Rescue Me: Holy Effing Shit!

This show has entertained and disturbed me for a little while now. Great cast with hillarious scenes followed by gut-wrenching scenes followed by intense drama.

Failing marriages. Alzheimer's disease. Psycho girlfriends. Bizarre stalkers. Post 9/11 depression and anxiety. Anti-depresants. Drunk driving. Antagonistic siblings. Cop/Firefighter rivalry. Abuse. Single-parent strife.

Tonight really moved beyond that. (That's an understatement.) I hate to get vague, but I suspect some folks don't want to see "spoilers". (A friend of min gets wiggy when anything is spoken about a show or film he hasn't seen... in fact, he's neurotic enough to avoid trailers or information about production staff.)
Dennis Leary's character Tommy Gavin just raped his estranged wife Janet... their only son died because of a drunk driver last season and the Gavin family want another male to carry on the Gavin family firefighter tradition. It gets stranger. Tommy's cop brother John has been seeing and sleeping with Janet for a while now. Tommy found out recently and beat the shit out of John. Now, before Tommy went to Janet's house he arranged for John to arrive at Janet's house 30 minutes after Tommy arrived... and the impression is that John knows exactly what's going on.

How in the flamming hootie-hoo is this going to work???
I don't really get it... although, the episode clearly left a lot hanging for next week and further episodes. Some folks will not watch next week because tonight was over the line for them. (I can't really fault them.) I can't help but watch next week to see how in the Hell we can look at the character Tommy Gavin (played by Dennis Leary) in any light other than just plain wrong.

Perhaps one way to look at the decision for the show to go in this direction is gutsy... if you see it you'll know why. Dennis is a fairly well known actor and comedian and this show has earned him more recognition. What happened tonight might turn off more than a few viewers. Each of the characters are likable in a certain way, in spite of their private demons and closets full of skeletons (sometimes because of them)... but I really wonder how this will play out.


Tuesday nights at 9:00 PM Central... on FX.

• TV Guide interview with Andrea Roth (Janet Gavin)
• TV Guide interview with Callie Thorne (Shiela Keefe)
• Rescue Me anti-blog by John Scurti (Lt. Kenny "Lou" Shea)

From the Andrea Roth interview:
"Well, when Tommy comes over and we have sex, it starts off very violent, and you're not really certain exactly what the hell happened. I read in an article that Denis said that scene actually shows how complicated and strong the sexual pull is between these two people and why they are together and find it so hard to be apart. I haven't seen it, but a bunch of producers have said it's their favorite scene."