It’s Called Disclosure, You Dickhead

Not to overdose on symbolism, but the powder keg that is Ladder 62 is about to ignite. On this week’s episode of Rescue Me, things between Tommy and his brother are heading towards an ugly mental showdown, CrazyTaty and Sean hit the skids and Franco finds out the punishment for airing your dirty laundry to your old, childless, Sugar Mama. Things are bound to get ugly all around pretty fast, but unlike Tommy’s potential case of Chlamydia, I’m worried that when the medicine kicks in, everything won’t be working so fine and dandy. Find out why, after the jump!Not to overdose on symbolism, but the powder keg that is Ladder 62 is about to ignite. On this week’s episode of Rescue Me, things between Tommy and his brother are heading towards an ugly mental showdown, CrazyTaty and Sean hit the skids and Franco finds out the punishment for airing your dirty laundry to your old, childless, Sugar Mama. Things are bound to get ugly all around pretty fast, but unlike Tommy’s potential case of Chlamydia, I’m worried that when the medicine kicks in, everything won’t be working so fine and dandy. Find out why, after the jump!

This episode starts on a hysterical note with Probie and the other guys helping Tommy move some of Janet’s divorce winnings out of Tommy’s apartment. Tommy incorrectly calls the SeTan the Chaise lounge. Why is it hysterical you ask? Because is “he or isn’t he” Probie is the one to correct him. It’s funny on the stereotypical gay level and also funny on the “Probie doesn’t even know his own age but knows the difference between a SeTan and a Chaise lounge” level. Lou is checking out the freezer in his new temporary digs with Tommy, and asks Tommy how he’s doing. Lou just went through this with his wife and an empty apartment can be pretty depressing. Tommy doesn’t need Lou, but Lou does need a drink. He goes into the freezer and sees this:

In the other room, Sean is laying down, because he’s tired from being up all night with Maggie. You know, screwing. I don’t know why Sean decides to tell Tommy this, but then I remember that Sean is actually a functioning retard, so it makes sense. Tommy then explains to Sean that he is a pussy. I’d have thought that Sean would’ve already known this, but apparently he needs clarification. Tommy tells him that he’s a pussy because he won’t call Maggie on the fact that she’s screwing five other guys and a naval fleet behind his back. Sean thinks that Tommy is just messing with him, so he’ll kill himself like Fred. Who is Fred, you ask? Fred, is a guy who went to high school with Maggie and Tommy who Maggie claims Tommy taunted for sleeping with her, until he killed himself. Tommy is in awe of Sean’s mental shortcomings, and tells him that Fred killed himself over a cat.

A little bit later on, Franco excuses himself from the move, saying he has to meet up with Alicia and Keela. Tommy let’s him go with a few demerits, as Probie helps Lou take the last of the furniture outside to Popa Bear who is waiting in the truck. Sheila pops in, and immediately complains that the room smells like “beer farts and cigar smoke”. Sheila is obviously losing her touch because I’m pretty sure there is also a whiff of stale vagina in there as well. Sheila also asks how Tommy is doing, because the place is looking pretty bare. Tommy says he’ll be fine; Lou is staying with him, and all will be well, because Lou is no longer a drunken asshole. Sheila has bigger news though; guess who she ran into the other day: Angela! Actually, she calls her AAANNNNgela, but either way, she was walking around the city and bumped right into Johnny’s ex. They went to get their nails done and to lunch, and Angela promised she’d call her this week. Aww, Sheila’s got a little lesbian crush. It’s sweet. And OH SO HOT!

As Tommy is rummaging around the barren living room, he comes across Conner’s old baseball mitt. Ouch. Tommy kind of just stares at in blankly and goes over to the window. Sheila comes in from the other room, and sees Tommy upset and thinks that this is the perfect time to put the moves on him because he was crying and acting gay. I love my Sheila, but tactful she is not. Tommy shakes her off and Sheila is really ticked off. She doesn’t care if he is mourning over his dead son, she needs some Tommy Gavin lovin’ and she needs it now! She tells him that he’s been giving her all these mixed signals and he’s constantly tossing her sneaky glances and she can’t take it anymore. Tommy says that he’s not sending her signals, he’s just communicating with her. Tommy tells her that he has to communicate with her because she is living up his ass. WHOA. Sheila disagrees and they have a debate over who is living up Tommy’s ass. Is it Sheila, as Tommy suggests, or more controversially, Tommy living up his OWN ass, as Sheila argues? They bring in a steel cage and Popa Bear announces that two shall enter but only one will leave, so I don’t know if we’ll ever find the answer we are looking for.

Outside of the central brain trust, Franco’s daughter Keela and his older ladylove, Alicia, are having an imaginary tea date in the park. I’m so glad that I don’t have kids, because I watch this scene and think about how hard it would be to imagine drinking tea and loving it. Keela asks Alicia if she is going away soon, but Alicia reassures her that, no, she’s not actually going anywhere anytime soon, as long as Keela doesn’t want her to. Alicia wants to know why, has Keela heard of any parts for middle aged woman? Keela says no, she’s just used to here “mommies” leaving. Alicia then hits us with the bombshell that much like Keela’s real mommy, Alicia’s daughter died and went to heaven, and she was very sad for a very long time. Keela never wants Alicia to be sad again, and wants them to be together forever. Kind of pushy don’t you think Keela?

Meanwhile, Uncle Teddy is having a talk with his new buddy in prison, trying to pick out a suitable conjugal visit partner. Every girl that Uncle Teddy shows to his prison buddy is rejected by him for either being too ugly or a dude. Uncle Teddy says it isn’t American Idol; he just needs someone to bust a nut to. Somewhere Ryan Seacrest is very upset that he isn’t in the running. Uncle Teddy’s friend has a suggestion… offering himself to the big lug. Uncle Teddy, politely declines, saying that he’s a nice guy and keeps a great cell, but Uncle Teddy is strictly a pussy. No, a pussy man. Sorry.

In other relationship news, it seems that Sean has finally grown the balls to confront CrazyTaty on her extracurricular activities. They are sitting outside, in what looks like an abandoned junkyard wearing each others clothes, and Sean finally says enough is enough and that it’s over, once CrazyTaty cops to banging every other guy in New York City. And some in Staten Island and other surrounding burrows.

In a sweet moment of brotherly affection Tommy has just finished picking up groceries and has stopped to allow some pedestrians to cross. Two of those pedestrians happen to be his brother Johnny and Tommy’s ex-wife Janet. Tommy revs the engine and Johnny just looks at him and tries to make out with Janet to instigate Tommy. Tommy has the last laugh however, as visions of the hatefuck he gave Janet last week dance in his head.

Franco has just come home and he’s looking for Keela and his octogenarian girlfriend, Alicia. He calls out their names a few times, and when Keela doesn’t answer he checks her room. She’s not there and neither is Alicia. Uh oh. He runs downstairs to his neighbor, and asks her if she’s seen them, and then runs back into his apartment in full-on panic. And then he finds the inevitable, “I’ve taken your daughter” note from Alicia. Franco heads over to Alicia’s apartment building like a Puerto Rican fury of fatherly concern. He demands to see Alicia, and the doorman tells him that Alicia is at her country home (what is this a Henry James novel?) and that he will relay Franco’s message of concern. How many O’s in ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR?

Franco’s next order of business is to make it down to the Firehouse. He let’s Tommy in on the fact that Alicia stole Keela, and that he foolishly told Alicia about the fact that Franco stole Keela back from the neglectful foster family she was staying with. Tommy asks him why he would tell her, and Franco says it just came up in conversation. How was he supposed to know that it would come back to bite him in the ass? Umm, maybe because Susan Sarandon is only signed to the first 6 episodes? Duh, Franco. Read your Variety. Tommy promises to call his cousin Eddie and see what he can do to help out the poor guy. I feel bad for Franco, but like so many people on this show, he doesn’t make the best decisions, so I can’t feel too bad for him.

Tommy makes his way over to the other guys, where they are watching TV and playing cards. Sheila has just walked in and dropped the bombshell that Mrs. Statutoryrapeody has been raping her students. Tommy feigns shock, and continues to cover for Damien. The kicker is that rumor has it she gave all the boys Chlamydia! The story is now all over the news, and Lou is deriding the use of the word “rape” when he sees what Mrs. Statutoryrapeody looks like. There is no mention of the alleged Chlamydia (Probie thinks it’s a country, Sean a band), but Tommy is nervous about his fate and the fate of his penis. The issue that Lou brings up about whether it can actually be called “rape” when the teacher is a woman, and gorgeous, in a skeletal kind of way, and the boys she is “raping” are 17. He briefly mentions that maybe it could be considered rape if it were the other way around, because you know, 17 year old girls can only be tricked it sex. Sounds like someone didn’t get much action in high school, hey Lou? I don’t think that this is the forum for my weighing in on the subject, but I’m glad that Lou mentions what most men (and probably many women) watching the show are thinking. I also like how the producers, intentionally or not, bring up a debate about rape, right after last week’s controversial, Janet & Tommy sex scene. I’m also glad that this might be the end of the Mrs. Statutoryrapeody plotline, because that nickname was getting a little cumbersome.

Speaking of Janet, she calls Tommy a little while later (further eroding the Tommy raped Janet theory), to see how he is after there little almost hit & run earlier. He says he’s fine, but he asks her how she is, you know, health wise. How awesome would it be if Damien, his two uncles and his aunt all shared the same case of Chlamydia?

After Tommy hangs up with Janet we get our first visit from dead cousin Jimmy since the season premiere. I love how he tells Tommy that it is the definition of irony that after Tommy started plugging away at Jimmy’s wife, Sheila, now Johnny is screwing Janet. Genius. I love irony, and people who understand the word. Seriously, how often do you hear people say: “How ironic” when in fact what they are describing isn’t irony at all! Some people even make entire hit songs about it! Sorry for the rage blackout. I guess you can take the boy out of the English major, but you can’t take the English major out of the boy.

Tommy doesn’t know if it’s irony or if it’s just karma. Either way Tommy plans on playing around with it, because he’s staking out the street that Johnny’s ex-wife Angela lives on. Angela, delightfully, is played by Marisa Tomei, who I’ve loved ever since her days on A Different World. Forget My Cousin Vinny, just watch her fall in love with Christian Slater and his baboon heart in Untamed Heart (“He don’t make sense, I don’t make sense, together we make sense.”) or getting bitch slapped by Sissy Spacek in In the Bedroom and try not falling for her. I also love the fact that she’s the latest in a long line of actresses who look better at the age of 40something than they did at the age of 20something. Tommy “bumps into her” in the street and asks her to go grab a drink to catch up old times.

The next scene we get is just kind of a funny aside, which I think this show is awesome at. Franco is at the park standing towards the side, watching out for Keela and Alicia, when a police officer comes up to him. Franco stutters and stammers, realizing that it’s kind of awkward that he’s just standing in a park ogling the kids. Franco says he’s looking for a kid, and the cops tells him this isn’t a flea market. He tells the cop that his daughter was kidnapped by his girlfriend, but umm, let’s not fill out a police report.

Back at the bar Angela and Tommy are chatting about everything under the sun. Angela tells her that last week when she saw Sheila, she told her all about him and Janet. And Johnny and Janet. And Tommy and Sheila. Her head is spinning from all the bed hopping, but she always knew deep inside that Janet was Johnny’s number one. Tommy asks her if she’s seeing anyone, and she tells him just this one guy, on and off, although he can be a little possessive.

Tommy then figuratively busts his nut prematurely and asks Angela if she’d like to get some dinner with him sometime. No, no, no Tommy! Have you learned nothing from the premature ejaculation that was Mrs. Statutoryrapeody? Sometimes, you just need to wait, man. But with that invitation to dinner, Angela figures Tommy’s whole plan out. Of course he didn’t just run into her randomly, this all part of some “secret evil plan” of his, but she is too old and too mature for any old school vendetta bullshit. He might not have changed, but she CERTAINLY has.

A date that is going much better is Capt. Jerry’s date with Ellis Grey. They just came back from a karaoke bar, and the thought of Ellis Grey singing Purple Rain, is almost more than I can bear. Capt. Jerry says he’s an old-fashioned kind of guy, but he thanks her for paying for the evening. Ellis says they both needed a good laugh, and it’s all quite sweet. Well, Capt. Jerry might be old-fashioned, but he’s still a man goddammit! He asks Ellis to stay the night, and Ellis is worried, because rumor has it once you go black you never go back, and she just can’t get passed her affair with the Chief on Grey’s Anatomy.

She decides to give Capt. Jerry a chance in the sack, and from the looks of it the next morning she has no complaints. Capt. Jerry answers the door the next morning and it is Bud, his Alzheimer’s stricken wife Jeannie’s dickhead brother. Bud explains to Capt. Jerry, that he thought he wasn’t good enough for his little sister, and that’s why he cut her out of his life. What he wasn’t expecting was for Jeannie to call his bluff, and cut him out right back. Oh family! Bud’s wife has made him see the light, and that he appreciates Capt. Jerry’s commitment to his little sister. Bud hands Capt. Jerry a check for $5,000, to help with the cost of the live-in home that he’s got Jeanne in. Cue Ellis Grey walking down the stairs in a t-shirt. Capt. Jerry tells Bud it’s not what he thinks, which is a lie, because I’m pretty sure that what Bud thinks is that Capt. Jerry laid down the pipe raw for Ellis Grey last night. Bud takes back the check and tells Capt. Jerry that Ellis was the most expensive piece of ass he ever got. I find that kind of presumptuous, because Bud has no idea what Capt. Jerry’s prostitutes normally cost.

Over at Tommy’s place, the inevitable happens when Lou catches Tommy charming the one eyed snake in the bathroom. Tommy later explains to Lou, that he wasn’t petting his trouser monster, but rather performing a medical procedure and Lou tells him that is the worst euphemism he’s ever heard for jerking off. Umm, did you not catch my trouser monster comment, Lou? Tommy comes clean to Lou about his potential “Big C” breakout and his lack of self-control with Mrs. Statutoryrapeody. All this has made Lou’s day, and suddenly, he’s not feeling so bad about his own crappy life, which makes me happy, because a happy Lou is a happy umnata.

Probie is in his apartment filling out a new transfer request form that he got from the Chief yesterday. The chief wasn’t too surprised that Probie was looking to get out of his firehouse. He’s never seen treatment like the treatment that Probie has gotten from those guys. But Probie is stressing out about filling out the form, and getting kind of cranky with the Lumberjack, as he’s watching the game. The Lumberjack keeps on giving Probie all of these “philosophical” answers to his problems about not wanting to leave his firehouse. Probie tells him to cut it out with all the “faggot philosophy”, to which the Lumberjack gets all riled up. Who are you calling a faggot? Umm, the same guy who gave me a blowjob 20 minutes ago, pal. They throw the faggot word around back and forth for a little while and it gets kind of harsh, and almost uncomfortable. But then one of the Yankees hits a homerun (must’ve been an ollllld game! Oh snap! Go Mets! Yes I am aware of the beating we got from the Yanks in the subway series last week.) and all is forgiven. A homoerotic chest bump is given and a beer offered. Friendship rules.

Tommy is as scared to take a piss as I am when I get to Penn Station late at night and have to go. Except that he’s scared it’ll be like fire shooting forth from his penis, where I am only afraid that I will be set on fire. Seriously, that is the scariest public restroom in America. The only thing scarier than a flaming penis though, is CrazyTaty, who has a bone to pick with her brother. She is very VERY angry with him for sabotaging the best of her five current relationships. She really was starting to like Sean, he was sweet and did everything that she told him to. What more could someone want in a relationship? She then takes out her vodka from the freezer and notices that someone hasn’t been reading the DON’T TOUCH OR DIE label that she’s been keeping on it. Tommy passes the blame off to Lou, who must have testicles of steel to want to take on CrazyTaty.

She tells Tommy if he doesn’t keep his point snout (I love it!) out of her business she is going to make what he did to Johnny look like a game of patty cake! Scariest. Threat. Ever. I guess the excitement was too much for Tommy and he takes a trip to the bathroom, where he starts screaming in pain as he starts to piss.

Back at the clink, Uncle Teddy is getting ready to meet the woman he picked to be his conjugal visit partner. Who says romance is dead? Within two minutes of meeting the woman Uncle Teddy is already in love, because she tells him that he thinks what he did, shooting Conner’s hit & run killer, was the right thing. And she hates black people, Asian people and Mexican people. Match made in bigot heaven.

At the firehouse, Tommy is putting away his hose when Alicia comes looking for Franco. She finds Tommy and he tells her that she’s in trouble. Alicia says no, because she once played Reggie Love in The Client and she knows the one who is in trouble is Franco. She begins to leave and Tommy asks her if she knows how much Franco loves Keela. Alicia knows that he loves his daughter and that his daughter loves him, but that isn’t the point. Has Tommy ever really listened to Keela, and about how scared she is? Keela is a little girl who needs a mommy, and every few months or so she gets a new mommy. And then that mommy disappears and gets replaced by a new mommy. I guess you don’t realize how stressful being a male whore can be on your daughter, until it is put in your face like that. Keela has grown up in a house where girls disappear, and she’s wondering when it will be her turn to disappear. Ouch. Alicia explains the theory that the first man a little girl falls in love with is her father, and that often times little girl’s grow up to be women who marry men just like their own father’s. Tommy says that is bullshit because Janet’s dad was short and not funny, and he is both tall and hysterical. Don’t try to match wits with Alicia, Tommy, you are severely outgunned. The sad thing is, I agree with most of what Alicia is saying, about Franco and Keela, but couldn’t there have been a better way to explain all this to Franco. I mean, you know, instead of kidnapping?

Tommy calls Franco to come down to the firehouse so he can tell him about what Alicia said. Franco storms in and tussles with Tommy, and Tommy spills the Psych 101 babble that Alicia spewed. Oddly, Franco snaps out of his trance, and basically says, hmm, she’s got a point, which is really sad. But not as sad as what he does to the locker that was standing in his way. Franco beats up the firehouse and then leaves.

The guys are on their way to a fire call, and Sean tells Tommy to stop staring at him. Tommy wasn’t staring he was merely looking out the window. He tells Sean to stop being an asshole, but Sean is confused: is he an asshole or a pussy? Tommy can’t have it both ways. Sean is heartbroken and sick of Tommy’s shit, and he breaks up with him. Yes, that’s right. Tommy and Sean are over. Sean doesn’t want to be friends anymore. To drive the point home Sean rips of the “Be Fri” heart necklace he has on and throws it out the window, leaving Tommy with a sad “st ends”.

Later on that night, Tommy gets a call from Angela saying that she is in for whatever scheme Tommy is cooking up. It’s kind of strange, because there is no real reason for Angela’s sudden, major change of heart. But she thinks it’ll be fun to mess with Johnny and Janet, so they’ll meet up and create a plan. I love intrigue!

As Tommy starts driving home he begins seeing dead people again in his car, including his son Conner. He pulls over the car and has a good cry, which is truly heart breaking. I’ve got to say that this show does quiet moments of grief almost better than any other show out there.

So the episode ends on a downer, but we are set up for some great stuff next week, with Angela and Tommy joining forces to take down Johnny and Janet. This is like Brenda/Jagger/Jason/Karen level intrigue here, and I love it! Sorry about the delay with this recap, but the holiday and the no new episode this week, gave me some breathing room!