Tonight’s episode of ‘Rescue Me’ had more mood swings than I do when it’s “that time”. Seriously, as I watched tonight’s episode I was laughing one minute and covering my mouth in awe the next. That’s definitely not a bad thing though. The moments were all well timed and everything blended together perfectly so once again, I have no complaints about the most recent installment in the third season of FX’s ‘Rescue Me’.
If you missed it or care to relive this episode, here’s the Drama Queen’s recap: The guys were responding to a call for a man with chest pains when they drove passed an overturned school bus. They stopped to help (and were the first rescue team to arrive) instead of continuing on to save the chest-pain guy. They save the kids from the bus just before the gasoline causes the bus to explode. You’d think they would be heroes for this but in the wake of Katrina, they’re branded racists since most of the kids on the bus were white and the call they abandoned was for a black man.
Garrity tells Tommy that he’s dating Maggie. Tommy acts unphased by it and tells Garrity he knew because he gave himself away at the party by eating Maggie’s cherry out of her drink. Of course there’s a comment about Maggie’s cherry but then Garrity tells Tommy he’s in love with Maggie. Tommy replies with a quick punch to the face.
The chief is working at a local bar surrounded by drunken coeds and grumpy coworkers. He’s willing to clean a girl’s puke out of a urinal if it means keeping his wife in a comfortable home. What a man. You can tell he’s totally miserable but he’s doing what he has to do.
Sheila asks Tommy to have a baby with her no strings attached (yeah right). She knows Tommy wants another son. Tommy counters with the fact that he’s going to be freezing his “wigglers” (Sheila’s word for sperm) so he figures he’s got it covered.
Probie’s roomie performs a favor of the oral variety on Probie. Afterwards they discuss how not-gay they are. They end up arguing and then beating the crap out of each other. It’s quite erotic.
Tommy declares this day “crazy chick calling day” after a series of phone calls he receives while he's in his car. First Janet calls to talk about their divorce settlement and they set up a date and time. Then Maggie beeps in and starts rattling on about how she’s barely dating Garrity and she has like 4 other guys on the side. All the while she’s screaming at a newspaper stand guy. Sheila beeps in and talks to Tommy about his sperm bank trip. Mrs. Turbody beeps in and asks him to come over. He hangs up with her and goes back to the call with Sheila. She asks him to think about her when he’s at the sperm bank in case they do decide to use it to have a baby some time later.
Tommy stops at Mrs. Turbody’s house and once again, barely makes it into the living room before releasing the doves. He goes to the sperm bank right afterward and when he comes out from making his “deposit” he is embarrassed by the insufficient amount of “wigglers”. He tells the male receptionist that the room was too cold, the cup was too big and they could use some better magazines.
Chief falls asleep at the station. They rolled the lounger he was in out into the street. The chief wakes up and storms over to the firehouse and starts screaming at the crew when out of nowhere a truck flies down the road and totally demolishes the lounger. Everyone laughs.
The laughs don’t last though because Lou comes in and just as Franco is telling him about what they did with the chief, Lou responds with a nasty remark and calls him a racist word which starts with Sp and ends with ic. Franco tells him off (mentioning seeing him drunk the other night).
Tommy confronts Garrity about his sister’s other boyfriends and they get into a girly smacking fight, which ends as lamely as it began. Then a black woman walks up to Lou and spits in his face (for the whole bus of kids vs. black man issue). Normally I’d feel bad for him but after what he called Garrity I cant say the woman was entirely wrong in her assessment of Lou’s character.
Tommy attempts to make another deposit at the sperm bank. This time when it was time to unleash the fury, he spazzes out and it goes everywhere. He apparently did his best to gather up what he could and get it into the cup because when the receptionist came back to Tommy he mentioned an unusual amount of dust in the sample. Tommy’s response was “well it’s been a long time”
Laughter mode ends as quickly as it began because it cuts to Lou on the edge of the train platform looking suicidal. He climbs down onto the tracks and is staring at the third rail, preparing to fry himself to death when he sees another man (with the same drunkin scraggly looking appearance) about to do the same thing about 15 feet away. The man tells Lou he has to leave because if they both kill themselves they’ll look like cult members or part of some gay suicide pact. The argue back and forth over who should go first. And we’re laughing again. Then they argue over whose life is worse. The homeless guy talks about how his life sucks since he’s homeless and Lou talks about his wife leaving him and the hooker taking all his money. The homeless guy tells Lou he wins and he can go first. Lou tosses his bottle to the homeless guy and starts to cry. And we’re sad again.
Cut to Tommy in his kitchen at 4 am. He looks like he’s about to have a drink. There’s a knock at the door and its Lou. Lou confesses everything to Tommy. Tommy responds that at least he got to “bang a porn star for a while”. Lou asks Tommy if he can stay with him for a while and Tommy offers him the master bedroom. Lou starts to cry and Tommy teases him about it but the whole thing is kind of sweet.
Tommy calls Johnny and they make arrangements for something (its intentionally unclear but obvious that Johnny is helping Tommy out with something). Tommy asks Johnny how he’s doing and then asks when the thing with him and Janet started. Johnny said it was the junior prom and that she looked amazing in that dress. Tommy hangs up and drives over to Janet’s and they discuss who gets what in the divorce. Janet says Tommy can have the plasma television if she can have the chaise lounge. Seemingly out of nowhere he attacks Janet and starts to rape her though after the initial attack it starts to look very consensual. Once its over they both look very confused. Tommy apologizes about ripping her shirt. They discuss the chaise lounge again and Tommy leaves after Janet says she’ll call him.
After Tommy leaves, Johnny comes riding up and bursts into the door (I’m assuming this is what he and Tommy planned). Janet already had her shirt changed and was reading a magazine acting as though nothing happened. Tommy’s driving away with a smirk on his face.
Thus concludes another truly entertaining episode of ‘Rescue Me’. Now somebody get the show some Midol.
