I had really enjoyed the last few episodes of "Rescue Me" leading up to tonight. It seemed to be returning to a top-notch character drama, which quite frankly, it hasn’t consistently been for a number of seasons. But tonight’s finale…I’m not even sure where to begin with all the problems I had with it. Do I begin with what it didn’t do? Or with what it did do? Because both bothered the hell out of me. I think I’ll start with what it didn’t do.
Last week’s penultimate episode finished Damien’s tug-of-war arc about whether or not to remain a fireman. On the one side, Tommy was pushing him to continue following in Jimmy’s footsteps and remain a firefighter. On the other side, Sheila and Mickey were trying to pull him out and convince him to pursue a safer career. In the end, Tommy won the battle for Damien, and as a result, Damien literally met a crushing end. This tragedy befalling one of the show’s most likeable and innocent characters set up what should have been a powerful and emotionally draining finale.
Here are the powerful dramatic moments I was expecting to see:
1) Sheila learning what happened to her son, resulting in the emotional tour de force acting I’ve come to expect from Callie Thorne. Presumably, Tommy would have been the one to break the news to her, making the moment all the more powerful.
2) Sheila’s rage towards Tommy manifesting itself in putting all the blame on him.
3) Tommy being driven back to the brink of the bottle because of his own massive sense of culpability for what happened.
4) Janet’s initial reactions of rage and jealousy at seeing Tommy try to help Sheila after Damien’s tragedy drove him back to her as a protector.*
5) The very serious treatment of the reaction of everyone in this universe, and the toll Damien’s accident took on them.
#4 we did get, but because it was so much later, Janet is able to take a much firmer and more reasonable stand against Tommy's priorities. It would have been more compelling to see her dealing with the ambiguity of having these feelings while simultaneously knowing it was inappropriate to tell Tommy not to be there for his godson and his godson's grieving mother right after the accident.
These are the moments that would have made for a riveting, emotionally powerful piece of drama. These are the moments that would have completed the season long story this show has been telling. In short, these are the moments that would befit a finale.
Instead, what we got functioned far more like the opening chapter to season 7 than the closing chapter to season 6. It’s true that the episode’s opening scene was sufficiently powerful, with Sheila breaking down in agony, and then the shocking pan over to Damien, who I’d assumed was dead from Sheila’s phone conversation, but is instead crippled and brain damaged in a wheel chair, completely unable to speak. The image of this condition was far more horrific than an actual death would have been. As such, I expected the issue to be treated with the utmost seriousness. I was severely disappointed to learn that we were picking up two months after Damien’s accident, and as a result missed out on all the powerful dramatic moments that should have followed last week’s episode.
Moreover, after that opening scene, Damien’s condition was tastelessly treated as a joke. It was repulsive to see the boys using Damien to pick up chicks, and then arguing over who got to use him as a wing man on which nights. But the most disturbing piece of disrespect thrown Damien’s way by the writers was when Tommy attempted to mimic him over the cell phone to Sheila by emitting a panged squeal. These jokes, this general attitude of making light of Damien’s situation, are things I probably could have accepted in the season 7 premiere...you know, after we’d been given an entire finale dealing with this tragedy in a very serious way. And after I’d had several months distance from the show in between seasons and time to process. But the fact that two months elapsed for our characters before they made these jokes is fairly irrelevant to how I perceived their behavior. For me, Damien’s tragedy just happened last week. For me, this is still fresh. And to see the show come back a week later and spend the entire hour making fun of this poor, 18 year old kid, who heroically gave up everyhting in the line of duty, and who I’ve come to like and care about over the last several seasons, was disgraceful. I needed catharsis. I needed closure. And I felt the writers somewhat spat in the face of that.
Moreover, the episode in general functioned more as a setup for the upcoming season than like the conclusion of this one. We learned that Tommy has been neglecting his family in favor of other duties and Janet is pissed off. We learn that Sheila is more addicted to medications than ever and is obsessed with finding a miraculous cure for Damien’s paralysis. We learn that Mickey couldn’t take what happened and vanished for 2 months, that Colleen is having trouble staying on the wagon, and that Lou has been ignoring his doctor’s warnings to stay off the job. Again, every single one these feels like the kind of establishing drama we would get in a premiere, and not at all the emotionally powerful closure we deserve from a finale.
To make matters worse, Teddy shows up once again to become Colleen’s new sponsor. I wrote last week that it bothers me every time he shows up, because I find it completely absurd that everyone has just accepted what he did to Tommy as if it’s no big deal…and that’s not even to mention the fact that for some reason there was no police investigation into Tommy's shooting. So the notion that Colleen would agree to have Teddy, the man who literally shot and killed her father, become her new AA sponsor, is an absolute absurdity and completely detracts from the realism of the universe for me.
This makes three straight "Rescue Me" finales that have massively disappointed me. But as ludicrous as Teddy’s shooting of Tommy was in last season's final episode, the complete and utter disrespect shown to a beloved character last night makes this finale the worst of all. I hope they find a way to end next season in a more fitting way, because as it happens, it will also be the end of the series.
So very disappointed. And I’m out.
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