About Last Night: Tuesday

MiniCaps of Rescue Me and Flipping Out

Flipping Out: St. Claire of Assisi

Let’s get right to it! This week Jeff wants the male employees to urinate into some plastic containers. This is because coyotes are menacing his property, but he’s too cheap to order animal urine to sprinkle around the property. It’s expensive, apparently. So, they do. Jeff sprinkles the pee around whose his house, (it’s not clear whose it is), then accidentally splashes a little on Zoila when he hands the container over to her to clean. So it looks like Jeff’s solved the problem and saved money…but turns out coyotes aren’t affected by human urine anyway. Wah-WAHHHHHHHH.

Other things happened that weren’t about pee. While last week was all about Jeff’s constant low-grade aggravation from corralling Sarah, this one focused on Trace, the young employee who actually has some promise. Jeff is grooming Trace to become his second-in-command, so this week he’s momentarily taking off the training wheels.

The results vary. On the Northern California job, when Jeff and the client are trying to figure out how to lay out a room, Trace steps in with some good suggestions. Clearly he’s good at this stuff. But on another site, he grouses about having to unload some flooring materials from a pallet, because that’s not his job. On a third, a kooky old lady client hugs him. Even though it’s nothing more than the usual discomfort that accompanies many a social interaction, Trace reacts like it’s a momentous event in his professional life. He has personal space issues and someone violated his personal space! Oh no! But that’s probably just because he’s been given a camera to talk into.

Last minor thing, to get to Northern California, the client flies Jeff, Sarah, and Trace up in a private jet. Sarah’s afraid of flying, so there’s some momentary anxiety during taking off and landing, which Jeff inflames with some texts that say, “You’re gonna die!” All in all, a pretty humdrum episode, two-thirds successful running of a business, one-third insanity. But still: pee!

Rescue Me: St. Claire of Assisi

This episode picks up right where last week’s left off–Mick surprises Tommy by showing up at Janet’s, right after he just caught Tommy and Sheila in flagrante delicto, and now the whole happy is family having dinner together. But they don’t drag out that setup too long. Tommy quickly wilts under the pressure and starts choking, and then Sheila bursts through the door insisting she and Tommy are innocent, and the jig is up . Mick and Janet let Tommy and Sheila squirm a while, but what they really want to know is, does Tommy love Sheila? Tommy still claims to be committed to Janet, so he says he doesn’t love Sheila. Mick promptly punches Tommy out and tells him not to contact Sheila again, and not to try to influence Damien to continue firefighting, but Mick’s still forgiving enough to take Sheila and leave. And Janet is still somehow forgiving enough to drop the matter, too.

But Sheila is devastated. Later Tommy calls her up. He says it’s because he wants to apologize for treating her poorly. She doesn’t think he’s sincere; he just wants to be told he’s been forgiven. She’s been used. She won’t do it.

That’s how he returns to Janet—lucky to still have her, but guilty for hurting Sheila, and still not done. Janet wants to know if booze still has any effect on him. She places two water glasses in front of him, one with vodka, another with scotch, and gives him a free pass to pound them both, for old time’s sake. He’s extremely tempted, but good sense finally wins out, and he pours them down the drain. And thus our hero overcomes his trials.

Meanwhile…Damien’s doubts about firefighting are coming to a head. He goes to Mick for advice, and Mick gives him some troubling thoughts—Damien’s dad, Jimmy, actually didn’t need for him to become a firefighter; it was just a backup plan “in case Damien was too stupid to do anything else.” And worse than that, a so-called “calling,” like Damien thinks he has, can be bullshit. Take it from Mick, a former priest. Damien then goes to Feinberg to turn in his papers, but really to see if Feinberg will talk him out of it. Feinberg only reinforces what Mick said—if you’re not sure if it’s a passion, it’s not a passion. And if you’re not fully capable of doing the job, you endanger other firefighter’s lives. So Damien is about to quit, but he runs into Tommy in the locker room. Tommy tells a story about the best part of the job: the bonds you make with the guys on your crew. Damien withdraws his resignation.

Lastly, Lou’s health episode last week turned out to be another heart attack. His doctor tells him to give up firefighting, but that’s unimaginable, and later, when he does try to tell Needles, he can’t work up the courage. So when the crew gets a call for a fire—at a coffin warehouse!—Lou’s reluctance comes back to haunt him.