(S02E15) "I'm leaving to get away from all of you!" - Nora Walker to her darling children, about moving to Washington D.C. with Isaac.

Sometimes what I actually want to review is the scenes for next week's show, because it seems more interesting than the one I just watched. However, I know that many of you deliberately do not watch those clips, so we shall say no more on the subject. I am glad the Walkers are back, and I like how they have handled the time off due to the strike: they simply said, "Three months later," and picked up with events then.

Before that jump, though, we learned some important things: That Graham and Sarah are still dating, that Tommy and Julia are still happily together, and that Senator Robert McCallister loses the Republican Party's nomination for the Presidency, so Robert returns to the Senate.

Fast forward three months

Kitty and Robert are trying to conceive a baby. Robert, despite having mentioned before in the show that he doesn't want more children, is supporting Kitty by giving her hormone shots daily so her eggs can be harvested. Apparently, they have been trying to conceive, because Kitty doesn't want to be disappointed again. I wonder if it gives him kind of a secret thrill to jab her every morning when she is kind of dragging him into this, but that's not very nice, is it? Robert admits to Isaac that being in the Senate no longer feels like enough. He doesn't think he could ask Kitty to endure another campaign with him, but he misses it. Hmmm, smells like foreshadowing, doesn't it?

Graham and Sarah are still hot and heavy. Tommy points out to Sarah that, hey, mixing business with pleasure isn't cool and she tells the pot to cool his black heels. What she forgot, though, was that ultimately Tommy's relationship fell apart, and he almost lost a lot both professionally and personally. She is making bad business decisions because she is engulfed with Graham. She doesn't want to approve a deal with China, but making Saul, who wants the deal, be her fall guy is just gauche.

I was so irritated with this storyline, because it undermines the smart businesswoman Sarah has been established to be in the series. Now, she is just a giddy schoolgirl, thinking with her pants. We wouldn't let men get away with that, so why let Sarah do it? I loved when Saul told her he'd take care of it. "What's one more favor?" That was infused with pure malice. That was as close as I've seen Rifkin get to his character, Sloan, from Alias on Brothers and Sisters. Rifkin is nearly perfect when he is just a little evil. He is so under-utilized on this show: Let's give him something more to do besides denying he is gay.

Nora and Isaac: Should she stay or should she go now? Isaac is far too polite to those brothers. I would have taken the golf club and wrung it around a few Walker necks at those questions. When the Walker brothers were sniggering that Isaac couldn't afford a pool, I was sputtering on my couch. That was way beyond rude and condescending. Talk about elitist.

I'd like to know how many viewers can relate to that world: Tittering on a golf course about someone not being able to afford a pool (especially when he was clearly playing them on that issue, anyway). What also makes it problematic is that there is a tacit assumption that if he can't afford to keep her in the style to which she has become accustomed that he isn't good enough for her. It's classist, elitist again, and highly privileged. Is this really what the Walkers are like? Rich, stuck up white kids from California who have to have a certain standard of living and smirk at others who do not? There was no discussion of race, but I was still eerily aware that a black man was being grilled on a golf course by three snotty white men half his age, and I found the whole scene utterly distasteful.

If you are reading my reviews for the first time, you may be under the impression that I do not like the Walkers or this show. I adore the Walkers, though, and this show, and so that is why I am a bit ticked about this episode. When this show is good, it's very good. When it's bad, it's horrible. This just wasn't a particularly good episode. It set up the scene for other things to happen and for there to be strong episodes, but this episode wasn't weak simply because of slapstick or uneven writing: It had some distinctly, strongly ick factor moments, as I discussed above. I hope we don't see that kind of behavior from these people again, especially from people who claim to have a strong social conscience (and I mean writers and characters alike here).

I loved it, however, when Sarah slapped Kevin and told him to be a man, but the whole storyline was so contrived. Did anyone really think Nora would actually leave? It would have been more interesting to let her go and see what Washington, D.C. was like, and to let her make a real decision about whether to move so far from her kids for a chance at a new love. I am rather hoping she will miss Isaac so much that she will go ahead and go. It's ridiculous anyway: They all clearly have enough money for her to commute.

Holly | David | Rebecca

It's Rebecca's birthday, ruined Walker-style by the kids squabbling over Nora being able to make sound decisions about her own life when it doesn't suit them. The most interesting part of this threesome is the still-looming possibility that David might be Rebecca's father after all. This would cause an identity crisis for Rebbecca, but it opens up some very interesting storylines to come if this is the case. I continue to love Ken Olin, scruffiness and all, and I really enjoy watching him act with Patricia Wettig because they are so good that I forget they are married in real life.