TV Show Analysis

Brothers and Sisters: TV Show

Black Font: Assumptions
Red Font: What Actually Happened

Characters are all family

Nora: Mother
William: Deceased Father
Sarah: Sister
Kitty: Sister
Tommy: Brother
Kevin: Brother
Justin: Brother

Judging from the flashbacks that are happening, the father has recently died

Father recently died of a heart attack

They are concerned about the one character (Justin) that is in the hospital

They are worried about Justin who overdosed because he got a letter saying he had to go back to the Army to fight in Iraq. Flashbacks show that the family was against him joining the Army in the 1^st place right after 9-11.

They have a family business that causes a lot of arguments, may be in trouble/3 of siblings (Sarah, Tommy, and Kevin) work together in it judging how they are going on a trip together and were in a meeting together/Got excited over news they found while on their trip/family is all excited about the findings

Father was hiding something. Sarah, Tommy, and Kevin work together. Kevin is the lawyer for the company. Apparently their father brought land in the desert, and they have no reason why. They were excited because they found out that the land belonged to the Army and was worth a lot of money. Enough money to save the family business

Apparently Sarah found out that their dad had another child with his mistress and she tells the Kevin and Tommy

Girl (Kitty) in a relationships with co-worker…maybe involved with another co-worker too? Love triangle

Male co-worker is involved with the intern, not Kitty; although judging by the hug her gave Kitty after she told him about how the Army called Justin back to fight in Iraq, they may have been in a relationship in the past

Mom is worried about son over something/taking frustration out by cooking (can tell by how she is kneading bread really hard)/crying in the pantry closet

Worried over Justin going back to war and losing him too after she just lost her husband

One brother doesn’t know anything about cars/apparently messed it up and car is in shop. The another brother chases him for screwing up

He poured water into the engine instead of the oil filter which caused the car to break down

Another daughter has a TV show judging by how she interviewed someone in front of the camera/another female co-worker goes to the boss about something the one daughter did, obviously jealous over something/girl did something during the tape interview that she is apologizing for now. Can tell by her disappointed and upset face as she’s talking about/she apparently did a favor for the person she interviewed

Kitty is a political pundit on a TV show, and is interviewing a senator. Senator asked Kitty not to bring up his divorce in return of him doing her a favor. Kitty asked him to pull strings so her brother didn’t have to go back to Iraq. Senator couldn’t do it, and that’s why Kitty apologized. Senator thanks Kitty at the end of the show and offers her a position on his staff.

Daughter is upset with male co-worker/one she is in a relationship with, and now crying to male co-worker over the issue

Male co-worker tells his girlfriend/inter that he thought Kitty bribed the Senator. Kitty confesses how the first time Justin left, it broke the family up, and she’s afraid it’s going to happen again, and she will be blamed for it. She admits she is scared for her brother’s safety.

Family likes to drink, alcohol, wine and such in many scenes

Wine at meals, drinking in a bar

One brother (Kevin) is apparently gay about how he approached another guy and looked about him

When car breaks down, Kevin says the other siblings aren’t allowed to make gay jokes/comments; sleeps with a guy he meets at a bar

Sister on TV (Kitty) doesn’t know how to cook judging by how she was cracking open an egg and stirring with a whisk and burnt pie

When Kitty volunteers to help cook for Thanksgiving, Nora comments on how she is not a very good chef. Justin jokes as well when he sees her helping in the kitchen.

Another brother announces some excited news at the end of the table with his wife. Judging by how the family reacted. They are expecting a child

Tommy and his wife Julia are expecting their first child

While doing this assignment, I realized that verbal communication plays a vital role in understanding what is going on, but you can also get messages and plot lines across from watching the interactions of the characters and their facial expressions. However, I missed a major plot line of when Sarah told Tommy and Kevin that they had another sibling. I thought they were just arguing because of the land was useless. I think if I would watch this show on a regular basics, I would know more about the family and what happened leading up to this episode, so some of the plot lines would make more sense.

By doing this assignment, I learned that verbal communication is needed to reinforce non-verbal communication. I also realized that it is very easy to misinterpret non-verbal communication when you are listening to the verbal communication. I think this is helpful for myself and colleagues because we need to use non-verbal communication to reinforce our verbal messages to ensure we are communicated clearing with families and children.