Denis Leary Rescues Teevee

With Rescue Me, Denis Leary has found a venue for both his performance style, and his persona, in conjunction with Peter Tolan, who created The Job, a comedy about New York City cops. In this case, Rescue Me is about NYFD firefighters after 9/11, and it is on cable channel FX (The Shield), which means this isn't neutered. As Leary's character says to rookies in the opening scene, he's got bigger balls than two of their heads duct-taped together.

I know some people like to say, focusing on his bits on smoking, that Leary is just a Bill Hicks knockoff. What that reveals is how little they know about Leary's material. Unlike Hicks, Leary doesn't come out of standup, he comes out of theatre, and first came to notice with his one-man shows, in particular, No Cure For Cancer (really, read the book). But you probably know him best for "The Asshole Song".

Rescue Me is the closest to bringing to teevee, the story-telling he has in his one man shows, and also how the chances of seeing anything grown-up, challenging or dramatic on network teevee are near zero. His previous series, The Job, which aired on ABC, has some of the same characteriestics, but nowhere near the range, realism and drama that Rescue Me is free to accomplish.

True, Leary doesn't have a great range as an actor, most of his roles are variations on a theme, but with the character of Tommy Gavin, Leary has the best role of his career.

Gavin is getting divorced from his wife, has a drinking problem, is very angry, and talks with people who've died on him, including his cousin Jimmy, a fellow firefighter, of whom they only found a finger at the WTC (as he remarks, talking with Tommy, his beer can opening finger). The show is darkly funny, brutally honest, going from tough-guy gags to throat-choking, I've-just-got-a-cinder-in-my-eye drama.

If the rest of the series matches the quality of the debut, this will be easily the best show on teevee for grown-up people.

Article Author: Jim Carruthers

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