What's Best
Written by Cliff Olin And Peter Calloway
Directed by David Paymer
9.0
"Superb"
Sarah: "Let's go do what Walkers do best".
Kevin: "Get drunk?"
Getting drunk is at least two of the very expert things that the Walkers are capable of doing. The other of course is to argue in public over something reasonably trivial. In lieu of a road trip, we get another Walker team up with some hilarious results.
Now that Kevin and Scotty are boyfriends again, Kevin has to go and meet all of Scotty's pals seeing as Kevin doesn't seem to have any of his own. Then again, neither does anyone else in his family nowadays but its noteworthy no less.
As for Scotty's friends, they don't go out of their way to give Kevin a welcome mat. In fact they even tell Scotty that they find Kevin a little uptight. With this, I have to disagree with. Kevin might not be the life and soul of a party but he's no David Fisher in the uptight either.
It's also interesting that Scotty's friends have listened to the more negative elements of Kevin and Kevin gets pretty annoyed with this himself. Then again to an outsider, perhaps Scotty's friends aren't totally unjustified with their pre-conceptions of Kevin, even though as an audience we know better.
Sarah on the other hand not only has her divorce papers delivered to her during a conversation with Graham but she's not in an immediate rush to sign them. Does she still have feelings for Joe? Well it wouldn't be impossible but even if she does, we already know that Joe has moved on from her.
In fact he's moved on so much that he decides to take his current girlfriend/first wife to Paris. To add insult to injury, this is the same destination that Sarah had told Joe she wanted to go a couple of months. Geez, Joe really does know how to rub it in, doesn't he?
Sarah whines about this particular thing to Kevin before ranting about needing to get intoxicated. She also oversteps the mark by talking about other needs that as a brother, Kevin could've done without having to hear about.
So the two of them decide to go to the very same gay bar that Scotty and his cipher mates would be hanging out. Kevin chose the place and him and Sarah don't waste much time in doing their best to drink the place dry. The bars in LA and Ojai must love this family, especially when they're down in the dumps.
Soon enough though, Kevin gets spotted by Scotty and Sarah begins to realise why Kevin chose this particular place for them to go drinking. Kevin's desperate to prove that he isn't uptight and Sarah thinks the best way of getting that point across is to take part in the karaoke on the bar.
Now I'm with Kevin when it comes to karaoke. There are times when it can be a great deal of fun but for the most part, it can also be rather tacky and uncomfortable. Kevin makes a piss poor attempt to get out of singing, which confuses Scotty. Sarah however is in the mood for waxing her vocal chords.
When Kevin can't even agree on a duet with her, Sarah goes it alone and delivers a pretty good version of Cher's "Believe". Hats off to Rachel Griffiths for making a terrible song sounding momentarily good but the responses she got from Scotty's friends bordered on the cringe inducing.
Was it obvious that they would take to Sarah rather instantly? Did some of the dialogue sound really cheesy when Sarah getting praise from Scotty and did Sarah tell the lads about her own romantic woes? All those questions require a yes response, although the latter one saw Kevin a little peeved with his sister.
Scotty's pals encouraged Sarah to sign her divorce papers and for this, I actually liked them a little (plus one of them was a little cute). There's nothing more than a group of drunken lads to get you to agree to do something you were going to do anyway and Sarah managed to get Graham to deliver her papers.
Of course then bringing Graham into the fray also had moment for good comedy. Scotty's friends found him nice to look at Sarah even slept with Graham after weeks of playing hard to get. The morning after also was hilarious but seriously, I do hope their relationship is kept light. Sarah needs fun not drama right now.
While Graham was playing messenger boy, Kevin decided to loosen up and belt out some tunes of his own. Sadly his versions of "What's New **** and "Always On My Mind" weren't quite so hot but that was probably because Matthew Rhys was pretending to have a terrible voice.
Still Scotty managed to put Kevin out of his misery by getting him off the stage. Had he not, I'd have a sneaky suspicion that the karaoke machine might have had a mysterious malfunction. That being said, we could seriously do with more scenes like this. I don't care how predictable some of them are, they're still good.
Something else that is also good is getting back to the issue of Saul's sexuality. When Nora isn't going on about her relationship with Isaac, she's determined to get more information out of Saul about his past with Milo. Even better is that while Saul isn't dishing anymore gossip, he's surprisingly less evasive than he was a few weeks ago.
In fact maybe because of Nora's new happiness, Saul decides to pay Milo a visit. Of course the moment he does this, it would be the same time Milo is out of the country and his friend Evan is house sitting there instead.
Casting Keith Mars (I mean Enrico Colantoni) in the role of Evan is pretty cool. He's a good actor and although not much is revealed about Evan, he seems to be a reasonably nice enough bloke. He also reveals a few home truths to Saul about Milo but nothing that Saul couldn't have guessed already.
There's also a nice flirty vibe between the pair of them as they talk over wine and after weeks of nothing, it's nice to know that Saul's arc is getting some progress. There'll also come a time when he and Kevin will need to sit down and have another heart to heart as well.
Saul's not the only person who has history coming out to play. Holly and David's relationship keeps raising questions and the more Rebecca gets involved with David, the more you want to know what's really going on. I think I know where this plot is going and I really don't want it to.
With the way David is around Rebecca and the lack of consistency that Holly seems to have with the gaps between her relationships with both William and David, it does feel like the writers are pointing towards David being Rebecca's real father. If he is, then that is going to crap all over most of Season One and that ain't good.
I actually do like David and I do believe that he really did/does love Holly but this plot smacks of contrivance. I was all for Holly getting a plot of her own, especially one that didn't involve the Walkers but this isn't what I had in my mind. Also that kiss between Holly and David spoke volumes with the way she quickly broke it off.
On the plus side when Nora and Justin aren't teasing Rebecca for her lack of direction, the girl seems like she could have a positive experience from photography. Having her and David bond over this is a little obvious but I love the way David tells Rebecca that she has potential. Here's hoping it motivates her to improving constantly throughout.
Elsewhere hell seems to have frozen over because this week the campaign is actually quite riveting. With one threat, Robert has another to deal with in Taylor as they both of them vie to get votes in Michigan. To be honest, Robert's more Hilary than Obama and we all know what's happened to her.
It does feel like the writers are delaying the inevitable with this plot. We know/hope that Robert isn't going to win this plot, yet over half the season has been dedicated to Robert suffering relative blows here and there. With this episode, it's Jason who raises issues with Robert.
Travis isn't exactly tactful when he states that Jason's sexuality isn't good for Robert's campaign but he also tells the hunky minister that Isaac was the very man who outed him. It seems that while Jason is great at the whole forgiving stuff, he's still human and still capable of anger.
He lets Robert have it over hiring Isaac and for Rob Lowe; the scenes he shares with Eric Winter in this episode are his best to date. For once, Robert's love of family and his desire to win feel like a real struggle and when a governor doesn't back Robert, it's nice that Jason doesn't revel in his disappointment.
Kitty meanwhile tries to bond with Sophie and Jack but the best she's able to do is get sick thanks to taking care of them. A sick Kitty is also an unpleasant Kitty, especially when she gets absolutely no sympathy from Nora. Then again, Nora does pick the strangest of times to dispense useless advice.
Then again being angry does give Kitty the stones to stand up to Robert's kids and in a later scene, Sophie actually ends up bonding with Kitty. Given that the two of them haven't had many episodes this might come across as a little too quick but there's a cute final scene with Kitty and Robert's kids.
As for Nora, when she wasn't telling Kitty to deal with sickness and parenthood, she spent most of the episode mooning over Isaac. It was the end however that the two of them got to have a nice conversation so four episodes later, they're still together. It's better than her last two suitors.
Also in "Compromises"
This was the last episode to be filmed prior to the writers strike. It's a good job we got four more episodes as this wouldn't have been season finale worthy.
Sarah: "It's my divorce papers. They're finally here to sign".
Graham: "Well that's fairly significant".
Sarah: "It's not totally unexpected".
Judging by that comment and something he said in "The Feast Of The Epiphany", I bet Graham is divorced himself.
Kevin: "Fine. I'll see you after my uptight day at work".
Scotty: "At least they thought you were cute".
David: "What's the sudden interest in photography? Is it to avoid getting a real job?"
Rebecca: "Something like that".
One of Scotty's friends was that gardener in Season Two of The O.C. I feel so bad for actually knowing that.
Kitty (re Sophie/Jack): "They are these two little angels".
Robert: "The demons come out during the waking hours".
Kitty: "Didn't you tell me that Grandma once gave you a drop of brandy?"
Nora: "Yes but that was a different era and she was a terrible mother".
Maybe it's me but that gay bar Kevin and Sarah were in looked a little familiar. I'm sure I've seen that set on another TV show.
Kevin: "We're supposed to be singing together".
Sarah: "We can't even agree on a song".
Kevin: "I hate you".
Sarah: "Oh go get drunk".
I actually thought Kitty and Robert with the kids did look surprisingly cute. Plus it looked like Kitty and Robert have matching glasses.
Sarah: "Okay I love you friends".
Scotty: "The feeling's more than mutual".
Sophie: "Maybe if you got pregnant you'll get boobs".
Kitty: "One can only hope".
Tommy and Julia were missing in this episode. This is about the fifth episode this season not to feature the latter.
Kevin (re Graham): "That's not the messenger, that's her stuffed shirt".
Mario: "Doesn't look too buttoned down to me".
Jason: "Well you didn't go into politics for money or power. A lot easier ways to get that, right? I think we were both called to serve".
Robert: "Thank you. Well listen, it could be all over in 24 hours".
Standout music: Let's give to Rachel Griffiths for her pleasant version of "Believe".
Graham: "Not even gonna say goodbye are you? Was I that bad?"
Sarah: "No. You were far from bad. I think".
David: "Okay, 'I should leave' or 'Okay I'm gonna kiss you'?"
Holly: "I don't know".
Chronology: Let's go by the episode's airdate and say February 2008.
One of the funniest episodes this season, "Compromises" is ripe with great moments, quotes, music and just complete brilliance. With only four episodes left, it'll be interesting to see where this season goes with the characters.
Rating: 9 out of 10.moreless
