I was relieved, really, at the news that ABC had canceled “Brothers & Sisters.”
The show began with the patriarch suffering a heart attack and falling in the swimming pool and ended with the matriarch and her brood dancing to Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” at a wedding. So! Quite the weird, rocky tumble from dramatic greatness, that.
I grew up watching soap operas with my grandmother, or “the stories” as she called them. She was very loyal to CBS, so it was, in succession, “The Young and the Restless,” “The Bold and the Beautiful,” “As the World Turns” and “Guiding Light” for us when we parked ourselves in front of the teevee for the afternoon. There was something about the plotting and the rhythm (and acting) that was so alternately heightened and banal that it made the shows compelling in this drowsily hypnotic way, this stalling and teasing out of confrontation and the purging of sins. Also who among the drama-inclined, young or old, could resist the hubris and foibles of these squabbly, dynastic families, the moneyed schemers and aspirational dreamers who took center stage? They were so alluring, what with their ridiculous outfits and telegraphed subtext, their pouty indignation and low-rent catharsis. Plus, the fakey towns in which these series were mostly set, the imaginary metropolises of the Midwest where movers-and-shakers obviously headquartered their multi-national corporations and where everything happened from baby swaps to evil twins to….murder. Ah,the boardroom antics and bedroom trysts! Besides I was never not fond of the smoldering glares at the end of each scene before the shows cut to commercial. Devastating! (Don’t even get me started on the loss of the soap opera as daytime entertainment! If this is progress, well…)
That is all preamble to the fact that I watched the first four seasons of the soapy, angsty B&S a few months ago in the way that is common to our times: one episode right after another, obsessively, on Netflix. I went from “WTF is a Kitty Walker?” to, like, heart-hurt and screamy at the emotionally roller coaster-y machinations of the plot. Which, when there is a Cry Factor of like, one guttural weep per every three episodes, man were my tear ducts worn out.
(Though, perhaps that impulse to gorge on entertainment product is not so au courant? My grandmother would sometimes tape her stories if she were busy, or on vacation, and would catch up later. My uncle still records “The Bold & the Beautiful” each day, like he used to do with “EastEnders,” so he can watch many-a-weeks’ worth all in one fell swoop. The means to satisfy the behavior may be more expedient and technologically advanced (Netflix, Hulu, DVRs), but the desire remains the same. Don’t we all just want to get lost, and have a good cry? You can’t pick your family, but you can pick when and how many episodes you want to watch of a histrionic fictional one.)
With “Brothers & Sisters” it sort of felt, initially, like Jon Robin Baitz was charged with making a network version of a pay cable drama, like the series was his answer to “Six Feet Under” or whatever? (Or maybe that was some residual Rachel Griffiths energy I was vibing on?) Though and also with its onscreen plus behind-the-scenes players it sort could be read as the second coming of “Thirtysomething“…or something? Regardless, I’m nothing if not a sucker for a well-written sudser. (I also watched my fair share of “Dallas” as a kid after all!) And I enjoyed, at first, the way the show blended light, low comedy with heart-string-tugging high drama, each mood cued—quite unsubtly, but so what?—by the show’s musical score.
Sure, too, “Brothers & Sisters” was very much about #richwhitepeopleproblems, and one had to maintain a certain suspension of disbelief; like do not dwell too hard on the travails of Kitty’s babysitter or the truck drivers and fruit pickers at Ojai Foods, right? But who does not enjoy their upper class escapism?
When I started watching the current season, week to week, is when the wheel’s came off. I think it is safe to say that the show should’ve ended after season four and the epic car crash that capped it. All that transpired with the time jump into season five—the relegation of both Kitty and Tommy to guest stars, Sarah purchasing a media company, Holly’s memory loss, Rebecca’s leaving, Justin being all not drug-addled and now semi-responsible—can be summed up with: Meh. It was basically a re-boot that failed. Miserably. The sense of mission creep was too much. Remember when Kitty was actually a right-winger? And Sarah was raising two kids? Then they went and saddled Nora with a radio show that she seemed to do frequently then not so much, as the storyline about her ridiculous relationship with her teenage “true love” Brody developed, which sort of erased the entire complicated emotional premise of the first four seasons? We shant even discuss how Kevin and Scotty’s surrogate did not miscarry, but in fact had their child, then reappeared and after some hokiness deposited said baby on Justin’s (Justin’s?!?) doorstep. The show went from dynamic to drab; I joked with a friend it should have been renamed “Marriage and Babies” since that seemed to be the thrust of the arc for the current season. It was only right that ABC finally pulled the plug.
Still, one wonders what Jon Robin Baitz feels, if he does at all, for his creations now? (He was booted from the show early on.) And if the show had gone on into season six, what might viewers have been in store for? Saul’s gay wedding? Kitty’s inevitable miscarriage? Plots involving Brody’s insane offspring, of which we only got a glimpse at Sarah’s wedding? We’ll never know! But good grief I’m OK with that!
Of one thing, though, we can be certain: while the show has ended, it will always be wine o’ clock in Nora Walker’s kitchen.
