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Sunday, November 25, 2007

Brotherhood Season 2 Episode 9: The Anti-Thanksgiving Gem

I was thinking that this second season of Brotherhood has been a little more lumpy than the first - still very enjoyable but not as powerful, well-plotted, and original as last year - until tonight.

In many ways, tonight's Episode 9 om Showtime was a perfect standalone, anti-Thanksgiving story. Nobody gets what he or she wants, but some got it worse than others. The turkey never makes to the table at the Caffee house. I wasn't sure which one, because Rose wasn't there - she was going for a tryst with an old flame in the Biltmore. That doesn't quite work the way she wanted, at first - the gent isn't senile, but ...

Meanwhile, Tommy and Michael of course argue about MaryRose's smoking weed (the coming attractions made too big a deal of this), and Eileen's none too happy about this either. But she and Tommy (and Michael and Tommy) do draw closer at the end. Poor Colin gets just about nothing - no American Thanksgiving, which he's seen from afar and wanted to be part of for years - because Michael sends Colin out to do some very important business....

Which brings us to the way the plot was moved surprisingly forward, tonight - but, first, I don't think I've seen as good an anti-holiday show as this in years, if ever. Mary Kate (Tommy and Michael's sister) has a great monologue in which she details the universal aggravations of Thanksgiving and what it's supposed to do but often does not.

Colin doesn't hear it, because he's out on Michael's business, as I've said. Which is ...

Well, Freddie Cork and Marty Trio do have a fine Thanksgiving, at least for the most part. They're in a cottage on the bay, Freddie with his wife and Marty with his lover. The Fed agent is doing this for them because they will spill their guts tomorrow about Michael and Tommy and the Mayor, and the idea is that all three will be sent off packing to prison and disgrace.

Except, Colin has some business to conduct this Thanksgiving, which not only gets in the way of his enjoying a proper family Thanksgiving, but will put a crimp in at least part of the Fed plan to snare the Caffees.

Brotherhood tonight was about as well-crafted as it gets. A brooding, profound masterpiece of an episode which I predict will become a television classic.

And next week's the finale.

See also Checking in Brotherhood Season 2 Episode 6: The Simmering Stu and Episode 10: Finale






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