TV.com

Brothers & Sisters Season 1 Episode 11

Family Day

Favorite

Watched It I've Watched This 0

Next
Episode Previous
Episode

9.2

User Rating

216 votes

Your Rating: 10
Your Rating: 9.5
Your Rating: 9
Your Rating: 8.5
Your Rating: 8
Your Rating: 7.5
Your Rating: 7
Your Rating: 6.5
Your Rating: 6
Your Rating: 5.5
Your Rating: 5
Your Rating: 4.5
Your Rating: 4
Your Rating: 3.5
Your Rating: 3
Your Rating: 2.5
Your Rating: 2
Your Rating: 1.5
Your Rating: 1

Rate Now

EPISODE REVIEWS
By TV.com Users

Write A Review

Episode Summary

EDIT

AIRED: 1/7/07

The Walker family attends Family Day at Justin's rehab facility. Holly Harper takes up an office in the family business and Nora seeking to run Holly out, also comes to work in the same office.

FAN RECAP

Fan Episode Reviews (12)

Another great installment

9.0

By Truffethedog, May 17, 2009

A really good episode again this time, much emotion and a lot of usual Walker family fighting. Holly gets a job in Ojai and seems to be doing quite well while Nora (who now wants to be in the company too) is not. But she discovers that Holly is actually quite a nice woman and they get along ok. They won't become friends though.

Kitty is considering taking the job with McCallister which upsets Kevin as McCallister has been against gay marriages in the past. In spite of that Kitty does take the job and in my opinion finds a very good oponent to her witty use of language. The chemistry between McCallister and Kitty is very good and is very much based on intelligence I think. So it's gonna be fun to see them developing. It also turns out that McCallister's brother is gay so they have something else in common with Kitty. I wonder if we're gonna see this brother of his interacting with Kevin some time soon.

Justin is in rehab and everyone goes to see him and tell him their problems with the other family members-a very usual Walker family thing, funny to watch. Of course we see the usual big family fight, this time it happens on family day in Justin's clinic. It's funny to watch but also sad from Justin's side. He makes a good point saying that he doesn't want to be the nice guy who they don't fight with anymore, he doesn't want to be seen flawless and doesn't want everyone babying him. In the end of the episode they show us what the family is really about when Justin plays a tape Nora sent him to Afghanistan. A sweet ending as always:)moreless
DO YOU AGREE?
0 0

Flag
Share Hide
Drive Me Crazy Written by Molly Newman And David Marshall Grant Directed by David Petrarca

9.0

By shawnlunn2002, Sep 09, 2007

Sarah (to Nora): "If you're trying to drive me crazy, I can walk from here".

Ah families – what a bunch of narcissists! I don't mean it in a nasty way but at times, it's a trait among family members and the bigger the family, the more inherit the narcissism tends to be.

I'm also no exception to this rule as I can and have been on many an occasion quite hot headed and determined to get my point across regardless of what others may like to think. The Walker family on the other hand take narcissism to new level. After all they love to obsess and argue and it doesn't matter where they do either.

First major bust up of the week is Kitty and Kevin. As siblings they are pretty close to one another and while a good few episodes have more or less pointed out that their political views are vastly different, they've never let their own belief from being close to one another. At least not until now!

During the festive period, Kitty left her Red, White And Blue gig to become a member of Robert McCallister's communication staff and although she hasn't immediately signed the dotted line, the one person who is completely against the idea is Kevin. Normally you'd expect to be Nora but it seems that Kevin has some issues with the Senator.

The big issue of course being Robert's stance on gay marriage as Kitty's new employee had once signed an amendment to ban gay marriage and naturally enough Kevin isn't particularly thrilled about and when he attempts to challenge Kitty about her boss' homophobia she's quick to shoot him down.

While I get Kevin's annoyance of his older sister not wanting to listen to his concerns, the fact that Kitty takes some persuading before she became a member on Robert's team is suitably more interesting.

Robert may be good with some cheesy spiel and a twinkle in his eye but the great about Kitty was her desire to actually face Robert head on about some uncomfortable topics when he invited her up to his ranch. Something tells me that Kitty might be the only person on his communication team who has seen his ranch. Yeah Robert's attraction to Kitty isn't exactly subtle.

Flirting aside between the two of them (again Kitty's attraction to Robert also isn't very discreet); Kitty openly challenged Robert on his stance on gay marriage. Contrary to what Kevin might like to think, Robert isn't actually a homophobe but signed that particular amendment so he could do more for education.

It's a lame excuse when you think about it and Robert doesn't help much by admitting he didn't belief that gay marriage would become a reality anyway but if there's one thing this show does seem determined to prove is the fact that all Republicans are nut jobs, which in fairness isn't that much of a shock to the system anyhow.

There's an excellent scene up in Robert's cabin where he jokes about guns and foreplay but the reveal of Robert having a gay brother could be a very interesting plot development down the line. This brother was also equally pissed about Robert's bad judgement call and Kitty's mere suggestion of setting him and Kevin might be a hint for later on too.

Of course another great thing about Kitty signing up on Team McCallister is her determination to get Robert to face up to another thorny issue – his divorce. Another surprise was the fact it was Courtney and not him who cheated and for someone who is clearly intending to further his political career, it's amazing that it's Kitty who has to insist that Robert faces up to his responsibilities and tells the truth. Are they trying to make this guy an idealised version of what a politician should be or what?

Naturally when Kitty does agree to work for Robert, Kevin uses the family therapy with Justin to vent out his anger towards her and in fairness while the scene is pretty hilarious, they should've just kept it until after Justin's session but as we've seen with this family, they tend to air their dirty laundry a little too freely at times. Heck even Justin had to put them in their place and in a later scene when they made up, Kevin asked Kitty to correct Robert when he happens to be wrong. How long will she wait to tell Kevin that Robert has a gay brother too? My guess is at least two episode and definitely no more.

The second big issue of the episode was the horrid notion of having both Nora and Holly working at Ojai Foods. Normally two smart women working in a place like Ojai wouldn't be a bad thing but inevitably I just knew this would cause a migraine for Sarah, Tommy and Saul. On one side we've got Nora, whose overbearing tendencies are limitless and on the other, there's Holly who's more or less blackmailed herself into becoming a player in Ojai and having them together felt akin to wearing red in a bull ring. This wasn't something that was going to play out very well.

Things did start off pretty okay at first because despite the unlikely pairing, Nora went out of her way to be as courteous to Holly as one could possibly be under the circumstance but while Holly actually proved to be asset to Tommy and company, Nora in spite of her best efforts really was in the way.

The invoices turned out to be a disaster and her neat idea of allowing fellow workers to bring their dogs to work wasn't her best decision either. Naturally either Tommy or a visiting Kevin wasn't particularly enamoured with that idea and I had to agree with them.

Never mind the barking, I have more pity for the cleaners in Ojai who'd have to clean up the mess and the chances the canines could sneak out and raid some of the vans. If this show was wacky like Desperate Housewives or Ugly Betty, then that's exactly the kind of thing that would happen but on this show, it'd be out of place.

However Nora's biggest cock up was at the board meeting when she tried to pitch an idea involving Avocados but unlike her rival, she didn't have the research to back it up. Holly sort of provoked Nora when she used William as part of her sales pitch so for Nora to come up with her Avocado idea really wasn't that bad in retrospect.

The thing is, Holly did have a really good idea about the winery she had looked into and while she admitted to using William's name because she was nervous, with a mess load of Walkers in there, it was stupid on her. Sarah already hates her anyway and Tommy and Kevin pretty much ignore her. Besides she had Saul and other board members she could've continued to impress with her savvy as opposed to the cheap shot about William. Again really stupid on Holly's part!

Then again at least Holly was later able to admit her rash remark to Nora and for the second week running, both Nora and Holly have shown mutual respect to one another. Nora admitted that some of her assumptions in regards to Holly were way off the mark and while Holly tried to further extend the olive branch by one day suggesting they could be friends, Nora dismissed it. Be glad she doesn't yet know about Rebecca or else Nora really would be far harsher.

If Holly and Nora had a hard time trying to still work with each other, then Sarah and Joe seem to have a harder time trying to parent Gabe and more appropriately trying to discipline him after Sarah catches him trying to nick vodka and Joe is somewhat less hard on him.

Here I have to admit to siding with Sarah more. After all Gabe is 14 and he was under her and Joe's care and if something happened to him, Sarah would've been every bit as responsible as Joe so in all fairness Sarah is being responsible with the lad and Joe should've backed her up instead of allowing Gabe to play him against Sarah in the same way Gabe had previously been trying to play Sarah off Joe.

Like Kitty and Kevin and Tommy and Nora, both Sarah and Joe can't help using Justin's family day session as a means of getting their frustrations out on one another and when Justin berates them too, it's then that they work as a team. At this point in the series, both Sarah and Joe need to have some serious fun but I did like how they dealt with Gabe together. I'm not a big shipper of Sarah/Joe but I don't want them to divorce each other either.

The last item of discussion of this episode has to be Justin. Last episode the poor lad nearly prematurely ended up going back to Iraq and this week I bet he wished he had as the joys of rehab got knocked out of him when each and every single member of his family unloaded on him.

That wouldn't have been so bad but not only were they paying no real attention into how he was progressing in rehab but then they also went nuclear on one another during the family day session where for once Justin was put into the level headed position and was forced to tell everyone to sort themselves out.

His words did have an impact and that got further cemented when at the end, Justin gave praise to his family during the second session and ended the episode on a touching note by playing a tape Nora made him when he first went to war. It's great to see that genuine progress is being made with Justin and Dave Annable's acting has certainly gotten better in the last four episodes.

Also in "Family Day"

As rehab clinics go, Justin is in the plushest of places and near the sea front too. I also like how he took being rejected by Maya well.

Kitty: "Did you just compare me to shoes?"

Robert: "You started it".

Is it really a shock that in the past Nora played some role in helping William and Saul set up Ojai Foods? The only thing that surprised me was Saul never acknowledging it.

Holly: "Do you think it's possible to listen to anything I say objectively?"

Sarah: "We'll find you an office".

Justin: "I need everyone to be there"

Kevin: "Okay I guess this family could use a little therapy".

How come Saul wasn't at Justin's family day session but Joe was? Shouldn't it have been immediate family present?

Kitty: "What's the gun for?"

Robert: "We're Republican, its foreplay … I'm kidding".

Joe (re Gabe): "He has a mother"

Sarah: "Yeah but she's not here, Joe, I am".

This show used the phrase "like a lioness protecting her cubs". It was also used in the Six Feet Under episode "Ecotone" in a scene with Rachel Griffiths' character on that show.

Nora (to her kids): "Of course I'd shoot you if you talked to me like that".

Kevin: "What happened to weighting it in?"

Kitty: "I weighted it and I took it".

I had to laugh a little about Kevin's annoyance of Justin selling one of his Star Wars figures, even I own Doctor Who ones myself.

Kitty: "Wow you've been working out"

Kevin: "Can you tell?"

Sarah (re Gabe): "I think I've succeeded in making him hate me"

Joe: "He hates us both now, you happy?"

Holly's vineyard was Greendale Wines but more interestingly, why was she so unemployable in Hollywood? Was she a bad actress or did she sleep around?

Holly: "Well who knows, maybe we'll be friends someday"

Nora: "Maybe but not today".

Standout music: "Everything's Right" by Matt Wertz and "Orange Sky" by Alexi Murdoch.

Kitty (re Robert's brother): "Is he single?"

Robert: "Kitty do you want both of our brothers to kill you?"

Chronology: Three weeks after "Light The Lights".

Compared to the previous instalments, while "Family Day" continues to raise the odd serious issue here and there such as co-dependency, this is by far one of the most amusing episodes of the series so far. The amount of pithy moments in this episode just work so brilliantly.moreless
DO YOU AGREE?
1 0

Flag
Share Hide
Wonderful Again

10

By benji010203, Apr 08, 2007

A Wonderful Episode Again. Brothers ans Sisters is so exciting. This show is amazing, the cast is unbelievable, the dialogues perfect, the stories intelligent. It's good to see a serie like brothers and sisters. After, all the episodes I am happy to have watched this show. It's never boring, the music is also unbelievable, very smart. So Kitty will be working with the senator I hope that Kevin and the Senator will meet each others in a futur episode. Justin is in rehab, the family day are exceptionnal. I love the relationship between the brothers ans the sisters. Every body have a link with all the perso. I LOVE IT.moreless
DO YOU AGREE?
1 0

Flag
Share Hide
The family goes to family day at Justin's rehab center.

10

By Writer2000, Mar 22, 2007

Family Day was another great episode of Brothers & Sisters. Dave Anable did an amazing job in this episode. Sally Field was great in this episode. The whole cast was great in this episode. I thought that this episode was pretty funny. It was also very heartwarming at the end. I loved the scene where the family is in Justin's family therapy session. The whole cast was great in that scene, but Sally Field and Dave Anable were especially great in that scene. The girl who always went before Justin therapy was really funny. The producers did a great job of casting that role. All in all, this was another great episode of Brothers & Sisters, and I can't wait for the first season to be released on DVD so I can watch this episode over and over.moreless
DO YOU AGREE?
1 0

Flag
Share Hide
Driving Justin crazy...

10

By Simply_Ces, Mar 14, 2007

I love how this show captures my attention and sucks into my emotions. Watching this episode filled me with a smile on my face and it's just amazing to watch this family and their problems and see them work through it together. I had a lot of good laughs at the "Family Day" scene because it's insane the way this family always has something to argue about. I definitely understand Justin now and in a way I can really relate to his emotions which is why I shed a few tears when he was speaking. Overall another great episode that brings you smiles, tears, and laughter.moreless
DO YOU AGREE?
0 0

Flag
Share Hide

See All Fan Reviews

Cast & Crew: STARS

EDIT

Balthazar Getty	Thomas Walker
Calista Flockhart	Kitty Walker
Dave Annable	Justin Walker
John Pyper-Ferguson	Joe Whedon
Matthew Rhys	Kevin Walker
Patricia Wettig	Holly Harper

See All Cast & Crew

Cast & Crew: RECURRING AND GUESTS

EDIT

Romy Rosemont	The Counselor	Guest Star
Jeannette Brox	Claire Feller	Guest Star
Tyler Posey	Gabriel Whedon	Guest Star
Rob Lowe	Senator McCallister	Recurring Role
Kerris Lilla Dorsey	Paige Whedon	Recurring Role

See All Cast & Crew

Watch Online

Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

FILTER BY TYPE

TRIVIA (0)
ADD TRIVIA
- ADD TRIVIA from this episode.
QUOTES (7)
ADD QUOTES
- Nora: (she just found out Holly has joined the company) I want an office too.
  Sarah: Mom, if you're trying to drive me crazy, I can walk from here.
  Nora: I can counteract her.
  Sarah: Who counteracts you?
  EDIT SHARE
- Nora (speaking about working again): I'm sure its just like riding a bike.
  Sarah: Ride off a cliff!
  EDIT SHARE
- Nora: I really want to wish you luck. You obviously have a knack for this.
  Holly: I'm just an old working girl who seems to have gotten lucky.
  Nora: I thought all you actresses had it easy. You have assistants to do all the mundane things for you.
  Holly: Assistants? I was practically unemployable in Hollywood. I went from temp job to temp job. How do you think I learned how to type?
  Nora: I really don't know the first thing about you, do I?
  Holly: Well…who knows, maybe we'll be friends someday.
  Nora: Maybe. But not today.
  EDIT SHARE
- Tommy: What did I say before we went in that meeting?
  Nora: You told me not to speak.
  Tommy: I told you not to speak. Do you have any idea why?
  Nora: Because you didn't want to be embarrassed.
  Tommy: Listen, Holly being here is the price of keeping this place afloat. Mom, you…you're just making things worse.
  EDIT SHARE
- Senator McCallister: Alright…you ah, suggested that I was rash, that I wouldn't have offered you a job if I knew you better.
  Kitty: You wouldn't.
  Senator McCallister: What disqualifies you apart from your lack of experience?
  Kitty: Isn't that enough?
  Senator McCallister: Nope.
  Kitty: Well frankly I just don't think that I know you well enough to know that I want to work with you.
  Senator McCallister: Now we're getting somewhere.
  Kitty: You know, I'm sorry, really. Let me just put that another way.
  Senator McCallister: No, you want to get to know me better…that's reasonable.
  Kitty: What's the gun for?
  Senator McCallister: We're Republicans, it's foreplay…I'm kidding.
  EDIT SHARE
- Kitty: Oh that's right, lawyers are not made they're born. OK fine counselor, talk.
  Kevin: This is a copy of the Republican sponsored constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage which your boss voted for.
  Kitty: He's not my boss. You know what, you and I have argued about these issues for years, we have agreed to disagree a hundred times you've never had a problem before.
  Kevin: That's because before it was just rhetoric.
  Kitty: No, it's never been rhetoric.
  Kevin: You know when people ask me, how can you let your sister spew all that right-wing garbage on television, and not disown her, I tell them it's because I know she loves me. I know she wants what's best for me and what's best for this country. But the day you start working for this guy, it's not about what you believe in anymore it's about what he does, and there's not one single thing in all this legislation , all these speeches that suggest he will do what's best for me, In fact there's a lot of evidence to the contrary. All I'm asking is that you consider that before saying yes to this offer, that's all.
  Kitty: Fine. I will.
  Kevin: Really?
  Kitty: Um-hmm, really. You know, why is it that this family thinks that I am incapable of rational conversation?
  Kevin: Well…
  Kitty: Ah-ah…court is adjourned.
  EDIT SHARE
- Kitty: Did you just compare me to shoes?
  Senator McCallister: You started it
  Kitty: The point is, you don't know me well enough to offer me the number two spot on your team.
  Senator McCallister: Alright, come up to my place in Santa Barbara, and I'll take a crash course in Kitty Walker.
  Kitty: Right, and we'll start with how I don't date potential employers, especially those who are going through a divorce.
  Senator McCallister: Well I think we just ruled out low self-esteem. You'll have lunch and a professional conversation. If you consider that a date, then your social life must be pretty lame.
  Kitty: It is.
  Senator McCallister: I can't help you with that.
  EDIT SHARE
NOTES (3)
ADD NOTES
- International Episode Titles:
  Czech Republic - Rodinný den (Family Day)
  EDIT SHARE
- Music:
  Everything's Right by Matt Wertz
  Orange Sky by Alexi Murdoch
  EDIT SHARE
- Rob Lowe is credited as special guest star.
  EDIT SHARE
ALLUSIONS (0)
ADD ALLUSIONS
- ADD ALLUSIONS from this episode.