Rescue Me – Tommy’s worried about going to hell

Call it a slow, painful, downward spiral: If we thought that Tommy Gavin, lying drunk and bleeding out on the floor of the bar at the end of Rescue Me last season, shot by his grief-stricken Uncle Teddy, was as low as Tommy could get, we were sorely mistaken.

The aftermath is proving much worse. Not only did Tommy in the latest episode abandon his curious and short-lived “wine only” route to sobriety — as his estranged wife Janet predicted he would — but Lou’s peaceful, bakery smell-infused near-death experience convinced Tommy that his soul’s in deep trouble.

Big-hearted Lou had a heart attack and was in the hospital, looking mighty gray and fretting that, as an “emotional eater,” he’d gorge his way into an early grave. But instead of worrying about Lou’s health, the guys from the fire house had other priorities: Breaking Lou out of the hospital so he could work his culinary magic and cook some delicious eats for the neighborhood, hoping that his food would be better than the competing fire house’s grub, thereby earning them more community loyalty which they hoped to mobilize to try to ward off the house’s closing during the current round of municipal budget cuts.

While an ill-looking Lou was making his delectable dishes, he and Tommy started talking about what Lou experienced when he flat-lined: He smelled freshly baked goods, felt peaceful and content. He was even back in his childhood kitchen with his mother when he was a kid as she gently and lovingly touched the back of his head.

This news only confirmed for Tommy what he had been afraid of since he regained consciousness after his shooting: That his visions — marked by fear, helplessness, “zombies” and fire — aren’t what everyone sees. “You get to go to a bakery?” Tommy asked. “How does that happen?”

The exchange that followed was brutal. “I’m a better person,” Lou said matter-of-factly. ” … There’s no contest.” And Lou kept on going, telling Tommy that, as fire fighters, they’re both replaceable, but as his kids’ dad, Tommy’s not. “There ain’t no replacin’ a father, Tom. You only get one. You should start thinkin’ about that because maybe then you’d be smelling bakeries for an eternity, just like me.”

To take the edge off of the Tommy-thinks-he’s-damned (plus the hurt he felt when he recognized the obvious attraction between Janet and Franco, which drove him to crack open the whiskey bottle, as you knew he would eventually), the episode featured the bumbling fiasco in the hospital hallways with Franco impersonating a doctor, Shawn being annoyed that he had to pretend to be an orderly and the razor-sharp put-downs of the guys by Lou’s nurse as she pointed out a physical flaw in each guy after they’d ruthlessly mocked Lou’s weight.

Additionally, there was also the profane and greedy Father Phil who last week chastised Tommy for chipping a statue of Mary after Tommy had saved it from a fire at Father Phil’s church. This week, he presented the fire fighters with a hefty bill to replace the statue, completely ignoring the fact that Tommy risked his life to get it for him. Throw in the moment when Father Phil tried to coerce Tommy into letting him keep a snapshot of Janet, and I’d say that this is exactly the type of clergyman in whom I’d expect Tommy to confide, an off-kilter one.

I’m interested to see more of the evolving storyline of Sean becoming slowly politicized over the fact that fire fighters who worked to clean up the debris at Ground Zero and later developed health problems, like he did, weren’t getting help from the city, state or federal government, largely left to suffer alone.

Clacked by Meredith O'Brien
on Jul 21, 2010 @ 11:29 EST5EDT