“Rescue Me” – 8/22/07

This episode begins during a family AA meeting at Tommy’s dirty apartment led by Mickey Gavin, Tommy’s cousin, the defrocked priest. Subject is about a higher power . . . God, whatever. Sean says, “God for me is . . . he’s just this huge, kinda all powerful cloud . . . he’s this giant cloud of pink gas!” The group takes a vote and votes him out of meetings. Uncle Teddy’s wife sees a rat and jumps on the couch, a fight breaks out and Uncle Teddy tells Tommy’s dog to go find booze. Meeting over.

The scenes in the squad room are the best in the show. I look forward to them every week. That’s where I think the writing really stands out. All the characters are different and so funny as they react to each other. In this one, Black Sean brings up the fact that only 2% of the new probies are African American. He says he was the only one in this class, and Chief Feinberg says he was the only Jew in his class. So Tommy relates his feelings about what firefighters face and all the perils that accompany the job. He says you’re pulling people out of buildings all the time and you don’t notice their color or ethnicity. You’re so busy there’s no time left for family. And there’s not enough God to go around. He says, “Did you ever think that maybe the reason there ain’t more Chinese, females and black firefighters is because they just don’t want the goddamn job? Food, fire and sex is all I got.”

Another hilarious scene is when Tommy and Lou are walking through a smoldering building. Their conversation is so funny that I was laughing out loud. Lou’s a real character, and he and Tommy have great scenes together. I don’t know how Denis Leary and Peter Tolan can keep up this quality of writing – sometimes serious and touching, but always crazy humorous!

Tommy wanders into a church and sits down just as his cell goes off. He runs into a little room which is a confessional – the priest’s side. He takes his call and as he finishes, a woman comes into the other room and gives him her confession! Her worst sin is thinking impure thoughts while watching the last episode of “According to Jim.” She says she won’t watch it anymore, but Tommy tells her God would want her to watch it. He tells her to say the last couple lines of a Hail Mary and then says she’s set. He finally gets out of the confessional booth before he gets another customer. In fact, there was a man waiting outside for his turn.

Tommy calls Mikey and tells him he needs to get out of the house now that his knee is a little better. He tells him to get dressed up, go to a bar and meet someone – preferably a woman. So Mikey goes and meets a woman older than he, but she has long blond hair which probably makes it ok. She hits on him, telling him he’s super cute, boyish with soulful eyes. That’s enough for him! She asks if he’d like a little mother/daughter action. He likes the sound of that, thinking she may have a really hot daughter. They go to her place and she calls down the hall, “Mom, you still up?” Her mother comes out of her room and says, “He’s delicious!” The scene ends there so we don’t know what happened.

This episode ends with Tommy hanging off the side of a building, trying to rescue a trapped window washer. Tommy’s scared of heights, so he’s having a hard time of it, but we know he’ll make it . . . he always does. I absolutely love this show which is probably very apparent from my writing. I wish it would never end!