Gwennie's Takes: Brothers and Sisters: Episode 1-7, "Northern Exposure"

Shows

Or “Where in the World is Tucker Booth?”

My inaugural article here! How exciting! Even better that it’s on one of my favorite new shows of the season, Brothers and Sisters. I absolutely love this show. It shows what a stellar cast CAN do right, compared to Studio 60, that proves that sometimes a stellar cast simply isn’t enough.

The episode starts with Rachel Griffith’s character, Sarah, determining that the Walker family needs to sell their vacation home to help rescue the family business. Each member struggles with the decision, and secretly decides to take their current (or wannabe) sexual partner there for a weekend tryst. Of course, in the process they literally all fall on top of each other. There is also a hysterical reference to someone named Tucker Booth. Whomever Tucker is, the man apparently really got around. He slept with a sister, a brother, and…? Hopefully, Tucker will show up at some point during the season. It should be hysterical when he does.

Moving along, the episode really centered around Tommy and Julia’s inability to conceive. Well, should we say TOMMY’s inability to provide viable sperm. Behind Julia’s back, Tommy asks brother Kevin to provide the sperm. Kevin says no. Suddenly, it becomes everyone’s concern, and everyone has an opinion on the matter. Meanwhile, poor Julia is rather mortified to know that Tommy went behind her back to do the bidding. Tommy’s sperm issue is what gives the flavor to this week’s dinner table discussion. You just have to love the weekly Walker dinner table discussions. Recently departed daddy’s lover outted one week, brothe’s sperm issues the next. If more families had discussions this lively, perhaps more families might eat together…just for the snicker factor. Then again, maybe they wouldn’t…

In any case, everyone is upset with Kevin for saying no. Push comes to shove, Kevin doesn’t want another human being, let alone a relative borne from his own loins, to bear the brunt of possibly feeling like an outcast the way he did, growing up gay. But even rightwing sis Kitty convinces him that this generation of the family is strong and outspoken enough to always defend and nurture their own. You know, the standard “of course we can do this better than mom and dad did.” Meanwhile, baby bro Justin is getting all pissy because HIS sperm isn’t wanted. The fact that he has been doing recreational drugs on a regular basis shouldn’t matter at all. Right.

In the end, both Justin and Kevin go together with Tommy to the sperm donation office and both “pony up”, with the understanding that no one will never find out which brothe’s sperm was used. Kevin jokes that if the child dresses well, everyone will know whose sperm was used. Kevin is also openly appreciative that they had gay materials to help him “get the job done.”

As another side story, the siblings discover that Holly has a daughter. Yes, Papa Walker spawned a love child. More on that surely to come. In the meantime, Nora, his widow (their mom), is starting to get tingly for her first beau in decades. Living well is always the best revenge.

This series is a complete tour de force for its ensemble cast, and almost every episode is a case study for just handing Sally Field the Emmy NOW. She dominates every scene she’s in.

NEWS: It was announced this past week that Rob Lowe will be joining the cast as a new love interest for Calista Flockhart’s Kitty. I have been a Rob Lowe fan since the early days of West Wing, so I can’t wait for him to join the cast. I don’t know that Kitty will deserve him, though…but that’s another topic for another time…

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Jonathan Widro is the owner and founder of Inside Pulse. Over a decade ago he burst onto the scene with a pro-WCW reporting style that earned him the nickname WCWidro. Check him out on Twitter for mostly inane non sequiturs