Can't help but think if there were commercials, there wouldn't have been time for such a pointless sidetrack. It would've been cut for time.
Starz shows are jam packed with pointless sex scenes, in fact sex scenes in cable TV shows are almost always entirely superfluous.
I find it interesting that these criticisms of "oh, they aren't doing anything progressive, it's just crowbarred in for the sake of showing something gay" arguments always pop up when it comes to gay sex scenes. Explicit gay sex scenes are hardly ever crowbarred into mainstream entertainment, so it
is progressive whether you like it or not. Hetero sex scenes are routinely crowbarred into mainstream entertainment, and nobody ever bats a fucking eyelid, but do the same with a gay sex scene and suddenly everybody is up in arms.