The gaying of Uncle Saul: Answers!

For all of you wondering just how in the heck Uncle Saul's recent retroactive "gaying" on Brothers & Sisters fits into everything that's came before it, here's your answer: it doesn't.

The folks over at this B&S blog just ran an interviewlet with show creator Jon Robin Baitz from the latest TV Guide in which he admits that Saul was made gay because they couldn't figure out what else to do with the character:

"The story lines for Saul [Ron Rifkin] were just starting to run on fumes, and we kept looking for more areas to explore with him — the business and stuff — but none of it seemed as juicy as this. Next season, Saul’s going to struggle to come to terms with himself and confront his shame — ‘I’m a nice Jewish boy. I can’t be gay.’ But it took me a month to ask Ron. It wasn’t what he had signed on for and I thought, ‘Is this really what he wants to be doing?’ I hadn’t even finished the sentence and he was like, ‘That’s great — why would that be a problem?’ He’s thrilled."

Given how some people have responded in the past to the prospect of playing gay (even on this very series), hats off to Ron Rifkin for being so sensible about it. As for the bigger question, it's a little disappointing that this was the equivalent of pulling a rabbit out of a hat to spice up the season finale and reboot a flagging character. I love Rifkin as an actor and I'm looking forward to seeing the story play out, granted -- but this kind of random, incongruous storytelling is what frustrates me about the show as it is. Best-case scenario, as I see it, is that Saul's journey helps Kevin to even out a little, as his behavior is erratic at best -- not that I want the guy to be perfect, by any means, but he's coming across like a multiple-personality case lately.

What do you folks think?