Bryan Batt not returning to “Mad Men”

When I spoke with Bryan Batt about 10 days ago, he said he didn’t know whether or not he’d be returning to Mad Men for a fourth season as the closeted gay character of Salvatore Romano who was fired during season three for rebuffing the advances of a gay client at the Sterling Cooper ad agency.  Bryan said he was told by creator Matthew Weiner was that the character of Sal was not dead.

He might as well be.

Weiner clears things up in the new issue of TV Guide telling William Keck: “We don’t murder people on our show but for there to be stakes, there have to be consequences.” He said losing Bryan “was a tough moment for the show, but that;s where we are. I know how people felt about Bryan. I obviously loved 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.”

It’s just a pity that Batt, one of the few openly gay actors playing a gay character on a series, had to be sacrificed in the storytelling.

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