balthazar getty

(S01E22) Oh, sorry. Give me a minute to stop crying after that episode. I was crying about William and then I saw the scenes for next week and that just made it worse. Are they allowed to make people cry this much in two episodes in a row, when one of them isn't even the season finale?

Commenter Tomb100 told me last week that Brothers and Sisters had broken into the Top 20 TV shows two weeks ago. That is completely unsurprising to me because this show has gotten so strong. This episode was just excellent. They hit every note.

(S01E01) I had an early look at this one a couple weeks ago, and finally premiere day is here. The Brothers & Sisters writers face a tough problem with the launch of the show. There is just so much information to convey to give the viewer an idea of who all of these people are. It leads to what sometimes feels like a rushed episode.

This also means that most of the happenings around the family in this episode are set-ups for future arcs that will involve the characters. Sarah (Rachel Griffiths) and Tommy (Balthazar Getty) discovering the financial shenanigans of Uncle Saul (Ron Rifkin), Justin's (Dave Annable) hangups from his past, and Kitty's (Calista Flockhart) relationship with her mother (Sally Field) are all clearly things that we will be looking at closer as the show moves along. For me though, the highlight of this episode was the confrontation between Kitty and her mother.

As part of the run-up to the series finale of Alias, seasons four and five of the show are now available on iTunes. You can buy one episode for the usual $1.99 or you can buy all of season four for $34.99. And, for the rest of the season, new episodes will be available the morning after they air.

Alias returns tonight for a two-hour episode from 8 pm to 10:01 pm (thus, no Lost).