‘Rescue Me’ 6.08 Recap: “Happy Happy, Sunshine and Roses”

After a brief shutdown, the boys are back to work in last week’s episode of ‘Rescue Me’. Tommy has another shot with Janet. Damien makes a huge save at a fire call and is getting somewhere with his girlfriend. Things are looking up for everyone. So long as they don’t do anything stupid and blow it, that is. But when has that ever happened, right?

As the previous episode ended, Tommy and Janet, in a moment of shared mutual sadness brought on by memories of their dead son, fell back into each others’ arms and into bed. ‘Cowboy’ opens with Tommy basking in the afterglow. He’s even decided to get up early and make breakfast. He’s not such a good cook, but it’s the thought that counts. He expects that this is (another) opportunity for the two of them to start over. Janet, however, is much more skeptical and pragmatic about the situation. She agrees to give their marriage one last shot. But it will be literally their last shot. It’s all or nothing this time. If Tommy screws things up again, she vows extreme cruelty the likes of which he can barely imagine.

Also, he must cut off all contact with Sheila. Forever. He’ll be allowed one last meeting to say goodbye, but that’s it. No communication ever again. Tommy agrees.

In an effort to reopen the firehouse, Chief Feinberg and Needles make a trip to headquarters. Feinberg has an old friend on the committee that made the decision about closings, and thinks he has some favors to call in. He tells Needles to keep his mouth shut.

The meeting doesn’t go as well as Feinberg hoped. His friend shuts him down before he can even start. Filled with righteous indignation, Needles makes a big play. He explains about how his boys rescued that group of deaf children without any equipment before the West Side fire engines could even arrive, and threatens to release the video to the press and on YouTube if the house isn’t reopened immediately. Feinberg is enraged. Even though Needles may have gotten the house reopened, they’ll now have no political clout in the department

The boys don’t care about departmental politics, of course. They’re just happy to be back at work. Sure enough, a call comes in almost immediately.

Due to his health problems, Lou moves extremely slowly in the fire, and gets separated from Damien. He actually needs to lean on an old lady to walk him out. In the midst of this, Damien rescues a baby. It’s his first major save, and a big one. “I don’t even like babies and I’m psyched!”

Later, Damien goes to Franco for advice on how to make things physical with his new girlfriend. Franco tells him to use the story about saving the baby, and feeds him a bunch of bullshit lines that Franco himself would have no problem pulling off. Damien isn’t so smooth, of course. The girl sees right through him. She cuts to the chase and drags him back to her place for sex… which lasts all of 12 seconds. She didn’t realize that Damien was a virgin and is pretty disappointed, as you’d imagine. So she walks him through what to do and tells him to slow it down. And it works. The next round, he lasts 16 seconds! In a hilarious moment, the girl sarcastically comments that he should be able to last a whole minute by Christmas. Damien leans back, smiles, and says, “Yeah, that’ll be pretty sweet.”

In a bid to cheer up their dying friend Pat, Sean and Mike contrive a scheme to reunite him with people he’d saved on the job. The first meeting goes extremely well. Pat gets the kind of gratitude they’d expected. But they didn’t bother to check out anyone on the list beforehand, and the remaining attempts don’t go nearly as well. They learn that one guy is in prison because he’d murdered four people after Pat saved him from the fire. Another old man is extremely upset that Pat saved him but couldn’t save his wife. Despite this, on the ride back to the hospital, Pat tells the guys that he appreciates what they did, and that he’s still proud of his work. Then he just fades away, right there in the car.

Tommy makes his last meeting with Sheila to say goodbye. She acts nonplussed, and tells him that all he ever did was disappoint her anyway. She announces that the sex sucked, tells him that he’s worthless in the sack when sober, and boasts about how Mickey is a better lover. In response to these taunts, Tommy naturally needs to prove her wrong. This inevitably leads to some rough kissing, a slap, and a frantic scramble to tear each others’ clothes off. Just then, Mickey walks in.

As he storms out, Tommy and Sheila both try to put themselves back together and leave him dueling voicemail messages begging him – for forgiveness on Sheila’s part, and not to say anything to Janet on Tommy’s part.

Tommy goes home, not sure whether Mickey said anything. Janet seems happy and is making dinner. He asks Janet whether she’d gotten any phone calls recently, and she says no. After eyeing the scene suspiciously for a moment, Tommy starts to relax. Janet calls out that dinner is ready, and Mickey steps out from the bedroom. Uh oh.

I think that’s the end of Tommy’s good fortune.

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