Saul (Brothers & Sisters) 💙🏳️‍🌈 "All of the Dreams of Yesterday" character tribute | 2006 TV series

"It's way past time / for one last try..."
Nora's older brother; "Uncle Saul" to most of the characters on this series. Ron Rifkin's portrayal of Saul Holden was quite unique.
(I recommend you turn OFF the Closed Captions in this video & focus only on the Open Captions text. Listen for the rest of the voiceovers. If you can't understand the voiceovers, maybe watch this Unlisted copy with no text burned into the render of the video, no open caption text on screen -- it has ALL of the voiceovers transcribed into the closed captions over there: • NO TEXT VERSION (no op... )
Characters in their late 60's and early 70's do not usually get to have such rich, deep character arcs explored, but Saul is one such exception. Especially when looking at LGBTQ+ representation on TV, to have any character who isn't straight be older than their 40's is so exceedingly rare.
Brothers & Sisters has been off the air for over 12 years now after the show (Brothers & Sisters) ran for 5 years-from September 2006 until May 2011. I started vidding it those final 2 years it was airing, having gotten deeply sucked into it during season 4. It really is one of my favorite shows of all time that's stood the test of time for me, and continues to be very rewatchable and I get different things out of it each time I do.
I don't remember for sure when it first crossed my mind that this song would fit a Saul character study really well, but I remember listening to this song from a Smallville soundtrack CD (one of "The Talon mixes" lol), and all those lyrics about being "on the outside looking in" just screamed Saul's story to me, the emphasized way "alone" is sung, the line I chose for the title, "all of the dreams of yesterday", and all the repeated times "it's way past time" comes up. It just. I've had this song attached to Saul in my head for ~a decade.
The song ("Goodbye Again" by Vertical Horizon) is what inspired me to vid Saul, and I'm so glad it did.
Saul, as far as I can tell, has absolutely NO fanvideos on KZbin about him, at least currently, not about him and shipping him with Jonathan, not about his wonderful sibling dynamic with Nora, nothing with Saul warranting being in the title. There are scenes from the show uploaded to KZbin but that's all I could find.
I have vidded Saul in my ensemble/full series tributes which were edited around 2009 and 2011 I think, see this "Brothers & Sisters" playlist of all of my vidding of the show: • Brothers & Sisters (20...
And somewhat more recently, I featured a fair amount of Saul in this vid of mine (7 different scenes of his), which I edited 5.5 years ago in 2016:
• Multi-Fandom Angst, Fa...
(all of these times above vidding the show before were when my username was still "luvtheheaven" or some variation like "luvtheheaven5" -- I've since changed my KZbin name to VioletEmerald.)
And then two years ago in this collab I hosted, I vidded a fair amount of Saul's s2 coming out journey, using 5 of his scenes:
• 🏳️‍🌈 LGBTQ+ Characters...
So I've been building up SLOWLY over the past idk 6 years towards eventually actually making this vid, I guess. I rewatched the show show starting in May of this year & started taking notes on Saul related scenes. Originally I was going to make a general series tribute first, & this vid maybe 2nd. I have a handful of ideas and I did start and vid a minute or so of another B&S vid idea. But the Saul video became my priority at some point along the way.
I was so desperate to capture and do justice to his journey in a way that's never been done before. I really hope you all like it!
Saul is a part of all these character's lives, leading the toasts the majority of the time-deciding to be the one to call a toast, I love that detail of his characterization, especially since as a trained Celebrant myself I've grown extra fond of the art of that simple ritual (even though I personally don't drink alcohol lol), and other characterization moments I love too, like that he likes to call the women & girls in the family "sweetheart" a fair amount, and all of them "kiddo" a lot... there were SO many things I ran out of room in the fanvideo to include.
SO many powerful potential quotes. I wanted to do my best to include the MOST important ones, a true exercise in prioritization. I did purposefully, as much as felt possible/reasonable to do, avoid vidding the same scenes I already vidded those two other times in the past few years (linked to in my description) that I focused on Saul in my vidding, wanted to vid different Saul things each time I vid him I guess to keep it fresh and not feeling redundant even for myself/my own sake.
I'm definitely hoping to vid this show more. I am sorta brainstorming potential songs for Saul/Jonathan, Saul&Nora, Robert&Kevin, Nora&Kitty, etc if anyone has ideas for songs PLEASE let me know!
Check the pinned comment for more of my thoughts! #fanvidfeed

[@VioletEmerald]

I ran out of room in the description so I've added some more thoughts here below! ~~ Please leave me a comment if you watch and enjoy the video! Pretty sure I spent like 55 hours on this video just in the last 3 weeks, not counting rewatching the show prior to that, and thinking about it/planning it out/clipping scenes which took a while... so the old adage "hours to make, seconds to comment" really does ring extra true... Skip past the plot arcs section to see more of my comments. ~~~~~ *Note: Saul's general plot points/story arcs, if you've forgotten or are curious and never watched the series, generally go as follows:* Saul was business partners with William Walker, his sister Nora's husband, when they started Ohai Foods approximately 40 years ago. In the pilot, Saul finds out William (who dies in the pilot episode) has been embezzling money from the company and causing major issues for the company. He works with Sarah & Tommy, and Kevin works for a law firm where Ohai Foods is one of the clients so Saul also works with Kevin at times. He knew about William's affair with Holly for years but kept it a secret, thinking he was protecting his sister from the pain of the truth. He's also very sympathetic to Holly throughout this season 1 stuff as the truth about William's multiple decades long affair comes out. He starts dating Holly but mostly seems to be doing so to "use" her, to find out her secrets, to find out about her daughter (Rebecca) and to see if they can crack William's secret passcodes to locked accounts where he may have hidden a lot of their funds via learning about Rebecca... but he also genuinely cares about Holly. The s1 finale introduces Saul as a closeted gay man. Milo shows up in 1x23 to start a lot of backstory for Saul relating to a secret gay life. Saul comes to terms with his own truth throughout season 2, and is out by the end of season 2. Seasons 3-4 explores Saul trying to figure out what he wants out of life, dating openly, quitting his job, rejoining to save Ohai after Tommy embezzles, deciding to start a restaurant with Scotty. In the season 4 finale they also decide to write a plot where Saul has been very luckily asymptomatic while being HIV positive but unaware of it (never got tested) for ~30 years, and explore that arc more in season 5. Season 5 gives him a happy ending with his love life. 💚💜💙 ~~~~~ Throughout the show Saul is always a wise advice-giver and source of comfort to Nora especially, but at times to Holly, Tommy, and Justin more than most. He has brief moments with everyone in the family though, except for Evan I'm not sure if he has even a single scene with that grand-nephew of his. Because he was prepared to officiate Justin & Rebecca's wedding, he officiates Robert & Kitty renewing their vows, but other than that he has VERY little interaction with Robert as far as I can tell as well. Well I guess Justin's bachelor party too. ;) Got both of those moments in this vid. I guess I didn't end up including much of him with Luc or Julia either lol. He seems to interact with Kitty the least of all his nieces and nephews too. But he still has a few really sweet moments with her and I'm glad I got to include most of them :) Also I have seen Vertical Horizon in concert by chance, but this is only the 2nd time I've ever vidded a song of theirs, and the first time was nearly 17 years ago, and the vid is long since lost (a Dean/Rory/Jess vid to "Everything You Want" lol)... I do really like their music quite a bit but the reason I ended up at a concert of theirs was my partner I was dating at the time being a huge fan, actually. I was slightly disappointed this personal fave song of mine wasn't featured lol... I actually quite recently wrote a short Saul-centric fanfic (featuring references to Milo and a conversation with Justin... brief appearance by Scotty) and plan to write more fanfiction, hopefully some in this fandom, soon. But most of the Saul vidding stuff may be out of my system now? Idk. See the end of my KZbin description... I still have a couple Saul vid ideas I wouldn't mind making... archiveofourown.org/works/48749350 And if you forgot/missed it at the top of my description: You can turn on the closed captions if you need even more help understanding the voiceovers!! Up to you. I think they might be too much and the vid is easier to appreciate with them off. Lol. But just in case they'd help some of you, I transcribed them into closed captions, the ones that aren't already in open captions in pretty fonts in text burned into the screen. I even re-rendered the entire vid with no text on screen, and then uploaded it as an unlisted vid you can watch, with or without captions for voiceovers over there: kzbin.info/www/bejne/noCynWhopNGigMU ~~~~~ ALSO: Support my Creativity! ✨☕💰💞 If you enjoy my vidding, please consider "buying me a coffee". It's a small donation that supports me continuing to invest my time into this labor of love. 😊 www.buymeacoffee.com/violetemerald

[@EmmieClassix]

I still haven’t dinished this show but i really really enjoyed this!

[@VioletEmerald]

Thank you so much! I didn't remember that detail that you never finished watching this series. Season 5 (the final season) was obviously rough writing at places since suddenly losing multiple main cast members was not easy but I still love some of the storylines in that season so much.

[@JenAnistonRocks]

I recently rewatched Brothers and Sisters and had forgotten how much I loved the show. This tribute is stunning Emily! I can't believe there are no Saul videos - everything you wrote in the description about LGBTQ+ characters on TV being younger and him being a great representation of an older character is so true and you captured his journey perfectly. Such a gorgeous video.

[@VioletEmerald]

Thank you SO much! This comment means a lot to me :) I'm glad you agree with me about how enjoyable this series is to rewatch lol and about Saul and understand what I was saying in the description!

[@Smurfa85]

Wow I'm SO amazed by this character tribute!! 💙 I know how thorough you are in your vidding (even more on this one) but this is something else! I get why you spent so much time on it. That's why I wanted to really take the time to watch it while carefully reading/understanding the lyrics. I paused and rewinded a lot to capture all the work you did on matching lyrics, scenes and quotes. This is really fantastic! Overall, the coloring is incredible 🧡🧡 I love how you structured it by subject matters, and used different colorings to match the lyrics. For instance, the B&W for the parts about Justin rejecting Saul's help, and showing in parallel how he's helped his other nieces & nephews. This whole part fits the lyrics so well too! I take this as an example but the full video is perfect! You may not have a lot of comments on this video but you can still be proud of it (I say that cause I tend to crave for comments while I know it doesn't mean anything about my work) cause it IS flawless and you did do justice to Saul's journey 🥰

[@VioletEmerald]

Aw wow; thank you so much for the best comment ever!! It's everything i could've hoped for in a comment from someone who is a vidder too and knows the show and really takes the time to explain what, specifically, they enjoyed about the video. Thank you!!! 😊😊😊 I especiall appreciate you taking the time to watch repeatedly and pause and make sure you're noticing as many of my deliberate choices in the vidding as you could. 💜 Btw I didn't even make a new coloring for this video, just used the same one I already had made for my "A Life That's Good" multicouples video I edited in December 2020. :)

[@Smurfa85]

@@VioletEmerald 💜💚

[@PeaceLovePaperbacks]

This was such a beautiful honest raw journey. So happy he got the ending he deserved.

[@VioletEmerald]

Thank you for watching and commenting! I agree his journey felt so realistic or "honest and raw", and I am so happy he got the ending he deserved too. It's tied as my favorite part of season 5 alongside the storyline with adopting Olivia, and maybe Nora/Brody. Those things made season 5 so worth it!

[@Supsi85]

This is very impressive! It's obvious you fit so much it in and really matched the most emotional aspects of the song :)

[@VioletEmerald]

Thank you so much!! I really appreciate you taking the time to watch and comment :)

[@lbchatterbox]

This is EPIC! I'm thoroughly impressed by how many moments you included and I am inspired to rewatch the series now.

[@VioletEmerald]

Thank you SO much. I was hoping you'd watch and comment ASAP because I know you're one of my few still current KZbin friends who knew this series, and you being my first comment is SO great :) I'm so glad you were impressed! I hope you enjoy the rewatch if you do rewatch it ;) I certainly had fun with it lol. And indeed plan to vid the show a bit more in the short(ish) term future before I lose all my inspiration.

[@lbchatterbox]

@@VioletEmerald I need to rewatch since I had someone request that I vid it to "Life is Beautiful" so I need to refresh my memory and get a few episodes in BQ. It's been a long time since I vidded it.

[@VioletEmerald]

@@lbchatterbox The Afters' song? Or the Vega4 one, less likely but I think I literally vidded a B&S collab part to the Vegas4 "Life Is Beautiful" song once upon a time (but hosted a whole collab to The Afters' one ;) ). I look forward to seeing you vid this show again! That'll be fun! If you need help getting episodes I could upload them for you, just let me know. Btw: I have just uploaded an unlisted version of this vid of mine without any of the Open Captions, in case you care. Couldn't help myself give an alternative option for how to watch and follow the voiceovers. ;) Oh and I switched out the thumbnail image to one that features Kevin & Paige too so it's more clear more characters appear in this vid... I've been kinda stuck on this video... hopefully I can let go soon.

[@lbchatterbox]

@@VioletEmerald The Afters one. We might chat about more HQ episodes and scenes once I get started on this one. This literally reminded how much goodness there is in this show and made me more motivated to do the request.