I have no idea what that scene means, I haven't seen it. I haven't seen the season. I don't feel any need to interpret something that I don't know the whole of. But something of your assessment rings true to me: you write that Brian represents "the unapologetic gay lifestyle".
I feel that to be true, and, in addition, that all the other characters in the show are representatives of an abstract concept of a similar kind, too. And that is why I don't see the characters changing through all these seasons. There are a lot of features about them that have emerged during the seasons, features that weren't visible in the first season, but I don't feel that they have been changes; instead I have interpreted them to be features that have been there all the time but have been let to surface when the situation has changed, not the characters.
Let's take a closer look on Michael. In the first season Michael was "the boy next door" kind of a character. Did he not, back then, dream of love and suburban life with a hubby? His relationship with David failed. Did it fail because of Brian? I don't think so. To succeed with David, Michael would have needed to change: a boy-next-door didn't sit well in David's sophisticated life. But the CL didn't change Michael, instead he came back the same from Portland(?). Soon after he was paired with Ben, and what change has happened in the character in that relationship? Nothing dramatic, as would be likely in a drama. Michael has matured and taken more responsibilities, but I don't see any changes that aren't just responses to the changing situations in his life. The character is still the same. To me Michael represents one possible lifestyle a gay couple can lead, to me Michael is a concept: unchangeable, whole, defined.
Unfortunately that makes it easy to predict what the characters will do in situations. The drama has lost much because there can be no surprising changes in the characters. Has any of the characters behaved against his or her "nature"? I can't remember one such event. But I remember the to-buy-or-not-to-buy-roses scene of Brian. Did it surprise anyone that Brian didn't buy the flowers?
The actors have done one hell of a job in giving a resemblance of a life to these concepts. Randy and Gale have succeeded with their characters very well; Hal did not. His Michael is not a gay guy I would like to know, even if that is the basic idea of the character: a gay guy that is acceptable to everyone.
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I feel that to be true, and, in addition, that all the other characters in the show are representatives of an abstract concept of a similar kind, too. And that is why I don't see the characters changing through all these seasons. There are a lot of features about them that have emerged during the seasons, features that weren't visible in the first season, but I don't feel that they have been changes; instead I have interpreted them to be features that have been there all the time but have been let to surface when the situation has changed, not the characters.
Let's take a closer look on Michael. In the first season Michael was "the boy next door" kind of a character. Did he not, back then, dream of love and suburban life with a hubby? His relationship with David failed. Did it fail because of Brian? I don't think so. To succeed with David, Michael would have needed to change: a boy-next-door didn't sit well in David's sophisticated life. But the CL didn't change Michael, instead he came back the same from Portland(?). Soon after he was paired with Ben, and what change has happened in the character in that relationship? Nothing dramatic, as would be likely in a drama. Michael has matured and taken more responsibilities, but I don't see any changes that aren't just responses to the changing situations in his life. The character is still the same. To me Michael represents one possible lifestyle a gay couple can lead, to me Michael is a concept: unchangeable, whole, defined.
Unfortunately that makes it easy to predict what the characters will do in situations. The drama has lost much because there can be no surprising changes in the characters. Has any of the characters behaved against his or her "nature"? I can't remember one such event. But I remember the to-buy-or-not-to-buy-roses scene of Brian. Did it surprise anyone that Brian didn't buy the flowers?
The actors have done one hell of a job in giving a resemblance of a life to these concepts. Randy and Gale have succeeded with their characters very well; Hal did not. His Michael is not a gay guy I would like to know, even if that is the basic idea of the character: a gay guy that is acceptable to everyone.