TV is the New Reading

‘Brothers & Sisters’ is usually much ado about nothing

If you cup your hand to your ear, you might just be able to make out the faint ringing of Sarah’s “I told you so!” echoing across the nation.

Not that the president of Ojai Foods wasn’t supportive of the notion of expanding her family’s company to international markets. But Sarah Whedon, played by the remarkable Rachel Griffiths on “Brothers & Sisters,” wanted to build slowly, to the point where her caution had started to ring comically timid and in a rare display of hubris, her uncle Saul, Ojai Foods’ chief financial officer, ventured an expansion of their initial agreement.

Sarah was furious, and then relented – just in time to hear that a key partnership in the deal had collapsed and the company was exposed to $25 million in unrecoverable losses.

When that scene played out, I was floored. As a viewer, I’d been lulled into a false sense of security the week before when übermom Nora, played brilliantly by Sally Field, had decided to stay in the family home. I’d been thinking the whole episode that this possible move with her gentleman friend, Isaac, to his home in Washington, D.C., was a way to write her out of the show, or to build up some new dynamic on the home front with the Walker sibs left behind.

But when she decided at the last minute to let Isaac go back alone, I thought that had seemed like an awful lot of fuss about nothing.

And honestly, when it comes to “Brothers & Sisters,” there’s no real shortage of storylines that end up being a lot of fuss about nothing. This group can’t sit down to dinner without one or another of a half-dozen grown siblings bringing up some sore point and another objecting and a big kerfuffle ensuing and mortifying Nora and everyone ending up in the kitchen yelling at each other and hugging and having ice cream.

Half-sister or girlfriend?

In fact, almost certainly the worst offender on this score will be little Rebecca Harper, played by Emily VanCamp, whose mother, Holly, played by Patricia Wettig, had convinced Nora’s late husband, William, that he’d fathered her. This led to a long, drawn out trail of clues the other Walkers had to sift through in tracking her down, and once they had, it seemed clear that they’d discovered a half-sister.

Indeed, according to a paternity test someone finally had the presence of mind to administer, Rebecca isn’t even a half-sister to this group, and all their investigation uncovered was a 20-year affair pursued by their father.

On the plus side, they can finally kick Holly to the howling winds. However, Justin Walker, the youngest Walker sib, seems to have feelings for Rebecca he’s not acting on because he thinks they’re related. And if Rebecca ever just comes out and tells him she’s not his sister, then she will instantly become his girlfriend and Holly will once again have a reason to hang around.

In and among the political storylines, the fertility clinic storylines and the divorces and reconciliations and the boyfriends and the girlfriends and the mistresses, this show has quite a lot going on without everyone suddenly being in a deep financial crisis.

How will Nora get them out of this one?

“Brothers & Sisters” airs 9 p.m. Sundays on ABC.

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

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