Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Strangers And Brothers
By Niki | Season 1 | Episode 18 | Aired on 03.12.2000
A man steps tentatively into the doorway. It's Manni, Phil's longtime friend and lawyer. He tells Lily a story about the night she was born, how Phil called him up, mock worried Lily'd grow up to look like "Aunt Esther," and saying that he'd love her anyway because "he'd never known there was love like this." Smiling but teary, Lily thanks him and then says she has to get back downstairs. Manni asks her to wait a minute, because there's something they need to discuss. He tells her he'd spoken to Phil twice a week for forty-six years, and that he knows all about her situation with Jake and the restaurant. Manni says that Phil liked Jake, but he didn't trust him. Lily snaps to attention like she's had a jolt, and Manni rehashes how the restaurant is divided between her mother's forty percent, and her and Jake's share of sixty percent. He tells Lily that if she's ever unhappy with how Jake is running things, she and her mother can team up and fire him. Lily is stunned. "Fire Jake?!" she repeats. In a surprising show of empathy, Lily wonders what Jake would do without the restaurant. Manni points out that Jake should have started worrying about that a while ago, and that it's not her concern.
After commercials, black-and-white Barbara is waiting for us with a big smile. She tells us a creepy little tale about the double-suicide fantasy she and Phil supposedly shared. They'd break into the Smithsonian and steal the Spirit of St. Louis, fly halfway to Paris and then jump. They knew it would be hard on the girls, she admits (notably overlooking Aaron), but at least they'd die together. Lovely.
The black-and-white image of a beaming Barbara slowly fades to a color shot of her staring ahead stone-faced. Jake comes into the doorway behind her, puts a hand on her shoulder, and lets her know they're all there for her. Lily and the girls come down the staircase and Barbara asks Zoe if that's the dress she's going to wear to Phil's funeral. Nice. Zoe's already got a complex over the fact that she hasn't cried; now she gets to feel like a dork, too. Lily insists that Zoe's dress is fine, but Barbara says Phil really liked the "blue velvet" and babbles on about "little bluebirds" or something. Lily won't budge on the issue, and Grace hugs the wall, watching the tension fly. Zoe asks once more if there's something wrong with her.
Through the funeral home's glass doors, we watch the family trudging up the snowy sidewalk. It may be a synagogue rather than a funeral home, I'm not sure. As they reach the doors, a young man approaches Lily and introduces himself as the rabbi Rick knows. I'm sure he told her his name, too, but I didn't catch it and frankly didn't think it that important. Lily introduces the rabbi to her mother, and he puts his arm around her, telling her he is there to help with anything she needs.