Brothers & Sisters; Episode 18: “Three Parties”

At long last, it’s over between Kevin and Chad! I thought it had actually ended last week, but then the first glimpse we get of Kevin this week is of him sleeping while a half naked Chad sits at the foot of the bed. Chad tells Kevin that he’s going to fire his manager and come out of the closet because he’s sick of continuing to live a lie.

However, when Chad goes to fire his manager he discovers that he and Kevin had met to discuss Chad’s future. Yet even though it’s Chad that’s furious with Kevin, it’s Kevin that decides to break it off with Chad because he can no longer handle all of the drama. As he’s sitting at home moping, Kevin gets a call from Dan Silk, the blogger that tried to out Chad. Dan asks Kevin for a comment on Chad’s decision to come out via a post on his website, a fact of which Kevin was unaware. Now that Chad’s officially out, Kevin pays him a visit hoping that they can get back together but Chad decides that this is a journey he needs to take on his own. But not before offering to have sex with Kevin one last time, an offer that Kevin smartly turns down before leaving. So that’s it. Chad’s dunzo and now Kevin can move on to greener, less drama filled pastures.

Meanwhile, Becky invites Justin to a party that a friend is throwing and he reluctantly agrees to go, seeing as he hasn’t been to a “real” party since his stint in rehab. As Becky waits for Justin to get ready, Nora finds her looking at family photos. Nora tells Becky that she’s inherited a big family, which seems to please Becky, but what Becky really wants is to have had a chance to know her father. Nora tells her that William Walker was a great man…but also one who embezzled from his company, carried on a 20 year affair and hid a child from his family.

This news seems to shake Becky up a bit and she gets wasted at the party. When Justin tries to take her home, she bitches him out for trying to be a good big brother even though she still doesn’t feel like a part of the family. As Justin continues to persuade her to leave, a guy at the party steps in. However, the guy only intervened because he wants to get with Becky so Justin punches him and a fight breaks out.

Nora’s been taking a writing class at a college. They’re using my beloved alma mater, USC, for the exterior shots but I don’t think it’s actually supposed to be USC. Anyway, she’s been doing well and tells her friend, Emily Croft (Yay! Margot Kidder is back!), that she has a crush on her professor, Mark August. Emily encourages to ask him out, so Nora drops by and asks him if he’d like to get coffee. Instead, he invites her to join him for a picnic lunch, during which they hit it off and he invites her to a party he’s throwing for some professors at his house.

Unfortunately for Nora, she stupidly goes to Emily for advice. Emily tells her that she doesn’t really think there’s a party; Mark just wants to get her to his place for some alone time. She dresses Nora up like a ho (or as much of a ho as sweet Sally Field could possibly resemble) and sends her to the party. Sure enough, the party ends up being a gathering of the Jack London Awards Committee and one of the guests asks if Nora will be dancing for them as Mark introduces her.

After being humiliated, Nora discovers that Mark had been sleeping with one of her much younger classmates and had broken up with the girl. Nora becomes enraged when Mark criticizes her writing in class and calls him out on the relationship. They argue in the hallway, which of course results in a lot of sexual tension that stops just short of any actual physical contact between the two.

And finally, in the most amusing storyline, Kitty and Robert continue to have problems and they argue over a speech he’s about to give to a veteran’s group. He doesn’t want to include a mention of a helicopter rescue he was a part of while in the military.

Kitty is dispatched to Castroville to interview people from Robert’s past and Sarah tags along with her because she finds the town’s artichoke obsession amusing and wants an artichoke facial at the spa. Unfortunately, the whole town, including the spa, has virtually shut down for the annual artichoke festival.

Kitty gets the list of people she’s supposed to interview and it includes the “HSSH” (AKA: Robert’s high school sweetheart). During the interview, Kitty becomes overly neurotic and presses the HSSH for dirt about her relationship with Robert. The situation becomes uncomfortable and Sarah convinces her to go with her to find a bar so that they can get wasted. And they get plenty wasted on “arteritas” (artichoke margaritas? EW!) and Kitty drunk dials Robert. She brings up the HSSH to see how he’ll react. He tells her that Alice Webb (the HSSH) is not a joke and that Kitty needs to let it go.

As Kitty’s drunk dialing, Sarah’s being hit on by a couple of younger guys who she assumes go to Artichoke Community College. They invite her to a party and she drags Kitty along. Problem is, once they get to the party they find out that the frat guys are actually still in high school. Or as Kitty puts it: “Oh my god. Sesame Street is having a party.”

To make matters worse, the kid’s mom comes home and she just so happens to be the HSSH. Since Kitty can’t let the matter go, she presses the HSSH to explain why she and everyone else in Castroville seem to worship the ground that Robert walks on. The HSSH reveals she became pregnant while she was dating Robert in high school…even though they had never had sex. Even though the kid was not his, Robert helped her through the pregnancy and the ensuing adoption. Turns out Robert really is a saint…as far as Republicans go.

When she returns on the day of Robert’s speech, Kitty inadvertently reveals that she’s falling in love with him. Robert confesses that the reason he doesn’t want to talk about his helicopter heroics is because he wasn’t a hero after all; he had called off the rescue but his co-pilot insisted on going back. The co-pilot was killed and Robert took the credit. Then he says he loves Kitty too and goes on to give his big speech.

Next week: Jenna "I'm a nutty Scientologist" Elfman guest stars! Ick.