Rescue Me: The Complete Third Season

Rescue Me's other flawed characters try to contain their own life crises. Chief Reilly (Jack McGee) is in desperate financial straits when the nursing home caring for his wife, who is suffering from Alzheimer's, raises its fees. Sheila (Callie Thorne) goes to her own shocking desperate measures to pursue Tommy. Tommy's father (venerable character actor Charles Durning) is becoming increasingly difficult to care for. Sean (Steven Pasquale) is secretly involved with Tommy's outrageously unstable sister, Maggie (Tatum O'Neal). Franco (Daniel Sujata) meets a "sugar momma" (Susan Sarandon) with devastating consequences. And "Probie" (Michael Lombardi) wrestles with his sexuality. Played mostly for comic relief is Teddy's (Lenny Clarke) stint in jail for the murder of the drunk driver who killed Tommy's son. This third season divided critics and viewers, but the uniformly excellent ensemble grounds even the most outrageous plot turns in reality. And it's a testament to the incisive writing and intimately observed performances that even when these characters behave most unsympathetically and invite the slings and arrows of "a little thing called karma," we are compelled to continue to take them into our homes and hearts. Or, as Tommy might say to that, "Blah, blah, blah." --Donald Liebenson