My Review of Brothers And Sisters 4x13: "Run Baby Run"

Written by Marjorie David And Jason Wilburn
Directed by Richard Coad

Sarah (re Roy): “I’m not aflutter, I’m optimistic.”
Nora: “Optimistic is what the weatherman is. You’re aflutter.”

There are the few times when I actually could kick myself for being a spoiler junkie and while the fact that Sarah and Roy’s relationship not destined to last because of a certain someone coming is hardly the most earth shattering of things, it’s a pity because unlike Luc, Sarah actually has a chemistry with this bloke.

It’s not that Roy is the most fascinating character ever introduced into the series but chemistry aside; he’s actually a likeable enough bloke. More importantly, he’s written in a believable fashion and is probably more adult than either Joe or Luc could ever be accused of being.

It’s the very thing that spurred Sarah into going for coffee with him on more than one occasion and also the very thing that dared her into inviting him to a family dinner. Like Robert so boldly pointed out, Roy could do with some good luck when attending any family meal with the Walker bunch.

But I think the most adult thing about Roy in this episode was the fact that him and Sarah could so vocally and publicly disagree on something without him sulking about later on. He didn’t think that it was an invasion of privacy for kids lockers to be searched while Sarah did. That however didn’t stop him from coming to dinner later on that evening either.

If that had been Luc or Joe, both of them would’ve accused Sarah of trying to emasculate them. Roy seemed to have maturity to think otherwise. Okay, I know the majority of Sarah’s family actually agreed with Roy over her (except for Kitty) but even in that scene, Roy didn’t come across as being petty or trying to score point.

With Roy ticking all the right boxes, it’s actually a shame that I know he’ll be gone as soon as Luc re-enters the scene. However he leaves, I hope it’s clean and I also hope for our sakes that Luc has matured as a character if we’re going to be stuck with him on a more permanent basis because Sarah really does deserve someone who isn’t going to be threatened every time she challenges him.

Roy is supposed to be the pattern breaker for Sarah that viewers have been looking for but it’s not a relationship that will last so it’s hard to get too attached to the character, even if he was able to handle a Walker family meltdown with relative ease. He certainly looked less perturbed than other people have in the past.

What is it with the Walkers and family dinners? Even though Robert pointed out about filters in the third season, not one of them decided to take that on board. Nora and Saul in particular let their squabbling get the better of them here.

I might not be the age Saul is but I certainly could understand part of his irritation with Nora this week. That doesn’t mean that I condone him losing the plot with her but at least I get it before he pointed out – he’s lonely and feels like his dreams are unachievable.

I can’t see joining an online dating agency doing him the world of good. The writers half the time give him naff all to do and the only time he did nab a boyfriend, it was just for one episode only. This episode didn’t even bother to explain what happened with his relationship with Henry. When and why did they break up for example?

At least once he had gotten his anger out of his system and pep talk from Kitty; he tried to make some conscious effort to reach out to Nora again. Nora used to be good at Ojai, so maybe that’s where she might head off to next seeing as she doesn’t seem to be doing much work wise anyways.

Speaking of work, do the writers have to make it hard on us with Kevin and Scotty yet again? Much as I find Michelle on the vapid side of things, I’m actually surprised she didn’t clock Kevin in this episode. I know he wants the embryos to work but the constant hounding her and hissy fits were really grating in this episode.

He got irritated when she was playing the Wii with Scotty and then when her teenage boyfriend wanted to watch movies with her. Okay, Michelle having a teenage boyfriend was odd but Kevin was overstepping the mark again and Scotty had to calm him down as well. There does seem to be too much repetition with this whole baby plot right about now.

And there’s Kitty. She briefly mentioned to her annoying pal Buffy that she was considering running in California’s 54th and then the press got wind of it. It wasn’t much of a surprise that Kitty would end up actually deciding to run after a series of dinner related topics and moral support later from Robert during the episode’s denouement.

But the problem is for me as a viewer is that Robert basically jacked in his ambitions for running to spend time with Kitty so it’s a little jarring that she would decide to do instead and also I fear that if Buffy keeps appearing, I might have to strangle her. Nothing against Cheryl Hines but I just find her annoying for some reason, which I don’t think helps when watching the character as well.

Also in “Run Baby Run”

Justin and Rebecca appeared in one scene of this episode and managed to not argue as well. We need more episodes like that.

Robert: “Weren’t you supposed to be at the fertility clinic?”
Kevin: “Yeah.”
Robert: “Go. Make a baby.”

Michelle can’t have sex for 16 weeks and her boyfriend’s a teenager. Hope besides movies they can find other ways to amuse themselves.

Kitty (to Buffy): “I don’t want to run on lymphoma. I want to run on what I can do for other people, not what happened to me, if I even decide to do it.”

Roy might have some brown nosing in when he was congratulating Kitty on her book and commiserating Robert on his decision not to run this week.

Nora: “Why are you being so defensive?”
Saul: “Because you’re sitting in my desk making God knows what mess to my files.”

Kevin: “Stay still or it might not stick.”
Michelle: “It’s an embryo, not Velcro.”

Nora went to see The Exorcist when she was carrying Kevin? There’s an interesting movie choice. Despite that movie not being scary.

Robert: “So, is this your first Walker dinner party?”
Roy: “It is.”
Robert: “Good luck.”

Nora: “What a perfect attitude, don’t you think, Sarah?”
Sarah: “Yes I do actually.”

Standout music: Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” funnily enough. This one wasn’t really big on music.

Kevin: “Great, now I feel bad.”
Michelle: “Well, maybe you’ll be nicer from now on.”

Sarah (re Paige): “We fight a lot. I like a girl that holds her ground but oh boy.”
Roy: “That makes two of us.”

Chronology: February/March 2010?

Not really a great episode but “Run Baby Run” is a decent enough effort and with some more interesting stuff in the pipeline, I’m not going to be that harsh with this one. Besides, there were some fun moments in it.

Rating: 7 out of 10.