TVgasm Recaps

By Umnata

Let’s start at the beginning. The very beginning, as this is the first episode I’ve ever watched of Rescue Me. That in of itself is a shock because I’m a huge Denis Leary fan. The Ref may very well be the best Christmas movie of all time, and in Judgment Night he lives out the fantasy of many by shooting at Cuba Gooding, Jr. and throwing Jeremy Piven off a building (come on, before Entourage you hated the guy too). But after kicking myself for two season for missing the funniest drama on television (or the most depressing comedy on television – depends on your mood, I guess), I resolved to watch at the start of the third season. Stupidly, I thought I’d just throw on the TV and catch up with these firefighters and their lives. After an underwhelming “Previously On Rescue Me…” segment, I was thrust into a mass of confusion, with dream sequences, character developments and Tatum O’Neal. Thank you God for inventing the DVR. I was able to stop, collaborate and listen and get the scoop on the previous seasons. And as the kind and gentle blogger that I am, I pass that exposition on to you in case you’re in the same boat as me. More after the jump...

By Umnata

Oooh Boy! Am I glad that I jumped on the Rescue Me bandwagon! I haven’t been so excited about picking up a show in its third season since someone all but forced me to start watching America’s Next Top Model… uhh… I mean Sportscenter. Tonight’s show had everything you could want in a quality hour of television: Secrets Revealed: Check. Kinky Sex: Check. Clever Dialogue: Check. Sibling Rivalry: Check. The alien host that now controls Tatum O’Neal: Double Check. It also had one of the best on-screen television beatings of all-time. Attention all you Sopranos fans who felt this season was heavy on the Johnny Cakes and light on the bloodshed, try to catch the last ten minutes of this episode. Your thirst for blood will be more than quenched. So as that show cools down, this one is revving up, and me likey!

After last week's kick ass (literally) showdown between Tommy and his brother (Johnny, who has been sleeping with Tommy's soon to be ex-wife Janet), you had to think that things were gonna slow down for our gang this week on Rescue Me. Well, you'd be right and wrong. Sure, no one's head was put through a car window this week, but that doesn't mean that it was an uneventful week over at Ladder 62. One of our boys became an official kept man and another was keeping a man all to himself. Sean took one step closer to either a) shitting himself around Tommy or b) telling him he was dating his sister. And poor Lou has begun to really threaten CrazyTaty for the title as least stable person on the show. So yeah, no one threw their ex-wife onto the hood of a car, but damn it, this was one hell of an hour of television. Oh and for those of you who are waiting for the inevitable gloat about my predictions for Probie last week - you're right! I am going to gloat! Check out why after the jump!

Whoa. Just when we thought that the biggest scandal to hit Ladder 62 this season was going to be Probie's penchant for cuddle breaks with his Lumberjack roommate, Rescue Me hits us with an ending, that has already caused some stirring in LAST week's comments page. Personally, I'm a little torn about what to actually call Tommy and Janet's little meeting at the end of the episode, but we'll get to that a little bit later. The Probie gaywatch continues to take suprising ups and, umm, downs, while Sean came out of the closet of his own making, proclaiming his love for CrazyTaty to Tommy. Throw in some crazy-pill popping Sheila and a Girl Gone Wild flashing her TaTas at the Chief with a dash of Al Sharpton and a heaping load of the return of Lovable Lou, and you had a solid hour of television on your hands.

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!

So a few weeks ago there was a great deal of hubbub swirling around Rescue Me over Tommy "raping" his ex-wife Janet. Gauntlets were thrown and two camps were formed: Team Tommy Rapist and Team HateFuck. Subsequent episodes and much debate later, it's pretty clear that what transpired between Tommy and Janet was just yet another footnote in the long, sordid and heavily dysfunctional epic novel that is their relationship. This week Janet returned the favor, flipping the tables on Tommy and putting to rest whatever lingering questions anyone might have about what to consider the last Janet-Tommy tryst. Rape victims usually don't return to their attacker wearing nothing but a trench coat and some lingere that Frederick's of Hollywood decided was too scandalous for their Fall 2007 line. But we'll get to the gory details later, in between we have an interesting Probie Gaywatch developments and the Angela-Tommy evil plan springs into action with some surprising results.

Oh man! I wish I hadn't used The Rape of Tommy Gavin, as last week's Rescue Me recap title! But it's too perfect not to use again here (with some modifications). Remember over the past few weeks when there was all this "rape" speculation swirling around Tommy and Janet's penchant for angry, rough sex? Those were the good ol' days, because this week we get pure, unadulterated rape from none other than scorned Sheila! Last week we saw how crazy she can be when attacking her kitchen, now we get to see how crazy she can be when attacking Tommy's meatstick. Yikes. Sex was a major issue with everyone this week as developments on the Tommy & Angela Axis of Evil vs. The Dark Emperor's Janet & Johnny team heated up and the Probie Gaywatch continued to surprise (is that a LADY, you're chattin' up there Probie?). Alas, Lou still isn't getting any, but let's focus on the positive, shall we?

Click on the Map for More

It was bound to happen sooner or later - after a summer filled with way too much TV (remember reruns?) and too much school, work & nonsense - I have fallen hopelessly behind on my recaps. These last few weeks several things converged causing a Perfect Storm of chaos in the usually laid back life of Umnata - the most pressing of which was a sudden relocation from the TVgasm satellite NYC office to its new and improved Long Island office. This in of itself wouldn't be enough to drag me away from multiple TVgasms, but the temporary loss of my DVR would and did! Don't worry Sherry is back (Sherry? My DVR's name - in honor of the Steve Perry song "Oh Sherry" - is that weird?) and better than ever. So I throw myself on the mercy of the gasm, it's readers and all five of my adoring fans (thanks Mom!!!). I'm here to say that now that I'm all squared away with my big move and caught up on Kyle XY (come on, I can't be the only one who is watching? Cricket.), I can jump back on this horse and TVgasm like I've never TVgasmed before!

Entourage is up to date with this week's recap coming ASAP. I know I'm REALLY behind on Rescue Me, so look out for a Previously On... rundown of the last two week's events with a full-length recap of Tuesday's episode being posted VERY (uncharacteristically) punctually. As far as America's Got Talent... the comments have been, how do I say this... hostile. Not only do most of you hate the show - you hate me for watching it, and by God, you are right. I'm dropping it, unless you want to convince me not to. Yeah, didn't think so. There you have it - the answer to the question that was on nobody's lips - Where is Umnata? Please forgive me gentle readers. Please be sure to send hate mail here.

After two weeks off on my recaps (see public apology here), both Rescue Me and Umnata are back on the gasm. And not a second too late, either! If the last two weeks, albeit recap-less, left something to be desired in the way of action, that was definitely the calm before the Gavin storm. Things that were set in motion over the last two weeks started to take form here, in the third to last episode of the season. Expect some real fireworks in the next two episodes now that transfers have been signed, ex-wives are pregnant and the raping has finally (hopefully) come to an end.

To further make amends for my recap lapse, I'm going to take sometime to summarize what's happened to the characters over the last couple of episodes. This should get us all up to speed for this week's recap. So without further ado, let's see what's been going on in the lives of the Ladder 62 crew while Umnata was on his little sabbatical.

Hey all my Ladder 62 lovers. Without getting sued, let me just say that with the advent of advanced technologies in the digital recording world, so comes a laziness of sorts. Like for example, a laziness in believing that your Digital Recorder, whose manufacturer has been changed to BiBo to protect the innocent, will in fact record your favorite shows. Remember that newfangled contraption called the VCR? No matter what happened, you had to take the time to put a tape in the VCR if you wanted to catch the newest episode of Melrose Place, Angel, Cop Rock, etc.? However, now all you have to do is get a season pass to, say, Rescue Me, and you'll be under the incorrect impression that the show will record 100% of the time. This is what happened to me with this week's episode of Rescue Me. It recorded but only the last 35 minutes. So while I got to see the shocker of an ending, I missed the first half and will have to wait until tonight's replay at 11 pm (ET) to catch the whole episode. The recap will be up over the weekend. Sorry for the delay!

Holy. Crap. What a crazy ending, huh? Although various theories were being spun over what part illegal immigrant Carlyne would play in Capt. Jerry's life (JasonR's comments last week had me totally on the citizenship/marriage boat), I don't think anyone expected that. Yes, I am shamelessly trying to drum up some support for these last few Rescue Me recaps with a little mystery and intrigue. It's not an easy show to write about, people! So I want to see my new buddies in the forums (read: my new obsession) making this comments page sing! Because besides the Capt. Jerry shocker and the intense (hence the title of this week's recap) Johnny drama (holla at you, Umnata Entourage recap readers), we had Tommy taking a few steps closer to life on the blue horizon with Sheila, Lou schtupping a nun, Franco brokering a peace treaty with Richard the Retard, and CrazyTaty putting the kibosh on Sean's dream of getting married in the house of God. Come on, how could you not want to comment on a recap (that's 5 days late) that manages to use the terms "schtupping a nun" and "Richard the Retard" within its opening paragraph?

Well, it's a good thing I don't have a problem being wrong. Even more so, it's a good thing I don't have a problem being wrong on an epic, public scale. So without giving everything away before the jump (the picture and these last two sentences probably make that point moot), let's just say that I was kind of way off on the "who's going to live, who's going to die" bit" for Rescue Me. As a whole, while the devastating stuff was devastating, the humor they tried to intersperse with it was, in my opinion, slightly uneven and uncharacteristically over the top. Yes, I realize that this is a show that turned Sean into a zombie, had Tommy duct tape a chatty girl's mouth shut during sex, and lets CrazyTaty walk around un(der)medicated. But for some reason the humor in this episode seemed a little forced, and most shockingly of all, inappropriate. That sounded a little too much like a real review to me, so I'll leave you with this before the jump: Boobies. Cooter. PeePee. Doodoo. There. Back on Track.

The third season finale of Rescue Me, happened to air just days after a raging fire in Bronx, NY (not too far from the Ladder 62, now that I think of it) claimed the life of Engine Co. 42's Lt. Howard Carpluk and "Probie" Michael Reilly, 25. The news broke hard around NYC like a quick kick in the chest - there hadn't been a day this bad for the FDNY since last year's "Black Sunday". Although the men died as heroes, in the truest, purest form of the word, their deaths were tragedies, the heft of which were felt across the five boroughs, as every newspaper in circulation applauded, honored and recounted their final moments, including Lt. Carpluk's last request to save the new guy. I have to admit that certain aspects of Rescue Me are lost on me as a television viewer. How can Tommy Gavin be such a truly horrible human being but so devoted to his firefighting brothers? And yet, while Tommy Gavin is only a fictonal character who brutalizes his family, cheats on his wife and acts, in general, like a total asshole, one could easily imagine him making the same plea in his final moments: "Save my Probie." That is the spirit, despite the characters actions (it is fiction, after all) series creators Denis Leary and Peter Tolan are trying to honor. To that end, this episode couldn't have come at a better time. While some of the plotlines remained outlandish (hurrah! Probie is Bi-Cured! Sheila's gone bonkers again! Would we want it any other way?), the brotherhood that this show represents in spades was extremely present, as the once fractured firehouse came back together. For so many reasons, that was a really good thing.