"Mum seems cares more about brick and mortar than she does about people."

In this episode of Brothers & Sisters, the Walker family has to grapple with the fact that they have to liquidate their company, including sell the family office and warehouse building, in order to recover enough money to help their laid-off employees tide over.

In the early part of the show, mother Nora Walker learns that the prospective buyer is a carpark complex developer who intends to bulldoze the office building over to erect a complex to accommodate the many residential lofts that were growing in the area. Nora has a row with her daughter, Co-President of the family business:

SARAH WALKER
You told him to go away?

NORA WALKER
Yes, I sent him away, Sarah. How can you even consider selling the place to someone who just wants to tear it down?

SARAH WALKER
Because he made the best offer.

NORA WALKER
But Sarah, this building is the only thing left to show that we ever here, that the company even existed. How can you sell it to someone who just wants to scrape it off the face of the earth?



SARAH WALKER
You think I want to?

NORA WALKER
Did you even try to find someone else?

SARAH WALKER
Of course, I did, Mum, we're damned lucky we found this guy.

NORA WALKER
There has to be someone.

SARAH WALKER
It's a building, for god's sake. While it might hold some sentimental value for us, I can't let that keep us from making the right deal.

Failing to convince Sarah, and looks to finding potential buyers. Nora considers selling the building back to the originating architect, who has since then become a famous builder:

NORA WALKER
I was thinking, our building was one of the first buildings...

ROGER GRANT
The very first.

NORA WALKER
The first? That's perfect. I think you should buy the building, then you can keep it safe and protected from any horrible person who wants to tear it down.

ROGER GRANT
Are you kidding? I'll pay someone to do that.

Nora, I'm glad the building has been there for your wonderful business for many years. But it's never going to make the Roger Grant architectural tour, I mean it's just a pastiche of all the other buildings downtown. I was copying other buildings back then. The truth is, I'm more interested in where I've gotten to.



NORA WALKER
Yes, I see, you are now into newer, younger, more modern designs. Sleek and smooth. Yes, yes, perfectly clear.

ROGER GRANT
I have no idea you take my dating a younger woman so seriously.

NORA WALKER
I don't give a rat's ass about your girlfriend. It's the disdain you have for your own history that bothers me. You just want to plaster over all your imperfections of your career, as if you can botox your whole past away.

Look, I don't love my wrinkles and I'm certainly not fond of my neck. But I'm not ashamed of them, it's a record of the life I've lived. Our building is humble and simple, and I love it. And I'm just so sorry for you that you don't.

("Lights Out," Brothers & Sisters, Season 4, Episode 23, 9 May 2010.)