Rescue Me’s premiere elevated family dysfunction to new heights

Rescue Me rarely fails to confound me, and therefore intrigue me. Just when I think that I might be able to predict where it’s going to go and how its characters are going to react to situations, it veers in the opposite direction.

Such was the case with the season six premiere last night where some of the characters’ actions in the aftermath of Tommy Gavin’s near-death experience after his Uncle Teddy shot him — fully intending for Tommy to die as he bled out on the bar room floor — were not at all what I expected.

Speaking of Teddy — who at the end of the fifth season shot Tommy, whom he held responsible for the death of his wife in a booze-fueled car crash after Tommy advocated that his whole Gavin family ditch sobriety and embrace alcoholism — let’s start with him. A month after nearly killing his nephew in the firefighters’ bar, Teddy was back at the bar, sitting there having a drink. Seriously? You mean to tell me that he was allowed to set foot in there after holding Tommy and his crew hostage? After attempting to murder Tommy?

Meanwhile, there was Tommy’s cousin Eddy, the bar’s new owner, who decided to exploit his cousin’s shooting as a great business opportunity. He loudly announced Teddy’s presence to the bar patrons by declaring that “The Shooter” was in the house, that was a short while after introducing Tommy as “The Guy That Died” and suggesting that Tommy take photos with the customers.

Eddy, who was selling a new drink called the “Blood Shot Mary” (vodka, tomato juice and an empty shell casing), had left the chalk outline on the floor along with the accompanying blood stain from where Tommy fell and bled, as touristy gimmick. He even told Tommy that he should lie down in between the chalk lines and pose for additional photos to “earn” enough money to pay for the drink Tommy was craving. This was so messed up that I could hardly believe that it was really happening, that it wasn’t one of Tommy’s wacky hallucinations, like the one he had of himself sitting on a priest’s red tufted chair at the altar while drinking booze from the bottle and smoking when, in reality, he was actually just sitting in a pew drinking.

Why did Tommy even go back to the bar, on the day he left the hospital? Tommy flat-lined after being shot there. He had a vision of himself being ripped away from the supportive presence of the brotherhood of deceased firefighters in heaven and sent, instead, to a literal fiery hell where he couldn’t escape and was haunted by the people whom he couldn’t save, so why return to the place where you were nearly killed to drink again? But this is the Tommy Gavin we’re talkin’ about. He’s not exactly acting rationally.

It’s not as though I was surprised to learn that, despite the shooting and its ties to alcoholism, that the not-dead-yet Tommy is still drinking. Because of that shooting at the hands of his uncle, I fully expected he’d attempt to numb his pain with even more alcohol. However seeing his youngest daughter Katy serve him up a huge glass of whiskey, while his oldest daughter Colleen was openly drinking large quantities of straight vodka in full view of the family in the middle of the day, and his estranged wife Janet, who made no bones about letting Colleen drink by saying her lust for alcohol was genetic, kept intentionally punching Tommy in the shoulder where he’d been shot, I felt as though I was observing a portrait of dark, disturbed family dysfunction unlike I’ve seen in some time, not that the Gavins have ever been truly functional.

Toss in the insane driving of Mickey, who was sucking down vodka from the bottle, when he picked Tommy up from the hospital, I spent the majority of the time while watching this season premiere feeling gobsmacked, wondering if it’s even possible for Tommy and the whole Gavin family to fall even further than they already have. There’s definitely something screwy in the Gavin gene pool.

What’d you think of the premiere?

Clacked by Meredith O'Brien
on Jun 30, 2010 @ 17:00 EST5EDT