Rescue Me – The specter of 9/11 looms large

The Fallen: 10 Years Later. Haunting, artfully done portraits of those who died on September 11 were in a muted display in a New York City storefront window which conveyed solemnity and respect.

That was contrasted with the garishness of the bookstore window around the corner featuring jarring promotional “Where Were You on That Day?” displays, complete with colorful images of the Twin Towers on fire and gnarled wreckage after those towers collapsed, killing those still inside the buildings.

To cap off the 9/11 thread which was prominently featured in this episode of Rescue Me there was this: The close-up image of Tommy Gavin as seen through the voyeuristic camera lens, looked aged and haggard after he’d been asked by a TV journalist what he’d change about that “fateful day” if he could.

Those were my favorite, most powerful moments in this latest installment of Rescue Me, including Tommy’s fantasy of setting the exploitative bookstore display on fire. This is what Rescue Me does very well, capturing the essence of Tommy’s anguish and survivor’s guilt that cast a pall over his entire life.

Then there was the rest of the episode. It was a scatter-shot mishmash. Yes, Rescue Me likes to intersperse moments of humorous idiocy — like Mike being a wedding planning savant — with gut wrenching scenes that rip your heart out. But this episode just seemed so loaded down with mixed emotions that I felt as though I’d scarfed down that whole tray of cupcakes that Tommy was trying to hide from Lou.

All of the issues addressed in the hour — Colleen and Shawn’s wedding planning, the upcoming 10th anniversary of 9/11, the documentary the TV reporter is doing on Jimmy’s death (in the shadow of Damien’s injury), Lou’s refusal to stop eating and deal with his potentially lethal weight and heart issues, Kelly’s cancer — were and are legitimate and deserve attention, but they were overshadowed by the mini-bombs of explosive emotions that were dropped every few minutes.

There was the flirtation between Kelly, the angry cancer patient who’s awaiting the results of an important test, and Tommy who’d just been told by his pregnant wife not only to pick more stuff up from the store for her, but not to come home right away because he’d wake the baby. As I watched Kelly and Tommy emotionally reveal themselves to one another, I thought, “Tommy wouldn’t seriously wreck his ‘last chance’ with Janet would he? Hasn’t he learned anything?” But perhaps bonding with an emotionally wounded, angry woman who’s also lost a child is too much of a temptation for Tommy to resist.

Then there was the little twist that freshly-back-on-the-wagon Colleen asked Teddy (who, and I cannot get over this fact, shot her father), to walk her down the aisle at her wedding instead of Tommy because she thinks Tommy is unreliable. (For the record, none of the Gavins are reliable.) Plus there’s the small issue that Tommy told Shawn he did not have his blessing to marry Colleen.

The chief has worsening memory woes about which he’s in denial. There’s a rift within the firehouse over Lou’s health and the impact on everyone’s safety. Tommy tried to incentivize Lou to do something about his weight by asking him to be his unborn child’s godfather (without consulting Janet). Tommy’s feeling increasing guilt about Damien and renewed bad feelings about Jimmy (feelings about which the TV reporter was ruthless as she tried her darnedest to extract tears from Tommy’s eyes). It was too much for a single  episode, even though Rescue Me is quite fond of balancing the morbid and the moronic, to wit: the dress shop scene.

I’ll give ‘em this, no one can accuse the writers of failing to dramatically up the ante in the final season.

Clacked by Meredith O'Brien
on Jul 28, 2011 @ 16:55 EST5EDT