God, the plotlines in this episode are so interwoven that it's a practical impossibility to separate them, except for Kitty and Robert, so I'll start there. Robert makes it home from the hospital, and he and Kitty discuss telling his kids about the heart attack without bringing up the bigger issue of the gubernatorial campaign. Kitty and her new Hairdo Of Sadness commiserate with Kevin and Robert's ex-wife Courtney, who's brought the kids around to see Robert get more snappish and obstinate by the minute. Kitty then calls him on avoiding admitting any weakness to anyone, and Robert admits that he's exhausted and in agony before Kitty prevails on him to tell the kids the truth, or at least a slightly bright-sided version of it. When he's alone, though, he completely breaks down, and it's good to see his recent experience has affected him but the fact that he won't share that with his own wife means the marriage is still obviously heading toward its end.

Sarah, Kevin, and Tommy all blow off Nora's attempt to get them together with Ryan, although in Tommy's case, he really doesn't have a choice because the date she's proposing conflicts with his arraignment, not that he or anyone else tells Nora this at the start. Justin isn't in attendance, however, as he's hella pissed at the way Tommy used Rebecca as a pawn in his scheme, but that doesn't stop him from avoiding Ryan as well. Justin and Rebecca promise each other that they won't take sides, but you'd know that resolution is doomed even if the episode weren't titled "Taking Sides." Tommy gets out on bail, but Julia goes ballistic when she realizes he's guilty and tells him not to come home, which thankfully takes the air out of everyone saying that Tommy shouldn't go to jail because he has a family that depends on him. Sarah and Kevin meet up with Saul and come up with the idea of appealing to Holly to settle the matter without criminal charges, and Sarah suggests they get Justin to talk to Rebecca in hopes that she'll see things their way and influence her mother. Justin firmly nixes this plan, though, so Sarah mans up and goes to talk to Holly herself, but Holly is unmoved. Meanwhile, Nora, of course, won't take being avoided at face value, so she drags Ryan to Ojai, where Rebecca tries to run interference so Nora won't find out about Tommy. She succeeds for the moment, but Nora guilts her and everyone else into a family dinner, despite Rebecca's astute worry that seeing Tommy will be a nightmare. Justin then backslides and asks Rebecca to talk to Holly, which she does, although she wisely positions the favor as being for the benefit of her relationship with Justin than for anything to do with Tommy. David backs Rebecca up, and Holly soberly says she'll think about it.

At dinner, the kids fake enthusiasm for meeting Ryan to cover the tension over Tommy's imminent plan to tell Nora about his plight, although Sarah at least seems genuinely to like him, but when Tommy can't stop acting like the total dick he is, Kevin bitches to Scotty, and Ryan overhears -- and unwittingly spills the beans to Nora. This leads to a knock-down drag-out in which Tommy is such an unbelievable asshole that he (a) completely poleaxes his chances of any sympathy from Rebecca and (b) offends his own mother so much that she slaps him in the face in front of everyone. In the aftermath, Ryan consoles Rebecca, and she then dumps Justin and goes running back to her parents. Nora chews Saul out for keeping her in the dark, and they have an ugly confrontation that's difficult to watch, to be honest. Ryan is a bright spot for Nora, though, as he's crazy enough to stick around even after everything he's seen. In the end, a distraught Justin joins Tommy in staying with Sarah, unaware that just as Rebecca is about to call him, Ryan shows up to check on her. Looks like they're positioning a Ryan/Rebecca romance, and while that's certainly less gross than the thing with Justin, I still have to ask this: Really?