There’s never been any doubt that Tommy Gavin is the central character of Rescue Me, but one of the show’s weaker points has always been its insistence that he is something of a deity—irresistible to women, impervious to discipline, and impossibly cool. In “Torch,” Denis Leary reveals a bit more as to why Tommy commands that kind of respect, and he does so in relatively simple terms: by showing that he’s willing—and able—to do things that his colleagues are not.
In volunteering to gather the remains of a young girl who’s died horrifically in a car accident while his fellow firefighters are alternately sick, dizzy, and terrified, Tommy continues to show his true colours, as he has for the bulk of this season. It’s no accident that the camera is trained on Tommy for the duration of this gruesome task—the scene is more about his reactions than it is about the anonymous girl’s death, and the decision not to show any gore makes the whole thing even more unsettling than it already is.
As Franco, Lou, Shawn, and Needles wait for Tommy to finish, they thank their lucky stars that he’s around to take care of it, but they also wonder how he’s able to complete this stomach-churning undertaking with such resolve. Later in the episode, Tommy could very well be wondering the same thing: While drinking, watching a home video of his late son, and having a counseling session with his cadre of dead relatives, he burns a hole in his leg with a blowtorch and roars in agony. Anyone who’s spent some time with this show would have expected Tommy to snap out of that one and wake up on a couch somewhere, but this was the real deal. Pretty dark stuff—even for Rescue Me.
If the point of that blowtorch scene wasn’t made clear enough, it finds sharp focus back at Sheila’s place, as Tommy has her dress the wound. They simply cannot have sex anymore, she tells him, because that would aggravate the burn, which would stop it from healing, which means he would be in searing pain during sex, and the pain would continue to linger afterward. And then they have painful sex. Granted, this whole thing edges dangerously close to I-hurt-myself-because-I-want-to-feel territory, but I'm willing to give it a pass since Tommy's spent most of his screen time over the past five years as a hollow shell and we should enjoy seeing a side to him that is anything other than angry or sexually aroused.
Given the gravity of the Gavin goings-on (sorry), Garrity’s cancer situation played out like comic relief. Lenny’s attempt to smother him with a pillow (!) and Maggie’s hospital visit (“I will love you and hate you forever”) were playful distractions in an episode that was driven, in large part, by the discovery of a young girl’s body.
Lou and Franco, after all, each had their own reactions to the tragedy. Franco's girlfriend (creepily) helps him channel his anger over the situation into improving his motivation as a boxer, and Lou uses the discovery as an epiphany about what he wants in life: someone to come home to. Now that he's well past his twice-shy phase, we'll see if his trustworthy nature is rewarded -- I have my doubts about his ex-con girlfriend. Prove me wrong, Candy!
At the end of this week's episode, Tommy sits down with young cancer patients at the hospital, wearing a half-smile as he keeps them company. Again, the other guys can only look on and wonder. Again, Tommy is the lone wolf. And again, this complicated character offers a rare glimpse of his considerable virtues, which are so easy to lose sight of considering the weight of his many faults.
Watch "Torch" again—or for the first time—at the Showcase video centre, where it's streaming for a limited time.