Grid Effect

Much like every Rescue Me season premiere, “Baptism” showed promise. It set up numerous subplots that can bring a lot of substance to a series that has been lacking it for a couple seasons now (with very few exceptions). Maybe it’s because we’ve waited well over a year and a half for the fifth season, but the difference seemed to be that last night’s episode, unlike so many before it, actually gave some of their peripheral, occasionally selfless (though extremely flawed) characters some of that substantive material.

In other words, they seem to be taking Garrity, Sean, Franco, Mike & Lieu seriously, and not just turning them into one-note walking parodies of themselves. I know there have been dramatic storylines for all of them (lesser so for Mike and Garrity), but eventually it was either turned into a punchline or it eventually fizzled out without any resolution. And not in a good Sopranos sort of way where there was something to be interpreted by either the lack of finality or what has already been revealed.

The most notable of the upcoming episodes will be how the crew reacts to the as of now unnamed French woman who’s writing a book on the ten year anniversary since 9/11. This strikes us odd since it hasn’t even been eight full years, but we’ll just assume they mean for the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and leave it at that. I think all the characters (and the audience) are far enough removed from the day (to varying degrees, I’m sure) that they can actually share their thoughts on it, as opposed to waxing poetically about what their participation in it and otherwise falling silent. This, obviously, opens itself up to some heavy material that few TV shows would be willing to touch. For Rescue Me, it’s unavoidable if they want to maintain credibility.

That isn’t to say that we’re not getting any comedy, obviously Garitty and Mike opening a bar with Franco assisting will be for laughs (if that wasn’t clear by their conversations about it). Not to mention Black Sean (Larenz Tate) sleeping (literally) with Caitlin; and Michael J. Fox, at least in that opening scene, was hysterical. I assume that if they aren’t fully comedic, the latter two will at least have priceless moments of it. That’s generally when this series is at its best, when it can transition quickly and poke fun at their character’s insignificant peccadilloes.

Sometimes it misses the mark, however, the worst example of it being Sean’s mishandled sexual identity crisis. It wasn’t offensive or anything (at least not to us), but if you’re going to joke around about something that so many people would take seriously, it needs to actually be effective. And Mike being mocked by his coworkers for his seemingly endless string of confusion and embarrassment isn’t really cutting it. It’s just dull and pointless because it is yet another one of their storylines with no conclusion (at least as of now).

We got a sense of this last night with Shiela (Callie Thorne), who the writers seem to take some sort of pleasure out of shitting on. This woman, as much as everyone in the firehouse if not moreso, is a victim. An immediate psychological casualty of 9/11, yet that never seems to be acknowledged. She’s just some clingy woman with attachment issues who needs Tommy to coach her through everything. This was exactly the case last night with her son wanting to leave NYU and her drama therapy (or whatever the technical title is for it). I don’t need to keep seeing her obsession pouring out of her mouth every time she speaks. She really has nothing in her life outside of Tommy Gavin? Hopefully this is the only instance of the semi self-aggrandizement of Dennis Leary through his character on a television series that we have left.

Not to say Tommy was torn apart all episode, his speech after watching family videos made him look like not only an asshole but a cocky, heartless asshole; but it served a thematic purpose. The relationship between Shiela and Tommy either needs to come to an end or serve a larger purpose, because right now it is a revolving door of annoying scenes that seem to be to focus of episode after episode instead of everything else we would love to see. I also think Callie Thorne deserves better material.

All in all, it was a solid premiere with potential for both the comedic and the dramatic. But last couple of seasons have been so overly-eventful, exploitive and unimaginative that we understandably have our suspicions. Last night, however, was definitely enjoyable. And for our sake and theirs, we’re hoping they can keep this up.

Some links later.