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Don't feel guilty for hating Rescue Me, with Denis Leary and Diane Farr.
The series born out of Ground Zero could use a lift.
Nothing but praise has been heaped upon the FX drama Rescue Me, the heavy-handed Denis Leary showpiece about firefighters and the psychological torture that follows them like shadows on a sunlit morning. I feel so left out. Having watched a bulk of its first season and the first two episodes of the second, which gets under way Tuesday, I've decided Rescue Me is one of those dramas we salute because it's daring, unflinching and has its heart in the right place.
It's also one of the few series in our post-Sept. 11 world to take a direct shot at dramatizing the lingering effects of those attacks and not come off like it's exploiting our emotions by forcing matters or trying to make big statements with small twitches, as when characters on other shows wear F.D.N.Y. T-shirts and caps.
But good intentions don't make good dramas, and my theory about Rescue Me is that we feel better about ourselves for finding it engaging -- a banker buddy of mine confesses to actually feeling a twinge of guilt for not loving it.
Great position for a TV show to be in. But, as a cop on the show points out to firefighter trying to use his status to get out of paying parking tickets, "Nine-eleven was four years ago, champ -- deal with it." Rescue Me is trying to get away with something for nothing.
We're supposed to understand why Leary's emotionally scattered firefighter, Tommy Gavin, having driven past street vendors hawking Twin Tower cookies and other 9-11 treats, blows his top by leaping out of his car, turning over the tables and urinating on it all before being hauled off in a police car.
Or when pretty boy Mike the Probie (Michael Lombardi) is dumped by his pretty cool but overweight girlfriend and resorts to screaming, "I'm a New York City firefighter. I can still get any girl in this city!" on the other side of her very locked apartment door.
What's troubling about Rescue Me in general and Leary's portrayal and writing in particular (Leary and Peter Tolan are executive producers and writers of the series) is that Gavin, like Leary, doesn't seem all that interesting unless he's screwing something up. Leary's profane, insensitive, selfish, politically incorrect, angry-with-the-world, ordinary-guy routine has served him well in almost everything he's done, including his stand-up comedy career. I don't know about you, but I think this kind of perpetually hacked-off loser persona has a way of wearing out its welcome, particularly when it's designed to eat up so much screen time.
The question is, as always, how bad can things get? The beginning of the second season gives us an inkling. By the end of the second episode, our guy Gavin looks like he's been used as a rag doll by a pair of rambunctious 3-year-olds. He's been slapped around, arrested and discarded by his own peers. His ex-wife, Janet (Andrea Roth) is on the run with his three kids, he's back to boozing and spouting things that don't make much sense, and he's bored stiff with a Staten Island firehouse where the most action he gets is when two colleagues accidentally light a match. He can't even do what he does best.
The drama around Gavin isn't all that supportive. Chief Jerry Reilly (Jack McGee) continues to care for his wife, who suffers from Alzheimer's; ladies' man Franco (Daniel Sunjata) continues to adjust to single fatherhood, and Sheila (Callie Thorne), the widow with whom Gavin had an affair, is pregnant and still doing what she can to keep the guy around.
It gives nothing away to report that Gavin sees the light of day, again, and vows to sober up. But this series isn't titled Rescue Me just because saving people is what firemen do. It also refers to firefighters like Gavin who can't seem to move on.
And do loyal viewers want him to? Leary's characters aren't worth much unless they are broken-down lugs on the verge of a total collapse. In time, you will want to move on.
Just don't feel guilty if, or when, you do.
Rescue Me 9 p.m. Tuesday, FX
