If you haven't seen the show "Rescue Me", but you want to, don't read the rest of this entry.  If you have seen the show "Rescue Me", but haven't finished Season Two yet, don't read the rest of this entry.  You've been warned.
Alright – some background.  During the writer's strike, the wife and I reactivated our NetFlix account and started sampling some shows that got pretty good reviews.  One of these shows was "Rescue Me" on FX, starring Denis Leary.  I've always been a fan of Denis Leary, so it seemed like it might be a good fit for me, but we didn't know if my wife would enjoy it.  Any show that has an episode called "Twat" can't be all that bad, can it?  The premise of the show for those that don't know is that Tommy (Denis Leary) is a NYC fire fighter post-9/11 who sees dead people and deals with an epic number of personal demons.

We both *love* the show.  It has a great mix of comedic and dramatic elements, and the cast is all very good.

In the second season, Tommy's estranged wife returns (after she kidnapped their kids, and Tommy kidnapped them back) and they make another attempt to reconcile.  This goes on for a couple of episodes where they are both taking an anti-depressant (neither will admit to it though), and things are going great.  Then came the episode, incorrectly titled "Happy".

We're watching the episode, and there is a scene early on where Denis Leary is taking his son to buy a baseball glove, but gets diverted to deal with his dead cousin's widow and her son (who announced that he wants to become a fire fighter).  To make up it later, Tommy buys his son the glove and a new bike.  Fast forward to the end of the episode…

Tommy is working on his truck, while his son is riding his bike.  Tommy notices that his son is riding his bike without a helmet, and tells him to go inside to get it.  The kid says ok, and heads off screen towards the house.  Tommy goes back to working on the truck.  Off to the side, you see a car go by a little too fast.  A few seconds later you hear the brakes chirp and the car stops.  Tommy looks down the street and sees a guy get out of the car (clearly drunk), look around, and then get back in the car and drive away.  Tommy's wife comes out and he asks her if she passed their son on her way out.  She's like "No, he wasn't inside".

Now – we all know what's coming.  Tommy looks back down the street, and kind of sees something behind a parked car, so he starts walking down the street.  When he gets to the parked car, the camera comes around and shows you the mangled body of his son, who was run over by the drunk driver.  Even to this point, I could handle what I was seeing.  Tommy is a fire fighter, and he helps save people.  In the first season, they had him respond to a car accident, where they found out his daughter was involved.  But she was fine.  So surely his son would be hurt, and him getting hit by a drunk driver would help Tommy deal with his own alcohol addiction.  I can deal with all that.

Of course, Tommy's son was killed by the drunk driver – and knowing that, the image of his mangled body, and the sight of Tommy's wife realizing that he died – and the sight of Tommy standing over his dead son's body in the hospital was too much.  I can't watch stuff like this anymore.  It's been four days since watching the episode – and it still really bothers me.

This is only the second time in my life that I've actually reacted to a TV show or a movie.  I'm normally an emotionless robot, and nothing really bothers me.  But this was too much.

Last 5 posts by Brian

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