"Yep. Nothing but excitement around here. Let's light that car on fire and put it out. That'll kill a couple of hours." - Tommy Gavin (Denis Leary) on the sedateness of his new Staten Island firehouse
Rescue Me: The Complete Second Season DVD Review
By A.J. Carson
As the second season of Rescue Me begins, firefighter Tommy Gavin (Denis Leary) isn't exactly having a good time. After causing an on-the-job accident that seriously injured another member of his Manhattan company and knocking up the widow of his deceased best friend (and former coworker), Tommy has now been banished to fighting fires in the provincial wilds of New York's forgotten borough, Staten Island. His estranged wife abducted their three children and fled the city for parts unknown. He's also hitting the bottle again. Hard.
Tommy isn't the only one with problems. After being injured thanks to Tommy's negligence, Franco Rivera (Daniel Sunjata) finds himself addicted to painkillers. Against her better judgment, Laura Miles (Diane Farr) becomes romantically involved with her ailing coworker. Lt. Kenny Shea (John Scurti) falls for an escort he hires to make another woman jealous. Chief Jerry Reilly (Jack McGee) faces several hard choices when his beloved wife Jeannie (Peggy Scott) descends into Alzheimer's-induced madness.
The series expertly portrays the comic differences between Tommy's old firehouse and his new one. While the members of company 62 try to convince Laura that a particularly nasty epithet flung at her by Lt. Shea shows camaraderie rather than disrespect, the Staten Island house has a curse jar. Each dirty word uttered requires placing a dollar in the jar. Pretty soon, Tommy has contributed enough to buy the house a new flat screen TV. Company 62 contends with several emergency calls each day. Things are so slow in Staten Island that the men still reminisce about a three week old car fire. They also have a tendency to walk around with cans of Pledge, polishing every imaginable surface until it gleams.
Tommy wants to return to 62, but all of the company members have to agree on taking him back. This seems especially unlikely since his replacement, Sully (Oz's Lee Tergesen), proves to be so likeable. He's friendly, a great fireman, gives killer backrubs, and he cooks with the élan of a four-star chef. Lt. Shea and Chief Reilly want their old pal back, but can they convince the younger recruits?
Another condition of Tommy returning to 62 is that he has to be sober. Even Tommy has a dim awareness that he has a drinking problem. When having sex with Sheila (Homicide: Life on the Street's Callie Thorne), she complains that he smells and tastes like booze. He jumps out of bed, gargles with mouthwash, and then immediately swigs more booze to cut the minty taste. Soon Tommy is attending AA meetings with Cousin Mickey (Robert John Burke), a former Catholic priest, as his sponsor. The demons that haunted Tommy in season one (including Jimmy, who died on 9/11) are mostly gone now, but every time he considers taking a drink, he has visions of Jesus (Bernardo De Paula) bleeding on the cross. Tommy's season-long journey from denial (he uses fake names at AA and makes fun of other members) to acceptance (using his real name, he finally acknowledges his problem) is both moving and harrowing.
Chief Reilly's storyline is also a powerful one. Watching his wife degenerate into a stranger is difficult for him, especially when she seems to recognize everyone except for him. (For some reason, she thinks that he's her brother, Bud.) Chief Reilly is so desperate that he even asks his estranged, gay son Peter (Neal Jones) to move home temporarily to help out. The chief's ever-changing acceptance of his wife's condition and his son's lifestyle provides season two with many dramatic moments.
Season two isn't perfect. A subplot about Tommy and his policeman brother Johnny (Oz's Dean Winters) discovering that they have a half brother, Father Murphy (Christopher Durham), is overcooked and pointless, especially when it veers into the Catholic church's sex abuse scandals. Firefighters Sean Garrity (Steven Pasquale) and Mike Silletti (Michael Lombardi) aren't given much to do this season. The two characters also come across as so dumb that they probably couldn't cross the street without getting hurt, much less fight dangerous fires.
Overall, though, season two is filled with a pleasing mixture of funny and dramatic moments. Tommy's happy pill-fueled reunion with his wife Janet (Andrea Roth) is like something out of Leave it to Beaver. Of course on Rescue Me, tragedy is always just around the corner, and happiness isn't always lasting.
Familiar faces in season two include Michael Mulheren (Law & Order), Lenny Clarke (Lenny), Charles Durning (Evening Shade), Cynthia Harris (Mad About You), Paula Devicq (Party of Five), Kate Burton (Grey's Anatomy), and Tatum O'Neal (Dancing with the Stars).
The thirteen episodes that make up the first season are divided onto four discs. The discs are housed in two slim, clear plastic keepcases. The fronts of the cases are decorated with production and publicity stills from the series. The backs of the cases include titles, basic credits, and brief synopses for each episode. The interiors of the cases and the discs themselves also include production and publicity photos. The keepcases slide into a cardboard outer sleeve which features a rather unattractive image of Leary falling into a rescue net. An insert touts the May 30 premiere of the new season on FX, and presents information about The Leary Firefighters Foundation, a charitable organization founded by Denis Leary.
The full-motion DVD menus feature the show's theme song, "C'mon C'mon" by the Von Bondies. Viewers can play all of the disc's episodes or choose an individual one. The episodes are divided into chapters, but there are no scene selection menus.
