Episode Report Card LuluBates: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Flash Forward
By LuluBates | Season 5 | Episode 1 | Aired on 09.26.2010
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.After the disturbing season finale, in which The Senator died, Uncle Saul discovered he was living with HIV, Justin is re-enlisting, Kevin and Scotty knock up a loudmouth, Rebecca is going corporate, Kitty is running for the U.S. Senate and Holly may or may not be dead, we skip a year into the future. Of course, there's a quick morbid montage and a Kitty-fueled voiceover first.
In the future, Sarah has really distracting bangs and overzealous highlights, Luc has become a notCalvin Klein model, Kevin has lost all his razors and Nora has a job at a floral shop. Justin returns from a second tour in the Army to find only his mother waiting for him at the airport, which does not bode well. Sure enough, Rebecca has left him, but left it up to Nora to tell Justin the news. Rebecca is awesome. Where is Rebecca? Well she's not at home and she's not at Holly's. Or if she was, Holly wouldn't necessarily remember. You see after almost dying in The Accident, Holly has been afflicted with some sort of amnesia issue where she doesn't remember anything and constantly re-hates Nora, which would be funny if it didn't mean there was a fat, sad Ken Olin on my television screen.
By the way, Holly isn't the only survivor of The Accident. Nope, The Senator is not dead yet. Instead he is in a persistent vegetative state. Why? Because this show has not had a good opportunity to argue about Death with Dignity yet. Problem solved! Due to the Knots Landing-esque coma, Kitty can't say goodbye to her beloved husband. Over champagne kisses and Parisian dreams, Sarah makes Luc promise to pull the plug on her, but he won't do it. Kitty also won't do it, even though Justin and the Republican National Committee really want her to. Yes, the Republicans want her to kill her husband. Heck of a political platform, eh?
There is no joy in Mudville for Kevin and Scotty, either. They've had two miscarriages and Kevin is over this whole baby thing. Scotty wants to talk about it, but Kevin would rather grow unnecessary facial hair and defend the poor and downtrodden children of the world. Saul and Scotty have opened their restaurant, so it would be the perfect venue for the Walker family reunion dinner, except they opt to eat Nora's house instead. At dinner, there is no wine, which is clearly Threat Level: Orange. But after wine is found, the family is still plagued with problems. Sarah has managed to sell Narrow Lake for $55 million and wants to move to France, and everyone is okay with it, except for Justin. He lays into the family's creeping separateness and growing distance. He doesn't understand why Scotty and Kevin don't have kids yet, why Nora is working, why Sarah would want to move to France, or why Luc has become an underwear model. He also doesn't understand why Kitty hasn't killed her husband yet, and he doesn't understand why Kitty would be offended by that.
Kitty is offended, but after a brief heart-to-heart with Nora decides to pull the plug. All it took was a little hollering by Justin, and she's ready to let Robert go. So then everyone puts on black clothes, they have a memorial service, parade Evan around, drink some wine, reunite as a family and smile a lot. The End. Wha? Well after a season opener that's this weak, the season can only improve, right? RIGHT??
Watch the episode below, discuss it in our forums, then see why we think the Walkers are the Worst TV Family Ever.
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Lulu Bates a.k.a. Melissa Locker misses The Senator already. You can follow her on Twitter @woolyknickers.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Welcome back to Walkerlandia where the wine flows all day and night, the men are good looking, the women are smart, and everyone annoys the pants off each other and the audience. Pants are overrated anyway, so we return again and again to waste our Sunday nights and watch Brothers & Sisters. Even despite their latest atrocity. Which is? Did a log fall onto or into your head and you forgot that THE SENATOR IS DEAD?! Well, I don't blame you, I blame the log. The log took the one redeeming character on this show. Well, wait, I do like Scotty. So the log took half of this show's merits and (AND!) missed Ryan Lafferty completely! Stupid stupid log. I mean if you were going to completely kill somebody off, why not the most hated character since Oliver on the Brady Bunch or the extra dad on My Two Dads or Scrappy Doo. Seriously, ABC, Ryan Lafferty is worse than Scrappy Doo. Couldn't you have a log land in/on him and prevent any chance of a resurrection? You know who else could be log worthy? Rebecca. But she escaped log-dom and instead ran around screaming and forcing Justin to choose between saving The Senator and helping Holly. Since Justin is a dude first and an almost-doctor second, he had to go help his honey save her mommy. Dude wants to get laid after all. And (AND!) we don't even know if Holly survived! This show has a lot of 'splainin' to do.
And so it begins: The Walkers are gathered around the dining room table in Walker Manor. They are clinking glasses, laughing, smiling, and no one appears to have stormed out (yet). It's obvious they all sustained brain damage in the multi-car pile up and have been mellowed by pharmaceuticals and tears. Kitty's disembodied voice explains that she never thought they would make it back here. Having dinner together actually felt good, you know, for once. Then we have a series of grisly but strangely unemotional flashbacks of Kitty in the SUV, holding her bloodied and battered (but strangely still hot) husband while Justin uses his wing wang to decide who lives and who dies and then he follows Rebecca to Holly's aid. Kitty's voice explains that Sarah pretended nothing happened except WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO HER FACE? !! Oh, bangs. BAD bangs. That stylist needs to be fired. Or shot (just in the leg, nothing fatal). Kevin has been saving families, but also razors as he is rocking the George Michael (Wham!, not Bluth) look. Nora apparently became someone else, but since we are not told who she became, I'll assume she became Jimmy Kimmel. Justin is there, too. He has returned a hero in more ways than one and Kitty needed that because she had to make a choice no one should ever have to make. Whether to stay on this show, kill yourself, or retire on the bounty of Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones royalties? One thing that is not mentioned is that it is a year later. I gleaned this from Ausiello at EW, because I cannot rely on coherent storytelling to know these things. I also cannot rely on my intelligence because after watching Bachelor Pad, I have no brain cells left. Have to grow some more. In a shoe box under my bed.
Sarah and her BANGS are yelling at Luc on the phone because he is being difficult and French and she is on the way to "the most important business meeting of her life" (the one where she sells her soul for a better haircut?) and has no time for Luc's games. Luc tells her to look up and she does, only to be confronted by her sweetie on a billboard sporting a ten-foot tall banana hammock and doing his best Calvin Klein underwear model impersonation. Gilles Marini's abs will probably cause accidents on that corner. She spit takes her latte and begs him to ravage her through the phone.
Meanwhile, Kevin is in a courtroom sitting next to a juvenile delinquent and giving him advice for not getting sent to juvenile detention. He gets a wad of gum in his hand as reward. Elsewhere, Nora is working in a flower shop. Well, she SHOULD be working but instead she is chatting on the phone making personal calls during company time. That is coming off of her break time and if she does it again it will be noted in her file. Nora, who as I understand it, is working for FUN just stands there and takes it. So maybe she didn't turn into Jimmy Kimmel, but turned into Frances Conroy in Six Feet Under.
Back in the courtroom, the unshaven Kevin makes an almost heartfelt speech about the importance of family over law and the judge shrugs and releases the delinquent to his father's custody. As he leaves the courtroom with his father, the kid asks Kevin if he has kids and KEVIN SAYS NO. What?? Where is Kevin and Scotty's bundle of joy? In my mind, that was the silver lining to this jump-forward season. Why did you kill Kevin and Scotty's baby, ABC? Why?? God I hate this show again already.
Saul is at what I assume is his restaurant. He is on the phone when Nora blusters in and demands a vase and then hates the one he hands her and then he has to get off the phone because she does not have a grasp of basic human manners. Seems like the same old Nora to me! Nora is all freaky deaky because Justin is coming home from war and he doesn't have a good track record with the whole coming home thing what with the leg injury and then the drug habit. Maybe three times a charm? Saul tries to point out that Justin is alive and seemingly well. Justin really wanted to go in the army this time and Nora has the flashback to prove it.
A year ago, a hirsute Justin sat on his couch unwashed with a full-on Grizzly Adams beard, which would undoubtedly chop all the kindling for winter for Kevin's puny beard. Nora is telling him to get up because the accident was four whole weeks ago and he needs to move on, but Justin can't because he has Guilt over choosing Holly and leaving The Senator. Nora reminds him that he saved Holly's life, but it doesn't matter because he and Rebecca can't even look at each other. I guess because of The Guilt. Justin wants to go back into the military but Rebecca says she'll leave him if he reenlists and besides, everyone thinks it's crazy. To confirm this point Nora screams, "It's crazy!" But now he is back (maybe threepeat volunteers only have 10-month tours) and Nora is waiting alone at the airport. That's right, ALONE. I guess the year apart has driven a wedge into the Walkers (some more literally than others) and they can't even make time in their busy schedules to welcome home their war hero brother. Unpatriotic Jerks.
Justin comes out looking fit, not addicted to anything, and not gimpy. Nora gives him a big hug and hurriedly explains that his family is a bunch of useless California commies, but don't worry he will see them at dinner tonight. Justin tries not to audibly groan at the thought of walking into a Walker IED dinner party. He wants to call Rebecca, too, because you would think HIS WIFE would greet him, but maybe she was busy squeezing herself into some Victoria's Secret and arranging herself on the bed just so and Justin and Nora can walk in adding some awkward amusement to this episode. OR, Rebecca has left the show while Justin was IN IRAQ and didn't bother telling him. Since it's Rebecca, I'm going with the latter. But THEN!! Justin asks about THE SENATOR! What?! Nora explains that with this type of COMA he could snap out of it! Justin isn't buying it. It's been over a year and a doctor may have once said he could snap out of it, but it is clear that The Senator is in a permanent vegetative state, like kale. Nora doesn't want to judge or suggest things to Kitty. It's her life. Justin, soldier that he is, will sally into the fray and correct this shit pronto. Probably. After dinner. So...The Senator's not dead, but Kitty will probably have to face the choice by the end of the episode. I guess this show hadn't had the chance to really tackle end-of-life issues before and then this golden opportunity presented itself. Too bad, I was hoping for a Brothers & Sisters/Private Practice crossover where Addison could make Justin choose between Rebe