant.” Oh, snap. He’s married.

After commercials, Sarah drops off the cake and Nora tells her about Rodger and Wendy. Sarah guesses that it might be his sister or mother? But nope, Nora Googled him and found out that they got married in Dorchester, and thus, she’s the new Holly Harper. Sarah urges her not jump to conclusions, just as Nora gets another crank call. Suddenly, she comes to the conclusion that the caller has to be Wendy. Nora, just because you would crank call your husband’s mistress just to freak her out, that doesn’t mean everyone would.

Ojai. Tommy and Holly are signing contracts to give 2% of their shares to some guy named Kent Barnes. Tommy takes this as an opportunity to remind everyone that this was completely Rebecca’s idea and he is not responsible for anything, ever, at all. Ojai now owns a 2,000 acre, established vineyard and I’m wondering where Tommy found this guy.

Sarah is in a baby store, looking at one of those ugly Vera Bradley diaper bags, while talking to Kitty on the phone about her job offer. Sarah assures her that they’ll give her maternity leave, which forces Kitty to reveal that she maybe, sort of didn’t tell them about the baby. Sarah’s like, “You so damn stupid,” and tries to explain what having a newborn is like, and that’s with a supportive husband and not one who will never be home. But, Kitty’s excited! And Sarah is ruining her happy day! Sarah tells her to be excited about the BABY shower, and warns her that games will be played. Kevin comes running in to the store, and Sarah updates him on Kitty and Nora’s drama. On the Nora-Rodger front, with the sex and the married, Kevin’s head is officially blown. And then he tells her that Saul is not coming.

KEVIN: He doesn’t want to be marginalized.
SARAH: What are you talking about?
KEVIN: It’s a long story -
SARAH: I don’t want to hear it.
KEVIN: OK -
SARAH: What are you getting for Kitty?
KEVIN: The Bumper-Jumper (?!) and -
SARAH: Oh, no, you gotta get her the Bounce-Bounce-Baby. It is much more versatile, keeps them entertained for hours …
KEVIN: Oof! (mutters) Shower Nazi.

That “oof” because she literally lifted a huge box of some child contraption and full on threw it at his chest. Heh. Those two are the best at the quick-fire back-and-forth.

Ugh. Justin and Chelsea are sitting outside their meeting building, discussing the other AAers instead of discussing whatever was so important that she had to call his cell and his home phone. Justin tries to suggest that she find another sponsor, one who won’t distract her so much, and she immediately gets defensive and asks if he doesn’t want to be her sponsor anymore. He tries to get her to be rational, reminding her that this was supposed to be temporary until she found a woman she was comfortable with. She whimpers, “Do you care about me at all?” He of course says yes, because what else can you say, and he of course is lovely and tells her she’s a wonderful person, because that’s what she clearly needs to hear right now. And so, of course, she kisses him, right as Rebecca walks up to pick him up. To his credit, he immediately pushes her away the second her lips touch his, but Rebecca freaks out anyway. And, of course, we got to commercial.

This plotline is so predictable and is far beneath Dave Annable and Emily VanCamp.

Walker Manse. Rodger shows up, but Nora holds him at bay with the scissors she was using to wrap baby gifts. Heh. She straight up asks him if he’s married, and he starts to claim that this is what he was trying to tell her before they got carried away. Nora calls bullshit and says he lied to her. Rodger tells her that Wendy knows about Nora and is happy for them. Turns out they have an open marriage and haven’t had sex in years. He’s still advancing on her and she keeps backing up, fuming about how he never asked her if she even wanted to be a part of an arrangement like that, and he’s all, “Um, I’m asking you now?” He says they’re all adults and Wendy’s overseas. Nora’s like, “This shit is too insane even for me,” and asks him to leave.

Tommy meets the vineyard guy, Kent Burns, at a coffee shop and gives him some of the money he owes him. He’ll get the rest when the deal goes through. What about the board? Tommy says they defer to him and Holly, so it’s all gravy. Tommy actually bought the land, and I guess put it in this guy’s name? Maybe? He says he’s not doing it for the money, but just for his family.

Senator Ranch? It’s hard to tell because Kitty is like hiding behind a wall and whispering to Robert on the phone. Why is she whispering? Where is she? Anyway, Robert is telling her that he thinks she can have a career and have a family, which is easy to say given that his kids were raised by his wife and a nanny, am I right? Kevin comes in (calling her “Kit”, which aw) with the Bounce-Bounce-Baby and Kitty is shushing him for some reason. She was, in fact, crouching behind a wall, too. She is so weird. She tells him to not tell Mom she’s here yet. Oh, she’s at Walker Manse! This whole scene makes sense now.

In the kitchen, Sarah and Julia are prepping, and Sarah sends Julia out of the room with some punch, and she doesn’t even get a line in. Man, they sure do waste her, don’t they? She asks Nora about Rodger, and Nora tells her all about it, pouring herself some wine, but I sort of think she’s already loaded. Sarah tells her to pull herself together, and Kevin walks in and immediately announces that he can’t believe Nora is sleeping with a married man. Nora starts to protest but then is all, “And you can believe about this open relationship thing?” And Kevin’s like, “OMG, what?!” And his head explodes for the second time in two days. Nora belatedly realizes that he obviously didn’t know that part, since she only just told Sarah. Oh, Nora. See what alcohol does to your memory? He thinks she should consider an open relationship, which is Julia’s cue to come in and wish that she had never ever married into this awful family. Like, she literally goes, “Hi!” and runs away with dessert in her hand. Nora decrees that there will be no more Rodger talk and Kevin and Sarah tell her that she can do this, that this is her thing. She promptly turns and screams about Kitty being late, and out in the hall, Kitty’s all, “Oh my God my mother is yelling I love you bye.”

Actually at Senator Ranch, Robert talks to some random staff dude about Kitty’s new job and how it will hopefully soften the blow when he tells her he’s running for Governor. I’m not even going to comment. I’m just going to ignore him.

Baby Shower. Paige introduces her video, “The Story of the Walker Family.” Oh, I hope she includes all of the wacky hijinks. Saul shows up, and everyone is like “Shh! The video!” His boyfriend steps into the room, and Kevin just about has a stroke trying to pause the video and direct everyone’s attention to the Mystery Man. Saul introduces everybody (well, the women and the gays) to Henry and Kevin smiles encouragingly. Henry, BTW, looks like Papa Luthor from Smallville, only with short hair. A quick check of IMDB confirms this glorious news, and I guess this means I’ll be seeing John Glover on this show and on Heroes (spoiler!).

Paige is videotaping Kitty as Nora shoves a baby food jar in her face and tries to get her to guess what it is. Kitty tries to pass it to Sarah, who starts to protest. Nora: “Sniff it, Sarah. Sniff it, it’s fine. Sniff it!” Sarah guesses that it is peach, and Nora scolds her for not guessing correctly with apricot and how she should know that because she’s a mother. Julia makes a full body “Whaaaaat?” gesture and it’s hilarious. Rebecca saves the day and says they should start on the presents, and Papa Luthor offers to write down what everyone got for her. Saul is all anxious and adorable and Scotty assures him that Papa Luthor is doing just fine. So fine, in fact, he might take over the world with his charisma and charm.

As Nora goes to get the gifts, the gays start talking about how Saul and Papa Luthor met, and pretty soon, everyone’s in on the conversation and having a lovely time. Everyone but Nora, who keeps demanding at louder intervals to know who brought THIS GIFT! Everyone looks at her like she is a whack job, Kitty is mortified, and I guess Julia has finally had enough because she just gets up from her spot in the background and walks out of the room, with no explanation or anyone noticing. It’s almost like Sarah Jane Morris decided that she was done with this crap and just got up and left in the middle of the scene.

Rebecca is calling Justin, and you know, I would have really liked to see the tail end of that scene earlier. Did she take him home? Did they fight? Did Chelsea cry? She seems friendly enough with him as she leaves a message, asking him if he talked to Chelsea yet. Julia walks in and asks how she’s doing and what’s wrong. We don’t get any details, though, because this scene is really meant to explain that Julia has no idea what’s going on at Ojai and that Tommy hasn’t told her about the deal. Didn’t Tommy know that both Rebecca and Julia would be at the shower? Why is he a moron? Rebecca gets this look on her face, like she’s only just now realizing how messed up these Walkers are, and that maybe she should have just taken her paternity test and gotten the hell out of there while she could. Julia, though, just wants to gossip about Nora, and Rebecca is funny for a second, thinking she’s got something scandalous on Papa Luthor.

Kitty has just opened up the Bounce-Bounce-Baby and declares it colorful. She thanks everyone for their gifts and seems to be a bit overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that comes with a baby. Nora comes bustling in and bodily shoves Kitty and her chair out of the way, causing noises of protestation from everyone. She rolls in the biggest, ugliest, bright red stroller I’ve ever seen. Julia jumps out of her seat with her mouth on the floor. “Oh my God, you got that one?” Nora says it’s the most expensive one on the market. It looks like a toy fire truck that was in the midst of being transfigured by Professor McGonagall into a raft or something. Sarah explains that it’s light, collapsible, and you can turn the baby to face you. Can’t you do that with all strollers nowadays?

Anyway, Nora wants her to try it out right this minute and Sarah is trying to get her to lift it up or push a button or something, and Kitty is getting more and more flustered, so Sarah suggests that she watch the instructional DVD that came with it. Kitty says she will NOT be watching a video on how to use a stroller, that she did NOT want games, and that she’s sorry, but she’s had it. Kevin and Scotty make pouty faces at each other while Nora goes after her. Kitty tells her about the job opportunity, and it seems she’s finally grasping what she’s getting herself into. She supposes she’s just not into all the traditional, extra crap that comes with having babies, and Nora takes this opportunity to freak the hell out about how she’s just so traditional and why should people follow society’s prudish rules, and that she’s an old fuddy-duddy. Kitty has no idea what she’s talking about, because she’s the only one, besides Paige I think, who doesn’t know about the open marriage thing.

Kitty and Sarah drink wine and Kitty admits that she’s a bit in denial about the baby thing. I get that, seeing as how she’s not going through the pregnancy, and Sarah agrees with me, pointing out that her body hasn’t been preparing her for the big changes coming. Sarah tells her about having Paige and the miracle of motherhood, and that seems to finally calm Kitty down.

Everyone else is eating dessert and the discussion turns to Nora and Rodger Grant. Scotty and Paige are nowhere to be found, just in case you were wondering. Saul thinks Nora shouldn’t care what people think, and Kevin thinks that if she likes him, she should continue seeing him. Papa Luthor cuts in and tells them about a study he read about, where people in monogamous and open relationships were asked if they were happy. Both groups were happy, and he points out, looking sweetly at Saul, that you can obviously be happy in any kind of relationship. Julia just about collapses into giggles, she’s so giddy at this adorable scene.

Kitty comes in, and her and Nora both fall all over each other trying to apologize. They end up collapsing into a hug. I love hugs. Kitty announces that she actually has a gift for Nora – Trish has agreed to have Kitty and Robert in the delivering room for the birth of the baby, and they asked her if Nora could also be there. Nora is thrilled, of course, and the hug some more. Aw.

Ojai. Tommy is escorting some board member out when he stops to chat to Nora, who was there for the vote on the big deal. Rebecca is walking Kent out when he lets slip that Tommy called him two months ago, which she realizes was before she came up with this brilliant plan of hers, and that it actually wasn’t her idea at all.

Nora goes to talk to Holly and praises Rebecca’s good work. She then tells Holly about Rodger, and asks if William told her that he was married. He did not, at least at first. Nora goes on to tell her that Rodger actually has an open marriage, so this is quite different than her affair with William. Holly is enjoying herself. Nora asks her if she was happy with William, and Holly doesn’t really answer the question but just sort of talks about how she’s a free spirit and goes with the flow. Finally, she says she was happy most of the time, but that it was hard work.

Rebecca is looking at Tommy’s computer and apparently sees something interesting, because she shows up at Justin’s unannounced. He says he ended the Chelsea thing, by which I guess he means the sponsorship, and she doesn’t even care about that anymore. Good. I hope that whole plot line is over. She tells him all about Kent and the screwy timeline and reveals that she found pictures of the Crawford property (the vineyard/orchard) from back in December. Justin thinks she’s being paranoid, but she’s worried about her mom. He can’t get over the fact that she hacked into his brother’s computer, so now she has to pull out the kissed-another-girl card. You know she’s going to do that for every fight they have from now on. She says she believes him when he says that she kissed him, and that she always trusts him and gives him the benefit of the doubt. She wants the same thing from him and doesn’t like that she always comes in second to the Walkers. She storms out.

See? I think they have enough drama and legitimate issues to deal with on their own, without throwing some random drunk bitch in the mix.

Walker Manse. Nora is looking at some plans when Rodger comes over to chat. He thinks she’s just being stubborn about the whole marriage thing, but she sticks to her values and tells him that she just can’t be that person. It’s less about being old-fashioned and more about feeling her worth – that she alone is enough for someone. She already shared William for the past twenty years and she just can’t bear the thought of sharing someone else. And since he doesn’t plan on leaving Wendy, then this whole thing just can’t work. Good for her. He wants to still be friends and she seems willing enough to continue with him as her architect, so I guess they’re fine for now.

Senator Ranch. Kitty and Robert admire their baby gifts, and Kitty tells him that she turned down the job. She wants to be there for every part of the baby experience, and Robert has the audacity to look disappointed by this. He’s disappointed that his wife has decided to be a Mom first and foremost, and then he tells her he has to tell her something. She literally goes, “Oh God, oh God, Robert.” And that right there should be enough for him to NOT run for Governor. If your wife, the person you love, your partner, hates the idea of something you’re doing that much, that should be enough. She gets very small then, looks at the floor, closes her mouth tight. She’s shrinking and he’s just pushing her down further. Remember when his ex-wife said there was a reason she lied about him having an affair? That Kitty would see it eventually? I think we all just saw it.

Justin is leaving a message for Rebecca. He just wants to talk to her. He loves her. But Rebecca isn’t listening. She’s too far gone at this point and she feels more alone than Kitty. Because she had a Mom, and then she a Dad, and then she had a whole family. And then she lost the family, but she had another Dad to make it all better. And then he broke her heart and she lost her Mom, but through it all, she had a boy. A boy who loved her through it all, but could never quite love her enough. Could never love her enough for all the times she wasn’t loved before.

So, here she is, standing in front of David’s apartment, her father’s apartment. Begging him to let her in and to love her like he promised he would. He does.

And there’s another woman who was never loved enough, so she had to love her children all the more for it. She’s answering that damn phone again, and on the other end is a boy who was loved just fine by the father he had, but was forgotten by the one he should’ve had. And now he’s alone, too, because everything has been a lie and there’s only one person who can make it all better. And she’ll love him with all of her strength, even if he was never hers to begin with. Because Nora Walker is first and foremost a mother, and if there is a child in pain, a child who needs her, she will hold him until he can’t stand it anymore. She will love Ryan Lafferty, even if it means her husband was even more awful than she originally thought. She will love him because her husband never did and because she’ll be paying for his mistakes for the rest of her life.

Ryan Lafferty, welcome to the family.

And for those who are interested in such things, he’s very pretty, with some nice Peter-Petrelli-emo-bangs.

Next Week: Ryan will meet his siblings. And look hot doing it. Rawr.