Review: FX's 'Rescue Me' says goodbye in typically uneven fashion

Last week's "Rescue Me," the penultimate episode of the FX firefighting drama, spent most of its running time on the wedding of Tommy Gavin's eldest daughter Colleen to his colleague Black Shawn. It was a long sequence, alternately funny and unbearable. Then the episode segued rather abruptly into one of its hairiest, most riveting fire sequences ever, as Tommy and the rest of the guys on 62 Truck became trapped in an arson fire after turning away from a waiting escape ladder to try to rescue a few more civilians. Their only exit blocked, best friends Tommy and Lou faced each other, unsure of what to do next... 

...and then the building blew up. 

The episode was, in other words, seven seasons of "Rescue Me" in a nutshell: at times hilarious, at times obnoxious, and then so riveting that you will almost forgive it every one of its past sins. 

Almost. 

"Rescue Me" debuted in July of 2004, nearly three years after 343 members of the FDNY died while helping evacuate the World Trade Center on 9/11. Other TV series would make 9/11 an occasional subject, or a clear theme ("24," "Battlestar Galactica"), but no drama was as bluntly, consistently about that horrible day in the way that "Rescue Me" was. Denis Leary's Tommy had been at the Twin Towers that morning, had lost his cousin Jimmy in the collapse, and had in turn let his own life fall down around him. He drank too much, fought too much with his wife Janet, took too many risks on the job, and saw ghosts - Jimmy, other 9/11 firefighters, people he'd failed to save - everywhere he turned. Read More...

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