Well, we knew it was coming—an episode dedicated almost entirely to Janet and Tommy’s relationship, as told by way of a road trip to Rhode Island. Two episodes ago, Janet visited the firehouse and engaged Tommy in a fight that blurred the line between anger and passion—as most of their fights do—offering the season’s first glimmer of sexual tension between the two still-married ex-lovers. And this week, they were stuck in a car together, forced to share a cozy hotel room, and pushed to their respective limits by their youngest daughter Katy, who wants them to pretend to be more wealthy and “proper” than they actually are. Who’d have thought that they would wind up sleeping together?

Give the show credit for how they got Janet and Tommy so excited about one another again. Granted, alcohol was involved, but watching them support each other at a roundtable of comically stuck-up socialites made for one of those great moments that shows us why these characters were drawn to each other in the first place.

Katy, whose metamorphosis into a Rhode Island boarding school snob is well underway, brought her parents together this week, and curiously, her decision to drive them both out of her life seems to have united them further. The Gavins would have lost touch long ago were it not for their kids, so this new crisis breathes new life into their increasingly distant relationship.

Back in New York, Lou makes a successful play at Genevieve, who agrees to sleep with him to spite Tommy—sheesh!—and Garrity’s cancer acts up in a rather unpleasant way, which ultimately leads to a ridiculous scene involving a burning building and a commode. Uncle Teddy and Maggie, meanwhile, are volunteering at a veteran’s hospital in Washington, D.C.

Watch "Play" again—or for the first time—at the Showcase video centre, where it's streaming for a limited time.

Final thought:
-Are any real people actually as stuffy as the other parents at Katy’s boarding school? Rescue Me really has a way of making some characters (caricatures?) square to the point of absurdity…