My Own Moral Compass

Recently, one of the more interesting storylines in ATWT was the revelation of the affair between Holden Snyder and his best-friend-and-cousin's ex-wife, Carly Tenney, who happened to be the best friend of Holden's wife, Lily. I shall now endeavour to rate, on a scale of 1 to 10, the moral rightness of various actions taken since.

(1) Holden telling Lily about the affair. 8
(2) Lily attempting to run Carly over in her car. 2
(3) Carly promising never to see Holden again. 9
(4) Carly seeing Holden again. 3
(5) Lily yelling at Holden in front of hitherto-unaware daughter Faith. 5
(6) Luke comforting said Faith. 10
(7) Emma trying to get the family back together at the most awkward barbeque since the aptly named "Pasadena Meet the Mistress Barbeque" of Brothers & Sisters.* 8
(8) Parker calling Carly a "slut." 5

NEXT: Line of the week.

*Credit Kyle Mathews

Something for everyone: an ATWT tonight!

Last week, ATWT taught us all a valuable lesson about Republicans and Democrats. In one corner, we have the Republicans, the brothers Jack and Brad Snyder! In the other corner, we have the Democrats, Katie Peretti Frasier Coleman Kasnoff Snyder Snyder [sic] and Janet Ciccone!

To briefly summarise the relationships: Jack and Janet are sleeping together; Janet and Brad sired a daughter, Liberty, together; and Jack and Katie are married. (For the record, Jack and Katie were also married for about ten days last fall.) Jack is Parker's adoptive father.

The interesting part of the burgeoning romance between 17-year old Liberty and 15-year old Parker is their parents' reactions: both men can't countenance the idea of their children having sex (as though they were some kind of role models), and both women just give in, recognizing that there's not really anything they can do about it. The conversation is predictable (and somewhat paraphrased):

JANET: I'm going to take Liberty to the gynaecologist!
BRAD: Why?
JANET: Why do you think?
BRAD: I don't know! I'm not the brightest bulb in the wheelbarrow!
[...]
JANET: I gave Liberty birth control!
JACK: Why?
JANET: They were going to have sex anyway. I just made sure they had it safely!
BRAD: I'm going to kill Parker!
JACK: No, you just encouraged them to have sex!
KATIE: Look. She was looking out for her daughter. She didn't want Liberty to repeat her own mistakes.
BRAD: I'm going to kill Parker!

Meanwhile:

PARKER: Want to have sex?
LIBERTY: Sure! I have condoms!

So everybody wins. The conservatives can say that "giving condoms to children makes them have sex! Look at Liberty and Parker!" The liberals can say that "giving condom to children makes them have sex safely! Look at Liberty and Parker!"

This is the balancing act that the writers did really well with this story that they couldn't really come up with for Luke and Noah.

NEXT: Holden, Lily, and Carly. [This one might not come until Thursday. Apologies in advance.]