'Brothers and Sisters' recap: Radio Drama

Last night's Brothers and Sisters, "Resolved," introduced us to Dr. Karl (guest star John Terry), a tall and exceedingly benign handsome man who was instantly smitten with his radio station colleague, Nora Walker. He can quote The Great Gatsby from memory but had trouble spitting out a reasonable sentence in the presence of Nora's powerful halo of kindliness, deep concern, harsh judgment of character, and Boniva. Dr. Karl took the liberty of nicknaming her "Noradrenaline" a day after they'd met, explaining that it's the approved name for the hormone that causes our "fight or flight" response. According to the internet, this is actually true. I am learning so much!

It looks like they'll toy with us for a few weeks by having Dr. Karl and Nora be "friends." Someone who is not related to Nora needs to listen to Nora, Karl decided. Nora, fresh off a crying spell having seen a mother wave to a little boy on a school bus, could barely contain herself.  "I don't even remember what it's like to have a friend!" she gushed. She's such a committed mother that even her very, very grown-up adult children have kept her too busy to make even a single friend since she first became a parent. Uh-huh. This seems extra nutters to me; then again, I can't remember Nora ever having, mentioning, or using the word friend on the show, so what do I know? (Besides noradrenaline.)

"Ugggggggggghhhh," Sarah sighed. Her butt hurt from having to sit on tens of millions of dollars, trying to find the right company to buy into or buy out. Kitty was there, wearing the exact same glasses as Sarah except Kitty's were tortoise-shell. It was going to be a long, sisterly day of online shopping, raging insecurity, and deep-seated resentment! Here's what happened: Kitty, that shiny bitch, offered to work with Sarah and insisted she had a strong business sense because she'd first come up with the idea for magnetic poetry. But at the time, Nora had refused to give Kitty a loan, explaining to Kitty that "business was Sarah's thing." Kitty said this out loud, to Sarah, as they lounged with rarely seen child star Evan! Uh-oh. Sarah flipped out. "AS IN MY ONLY THING?" she overreacted to Kitty. "DID I PALE IN COMPARISON TO KITTY THAT MUCH?" she demanded to know from Nora.

It was awful. Kitty and Sarah showed up for a photo shoot at Nora's radio station only to resume episode 783 in their ongoing War of Hurt Feelings. This time we learned that Sarah had shown her business acumen early in life by managing a workforce for a lemonade stand and that Kitty had once ripped Sarah's jelly shoes. Then Sarah's passive aggression came out and she told Kitty about the conversation she and Nora had had earlier. "She told me you were desperate for approval and always needed a man in your life," Sarah dropped the bomb. "It explains why you would suddenly want to go into business with your sister. You couldn't stand being alone!" The entire thing was all REALLY SUDDEN and overblown, even for Sarah. Nora attempted to make peace, but there's no calming down crazy when it's this crazy.

As if this weren't horrific enough, Sarah and Kitty then began talking over each other so violently that their screams blended into a single stream of gibberish, like whenever the adults spoke during Peanuts specials. I was watching a screener of this episode on my computer, with headphones. Headphones! During this fight! I will never be the same again. Thanks for sending me an advance copy of the episode, ABC, but consider this my official request for a bottle of Apology Chardonnay. Anyway, Nora stormed out, and the photo shoot was off. Poor Frank!

NEXT: An important question on your feelings about major scenes getting interrupted by commercials.

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