Disclaimers:
*This post is intended to question the portrayal and market of this particular couple on the show. I’ve been wanting to blog on this issue since Tom and Sam first got together because it is a very sensitive issue and one I intend to handle with care.
**You should know that I am coming from a Christian perspective; but my views might surprise you, since I am also a person who has several friends who have chosen to live a homosexual lifestyle. I also know active members in my church who chose have made the decision to stop living a homosexual lifestyle.
***Although this is a heavy issue, and I have tons to say about it, I’m going to do my best to focus solely on Tom, Sam and Smash.
First of all, Christian Borle (Tom) and Leslie Odem Jr. (Sam) do an incredible job in their roles. Tom as the sensitive composer tries to love on his writing partner, be devoted to the show, while falling for his chorus crush; and Sam as the passionate dancer who is willing to give up every ounce of security for the sake of art that he finds beautiful as he falls for an artist he deeply admires. This is one of the reasons that Tom and Sam are so great together in the show- they’re balanced.
As we remember, for a while, people did not even realize that Sam was gay; he was so interested in sports and he was not hitting on every other ensamble guy. Sam is very intentional. His very intentionality is where we find his decision to ‘wait.’ On their first date, Tom takes Sam back to his place and makes a move. Sam stops him and tells him that he goes “to church and [believes] in God and stuff…” Tom’s fearful response: “Are you a republican?” The tension is broken with a semi-serious mild joke about Tom’s perspective on the political party. This is where Sam calls him out, and we are given the first element of their functional relationship: communication.
The element of communication alone makes them the most functional relationship on the show, as of yet. We thought Dev and Karen might have that, until he stopped talking to her about work, then it went downhill, fast, from there- to the point where he cheated on her with… Ivy?! We knew that Derek and Ivy were not going to go well for long; and then he messed them up by sleeping with Rebecca because she “need[ed his] attention.” They were clearly on different pages as to what their relationship was intended to be. All these could be analyzed in their own entries, including Julia and Michael’s relationship, including both of them waiting (or having no intention) to tell their spouses about the affair.
Sex, or a lack thereof, is another element that makes their relationship functional. Without taking it to that level, making the choice to wait affects the dynamics because instead of being physically focused, they are emotionally and logically intentional.
Overall, Sam is good for Tom because he calls him out, forces him to communicate, and does not allow the physical elements other couples depend on to hinder their connection. There are other elements of their careers that make this work better than other relationships on the show, but this also can be put in it’s own post.
Overall, although this couple helped me to understand more realistically the dynamics of a gay relationship, I still don’t find it to be Biblically based. The sure flow of how well Tom and Sam’s relationship works is a fictional one. This is not to say that this relationship is easy for the characters, but the writers of the show are clearly trying to portray validity in a God-focused homosexual lifestyle; which I understand to be a paradoxical intention. 
The show itself, however, flows well with the relationship and this post is not intended to invalidate its affects on the dynamics of the characters. I can see the writers’ use of a gay couple in order to make the functionality stand out.
Analytically Media 