Rescue Me: The Complete Fifth Season

Rescue Me: The Complete Fifth Season Review

I came on Rescue Me a bit later than most people. I only started watching last month, but thanks to the miracle that is Netflix I have watched to the end of season five. Now I am asking myself "Why did I wait so long to start watching this show?" The show is definitely one of the more solid shows on television today. It's no surprise that this show is on FX and not one of the big three networks (Four, I guess, if you count Fox). They're tackling issues that most networks, other than cable, wouldn't even touch. The acting is solid all the way through. A lot of the times when a show has a lot of different players one or more of the characters gets left out when it comes to development. However, the writers (Leary being one of them) does a great job fleshing out the characters and making sure that none of them become two-dimensional cut outs. At some points in the show, especially when Tom is talking to his dead friends, the show almost feels like we are seeing a stage production which help to heighten the emotions both the characters and the audience are feeling.

From the beginning credits to the end credits, Rescue Me is a solid show well worth every one's time. It's a shame to learn that the show is being cancelled after next season. Apparently, there are not enough viewers to keep the show going. Again, it's a darn shame, but I can understand why the viewership dropped. A show like Rescue Me requires that the audience become involved with what is happening on screen.You become emotional invested not only in what Tommy is doing, but the other characters as well. Other shows on television require very little from their audience. In fact, most shows cater to the most common denominator of Americans. And sadly to say, those shows are the ones that usually have the high numbers and keep getting renewed season and season.

I don't think that had I watched from the very first episode the show would have stayed on the air. However, I could have told a couple of people how great the show was and in turn, if those people watched the show, they could have turned other people on to it. It's a snowball affect. Weirder things have happened. Look at Family Guy.

The only problem that I have with the show are the female characters.There is not one stable female in the whole show. Not a single one. Sheila is straight off her rocker. If anyone is a candidate for therapy it's Janet. Then they all blame Tommy Gavin (Leary) for what's going on. For example, Sheila and Janet both wanted to have sex with Tommy, no strings attached. However, when Tommy tries to get a little more serious with Janet she says no and that it won't happen. A scene later she's telling him to decide if he wants to be with her or Sheila. Wow, talk about bipolar. Sheila is just as guilty as Janet in the "Let's be crazy and blame everything on Tommy" category. Nothing that they say or do jibes with what has gone on in the show. Sheila says that he is a horrible, self-centered person, but it's Janet that drugged him on more that one occasion ( I still want to know if he is every going to find out about that).Heck, not even the children are balanced. The only female character that is somewhat balanced was Uncle Teddy's wife, but the writers killed her off. I wonder what kind of relationship the writers have had with women in the past that they now write all women as screwed-up, crazy, and mentally unhinged. I haven't seen season six yet, but I hope he kicks all the women in his life to the curb.

Until, season six stand back 200 feet.

Rescue Me: The Complete Fifth Season Overview

Follows the lives of New York City firefighters of Engine 62 in a post-9/11 world.

Rescue Me: The Complete Fifth Season Specifications

For those disappointed in season 4 (as series cocreator Peter Tolan candidly admits in a season retrospective included as a bonus feature), season 5 should rekindle your passion for Rescue Me. The backbone of these first 11 episodes is the introduction of a French journalist (Karina Lombard), who is writing a book in anticipation of the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Her interviews with the firefighters as well as family members of those who perished in the attack (Callie Thorne's Sheila is a particular standout) have the same force as those in the classic M*A*S*H episode "The Interview." Tommy Gavin's year-long sobriety is put to the ultimate test when he is rocked by news footage that seems to show that his cousin Jimmy did not die in the first tower, as everyone believed. It forces Tommy (an Emmy-worthy Dennis Leary) to confront what happened that day and how he did--and did not--respond. "Are you haunted, Tommy?" the journalist asks. That's an understatement; he falls off the wagon and his ghosts return. Tommy is further put through the wringer by his wildly dysfunctional family, including his estranged wife Janet (Andrea Roth), who is now seeing a belligerent, wheelchair-bound alcoholic and pill popper (Michael J. Fox in his Emmy-winning performance); his oldest daughter Colleen (Natalie Distler), who is secretly seeing Black Shawn (Larenz Tate) and unnerves him with her precocious sexual prowess; and his younger daughter Katy (Olivia Crociccia), now attending an elite private school, where she has created a new identity for herself (and her parents). Among the other developments that will resonate throughout the season are the firefighters purchasing a bar; Franco (Daniel Sunjata) embarking on a boxing career; the return of Candy, who bilked and deserted Lou (John Scurti) back in season 2; and Sean's (Steven Pasquale) back pain, which is initially treated as comic relief, but takes a more devastating turn. Rescue Me can turn on a dime between "deep thought and personal wisdom" and crude, base humor. Its fatalistic sensibility and close-knit camaraderie is akin to Howard Hawks's Only Angels Have Wings. As for Tommy, who is described as "a great fireman, selfish, spiteful, hit-the-nail-on-the-head kind of guy," he tries desperately to keep it all together. After he beats his Section Eight, Deputy Chief Feinberg (Jerry Adler) warns him about stepping out of line in the future. "Since it's you, it could happen at any time," he states.

The 11 episodes that conclude Rescue Me's smokin' fifth season go from carpe diem to some very bad karma for Tommy. "You seem to do whatever you want and nothing bad ever happens to you," Uncle Teddy (Lenny Clarke) states in the tense final moments of the harrowing and possibly game-changing finale. That's not entirely true. Tommy's family and personal life remain compellingly complicated: he falls off the wagon after a year of sobriety and tries to juggle supposed "no-strings" relationships with the volatile meds-upped Sheila and his estranged wife, Janet (Andrea Roth), who finally issues Tommy an ultimatum. Sparking the season's final episodes is Maura Tierney as "hot older chick" Kelly, who intrigues Tommy after she rushes back into a burning building to retrieve a mysterious suitcase. "We're not a happy-type show," Leary states during a convivial cast-member "family dinner," the most substantial of this three-disc set's special features. But there are some inspired comic set pieces, including one grocery store excursion with Tommy, Lou (John Scurti), and company that descends into chaos. Other comic subplots (Franco taking up boxing and Mike's awful bar band) mercifully fizzle out. There is also some satisfying payback as Lou turns the tables on Candy, his ex-hooker, ex-thief girlfriend from season 2 with whom he is reunited. Rescue Me did not mellow in this fifth season. The banter is as profane as ever ("Too far, dude"), the worldview remains char black (Tommy subverts an intervention by pouring drinks for all), and the show continues to take bold chances. Suffice to say that one doesn't expect a Busby Berkeley musical homage from Rescue Me. As with all good cliffhanger endings, this season's conclusion leaves viewers eager to see what awaits on the other side. --Donald Liebenson

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