By Jennifer Larson

All you mothers out there listen up; when your daughters tell you they are going on a weekend getaway together, it isn’t an open invitation for you to join along. I don’t mean to sound harsh, but honestly, if your daughters want you to come along, they will ask you. Poor Nora (Sally Field) learns that lesson the hard way on tonight’s episode of BROTHERS AND SISTERS, after Kitty (Calista Flockhart) and Sarah (Rachel Griffiths) make the mistake of telling their mother about heir weekend plans. It isn’t that the girls don’t love their mother and enjoy spending time with her; it’s just that sometimes sisters need a little bonding time of their own. Unfortunately, the weekend turns out just as you would expect, you know lots of fighting and hurt feelings. But this is the Walker family and they always end up making nice in the end. After all, it isn’t as if they don’t love each other deeply, they just don’ always like each other is all. While the Walker women are away, Justin (Dave Annable) is at home trying to recuperate from his war injury and growing dependence on his pain meds.


Poor Justin tried everything to keep from taking those pills, but his family wouldn’t let it go. Now it may take even longer to get over his injury, since it involves weaning himself off the medication as well. Meanwhile, it looks as if Kevin (Mathew Rhys) may be starting to understand his uncle Saul (Ron Rifkin) a little better than the rest of the family, as he starts to question his past. Since the beginning of the season, we’ve been getting not so sublte hints that uncle Saul may have more in common with Kevin than just genetics, but I’m surprised it’s taken anyone in the family this long to get a clue. After all, this family is notorious for getting into each other’s business and this is just the kind of personal stuff they feed off of. But they are always there for each other when they need support the most, and when you’re going through a divorce, you need as much support as possible.

Sarah is going through a difficult time, what with her 10-year anniversary coinciding with her divorce and all. In fact that’s the reason for the weekend getaway, well that and the fact that Kitty found a prenup in Robert’s (Rob Lowe) personal papers. So it’s not really just a matter of helping her sister through a painful divorce, Kitty wants to get away from her own man problems as well. As for Nora, she just wants to hang with the girls, but she ends up wreaking havoc with her perpetually chatty ways. I mean a spa is meant for quit self-reflection, not girly chatter about divorce, sex and marriage. But let’s face it, the Walker women aren’t known for quit time, they are at their best when they are gossiping about each other and everybody else in the family. For example, even though she was sworn to secrecy, Rachel accidentally on purpose spills the beans about the decline of Tommy’s (Balthazar Getty) marriage. Again, I find it strange that nobody in the family has found out uncle Sauls’s little secret.


Of course that’s about to change, because he ran smack into Kevin’s ex while attending a party at the home of  his long time buddy who just came out of the closet. While none of this proves uncle Saul is gay, it does make a strong case for it. And really, it’s 2007 there’s no need for anybody to deny who they really are anymore. I mean the Walker women don’t deny who they are, which is a pack of overbearing, yet lovable, wedding crashers. Yes, on top of being thrown out of the quit room at the spa, the ladies decide they are too hungry to wait for dinner in the dining room and invite themselves to another guests wedding. But I must say, the food they were chomping on looked mighty good, I may have been tempted myself. And while the women are having their special moments together at the spa, Tommy is sharing a few special moments of his own with his new office manager. Now that doesn’t seem like the best way to win his wife back.
As usual it was a trying week for the Walker clan, but as always they muttled through it together. And with that many crazy people in one family, I can’t wait to see what the rest of the season has in store.