Rescue Me Recap (Twilight)

GMMR’s resident Rescue Me expert, Julie from TV and Sympathy is back with this week’s recap. Only one more episode left in this season. Let’s hope that the Emmy voters have been watching the whole season, and that Denis Leary walks away with the Emmy he so deserves.On to the recap

Title: Twilight
Original Airdate: August 15, 2006

Lou and Tommy walk an old man and some kids out of an apartment building that has a fire. Chief tells him to go back inside, there’s one other guy in there who they might have a spot of trouble getting out. They head back in to find the rest of the crew with a guy in a Stephen Hawking-type setup, wheelchair and talking computer, which fascinates Sean and perplexes the rest of them for a minute about how to get him down. Eventually, after some computerized insults, they take him out with the bucket. “I just shit myself.” He tells Tommy on the way down. “I’m sorry to hear about that,” Tommy replies. I think that’s as sincere as Tommy gets.

The crew is just returning to the firehouse when they get sent out on another call. This time, it’s to help a woman who has impaled her arm high atop an iron fence. When they haul out the saw, the woman faints and the whole crew has to hold up her copious, unconscious self so she doesn’t do further damage to the arm. “It’s just like Iwo Jima,” Tommy cracks.

The next morning Tommy arrives home to finds his dad tried to make eggs and burned up the whole stove area. Tommy starts telling his dad he’s not sure this living arrangement is going to work out, they might need to look into some other options. His dad silences him by throwing something at him and saying “You ever talk about putting me in a home again and then next fire I start will take out me, this whole apartment, and possibly you, too.”

In the firehouse kitchen, Probie turns Sean’s lunch offer because Maggie makes him feel weird: “Like, if she looks at me too long, I might cry.” Meanwhile, Franco comes in to solicit Lou’s advice about how Richard is sabotaging his relationship with Natalie. Lou sympathizes, citing the deviousness of the handicapped: “Case in point? They call their Olympics ‘special’. What does that make our Olympics? Not special. Ordinary. Run of the mill.” While Lou’s advice is *super* helpful, Probie busts out some actual insightful thinking about how Richard feels threatened and afraid Franco will take Natalie away. Ah, so I that’s where my Intro to Psych textbook went. Looks like Probie’s been reading up.

Sean and Maggie walk and talk. She complains, he consoles. Eventually, they talk their way into an argument (I know, please try to contain your shock) about getting married in a church. Apparently, marriage in a church is a dealbreaker to Sean. On this one thing he actually gets her to agree.

After dinner with Carlene, Jerry kisses her, but tells her he needs some time before they can get intimate. She’s willing to wait, but tell him. “For a man who looks like a garden gnome, you’ve got a lot of demands.” Hee! Jerry better avoid wearing pointy hats.

Tommy comes home and heads straight for the bathroom, where he runs into a hot, negligee-wearing woman in the bathroom. He then heads to Lou’s room, where he congratulates him for scoring some hotness. When he comes back out to see the woman is a NUN, he heads back in the bedroom. To Lou: “Get out of the bed, whore.” He confronts Lou about the nun thing, to which Lou gets all Buddhist and contemplative on him. Tommy just loves that: “My foot is about to take the enlightened path up your ass.” Eventually, Lou explains how he didn’t meet her as a nun, and she’s about to leave the order. They then proceed to have a fully hilarious debate about how whether what he’s doing is wrong, which I cannot type in its entirety, for it would get way too long. Dammit.

Out on a firehouse call, Sheila gives Tommy a phone call, telling him his dad left. He didn’t just leave – he left a note saying he was going to kill himself. She doesn’t seem too perturbed, but Tommy and Lou go out looking for him. After ruling out a number of nail salons (both gay and straight), they finally find him at the cemetery, where he’s singing to his dead wife’s gravestone. “She was the best woman I ever knew and we had some of my best years together,” he tells Tommy, who counters that they fought like “two wet cats in a bag.” He tells Tommy this future is what he can look forward to. “I thought you were going to kick life’s ass,” but he’s going to turn out like his dad, drunk in a graveyard, crying. Tommy takes his dad away, saying they’ll figure something out.

Franco has sundaes with Richard in an attempt to “talk over some stuff.” Franco explains he understands Richard is playing a game, driving other guys away, but he thinks they can be adult about this. Richard says they have something in common “we’re both smarter than we look.” Franco asks his permission to start seeing Natalie again, which Richard gives him, flattered.

Sean and Maggie meet with a priest. Maggie is being particularly abrasive, prompting the priest to say “you two haven’t come here on a dare, have you?” Maggie degenerates to calling the priest a sanctimonious tool, and he retorts suggesting she might be possessed. All in all, it does not go well.

Jerry asks Tommy for advice about his relationship with Carlene. He’s not sure if he can handle going from tapping Mary Tyler Moores to tapping Eartha Kitt. Tommy’s sympathetic, but not particularly helpful.

In jail, the guard explains to Teddy that people are starting to think he’s got a free ride. He’s got to get a job. Once he later arrives in the conjugal trailer, he gets right down to bitching to his wife about how he’s got to get a job, blah blah blah. She’s quiet, but when he finishes, says: “How come you never ask about my day?” Just like being on the outside.

At the firehouse, Tommy and Sheila sort through a bunch of papers with house listings. Tommy puts them in the order he likes them, getting a sweet, adoring look from Sheila, who it turns out had put them in the same order herself. He asks her for some Viagra, from Damian’s bedroom, for the Chief. She’s irritated, but agrees, kissing him aggressively on her way out.

Lou tells Tommy his insane plan to get his uncle and Tommy’s father to live together. Tommy’s not for it, but Lou has already set it up. Both the elderly gents seem down with it.

Johnny and Janet exchange potential baby names. They are not really on the same page, being that his is a full list of NFL quarterbacks. “I truly believe that Namath Gavin is an original, great name.” She tells him to go to work and think about a new list.

Lou leans over Tommy’s shoulder where he works some calculations about his finances and how it would work out to retire. It seems like it would be okay, even with Janet and the kids. But then he starts talking about how he feels a responsibility to teach young firefighters before leaving them on their own, like they did with Probie. He started out with no skills, and how he can hold his own. But Lou wonders, at what point is it enough? When can you let go?

Probie comes in to ask Tommy for some advice on the “gay stuff,” explaining that he spent like three hours looking for a shirt (no problem, everyone gets mental in stores), which led to trying a face cream (no problem, Franco uses creams and crap), which led to getting a pedicure (no problem), which led to getting his ass waxed. Tommy councils him to go get laid.

Nip/Tuck promo! Prison Break promo! World Trade Center promo – my mom says it is really good. All these things are worth seeing.

Sheila leaves a message for Tommy saying she found the pills. She then goes to the realtor, where she straight-up buys her and Tommy’s favorite condo.
As a peace offering, Maggie bought Sean some avocados. He tells her they’ve been banned from every church in the area. He says she’s sorry and that she loves him. He tells her he was at home recently, thinking about her and all the church stuff, and he got so upset he threw up. Then he started maybe you shouldn’t get married to someone who actually makes you throw up. He walks away, leaving her crying and whining. She’s practically throwing a tantrum. I sort of expect her to fall to the floor shrieking “I want my toys!”

When Lou and Tommy drop Tommy’s dad off at his new place, Lou’s uncle gives them some rules about not coming over, not spying on them, leaving them alone unless they ask for something. He also gives Tommy’s dad some sangria. Looks like this arrangement will work out.

Probie had some satisfying sex with some chick who is, as she puts it, “always happy to help.” Just as I’m admiring her curly hair, he starts admiring it. When he gets to ‘what product do you use’ ’cause his hair is feeling so blah, she tells him they’ve got to “go again.”

“You’re a wicked, wicked man, Mr. Reilly,” Carlene tells him after a bout in the sack. (You can just add that to the list of things I never wanted to hear.) Jerry starts to have chest pain, and asks Carlene to call an ambulance. Instead, she starts putting on her clothes and ditches him, saying no one can know she was there. As she walks out, Jerry collapses to the floor, clutching his chest, slipping into unconsciousness. And that image can be added to the list of things I never wanted to see. Poor Jerry!

On a stakeout, Johnny and a coworker discuss Madonna and Cher. When Johnny lights up, his buddy says he can’t smoke in the car. Johnny takes it outside the car, leaning in the window to talk to his partner. Out of nowhere, in the middle of a conversation about assless pants and roller-skating gay dancers, Johnny gets shot three times in the chest. His partner tries to shoot the shooter, then radios for help. Johnny lies bleeding in the street.

Next week: A Rescue Me ‘special event’, with two of New York’s finest struck down. Only one episode left before the season finale. You guys are all going to be watching with me, right?

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.