Rescue Me Recap – Season Finale (Beached)

Before we get into the final recap of the 2006 season of Rescue Me, I wanted to take a moment to thank Julie for writing these amazing recaps all season long.  You guys have no idea how labor intensive the recaps are, and Julie not only has let us in on what happened on every show, she did it with her signature style and wit.  So please make sure you visit Julie at the newly redesigned (and fabulous) TVandSympathy.com.

Title: “Beached”
Original Airdate: August 30, 2006

Tommy drops his coffee answering his phone. It’s Sheila, wondering if he’s putting in his papers at the headquarters. She tells him she has a great idea: this weekend, they’ll go down to their new house, get furniture, and hang out. Tommy’s not exactly the apex of enthusiasm.

He heads into the firehouse, stealing Probie’s coffee on the way. He then passes by Lou, who is harassing Franco about messing up some job, calling him a probie. He heads into the kitchen, where Lou, not-dead-Jimmy, and some other dude are heckling Sean as a probie. There’s a winsome smile on Tommy’s face as he watches Lou bet Jimmy $10,000 that the Red Sox will never win the World series. Walking back into the garage area, Tommy’s greeted by the old crew celebrating the birth of his daughter, Katie, with an enormous teddy bear and (normal-sized) blow-up doll as gifts.

They’re called away by the siren, and the current-day crew parades past him as new-Lou bugs Tommy to get going: “It’s a fire and we’re all invited.”

Lou just got off the phone with HQ, who tells him they sent over a temporary replacement chief. They haven’t seen him, but they know his name is Pecher. There’s a world of jokes there, and Tommy and Lou banter a few of them back and forth. Tommy then talks to Franco, who’s studying for his Lieutenant’s exam in a couple days, and he seems a little stressed, if his chip destruction outburst is any indication.

The new chief walks in, listening to headphones. They give him a little grief about his name, and he’s quite humorless about it. It’s French. It’s pronounced Peh-SHARE. Don’t they think he’s heard it all before? He heads up to his temporary office only to find Sean banging Maggie on his desk. You know, I’m not sure “we’re newlyweds” is sufficient excuse for that, and I’m pretty sure I’ll never test it out on my boss. Maggie shoos him out angrily, but he picks up his magazine first.

Lou takes Tommy to dinner at a “Japanese-Tarzan fusion place” Teresa (his hot soon-to-be-ex nun) picked out. They’re meeting her for dinner.

Richie is helping Franco study for the Lieutenant’s exam. If the fist-bump is any indication, they’re getting along swimmingly. Richie’s asking Franco questions…without looking at the book. Turns out he read it and memorized everything in it. As Natalie puts it, “it’s spooky.”

Probie calls the chick he met at the bar last week. He asks her out, but she ups the ante – she invites him to a threesome with her brother, which Probie agrees to. Umm…I have a brother…and…just…no. Shudder! Probie, this is a bad idea.

After returning from a fake phone call, Tommy sits down with Teresa and Lou. He’s nervous and awkward, but calms down a bit when she asks about his brother. She then moves on to talking about how excited she is to try out the boat. Lou’s cousin is bringing it up for a day.

Probie meets the bro and sis at the bar. It is hilarious to me that the bro is wearing Dick Casablancas’ “I HAVE CANDY” shirt. After some initial hesitation, they head back to their house for some “fun,” aka sex.

Tommy and Lou arrive back at the pad. Janet, Katie, and Colleen are there. Janet asks if she and Tommy can talk, and they head into another room. She asks if he told anyone about the baby. They’re trying to figure out a quality lie when interrupted by Colleen who asks what they’re talking about and tells them Lou’s foot odor is killing them. Tommy ushers her out, then tells Janet they’ll pretend to be together, and raise the kid together. Bonus if it has a Y chromosome. What if it looks like Johnny? Janet wonders. Tommy isn’t worried: his sperm have “ant strength” and could take Johnny’s any day. This time Katie comes in to ask who Hitler is. Then, what sperm is.

After they push her out, Janet suggests that the girls and she move back into Tommy’s apartment. He brushes her off, but gives her a hug and tells her he’s here for whatever she needs during the pregnancy and he loves her. (Personally, I’m not sure why.) Of course, Lou interrupts them and they spring apart like guilty teenagers.

Probie makes out the sister blissfully, but when he catches a glimpse of the naked bro, gets an unsettled look on his face and says ‘I don’t think I’m bi anymore.’ The next day, the crew gives him grief about it.(Well, not the temp Chief, who is sitting there eating with headphones on.) Of course, Probie told Sean, and Sean told them all, as required by the Geneva convention for informing colleagues about potential brother-sister-combo relations. Probie is getting increasingly frustrated by their heckling. His fuse has been getting shorter every week.

But…Lou to the rescue! Lou stands up and defends Probie’s right to try something different. He gets the crew to agree that they think it’s cool when chicks experiment, and it’s a crappy double standard that guys can’t do the same. Of course, he caps his speech with more teasing. Probie’s had enough, and walks out.

Tommy’s up in the Chief’s office trying to pilfer a retirement form. He gets interrupted and has to come downstairs, where a cab driver has dropped off Jerry, still in his hospital gown. The crew tells him he has to go back to the hospital, but Jerry insists he belongs there. A couple of the guys pick him up and walk him out. Lou to Tommy: “Don’t let me end up like that…like a guy who doesn’t know when to walk away.”

Franco takes his exam.

Lou and Teresa meet Lou’s off-color-joke-making cousin at the pier. As they’re walking out towards the boat, something is amiss with Lou. He has no balance, can’t tolerate even the small undulations of the pier under his feet. Yeah, things with the boat are looking great.

Sean and Maggie have sex that Sean thinks is amazing, but Maggie thinks is just so-so. No surprise, she likes having sex and the firehouse. Likes the idea of being caught. At first Sean resists, but she makes it sound so appealing that he capitulates.

Tommy’s at HQ, ready to put in his papers.

On the steps outside her apartment, Franco tells Natalie he tanked. He didn’t finish. He didn’t want to. He was just taking the test for Keela, and now she’s gone. He failed her, he failed the test. Natalie’s not very sympathetic. She says if he really wanted to get Keela back, he could have. Franco tells her he knows Keela’s better off, but he still thinks about her. He’s got to see her. Natalie tells him to give Alicia a call and set up a meeting. Franco thinks Nat’s being smart, but I think she’s being insensitive. Sometimes you have to bully someone into doing the right thing instead of just saying “oh, maybe you weren’t supposed to be a dad, let’s go get a coffee.” Boo.

Tommy heads up to drop off the papers. He’s greeted by a guy he knows who affectionately calls him a cock-knocker. That’s a new one. Tom asks how he ended up working HQ. He got hurt, and they gave him a choice: desk job, or retirement. Well, he wasn’t going to retire “like some fag”. But why’s Tommy there, he asks? T makes up a bullshit answer and fails to hand in his forms.

Sheila calls him from the new place, saying she got all kinds of stuff and asking if he’s excited for tomorrow. (Important note: I own the shirt Sheila’s wearing. She looks awfully bosomy in it compared to me though. They really like to play up Callie Thorne’s assets on this show.) She asks if he’s put in his papers yet. He says he’s at HQ right now. Nice blurring of the truth, Gavin. You are the master liar. Sheila buys it, however, and giggles. As they hang up, Tommy heads back inside HQ.

Walking inside Alicia’s apartment lobby, Franco spots Keela. They hug and tell each other they missed each other. An imposing black guy walks over, saying Alicia is upstairs finishing a call and he is Keela’s nanny. He doesn’t exactly appreciate Franco’s “manny” comment. (I think Perry makes a better manny anyway.) Donald the manny steps away, but says he’ll be watching them.

Franco tells her how pretty she looks, tells her he didn’t mean to let her go, but that he’s sorry. She says that sometimes, when she doesn’t want to finish her food, “Mommy” says to do her best and she’ll love her anyway. He did his best. They’re interrupted by Donald, who says the car has arrived and they mustn’t miss their flight. The “mustn’t” is a little too Julie Andrews for me. Think he watched Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music to prep for his role as a manny?

Where’s the flight taking Keela? To school in France. She tells him she’ll do her best to come back.

At the firehouse, Franco and Lou lie to the crew. Franco tells them his lieu’s exam went well. Lou tells them the boat was great. Pretty soon it’ll just be Tommy alone in the firehouse. Well, then they get the news that for that day, they’re all getting relocated downtown to help another house. Franco goes up to collect Sean, who is discreetly banging Maggie in the shower.

After it turns out the other house doesn’t need them, Tommy has the guys swing by a memorial for the 9/11 heroes. They stare at it, looking at the names of people they know, talking about how regular people made the memorial happen, no politicians. Lou talks about how firefighters who lost someone in the tragedy wrote personal remembrances that were sealed away behind the memorial wall, so no one will ever read them. The crew agrees that’s how things should stay, between brothers. That’s all they got.

That inspires Lou to admit the boat was a disaster due to his lack of sea legs and Franco to admit he choked on the exam. Despite their solidarity, Probie says he doesn’t care, he’s transferring somewhere he can get some respect. Sean counters that he isn’t. Probie then sheepishly admits he’s not going to. Looks like they’re all sticking around. What about Tommy? As the others head back to the truck, he stares at the memorial for another moment. The shot pushes over to the lonely skyline.

Tommy and Sheila hang out on the patio of the new place. She’s made him dinner. When she heads inside to grab something, Tommy has a chat with ghost-Jimmy, who thinks this is the smartest thing T ever did. Tommy doesn’t seem quite so sure. When Sheila comes back, she tells him about all the changes she’s planning to make to the place. He tells her he didn’t put his papers in. Lou and Franco are staying, things changed, so he feels like he’s got to stay.

Sheila looks heartbroken. She tells him he doesn’t have to stay, doesn’t have to work. She makes him take off his sunglasses and look her in the eye. “Were you at least planning on spending the night with me here?” she asks. Silence, which she interprets correctly. She says she needs a glass of wine and that she’ll go refresh Tommy’s drink. Uh-oh. As I suspected, refresh is just a euphemism for roofie.

Dinner finished, Tommy’s drink half-finished, Sheila invites him in to watch Meerkat Manor. He cocks out while they watch TV, and she seems disgusted with the whole situation. She calls him an asshole and tells her she bought all the stuff for them. She starts throwing things around, and when she tosses a lamp in a corner, she starts a fire. Flames are spreading as she can’t work the fire extinguisher and can’t wake up Tommy. She runs out to the car, where she shuts herself in, wailing, leaving Tommy inside as she calls the fire department.

Tommy is coughing and waking up to a house fully aflame. Sheila tries to get in, but the flames burst out the front door. When she finally makes it in, Tommy’s unconscious – and she, too, falls unconscious trying to drag him out.

Will only Tommy make it? Will they both? Will they be injured? We’ll find out next season, when I’m sure will all be tuning in for more self-destructive behavior, stunted emotional growth, inappropriate sex, affection disguised as insults, politically incorrect bickering, and, oh yeah, life-saving firefighting.

(From GMMR…I know I haven’t mentioned much about it yet, but I did meet the one and only Denis Leary this weekend, and he just as cool as you think he would be).