My Brother's Keeper

We open with a very special episode of The Wonder Years. Panning down to the L.A. Farmer's Market-looking train station, complete with three of the exact same car (one red, one blue, and one black) to show that we're in the sixties. No, I'm sorry. It's the sounds of "Freedom Rock" blasting in the background that let us know it's the sixties. Come on, people, now. Smile on your brother. "The whistle of a train is a mournful sound," our humble narrator informs us. "As if the locomotive itself could grow tired of saying goodbye." We watch a woman in uniform walking with her husband and two children into the station. "It is the sound of wars and death, distances of time and space, of families ripped apart, love torn asunder, futures repealed." Sometimes it's just the sound of gettin' to work. Anyway, ArmyMom asks which of her children wants to hear a speech first. The boy volunteers, and the woman leads him to the side. We quickly ascertain that we're watching a young Patch say goodbye to his mother as she leaves for Vietnam. The little kid (he started in sweaters early) reminds his mother that he had made an extensive pros and cons list, and the results clearly indicate that she shouldn't go away. YoungEdna tells Little Patch that he's his sister's superior and in charge while Edna's away. Patch nods an understanding. "You're a good kid, Harold," she tells him, stroking his cheek. "Just try not to take everything so seriously." Everybody get together, try to love one another right now. Edna tells Harold to get his sister. A little redheaded girl comes over, all smiles and happiness. Yay, Mommy's going to Vietnam! Isn't it just the most exciting thing to ever happen to Everwood ever?! The little girl asks if she can visit her mother in Vietnam. Edna says it might be "a little tricky." The little girl's name is Linda, and Edna tells her that although she told Harold that he was in charge, the truth was she needs Linda to look after Harold. They hug goodbye. Harold gets another hug. From somewhere in the crowd we hear, "Kids, I need a minute alone with your mother. Go watch from the window." And as the parents say goodbye, a giddy Linda hauls a tearful Harold over to the window. Linda raises the blinds, so stoked that her mom's totally going to Vietnam. Harold is more than upset, wondering why his mom would leave even when faced with the facts of his pros and cons list. Linda, so proud of her mom, says that Edna's off to see the world, just like she's going to do some day. There's a bit of an "are not"/"am too" argument here as we dissolve...

...into grown-up Linda, played by Kimberly from Melrose Place. She's staring through the same window, carrying a massive amount of luggage. She enters the building and is shocked to find Treat there instead. Treat tells her that they're closed for the night. Linda, still open-mouthed, says, "No. I, uh...this used to be a train station." Treat says she's a couple of years too late, and wants to know if she was planning on going somewhere. She says she just got back. Well, why was she headed away to the train station again, then? Hmm. Linda says every time she comes here, she feels like she fell down a rabbit hole into some other time and place. Now, the only other episode I've seen of this show is the pilot, but I'm going to take a guess and say that every time someone enters this show as a new character, they have a line almost exactly like that one. "At the same time it's so familiar. Even now. I missed it this time." Treat asks this woman who she is. From off-camera we hear Edna bellow, "Linda!" She runs in and pulls her giggling daughter into a big hug. Edna introduces her daughter Linda to Treat. "Hey, Mom. I'm in from the faraway place that requires big traveling bags." "Great. Meet me at the train station." "I'm taking a plane." "Yes, I won't explain anything, just show up at the train station." "Okay!"

Whoa. These opening credits. That music! Am I watching a Rockwell painting or a National Geographic episode? Shouldn't this be in IMAX 3D for the full effect?

Heavy piano music of family gathering plays as we enter the Abbott home. Linda's still yapping about her travels, mentioning words like "Guinean Border" and "surgical theatre." This woman has no idea what she's talking about. Also: there's way too many patterns on clothing here. Between Edna's plaid and Harold's argyle, I don't know where to rest my eyes. Linda's trying to win us over quickly: "Between rounds I amputated a six-year-old boy's leg." Oh, who hasn't? Check out the juice glass Linda's using here. You'll recognize it later, in a different house. Linda wants to give everybody presents, but Harold is a hater of fun and all things smiley, so he says that everybody has to leave and there's no time. Linda ignores him and hands Amy a wrapped-up blanket that says, "Sorry your boyfriend died." Inside the blanket is a necklace that apparently keeps you from drowning. I wish she then jumped and said, "Oh! Your boyfriend didn't drown, did he?" Linda is uncomfortable in the moments when the kids are opening the gifts, and fills the space with strange sounds and growls. Linda brought Bright a mask that looks a bit like a grumpy Harold. There are two things I'd like to say here about Bright. One is that I think it's cruel to name the "dumb one" Bright. Or to name any kid an adjective that they might not live up to. Or even if he did. What if he was a geek named Bright? Why not just call him "KickMyAssEveryDayMyParentsMadeMeATool"? But mostly I want to say this: hair department. You are making a horrible mistake on this kid's head. He looks like a balding man who was awoken from deep sleep by a fire alarm. Or like he always just took off his football helmet and his scalp's still sweaty. There must be something that can be done for this poor boy.

Rose thanks Linda. I like Rose. I wish she got to talk more. Harold accuses Linda of bribing his children. Linda tells Harold she's got a gift for him, too. It's a cowbell-type instrument used for herding sheep. Instead of "thank you," Harold says, "Yes, that will be very useful when I've...lost all my sheep." Notice how the smile never leaves the man's face. He's a genius at smile-acting. Angry? Smile. Jealous? Smile. Depressed? Smile, smile, smile. Linda asks Harold if he's happy to see her. Harold says he would have appreciated a call or an email saying that she was coming for a visit. "Didn't even know until Mother told me yesterday." Edna hugs Linda and brags that she wanted her daughter all to herself, and they went out drinking last night. Not to play favorites or anything. Linda tells Harold to take the day off. "I'll write you a doctor's note." Harold beams and says he's sure that would be very persuasive to his ailing patients. "I'm afraid some of us doctors do have borders. And schedules." Linda and Edna stand in profile as The Oboe of Neglected Older Child plays its mournful tune.

Diner. Treat tells Harold he met his sister last night. Harold does a little number not seen since Abbott and Costello: the coughing double-take (sans liquid -- this guy's good!). Harold informs us once again that Linda never told him that she was coming home after being away for three years, but she's got time to hang with Treat. Harold says that they're as close as two siblings can be when one's holding up all of the family obligations and the other one is traipsing around the world with nothing but a suitcase to worry about. "Like some kind of Baedeker-toting Dr. Quinn. Peace Corps. Doctors Without Borders. Medical Institute of Beijing." Harold, meanwhile, has been busy chopping off ingrown toenails, holding up the family practice. Treat says he knows what Harold means. Harold says he doesn't, since he got to be away from the suckhole town for a few years. Treat agrees that he doesn't know what Harold means, and that he only said those words to be nice. "Brighten up, Harold." Does it look to you guys like Treat's wearing a disguise costume made by Acme? Like the cover of a Just For Men box? Harold smirks, smiles, mocks Treat, and goes back to his coffee.

Nina makes an awkward run out of the diner after Treat. She stands there for a long time, holding a pot of coffee, waiting for Treat to deliver the insulting line: "No offense, Nina, but that outfit really doesn't work outside the diner walls." Nina has a favor to ask. One of her friends, Debbie, has a son who was just busted for stealing condoms from the pharmacy. He's only thirteen. And since Debbie is also a single mother, Nina figures that Treat can understand her problems in raising a kid, and how she could really use a man about the house right now to explain to her son what condoms are for. Treat doesn't seize on the obvious joke here, about how he could be the man about the house who could show Debbie what condoms are for, but instead complains about having to talk to boys about sexual responsibility, as if that's not something doctors are supposed to do anyway. He says that when he tried to talk to Ephram about it, he pretty much had to go to "Plan B," which is ignoring the fact that his son is becoming sexually active. What a great role model. He says he'd rather give a boring lecture at the front of the class, and not one-on-one where he'd have to "listen" and pay "attention" and "care." He reluctantly tells Nina to bring the kid by after school and he'll have a talk with him. Nina's pot of coffee's getting cold, so she goes in. "I'm dead," Treat says to nobody.

Lunchroom. Bright makes a beeline over to Ephram, who's reading a comic book and listening to his Discman. Bright asks if he can sit with the easily-startled Ephram. He does. Y'all, Bright's lunch tray has a slice of pizza and two hamburgers on it. And three milks. Ephram asks Bright what he wants. Bright says he just wants to enjoy Ephram's company. "You want my pudding?" Four milks. My bad. Didn't see one around the massive amounts of food. Ephram asks Bright what's the favor he wants. "Okay, it's about Amy," Bright starts. "No," Ephram says. Bright argues that Ephram doesn't even know what he was going to ask. But Ephram doesn't want to hear it. "Whatever's going on with you and your sister is your business, not mine. When I try to make it my business, she gets mad at me." Bright says that with "everything that's been going on lately," Amy's been "a little out of it." Ephram declares that to be "normal." But Bright says it's not normal, and that he's worried about her. He wants Ephram to follow her around, like he already does, and report back to Bright if he sees anything suspicious. Why would Bright assume that Amy's up to something when she's just been moping in her room, not eating, for weeks? Ephram says, "Forget it," because he doesn't care, I guess. Bright says he doesn't have to do it all the time. "Just...whenever you're...not busy...being a...loner geek, with weird t-shirts." Ephram: "You want me to stalk your sister?" Bright: "You kinda already do." Ephram says he won't do it. "Not my sister; not my problem." Bright stands up and takes his pudding back. Ephram goes back to his music.

Linda's sitting in the sitting room with Edna and Irv. Edna prompts Linda to keep talking about Sierra Leone, but Linda would rather hear what they're up to these days. Linda asks how Irv and Edna met. "Well, believe it or not," Irv starts. But Edna interrupts with, "Oh, church picnic, blah, blah, blah. You don't want to hear about us old fogies." Irv and Linda share the first of many looks. Edna asks to hear more about Africa. Linda whines that all of the stories blend together eventually. Edna says that she finds them all fascinating: "You're the world traveler I always wanted to be." Yeah, we got it. "You were the original," Linda says. Edna laughs. "That was just during the war. Now I'm an old biddy here with Irv." Irv makes a "Hey!" face, but doesn't say anything as Edna begs for one more story. Linda tells a story about being in China, walking down the street, when a young boy pedaled beside her and silently challenged her to a race. So Linda ran against the boy's bike, and obviously couldn't keep up. She says the disappointed look on the boy's face reminded her so much of Harold that she booked her flight home that day. "I just felt so far away from you all." She means "y'all." Edna says sometimes you have to come back and recharge your batteries. Irv asks if there's a special man in Linda's life. Linda says there hasn't been in a long time. Edna puts up her hands and chuckles, "Who has time for a romance when you're saving the world, one starving orphan at a time?" Edna asks if Linda's off to India . Irv and Linda stare at each other for a while, all concerned looks and overplucked eyebrows.

Treat invites the young condom boy into his office. Think Leaf Phoenix in Parenthood. The kid sits down, but remains pretty quiet. Treat takes a seat and says, "Your mother was hoping that you and I could have a candid talk, man to man, regarding sexuality. That is, regarding your sexuality, or your understanding of the rudimentary elements of sex." He says they could have a Q&A, or he could talk extemporaneously. The kid says he already knows all of this stuff, so he'd appreciate it if Treat would just tell Debbie that they talked so he can get out of there. Treat asks why he stole the condoms. "It was a joke," the kid says quickly. "Was it? Because either you were planning one of the biggest water balloon fights in history, or you're curious." Like they don't keep the condoms in Everwood behind the counter. I'm so sure. Treat does some fatherly blah-blahs about sex, and curiosity, and hormones, and it's stuff we know at, like, seven. I like that the kid flinches on the word "hormones," though. Treat says it's okay to want to kiss girls and hold hands and do stuff with girls. This is all too much for the kid, for some reason, and he breaks down and admits he's done way more than that already. "I've done a lot more." He says he can't tell Treat more than that. Treat reminds the kid that whatever he tells him will be confidential, and won't leave the room. The kid thinks it over and then asks, "You can't?" Treat promises, and says it's a "doctor rule." Then quickly adds that unless he's a danger to himself or someone else, he can't tell anyone without the kid's permission. He asks again what the kid's done. He says, "It was just a few of us." We finally learn this kid's name is Travis. "Some kids I know. We were playing around at the fort out by Miller's Pond. And some of them starting kissing each other and doing stuff to each other. And then one of them said we should go all the way. I didn't want to, but everybody was doing it." He says nobody else knows about this. "You won't tell, will you? You said you wouldn't tell! You promised!" Yes, but promises are no fun, are they, Travis? A kept promise won't advance the plot. At this point my boyfriend turns to me and asks, "Why is he upset?" "I'm not sure," I answer. "Someone talked him into having sex." "Why isn't he smiling?" he asks. "Maybe this is their way of saying he had sex with a group of boys." "Oh, yeah. That makes sense."

Of course, Treat has immediately told Travis's mother, and she's now in the office. He wants Travis to rat out the kids so Treat can call all of the parents. "This is a public health issue now." Let's not go right to hysterics, okay? "These kids are at risk for physical problems as well as psychological ones. Not to mention unwanted pregnancy." Oh. Huh. Girls were there, too. Yeah, this sounds like most after-school hangouts at woodsy forts, doesn't it? People making out, some having sex, being forced to make out with someone you don't really like, but everybody's making out so why not. This is called high school, not a public health issue. "I think I can help them," Treat says. "But not if I don't know who they are." This from the man who was squeamish explaining that sometimes boys want to hold girls' hands. Debbie asks if the kids will find out that Travis is the rat. "They'd be mad if they found out." I'll say, kid. Treat promises not to tell anybody who told him. I read somewhere that the censors made them cut what Travis was really supposed to be confessing to: that older girls made them go down on them. But that still doesn't explain why everyone needs a pregnancy test or an STD test, unless Treat doesn't understand where sperm come from. Even if there wasn't a cut, and this is what the script was supposed to look like, this doesn't seem like that big of a deal, does it? He wasn't raped, he didn't rape anybody, and high school kids experiment all the time. Debbie tells us that Travis is new at the school and is having a hard time making friends. Heh. "Hard time." Heh. "Travis has never made friends easy," Debbie explains. But it appears that Travis has now made some easy friends, so let's split the difference. Treat says that his own son went through the same thing last year. He says there's only one right choice here, and unfortunately it's the hard one. I'm not really sure why Travis has to rat out everybody who had sex with him, but fine. They're going with it. "I think you should do what the doctor is asking," Debbie says. "And give him the names of your friends." Are they still friends? And poor Travis, who got tricked by his friends into having group sex, and then tricked by his mom into talking to a doctor, and then got tricked by a doctor who promised nobody would find out, now has to write down a list of names so that everybody will totally hate him and nobody will ever give him a hand job in Everwood ever again.

Linda is looking through her dad's old things, marveling at how small they are compared to how she remembers them. Harold says he wasn't going to throw them away just because Linda didn't claim them. Linda says she had no place for them, since she hasn't had a home in six years. "Doctors Without Borders," Harold says out loud again, causing Linda to lick her lips in frustration. I love how everybody's quitting Doctors Without Borders this week in television. "Or apartments!" Linda asks with much alliteration if Harold's intention is to throw bludgeon her with barbs until she's beat. She asks if she shouldn't have come home. Harold says she could have come home three years ago, for their father's funeral. You can pretty much write the script from here. She was too busy, too far away. Harold finds it hard to believe that she could be so busy for three full years after someone dies. He'd find a way up from the bottom of the sea if his family needed him. And he'd still be smiling. She thinks that their mother's doing just fine. Everybody says in unison with Harold, "I needed you." Linda: "I'm here now, Harry." "Wonderful. So when do you leave?" Harold storms out before she can answer.

School. Amy and Ephram ad lib through the hallway about some teacher's eyebrows. Amy meets her friend MiniAB at her locker and asks if she's ready. Now that I see Laynie, I understand every haircut AB has given herself over the past year. Laynie says they're going to hang out at her place for a while, for the "vast selection of cereal," among "other reasons." The girls giggle. Laynie says they have some stuff to do before a party tonight. "At ECC," Amy says with a sigh. This is a college party. Ephram lets us know that we're supposed to be outraged at this. Laynie says that high school girls can always get into college parties. "I mean, we're practically the reason that they throw them." Gross. Ephram asks if he can come with them. Laynie and Amy say this is totally a "girls only" thing, where they're going to give each other Pap smears and breast exams between trying on clothes. Ephram says he loves clothes, and tricks Amy into saying it's okay for him to come with them. He follows, pouting.

Irv finds Edna in the kitchen and teases her: "This, uh, thing you're doing with the stove. I'm not sure I understand." Edna says she's making dinner for her children, as she always did when they were growing up. "But you don't cook. Ever. You don't even reheat." Edna admits she was more of a drive-thru gal recently, but her daughter loves her chicken cacciatore, and that's all that's important. Edna's love of Linda makes me hate that goody-goody doctor. "Every time I see that girl she looks younger, and more full of stuff, you know?" Hate her. "God, the things she's seen. I keep telling her she ought to write a book." Hate. "But then again, she'd have to sit still long enough to write it." Her. Irv says he thinks Linda might like sitting still for a little while. Edna's all, "My daughter? You don't know my daughter. My daughter. My daughter. She's the best. Daughter, daughter, daughter. Mine, mine, mine. Favorite, favorite, favorite." Irv asks if Edna thinks making a home is only for the weak, since she did it. Edna says she once had Linda's life, but had to give it up. "Linda knows better than to make that mistake." Irv is indignant. "Is that what family is to you? A mistake?" Edna asks him not to get all sensitive. "I wasn't born in a time where a woman had much of an option but to tie herself down. Truth is, if I didn't have a family weighing me down back then I don't know what I would have done. Just don't assume she's unhappy because she doesn't have what we have. There's no reason why a woman can't be perfectly happy being alone." Irv grumps, "It's never too late to find out." He leaves as the oboe and piano play his sad, sad, neglected song. Edna barely gives it two head-shakes of thought.