
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.
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