Brothers & Sisters 2.09 | Something New

On the boilerplate in this episode of Brothers & Sisters: Kitty’s wedding to Rob Lowe. There are a number of smaller, finer details, such as the office slut dating the rehabbed pill-popper, the hunky gays and matriarchal l’amour among other things.

Let me confess one thing. I have never seen an episode of this show before – but barring Kitty, Brenda From Six Feet Under and Everyone’s Mom, everyone has no personality and looks like they all picked out their wardrobe from the same J.Crew catalogue that I’m hard-pressed to figure out how anyone can keep all of these wacky brothers and sisters’ names straight. So I apologize for my own compartmentalization of the characters on the show.

But the show gets one of those forced awkward beginnings, like “hahaha this is such a hilarious conversation I can’t believe where scripting this for television” type of forced awkward when everyone sits down to discuss what songs they lost their virginity to. Matriarch confesses that she lost her virginity to “Pretty Woman” and NOT to the kids’ father but rather her high school sweetheart. Dun dun dun! Everyone’s all OMG! And EW!

Office Slut is at the office and she has a boss who looks like the mom from Nip/Tuck who suspects something between her and her hunky boss, whose wife and baby pokes her nose in a scene later and there’s all kinds of not-ironic tension. The Office Slut, later, in the episode, ends up going out on a date with Rehabbed Pill-popper, who really doesn’t even seem like he put the effort in to get cleaned up for this date. This makes me wonder if he’s still clean. Sounds like a plot twist for February sweeps, if this blasted strike ever subsides. Things go along famously. Rehabbed is all, “No no, I’m clean – my sponsor would hate me if we hooked up,” and then two seconds later, he’s all smoochy smooch with Office Slut.

Brenda from Six Feet Under has to withstand some dull business-slash-agriculture talk from a Kevin Bacon lookalike who’s trying to peddle product to her and she seems kind of into him and I can’t figure out why.

The hunky gays – probably the most interestingly written couple on the show – are dealing with issues of their own and at this point, I wish they would deal with their issues how most people do – by hooking up. Well, that happens soon enough, in a scene where the two men have each other’s arms wrapped around their faces so you can’t see them kiss and then it conveniently fades to black when all the PG-13 action starts to happen. Smooth move, ABC. But before all of that, there’s champagne and free lobsters, which kind of makes me think of the Spice Girls TESCO supermarket ad in which Posh Spice wants lobster.

Kitty and Rob Lowe take ballroom dancing lessons because Kitty wants them to have a dance. They go just the two of them and Rob Lowe, as it turns out, is a seasoned vet (I bet he has nothing on Maks from DWTS) because of marriage #1 and Kitty at that point starts realizing she doesn’t want a recycled wedding. Rob Lowe is all, “I have to work on my campaign, sweetie!” and Kitty hisses at him and is left to perfect her moves by herself with the aid of an instructor who is supposed to be European but just has a bad haircut and too much hair gel.

Kitty’s desire for a new wedding is corroborated when she sees HER DRESS at the bridal shop while getting bridesmaid dresses for Office Slut and Brenda.

In secret, meanwhile, Matriarch goes on a dinner date with her high school sweetie and her dinner date goes better than most of my blind dates in that he’s sweet and she thinks he’s still handsome and I bet he pays; oh he’s also not awkward at all for a moment. Then he takes her to the place where the two of them saw Bob Dylan perform. Aw! How sweet! Then she asks him she can take him to Kitty’s wedding and he’s all, “Sure.” Double sweet!

Cut to Kitty dancing with Rob Lowe and Rob Lowe’s Campaign Manager. They all compliment on Kitty’s awful dancing and then Kitty spazzes out because I think that’s the one emotion Calista Flockhart is quite ace at and says why don’t Rob Lowe and his Campaign Manager do the first dance.

Brenda has a dinner date with Kevin Bacon. He eventually sells her on the idea of looking at certain materials before turning down his offer and there is a romantic spark there that grows stronger which makes me uneasy.

It comes to light with the hunky gays that the political one’s reverend boyfriend has no intention of going back to him – especially because the political one dumped him after confessing that he did the nasty with his ex. And then he and ex live happily ever after for the remainder of the episode.

Kitty and kids go back to the bridesmaid dresses. Office Slut informs them all that the dresses are ugly when asked for her honest thoughts and in the middle of her tirade, Kitty finds out her dress is not sold, but on the sale rack and she’s all, “I WANT THIS. IT IS MINE.” She proceeds to eat the dress. By which, I mean purchase the dress. Her issues with Rob Lowe work themselves out when he feeds her a generic line about how every love song reminds him of them.

At home, Kitty dialogues with Matriarch about how she hopes that she’s not angry but she wants to wear this new dress because she doesn’t want a recycled wedding, etc. etc. etc. Matriarch is happy that Kitty's happy and I'm happy that they're happy. Matriarch then goes to get refitted for what was going to be Kitty’s ugly wedding dress and is her original ugly wedding dress; she’s going to make it sexy with modifications.

And of course the entirety of the next issue deals with all the last minute strains that Kitty’s wedding faces because they need to prolong that storyline as much as they humanly can.