Going Out With A Bang: The Rescue Me Season Finale

Is the season really over already? Unfortunately yes; Rescue Me ends its fifth season this week, and even though it was an extra-long season, it’s over entirely too soon.

I think it is fair to say that most of us watch television because of the comfort it provides. We start watching a show, we get to know the characters and like them, and we invite them into our homes each week almost as if they were members of our own family. We even mark the days by and plan our weeks around them. At least that’s how I feel.

Scripted shows are designed to work that way. They have a format and a formula that works and they pretty much stick to them, so that we have a solid idea of the experience we’re going to get whenever we watch an episode. We know the CSI guys are going to solve the murder within the hour, we know the lawyers are going to wrap up their case, we know that the characters will go through some conflict, be it dramatic or humorous, and that they’ll survive it and be back next week to do a variation on the same thing. The joy comes from watching those variations and delving into a new storyline, all the while knowing that everything will work out.

Well Rescue Me takes all that and throws it out the window. Hell, it throws it out the window and then runs it over with a tank. And not in a pretentious, I’ll-go-against-the-grain-just-for-the-hell-of-it-because-I’m-deep-and-artsy. No, Rescue Me is by far one of the most entertaining shows I’ve ever seen. But it manages to be entertaining while it breaks all the rules in the books and has never once, not in five seasons, been predictable. Let me say that again: in five seasons and seventy-four episodes, the show has never telegraphed where it was going or followed a boring, predetermined path. Do you know how rare that is?

And while I’m here praising the show, let me use this opportunity to call out FX, who, after ordering a sixth season of the show before the fifth even aired because they were so impressed with the quality of the episodes, just announced that they will only produce another nineteen episodes before they can the show in 2011. So FX: what in the sweet chocolate christ are you people doing? What is your problem? Have you been playing too much football without a helmet? Or have you just managed to somehow conceal your stupidity until now? I’m talking to you FX President and General Manager John Landgraf.

You built your whole friggen network with Rescue Me and The Shield and Nip/Tuck. You already canned The Shield, you’re about to can Nip/Tuck, (neither of which I watched by the way, and I’m in the 18-49 demographic you dipshits are so obsessed with), and now you’re going to can Rescue Me? What does that leave you with, Damages? I like Damages, it’s another impressive show, but nobody watches it. Why would you cancel a show that was your bread and butter and is still doing solid ratings when you factor in DVR and downloads, especially when the critics all love it and have been praising this season to no end, calling it a rebirth and renaissance for the show? Rescue Me shouldn’t be cancelled. It’s that simple, and you people are morons for not bending over backwards for Denis Leary and Peter Tolan.

Okay, that’s all I’m going to say…for now. As for this week’s season finale, it’s first rate, definitely on par with the season one, two, and three finales, and definitely stronger than last year. The episode mostly focuses on Tommy and his immediate world. Teddy is obviously dealing with Ellie’s recent death, as she drunkenly plowed into a truck. But Teddy seems to be dealing with it well, and he tells Tommy and Mickey that they have nothing to feel guilty about. Teddy is back in AA, it seems really remarkable how he’s dealing with everything. Well I hate to say the cliché, but not everything is what it seems.

Tommy of course had that breakthrough with Kelly last week when he finally got her to reveal what was in that case of hers: a picture of her infant daughter, who died of a heart defect when she was only a couple months old. She tried to kick Tommy out of her apartment but he refused to leave and eventually they held each other, connected by the shared experience of losing a child. I wrote previously that I had really come to like Kelly as an independent character, and when the possibility emerged—slight as it was—that she could be Tommy’s door number three, his way out of the Sheila/Janet deathtrap, I started to hope. Tommy is an incredibly complex character, he’s a flawed man that has a lot of great qualities and a lot of damaging qualities. He’s far from perfect, but man he deserves a lifeboat, and Kelly could have been it. But I should have known that the demon succubi duo of Janet and Sheila would find a way to ruin it. I just didn’t think they would team up deliberately to tell Kelly that Tommy is damaged goods and to stay away.

Yes, Janet and Sheila, mortal enemies, team up temporarily to eliminate their competition for Tommy (the fact that they would actually want him and go to such lengths to get him, of all people, only reaffirms their massive dysfunction). They go to Kelly’s apartment to mark their territory, pretending to be caring and nice and all we-women-got-to-look-out-for-each-other. But Kelly, wonderful clever fox she is, figures it out pretty quick: “Listen girls, I don’t want to be a bad hostess, but I think I can wrap this up real quick. Uh, I know Tommy is damaged, he’s a goddamned train wreck. And while I appreciate your concern, you two strike me as a couple of ladies who found a really lousy thrill ride at a shitty carnival…but it’s your lousy thrill ride and your shitty carnival, so you’ll be goddamned if anybody is gonna cut the line, hop on and take a spin.” Maura Tierney’s delivery of that line alone should have won her an Emmy. Denis Leary, Michael J. Fox, John Scurti, Callie Thorne and Peter Tolan should all have been nominated and all should win, but whatever. The Globes, The Oscars, the Emmys, all the award shows get it wrong way more than they get it right, that’s not news.

Anyway, it seems like Kelly is going to have shut down Janet and Sheila, but at the last minute Sheila takes an unforgivable cheap shot at Kelly, thanks to information provided to her by her little sell-out momma’s boy son Damian, and effectively ruins any chance that Tommy would have had with Kelly. Tommy gets his revenge on Sheila later on in the episode in a scene that is almost as deliciously satisfying as Lou’s revenge scene with Candy from last week. Oh and at this point I’d also like to mention as further testament to the ludicrous, lazy, shortsighted, self-serving claim that Rescue Me is sexist, my cousin Sara got me hooked on the show, it’s one of her favorite shows, she hates Sheila and Janet and doesn’t think the show is remotely sexist. I mean is Sex and the City sexist? I would argue that show is a lot more sexist than Rescue Me.

But none of that is what people will be talking about. The season finale twist is a doozie. In my review last week, I wrote that great writing is when you present a scene that is both surprising but also feels inevitable at the same time, like it was always going to happen and viewers should have been expecting it. Well the finale twist exemplifies that statement. It’s totally surprising, but then when you think about it, the season had been laying down all manner of clues pointing to this outcome. It is as brave as anything the show has ever done, and that’s saying a lot. As it was unfolding, I was pinching myself and staring in horror at the screen. When it was over, I started muttering to myself and trying not to think about how long I have to wait until the next season answers my question. Remember when cliffhangers really used to be cliffhangers? Rescue Me still delivers the cliffhanger goods when most shows don’t. Go watch and enjoy.

For another take on this episode, check out I Was Taking the High Road. The High Ball Road! by Jaimie Campos.

Season 5, Episode 22: Drink (originally aired September 1, 2009)

For more on Rescue Me, click here.

Tuesdays at 10pm on FX

Photograph courtesy of FX and IMDbPro