Rescue Me Recap (Karate)

Title: “Karate”
Original Airdate: July 25, 2006

Last time on Rescue Me: Maggie liked belligerent Sean, Tommy dallied with Angela and was roofied and raped by Sheila, Probie was on the verge of moving out of the firehouse–and his apartment. And much, much more!

At a fire site (with no fire in their immediate area), Lou and Tommy run into some buddies of theirs from another house. They chat and agree to have burgers after the job’s done. Lou and Tommy are still talking when suddenly a gas explosion knocks them down. As they make their way out of the smoke-filled building, they hear their friends are stuck in a fiery area. Probie manages to pull one of the buddies, unconscious, out of the fire (though he’s coughing up blood himself) and Lou saves the other. Phew.

Tommy knocks on Sheila’s door. Things are a little awkward – she hasn’t returned his calls. He tried to apologize for the other night (you know, the night she roofied and raped him?). She tells him he started crying, then started drinking, then grabbed a baseball bat, so she left. Tommy’s contrite and looking for advice about how to deal with his fall off the wagon, but Sheila isn’t particularly receptive. As he leaves, Tommy tells Sheila her ass looks great in those pants.

At a hockey game, Tommy’s on the ice, Sean and trash-talking Maggie are in the stands, and Lou’s at the snack bar, trying to drink himself into a stupor two beers at a time. Tommy hears from another player that Probie will be transferring to another house, and though he’s surprised, I’m not. They’ve been building up this storyline for weeks.

After playing for a while, Tommy heads to the bench, where he has a bit of a crying jag. When he heads out to the ice again, he punches another player and starts an all-out brawl. Once he’s kicked out the game, he starts beating things up before crying again. The player he punched comes in to give him a hard time, but stops when he sees Tommy’s crying. The incredibly perceptive opponent correctly guesses it’s survivor’s guilt, and they have a heart-to-heart about it. Things are going well till the cop admits his way of dealing with the guilt is to drink himself into oblivion: “12 beers, 6 shots of tequila” – which won’t quite work for our wagon-riding friend Tommy.

Next Probie pops in to check on Tommy – who plays off the crying as if it happened because he’d heard Probie would be leaving. Probie’s touched and goes in for the hug, which Tommy reluctantly accepts, telling him: “I don’t want you to leave, kid.” Aww – looks like the tin man got his heart!

Rose comes in to find Jerry paying some bills, which he can do because Birdy paid up. After he mentions he’s going to make some more money by gambling on a hot tip, the two get into a bit of an argument. Jerry explains if he hadn’t been with Rose, he could’ve taken Bob’s money and wouldn’t have to work some crappy job. Telling her his wife has to be his #1 priority, Jerry breaks up with Rose. “Au revoir, you son of a bitch,” Rose tells him.

Cigar- and pizza-chomping Lou watches a game and flips through the paper, where he sees the headline “Con Artist Hooker Nabbed in Chelsea Hotspot” with a picture of his ex-flame, Candi/Danielle. He looks surprised and pleased. It’s epiphany time!

Tommy calls Angela from his truck to apologize for his excess stamina the previous week. She retorts: “So, is that hard-on gone, or did you use it to dial the phone?” Hee. She adds that she heard him talking to his penis in the bathroom (from his lack of success, he shouldn’t ever try to talk someone off a ledge). After confirming that Tommy is indeed “into her,” Angela agrees to dinner on Friday night, stipulating that he mustn’t jerk off for a couple days. Tommy agrees. And they say romance is dead! (Or is that chivalry? I think they both just took a beating.)

New Lou showers (well hello John Scurti’s caboose), primps, and shaves his pubic hair. Of course, Tommy chooses that instant to interrupt him, when he’s “holding a mini weed-whacker up against his nut sack.” Lou isn’t too embarrassed, telling Tommy he’s had an epiphany when he saw the article about Candi, who was busted for drug dealing. Tommy counters that it doesn’t explain why he was “man-scaping” (how much do I love that), but Lou says he has closure, and he’s not going to be the same Lou anymore.

Filled with renewed vigor, Lou heads to the gym. It’s a yoga gym-which throws Lou off his game initially, but he’s nearly swayed by hearing it works your whole body and leaves you centered. (It does!) After hearing that the yoga instructor’s name is Epiphany (!!!), Lou is in. However, when Lou gets a little flatulent during the session, maybe Epiphany is regretting her powers of persuasion.

Meanwhile, Sean is in yet another situation where he’s forced to tell Maggie: “I’m not going to fight the falafel guy so that you can feel loved.” He wonders what it’s going to take for her to feel loved. Does she want to get married? As it happens, sure she does. Umm…really? Yeah-she wants to head down to city hall right then. Hold your horses, Maggie! Sean’s more in the market for a traditional wedding, with tunes and guests and romantic warbling. Maggie (thrice wed already) disses: “Music and flowers and Elton John-how gay can you get?” Please? Sean asks. “You’re such a whiny little bitch,” Maggie replies. We’ll take that as a yes. As the betrothed couple departs, the falafel guy says “Poor bastard.” I second that.

Uncle Teddy is getting hitched, and Tommy’s there for him. Teddy looks quite dapper-very “silver fox” in his suit and tie. His woman gives an impassioned declaration about how she loved him from the first time she saw him in the newspaper. Teddy gives his own ardent vow, and they’re about to make it all legal when the bride’s witness starts an argument with Teddy and they have to clear the room. The priest pronounces them married right before they leave, and Teddy gets one parting glance at his new bride’s booty.

Franco gets his flirt on with a bartender. Instead, he gets picked up by another woman, Natalie, a pretty photographer who thinks there might be more to Franco than meets the eye. (No, not that he’s a Transformer. Though how awesome would that be?) Back at Franco’s apartment, after they’ve done the deed, Franco tells her it was more intimate than he was expecting. Natalie asks some personal questions, but when Franco won’t answer, she says she’ll just photograph him instead. That is, until she finds Keela’s room.

Probie comes home to an interrogation from his roommate about his whereabouts, complete with hand-sniffing. Roomie accuses Probie of sleeping with the chick from the bar. Probie confesses he was with the girl – he misses pussy. Probie says he’s on the fence. Roomie (who has a name! Chris!) tells him until he heads back to the gay side of the fence, he can head out of the apartment.

As Lou tries to meditate in the morning, he’s interrupted by Sean, who’s patching up the wall Sheila busted up last week. Why the heck is Sean there? Because he’s trying to make nice with his future brother in law! Once Tommy finds out Sean and Maggie are engaged, he asks Lou to hit him in the head with a hammer. Bad idea, Tommy-I think blows to the head with a hammer are what got Rescue Me’s writers into this mess.

At the firehouse, Lou does some stretches, Franco asks if any of the guys have ever done it with an artist. He explains when he had sex with Natalie it was more like they “made love” (what, he never had non-crazy sex with Laura?). Franco says he isn’t in love with her or anything, but he kinda liked how she was all “deep and shit”. Chief gets a call from his gambling insider friend, and the crew all goes in with bets, except Lou, who abstains. They send Probie out to place the bets (betting he won’t actually make it). He makes it, but he gets the bet wrong. Well, the wrong bet turns out to be a winner, and the crew is psyched rather than disappointed.

Later, Angela arrives at Tommy’s all hot and bothered, ready to get him off, which she does in about five seconds flat, besting her goal of two minutes. She’s a bit let down, but ready for round 2 in the bedroom. Tommy, however, is not-he hasn’t been able to sleep in there since Janet left. Angela picks up on this and — speak of the devil! – Janet arrives, trenchcoated and calling Tommy a stud.

Of course, Angela and Janet have words, and Angela storms out, straight into the arms of her vertically challenged ex, Sebastian. Tommy follows them into the hall, where Sebastian karate-kicks him in the face, knocking him to the floor (hence the title of the ep, which I personally would’ve called Ephiphany). Angela gives him some final words to remember her by, then leaves arm in arm with the ex. Tommy asks Janet to help him up, but she leaves his ass on the floor, saying she feels ridiculous. We go to black on the image of Tommy prostrate on the tile floor. (Lou might say he’s in corpse pose.)

Next time: The crew might be breaking up. I’d say more, but isn’t that threat reason enough for you to tune in already?

Julie is a GMMR recapper extraordinaire, but she also has her own fabulous TV website. Head over to TV and Sympathy to read more from Julie