Rescue Me has officially gone to Crazytown. When the first ten-plus minutes are devoted to a grocery-store trip involving a free-running shoplifter, “pussy shopping†in the cereal aisle, and way too much talk about avocados, you have to wonder where the rest of the episode can be going. Soon we have an answer: Sheila, doing even crazier things than Sheila usually does (threatening a handcuffed Tommy with a Zippo)! Janet, being even bitchier than Janet usually is (acting like a 13-year-old girl in a fancy Soho restaurant)! And Tommy, being spectacularly stupid, even for Tommy! Back to the sin list you go, Mr. Gavin.
Adultery
Jimmy’s Ghost: What’d you think, I was a scumbag like you? And if the tide was reversed, I never woulda slept with Janet. Okay? Code of honor, brother.
There’s so much double-crossing going on in Tommy’s marriage that it’s hard to keep things straight. He may or may not actually be married to Janet (as Janet hints). And is cheating with Sheila. And then cheating (or attempting to) on both of them with Kelly. Meanwhile, we still don’t know with whom Jimmy cheated on Sheila, but we do know it wasn’t Janet (they got it on once upon a time, but it was before Tommy and Janet’s sorta marriage). Whew.
Lying
Kelly: I thought I was a mess. But I like this. It’s intriguing. I’m kind of a drama queen, and so are you.
After a very odd closing sequence at Kelly’s apartment (strangely nice and Tribeca-ish for a temporary place, no?), filled with many mysterious silences and the strange feeling that Tommy is using Kelly as a no-nonsense therapist of sorts, Tommy cancels out all his soul-spilling by telling Kelly he can’t stop thinking about her and spent the night alone. At least Kelly sees through his B.S. But what, oh, what is in that box? (It looks, indeed, like just a bong — but we think something else is hidden in there. And we’re pretty sure few people look that sad while smoking up.)
Irresponsibility
Janet: Well, it’s pretty cut-and-dry as far as I’m concerned. Either you get to see Katie or you don’t. Kind of a no-brainer for most fathers — but then again, you’re not most fathers, are you Tommy?
Call us traditional, but the fact that Tommy even considers the choice between Sheila and Janet a choice strikes us as patently ridiculous. Yes, they’re both insane in their own special ways. But come on — Katie? We’d think the guy would at least feel some remorse at her transformation into Scary Katherine and perhaps worry a bit over all Janet’s increasingly believable threats. Not when a scene at an Italian restaurant is an option, apparently.