A Note from the Author
So, before I talk about this week's episode, I thought I might catch you all up on the goings on at Stages 6 & 7 at Disney. It's been a while since I wrote an episode. Sunday night's "Love is Difficult" (co-written with humor and grace by Ms. Molly Newman) represents my first writing on
Brothers & Sisters since "Mistakes Were Made, Pt 1." Also, today I finished co-writing episode 18 with
Marc Guggenheim, and
Greg Berlanti and I are going to pen the season finale together, which I am looking forward to. His hand is on all the scripts, and I freely acknowledge that we would not be here had it been left to me alone - Greg understands the delicate and sophisticated balance of dark and light, escapism and truth-telling that works here. I honestly believe that my episodes would have been a miasma of angst without his gentle touch, and we'd be off the air. Not that I don't have a sense of humor - I mean, I know my way around a joke - but somehow, I tend to gravitate towards the serious plots when it comes to the Walkers. Berlanti has gently taught this old dog new tricks, or led the horse to water and made him rethink. You know what I mean. Anyhow, he's about to make his own pilot, from a brilliant script by him and Mr. Guggenheim called
Eli Stone, which I wager will be on the fall schedule here at ABC. We'll have a little less of him on hand for a bit, and I'll try and carry on the tradition of balance that he's instilled so seamlessly into the fabric of the show.
I find myself deeply embedded in various places in Sunday's episode, drawing from my own biography and my own current state of being, politically, romantically and emotionally. As the creator of a show, you want to be able locate yourself in the heart of the thing, and this episode, "Love is Difficult," is a good example of how that works. The title is from the great German poet Rilke's
Letters To A Young Poet. To quote the exact line:
"Love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation."
Kevin gives Chad a copy of the book, which turns out to be a favorite of Chad's, who is able to quote the passage. A prior scene was cut (as the script was too long), in which Kitty and Kevin wander around a bookstore while Kitty accuses Kevin, who is looking for a copy of the Rilke book, of using literature to test whether or not Chad is worthy of him. Kevin is sort of - of all the people on the show - frighteningly like me: skittish, romantic, screwed up, afraid of intimacy and deeply in need of it. Yeah. Me. A few years ago, I went out with a sort of aging supermodel-boy, who was not dissimilar to Chad, though he was far, far crazier. (He told me once that he thought he might be the re-incarnation of Jesus. Our last date.) My ego was bolstered by the beauty factor, and I've tried to damn Kevin with the same egocentric weakness I experienced by being with someone absurdly beautiful. What can I say? We try and grow.
Another important storyline this week involves Sarah and Joe's visits to a marriage counselor, which are also drawn very much from my own experience. I would go once a week with the person I loved up to this shrink's office, and we would try and sort out why were in trouble, even though - like Sarah and Joe - we loved each other with all our hearts. I think those scenes, with the great and quiet
Joel Grey as the therapist, will ring very true to anyone who has been to couple's counseling. There's yearning and frustration mixed with the desire to protect your loved one and get out of the room in one piece. In my case, after the session ended, my mate and I would stand on the street, spent, wounded, exhausted, but usually relieved and able to joke about it. We are no longer together, but we are best friends, still family, so I can't say that it didn't work. I drew on the energy I recalled in the therapist's office and tried to recreate that. And it was good to have Mr. Grey here. He's an old friend, also family, and I think it's likely that we'll see more of him. The character is based on another shrink of mine, now deceased, who quietly probed, and quietly enquired of me, without ever offering concrete plans and advice. I would rage at him, looking for guidance and easy solutions to impossible problems.
Another area of the show I find myself drawn to is the shifting political landscape as we come up on the first moments in a very long election campaign. I was brought up in a fiercely lefty household, and yet, I find myself questioning my own deeply-felt progressive inclinations, especially in the post-9/11 world. And so, Kitty's involvement with conservatism, and a conservative presidential candidate (more Giuliani than McCain, truth be told), is also close to my heart and a way of exploring my own confusion and changing priorities.
Finally, in this episode, Nora starts to explore her future - not as a mom - but as a woman, a human being, an individual in the world who has to rethink the strictures of her role as mother and widow. Right before Sept. 11, 2001, my own dad passed away, and that's all over the show too - like William Walker, he was in the food business, and a quiet, powerful patriarch, who left a hole in his wake. And Nora's grief has a lot in common with that of my mother's at times. But that's life. If she feels I've borrowed, she doesn't mind. She knows I love her. But I'll tell you one thing; if I have kids, I will so not let them become writers. Because writers invade your privacy and then tell you they love you.
