“Rescue Me” - 8/29/07

This episode begins with Tommy dreaming that nearly all of his squad has been killed while responding to a fire. He sees them on the ground, and they’re all dead. Tommy’s a very troubled man and doesn’t seem to be going in a good direction. He’s supposedly quit drinking and is trying to become more spiritual, but his private life is a mess. He goes after every woman he can while Janet and his kids are on their own. His baby, Elvis/Wyatt is bounced around between Janet, Tommy and Sheila and you never see Tommy showing any special feeling for the baby. I think he’d like to get to a better place, but it’s going to take some doing on his part. But if he changes into some sort of ordinary, everyday-type guy, there would be no show. I like Tommy just the way he is . . . careening through life, making life-threatening choices on the job, struggling with his family and his relationships, and especially his comraderie with his fellow firefighters. Those scenes in their squad room are the best and funniest. I love the conversations between Tommy and Lou – they are quick and certainly very funny! Tommy can jump from comedy to drama in a second. I think he’s a fantastic actor in this and does everything right in his acting. The writing is so good – John Scurti, who plays Lou, wrote last night’s show. He’s a funny guy and obviously a very good writer.

Tommy sees Valerie again and finally finds out her name. The talk turns to Wyatt Earp, and Valerie says the best one was Kevin Costner. Tommy doesn’t agree with that, and finally Valerie says, “I’m bored – take off your pants.” When it’s all over, she says, “Oh God, that was amazing.” Tommy replies that it was a record – almost a minute. She sends him down to the corner store for a Fresca. I can’t understand why she never has Fresca on hand.

He returns to the firehouse and Lou tells him he seems pretty charged up. Tommy tells him he has 8 Frescas in him. Lou says, “Speaking of high, your new girlfriend came here looking for you – Fineberg’s daughter – and I don’t know what she’s on, but I think her purse may contain the contents of what used to be in Liza Minnelli’s medicine cabinet.” He tells Tommy the right thing for him to do is make another date with her – it’s the right thing for Tommy, the crew and Fineberg.

The family has another AA meeting. Tommy wants to talk about the higher power, and Uncle Teddy yells, “You mean the goddamn God stuff again?” Tommy tells them he prayed that week when he was saving the window washer hanging off a building. Uncle Teddy blows that off by saying it was technology and not God that helped. They get nowhere in the meeting, but there are some very funny moments as there always are in their AA meetings. I don’t think actual AA meetings are conducted quite the same way as the Gavin family does it. Tommy then goes to a bar where his dad has a club soda as he’s quit drinking. He asks Tommy about the meeting, and Tommy tells him it was about making reparations. He tells Tommy he’s apologized to the 5 Nazi pricks he killed with his hands in the war. He also apologized for calling Patton an asshole. But Tommy says, “You said he was an asshole,” and his dad says, “He was – no, I took that one back.” He apologizes for everything he did wrong when Tommy was a child. Tommy asks him if he’s scared of anything and his dad says death. He doesn’t believe in an after life. He says, “When you die, they stick your body in the ground and you’re worm food – simple as that. Death is a goddamn scary thing, Tom – the closer you get to it, the scarier it gets.”

Tommy meets Fineberg’s daughter, Beth, for another date. She’s very placid and quiet, nothing like their first meeting where she was all over the place. Tommy asks her how her job is going working with the kids she mentioned before, and she says she doesn’t have a job and can’t work. She cracks her knuckles and seems nervous. Tommy tells her on their first meeting she seemed a little more up and was really funny. He says, “You were really making me laugh.” Beth says, “Funny like Joe Joe Pesci funny, Buddy Hackett funny? Do I look funny to you? Should we all be laughing now?” During this, Tommy has been making a move with his arm around her and his hand partly on her breast. She seems to like it, but then tells him she’s on medication now as she’s bipolar. She says she goes off the meds sometimes, but her folks want her on them as they’re afraid she may snap and come into their bedroom and rip out their eyes with an ice pick or rip their chest out and bury it in the back yard right next to her ovaries! Tommy’s edging away from her and she asks why, telling him she could stab him with a fork. She gets up and says she should go and she’ll call him. She grabs the flowers on the table and makes a quick exit. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of her, hopefully when she’s off her meds.

So many more things happen here, but I write too much as it is. I love the show as is fairly obvious, and it seems to get better each episode. Everyone connected with this show deserves recognition at Emmy time. I hope some of them get it.