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In other words, the seventh-grade level of dealing with male emotions that characterize the show on-screen would seem to play a part in the behind-the-screen process of creating character arcs. Such antics don't bode well for the show's gay representations improving.

Then last week Tolan, in an interview he and Denis Leary granted to TV critic and blogger Alan Sepinwal, seemed to be backpedaling from the Ausiello column quotes, telling Sepinwall, "I had originally pitched that storyline [Probie's]...Part of that was that Probie actually was--we'd set up a guy who was searching for love, was restless and lonely and all those things, he'd had the relationship with the overweight woman last season--and he was just searching. So it made sense that this was the next step that it would be."

One is intrigued by that unfinished sentence: "Probie actually was--"What? Gay? Bi? Curious? Confused?

Sepinwall's question regarding the Probie storyline was rooted in commentary that Tolan himself evidently supplied under the name "JimSpriggs" to the web site TelevisionWithoutPity, in which he explained the evolution (or rather, devolution) of the Probie storyline in a way that fills in the blanks that crop up in the Sepinwall interview: "The truth of the story is--we've sort of bailed on the original pitch and now we're neither fish nor fowl."

Viewers could sense that for themselves, but what "JimSpriggs" had to say next went more to the heart of the matter: "The original pitch had Probie much more invested in the relationship with the guy. When the [firehouse] crew found out about what was going on, they joked and slowly accepted it, but something else happened--they all started to chip away at him, questioning him, breaking his resolve about his choice.

“Soon he'd be so uncertain about what he was doing, he'd go to the guy with the intent of breaking things off. The guy--in love with Mike--would respond violently--and I can't say much more. It was very dark and much more interesting than what we've got now. Honestly, we disagreed about the story among ourselves--and now we're stuck with a much more shallow story that's played, sadly, more for laughs."

In other words, the original storyline came right out of the conventional mold in which a straight character goes astray for a brief period of time only to find that "true" gays are a dangerous and emotionally volatile group.

As such, it's one more point along a disappointingly cliched arc for Probie, especially considering Tolan's own assertion that the character's dabbling in gay sex is a natural next point of interest in a sexual journey that previously included an affair with (horrors!) an "overweight woman."

Fat chicks as a gateway to gay sex: only in the universe of the straight male could a downward spiral through sexual confusion come equipped with such a ranking system.

"JimSpriggs" at least had the sensitivity to own up to the tiresome nature of television's well-worn and outdated views on gay characters when he wrote, "I've always felt--and this is going to sound odd coming from me, when you consider the bizarre undercurrent of homoeroticism that exists in Rescue Me--that writers in this age cheat by substituting sexuality for character."

Indeed, "JimSpriggs," whether he really is Tolan writing under a chat room pseudonym or not, seems to have put his finger right on the troubled pulse of the issue. Probie's character has not been served well by having his sexuality--and his sexual actions--treated as little more than a series of Beavis and Butthead-style sketches with modestly more "mature" (that is, R-rated) content.

Given the dribs and drabs of screen-time Probie's new romance has received so far, Tolan and Leary appear to be planning to extend the Probie storyline throughout all or most of the current season. There is always the possibility, however remote, that the gay storyline will pull itself up and blossom into something more meaningful than a lame recurring joke.

But the honest assessment, given what we've seen and heard thus far, is those gay viewers hoping for a realistic depiction of a young queer man in a macho profession looking for a little tenderness at home are probably better off retiring their hopes for Probie, and preparing for the worst: to see him stuffed back into the closet.

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