February 18, 2007: Love Is Difficult
It was a surprise to hear Noah's name mentioned tonight. After briefly appearing in the opening episodes, he seemed to disappear. I thought we were going to go through the rest of the season without hearing about him again. But in attempting to address her feelings toward Joe's friend Vanessa, Sarah was forced to confront her own confusing extramarital friendship and how it affected the way she feels about her husband. Coming clean to Joe didn't seem to help much, at least for now. In fact, Sarah looked so inconsolable during her solo visit to the therapist that it was hard not to wonder if Sarah and Joe were ever going to be able to get back to the place they were before.
And Sarah's marriage wasn't her only problem. Tommy continued to distance himself from her and the rest of the Walkers by officially going into business with Holly, although not until he did some checking to make sure Holly was being genuine in her offer. The flashback scenes with William (guest star
Tom Skerritt) made Tommy appear a little more sympathetic. Tommy seems to have worked his way up to the top of the family business, while Sarah's Ivy League education and work experience at a large corporation allowed her to start right at the top. Clearly Tommy's been in Sarah's shadow for a long time, despite his consistently solid performance, and that can't be easy.
The tables were turned tonight for Kevin and Chad, with Chad for once doing the chasing. Kevin forgave him rather quickly, as seems to be his pattern with Chad. But their happiness was short-lived, as Kevin seemed pretty shaken by Michelle's phone call. The sight of Michelle sitting alone with a bottle by her side was pretty depressing, and I hope Kevin takes her warning seriously. If Chad is, in fact, not ready, then trying to be in a relationship with him is going to bring Kevin nothing but heartache.
Kitty and the senator continued testing the waters of being both co-workers and in a relationship. Trying to interpret polls looked like it could be a potential problem, but I think if they take the senator's approach of not worrying about what people think, they'll be OK. I think Nora will be OK, too: It was nice to see her getting involved with subjects that really interest her, like writing and art. It seems like that will be a lot more fulfilling than her attempt to get involved at Ojai, as she doesn't appear to have much of an interest in business.
And last but certainly not least, we finally got to meet Rebecca (
Emily VanCamp). Her brief appearance at the end didn't allow us to find out much about her character. But now that Tommy and Holly are working so closely together, she's most likely not going to be a stranger to the rest of the Walkers for long.
