Brothers & Sisters: Season 4 (2009-10)

Looking back at my blog it was only September when we finished watching Season 3 of Brothers & Sisters, and now we've finished Season 4, which was shown in a similar fashion, daily on Channel 4. Unfortunately, we watched Season 4 with spoilers in mind - forgetting which season we'd seen, I recorded the first two episodes of Season 5 on More4 earlier in the year, and watching them we were very confused and assumed time had moved on a year or two (Desperate Housewives did it, jumping forward 5 years!) but thought it odd that the car crash everyone kept mentioning hadn't been seen, and we couldn't remember Luc being in it before, but maybe we'd forgotten him. A quick look on Wikipedia showed me the error we'd made, and so we stopped watching Season 5 and luckily Season 4 started shortly thereafter. 

This season felt stronger than those that had gone before, the storylines seemed more long-reaching and arced over several episodes, and the drama was heightened. Season 4 sees Kitty diagnosed with cancer, getting it into remission and then running for husband Robert's senate seat. Kevin and Scotty try for a baby with a surrogate, while Kevin learns a shocking secret that his mother has been hiding from his youth in an episode oozing drama and featuring lots of Sally Field crying. Justin began med school, was failing, then wanted to drop out and go to Haiti, all the while contending with wedding-to-Rebecca based drama - since Kitty collapsed at their beach wedding, they end up just finishing off that storyline in a registry office. Sarah goes to France, meets hunky Luc (Gilles Marini) and also has a bit of a fling with Jay Karnes from The Shield, before sorting out Luc's green card... and then driving family business Ojai into the ground. Nora has a fling with a doctor who turns out to be swindling her out of her savings, and she's generally there for everyone else. Tommy surprisingly pops back now and then to glower and argue with people, and Saul floats around in the background, eventually discovering in the final episode that at 70, he has HIV. 

Holly Harper, her with. The. Strange. Del. Ivery. Of. Dia. Logue. gets to make friends with Nora and there's a particularly funny episode with them playing detective to find out the key mystery of the season, what is Narrow Lake? It's an intriguing mystery, one that comes and goes but is finally solved in the season finale. Oh I almost forgot the other starring character, William's bastard son Ryan, who is around for some evil deeds at the beginning of the season, then donates the bone marrow that saves Kitty and is never heard from or mentioned again, except the actors name appears on screen every episode. Odd. 

Holly and Nora walked in on Rebecca and Justin on their honeymoon...

The finale - where I knew partly what was going to happen after seeing the opening of Season 5 - still struck an emotional chord with me, I was shocked and, to be honest, a bit choked up when the crash occurred. It was really well done, with all the main characters in their cars driving off from another successful family meal (where Robert had a funny turn with his heart), and the scenes showing each carload happily driving along and then resting on Rebecca and Justin at the back of the convoy... as they come across a scene of carnage, a lorry jack-knifed across the road, with various Walkers stumbling around, with me willing the camera around to find out who's injured and who's ok - Holly's trapped! Scotty's ok! Saul won't let anyone touch his bloodied head - he has HIV! Robert's crushed! It was an emotional rollercoaster I'll tell you that! They cheated by making you think Robert was going to have a heart attack earlier, only for him to be a casualty in car crash (it's a narrative trick the writers pulled off earlier in the season too, in the first episode it looked like Rebecca and Justin were going to crash their car, only for them to swerve and avoid death - in the very next scene Kitty is told she has cancer; then it looks like it was Tommy who, years ago, killed or crippled a friend in car crash, only for it to be revealed that actually, Kevin was the one who pushed his friend and paralysed him). None of these diversions felt fake, and they made the dramatic impact of the real events more affecting. 

I can't wait for Channel 4 to put Season 5 on a daily schedule, I want more Brothers and Sisters!!