We watch... so you don't have to.
Beyond Rescue
The most recent episode of Rescue Me was totally awful. It sucked so mightily, I cannot even describe its sucking. Put everything bad about the show into one episode, and you've got it.
Spoilers follow. (In case anyone's still watching.)
There comes a point in some shows where I start to feel that the writers are just torturing the characters for fun. Maybe they've been on the show for so long they hate the characters and want them to suffer. Maybe they think by making the characters miserable, the actors and writers will garner award nominations. It worked for Rescue Me, where Denis Leary got himself nominated for best actor in a drama. Drama? Is this a drama now? Did someone tell, um, anyone involved with the show? Because it's been a lot more like a comedy -- at least the good parts.
But the most recent episode, no, that was a bad comedy.
Last season when Tommy's son was killed by a drunk driver, okay, the writers were toying with the character of Tommy. Making his life lousy (or lousier) just to put him through the wringer. But I was willing to go along with it because, hey, sometimes bad things happen.
This season when Tommy's brother was killed, that was too much. That right there is simply the writers fucking with Tommy. I mean, yes, firefighters die. Police officers die. Kids are killed by drunk drivers. But all in the same family? All at once? Maybe in real life something that awful could happen to someone. Sure. But I'm figuring Tommy's wondering why his life seems to go down the shitter every 12 episodes.
Tommy's brother dying is supposed to be a big deal, even if a season or two ago a totally different actor played him for half the season and no one noticed. Okay. I'll play along. It's gratuitous, it's unnecessary. It's dumb. But I'll go along just this far, until...
Until the funeral, where the never-before-mentioned deaf sister shows up and it turns out half the cast knows sign language to communicate with her. There was actually about ten minutes of expository dialogue amongst the various characters just to explain how all of this happened. And then on top of that, Tommy's sister decides to get married in the graveyard in the least believable marriage scene in the history of moving pictures.
I sat there, watching this, asking if there was some point earlier in the season where Tommy got hit on the head, because I was sure he was going to wake up and find the third season had all been a dream.
In fact, that would have been preferable to finding everyone trying to play this crap straight.
My only guess is, Rescue Me isn't coming back. And the producers only just got word of it. So they're trying to wrap up the series in two episodes by throwing everything they've got at it.
Except, you know, good writing. Which I guess they ran out of.
