Brothers and Sisters recap: Heartbreak Hotel

This week’s episode, “Get a Room,” opened on Boniva-enriched Sally Field’s Nora doing voice work for a commercial for “Forever Tabs.” These were apparently vitamins, but sounded at first like a scrapbooking tool kit. “All you have to do is take one, and we’re legally clear,” said her boss. And with that, an age-old mystery (Does Sally Field Really Use Boniva Herself?) was solved. Put a Forever Tab on that page of U.S. History!

The next product Nora and Dr. Karl had to shill for was none other than the illustrious Hotel Velone — future site of all kinds of Walker Family shenanigans! Every couple, old and new, ended up in this random hotel for the night. Can you blame ’em? “They make the beds!” All you need to provide is the magic. Scream it, Sally: “PEOPLE HAVE BEEN HAVING SEX FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS.” Why wouldn’t they go to Hotel Velone? Plus, let’s not forget: It was half-off!

Kitty had traveled “all the way down” to Wexley University to be welcomed by a scary dean lady whose tone of voice seemed like she was brutally insulting her the whole time, deliver a guest lecture, and sleep with a student. It all started in the coffee shop, when Smith from Cougar Town (Ryan Devlin) left his phone number on her skinny vanilla latte with whip. In case we didn’t hear him either time he said “WITH WHIP,” Kitty helpfully licked a glob of whip off her upper lip over the longest five seconds of the episode. A few not really fun facts about the U.S. Presidents, and suddenly Kitty and Seth were making out in the pantry! “You’re hot!” the 27-year-old exclaimed. “I KNOW,” Kitty replied. Kids! Always stating the obvious. “He’s very cute in a Genius Bar kind of way,” Kitty assured Sarah, the Queen of All Media, over the phone.

The Queen assured Nora that even though Sarah owned her ass, Nora should could kiss anyone she wanted at work. “I never let it stop me!” Sarah bragged, with poor, cheated-on-via-work-based-sex Kevin on the other line. No wonder he was stress-eating (in anticipation of a social worker’s visit to determine whether he and Scotty were fit to adopt) and beginning to freak out. “This brownie’s a little much,” Kevin said, in what would turn out to be the greatest understatement of the episode. Kevin! Whenever you think something’s a little much, put it back! It’s drugs!

Kevin on a medical marijuana brownie = AMAZING. The best moment of the episode, for me, was when we came back from a commercial break and Kevin was huddled on the floor behind a “security pillow” that looked like one of those 1980s-era “Nail Girl” stencils on salon windows. (There are tons of ’em still up today, particularly in the Chicagoland area!) Anyway, stoned-out-of-his-gourd Kevin was a beautiful, scary, tragic thing. I loved his story about getting stoned (off a blunt!) in high school, burying the rest of it in “Justin’s little sandbox in case the police found it,” furiously studying his Spanish textbooks so he could just focus on something — anything — else, and then….then! Coming face to shredded-paper-eyed face with his mother, Sally Field the Spanish-speaking pinata. I was dying here! Can the whole show next week please be a series of Walker Family Trips? It’d be like National Lampoon’s Vacations except everywhere you’d look, there’d be overgrown weeds and enormous puddles of 2006 Trinoro Rosso Toscana. And at the end of the chardonnay brick road: delicious roast chicken.

NEXT: Sorry Nora — the Hotel Velone has a zero-tolerance policy for wine-induced suicide!Obviously Kevin and Scotty needed to show up at the Velone — as Sarah had warned Luc before, “Gay people love this hotel.” Sarah’s luxurious pre-honeymoon with the about-to-depart-for-China Luc was cut short by her stupid stoned brother. (And the time she kicked Luc in the head…and all the shattered glass…but whatever!) Sarah proceeded to freak Kevin out enough that adrenaline would begin to kick in. “Hotels have dogs to catch people like you, Kevin.” Ha! I know this was terrible, but she was so convincing that I sort of loved it. (Maybe there was a SWAT Team headed their way. I wasn’t looking at everyone in the lobby. I totally could have missed that. And if Sarah’s the Queen of All Media, she is technically the ruler of me.)

The Evil Queen ruined everything for Nora, who had mustered up the courage to visit Hotel Velone with Dr. Karl. It should have been easy. PEOPLE HAVE BEEN HAVING SEX FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS. Too bad Sarah had run into cagey Karl in the lobby — he’d lied that he was there alone, then ordered the complimentary boat of sex strawberries from the concierge/sex store. A furious Sarah called the bad doctor’s room while Nora was robing up in the bathroom. “My mother has real feelings for you. There are five of us and we look out for each other,” Sarah warned him. So obviously Karl acted weird when Nora came out. Of course he couldn’t handle this. He couldn’t even handle the transferral of ice-cold liquid from Nora’s shirt to his shirt moments earlier. The guy is a mess! Nora stormed out. “Ugh, Karl,” said Karl. (That was really cute.)

I relished Nora’s answer to Sarah’s question about why she was wearing a robe to roam the halls of Hotel Velone. “Because it’s more embarrassing like this.” Seriously! She did not need to be wearing that robe. Love it. It would have been especially sartorially dramatic if Nora had followed through with her threatened eighth-floor suicide. No! Not at the Hotel Velone!!!

Luc pulled through here with a reminder to Nora that even though men can be heartless, most of them just act like fools. “The better ones admit it. You should at least hear him out.” Awww! Gilles Marini! I love you; don’t leave. Luc’s pep talk worked: After waiting what seemed like a lifetime (three seconds) for ol’ Karl to complete a text message, Nora threw on clothes and met Karl at the bar.

The budding lovebirds had a lengthy, eye-opening chat. Karl was married for 18 months to a woman who didn’t like cabernet (the horror!). He never wanted kids, has difficulty expressing his feelings, speaks to a shrink once a week, and has severe intimacy issues. Well then! It became a bit clearer to Nora why Karl would toss out the admittedly harsh “I don’t think I can handle your family” card as soon as he’d been flung into panic mode. The reason he’d panicked after hearing from Queen Sarah was that Karl was falling for Nora, too! Aggggghhhh! Good times!

So then Nora and Karl, who were seated happily at a hotel bar with a hotel room reserved for the night, decided to take the pressure off themselves and set up a totally different date, for which Nora would need to shop and then cook, instead. How about tonight?!? Yeah, I guess that could work. “TEXT ME.” OMG.

In the end, Kevin and Scotty’s social worker couldn’t even make it the next day, so they decided to hop on the broke-ass bandwagon and steal away to a hotel. But in order to avoid the prawns, they’ll need to leave the state. Vegas, (future) baby! Here they come.

Is anyone else sad about Luc’s two-month painting asssigment? Should Kitty keep hooking up with her biggest fan (she’s already in his Favorites!)? What is ‘hooking up,’ really? Discuss last night’s Brothers and Sisters below!

Previous recap: Absinthe Makes The Heart Grow Fonder

Annie on Twitter: @EWAnnieBarrett

Editor’s Note: This is the final 2010 recap for Brothers and Sisters. Our workforce is limited, and page views can no longer justify the assignment. We hope to continue B&S recaps in the future; for now, thank you for reading…and remember to take your Boniva.