Oh nos! Sal's out of Mad Men for good! [View All]

[Bucky]

He was one of the most interesting characters. Gripe gripe gripe. I was totally waiting for them to restart his story line all last season and was assuming they'd bring him back this season somehow.

Sal Leaving 'Mad Men': Bryan Batt Out Of Work

Don Draper unceremoniously fired Salvatore Romano when a spurned gay client tried to out him towards the end of last season, and now it looks we won't see any more of Sal as AMC has failed to renew Bryan Batt's contract for Season 4.

Creator Matthew Weiner told TV Guide that ousting Batt "was a tough moment for the show, but that's where we are. I know how people felt about Bryan. I obviously love working with him, and he has been an indelible character since the pilot. But I felt it was an expression of the times that he couldn't work there anymore. It's the ultimate case of sexual harassment."

Batt said that, despite his character's unemployability at Sterling Cooper, he didn't know he was being let go. "I was supposed to be notified by December 31, and nothing," he told the magazine. In the fall after Sal's firing he implored fans to start a Facebook group to keep him on. It doesn't look like they listened.

Geeze, they're making it sound like they were forced to write him out of the show. First off, Sal wasn't fired for being gay; he was fired because a powerful client spazzed out on him. This was a story line they chose to insert. There's a LOT more story to be told with this character--how a closeted gay man reacts to the changes in the mid 60s--not just Stonewall, but how Kitty his wife might react to the Feminine Mystique or how he'd handle becoming a father. Sal, unlike that British guy or the nerdy TV guy or that fucking annoying teacher Don was bonking, was actually an interesting character.

But furthermore, Sal's an artist. The new firm is still in marketing. If they wanted to continue the character, there's no reason at all they couldn't show him working with Cooper Sterling Draper and Britishguy as a freelancer. There might even be intriguing plot points in Sal sneaking in and out of the office with his sketches when the creepy tobacco client is there. Or how other characters treat him if they ever find out his secret. There's an interesting story to tell with Sal.

If they have a problem with Bryan Batt, I could understand. But they're not saying that. It's a lame argument that "we have to let him go cause folks in the 60s were just so anti-gay." Sorry, no, in 1963 being "antigay" meant you opposed happiness. All sorts of men hid their secret lives then--which is only the central theme to the entire Mad Men series. Sal rounded out that theme in the show, to the limited extent that they gave Bryan Batt air time. He played his role brilliantly, kept Sal from being either a joke or a neurotic shell as a lesser talent might've done. He's a great actor. His loss is the show's loss and the viewers'.