Brothers & Sisters doesn’t seem to get the attention that lead-in Desperate Housewives enjoys, but certainly is rife with the same sort of drama.
Emily VanCamp (Everwood’s Amy Abbott) has now joined the regular cast of Brothers & Sisters as Rebecca Harper, half-sister to the Walker siblings and the illegitimate daughter of the late William Walker and Holly Harper (Patricia Wettig). Rebecca bonds with Justin first among the Walker sibs, after discovering her mother had been lying to her about her parentage for her whole life. Will she become a real part of the family?
Emily VanCamp says we’ll see Rebecca “unravel and open up to this family as the episodes go on. There’s a rough edge to her. She grew up with a single mom who was more of a best friend than a mother. She had to fend for herself and when you don’t have any male influences in your life it toughens you up as a girl, so she has a chip on her shoulder.”
As for the rest of the family, they’re pretty busy with their own melodramatic plotlines. Julia is pregnant with twins – but doesn’t know which of her sterile husband’s sperm-donor brothers is the father. Her husband Tommy (Balthazar Getty) will become concerned about this and want to figure out which is the father – Justin (Dave Annable), who’s battled a drug problem and is headed back to war in Afghanistan, or Kevin (Matthew Rhys), the gay brother who’s out of the closet but not quite comfortable about it yet.
Sarah Jane Morris, who plays Julia, says this “definitely causes some friction, but not long-term” for Julia and Tommy. Morris is not pregnant in real life and wears a padded suit.
Margot Kidder will be returning in May as Emily Craft, pal of Nora Holden (Sally Field).
The final episodes of Brothers & Sisters’ first season will introduce McAllister’s gay brother (no news yet on casting for this role) and after getting past a momentary case of mistaken identity, Kitty (Calista Flockhart) will set him up with her brother Kevin (Matthew Rhys) on a date that TV Guide’s Michael Ausiello says will go “disastrously wrong.”
The New York Times recently called Brothers & Sisters “one of the best of the chick TV genre.” Are you watching?
-Mel, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Sources: TV Guide, LA Daily News
Photo courtesy of ABC
Staff Columnist, BuddyTV
