Rescue Me – Does a blackout and losing your kid constitute rock bottom?

After I reviewed last week’s episode of Rescue Me, one commenter said he found it curious that Tommy Gavin had never really been depicted as rip-roaring, fall-down, embarrassingly all-out drunk.

That’s no longer the case, as last night’s “Blackout” was a wrenching portrait of a man who’s so out of control that everyone around him feared that his drinking ways could’ve possibly led to the death of his daughter, a burgeoning alcoholic who’s following in dear Daddy’s footsteps. And given that a young adult version of Connor’s ghost made an appearance early on in the episode, I felt that Colleen dying was a distinct possibility.

It was mighty ugly. The green stain around Tommy’s mouth and teeth (from shamelessly guzzling creme de menthe at some woman’s house to satiate his never-ending thirst for alcohol). The trail of destruction — the debris, the broken glass, busted furniture — in his family’s home and all over town. The venomous threats he directed at Janet about taking the kids away from her if indeed she and Franco had slept together. The emotional damage he brought into the lives of everyone who cares about him and his daughter when they couldn’t locate her, and his memory was spotty at best.

“Wine only” Tommy sucking down half a bottle of whiskey because he picked up on sexual tension between Janet and Franco (he was certain it’d been consummated) is one thing, as Tommy retreated to the bar’s backroom and tried to beat the hell out of the ghost of his dead cousin, and stop himself from thinking about his dead son asking him to watch him do a wheelie on his bike. This was pretty standard Tommy Gavin behavior, physically lashing out at the ghosts he carries with him.

But when an already drunk Colleen called and asked for his help, for Tommy to drive his truck to pick her up in the state he was in (as opposed to getting a cab), then to openly drink and drive while Colleen was there and recording him with her cell phone (she wanted to upload a “Dad driving drunk” video onto YouTube) was crossing the line, given that Connor, about whom Tommy was just thinking and whose death Tommy blames on ruining his marriage, was killed by a drunk driver.

Apparently Tommy no longer cares about lines or the consequences of what he does, because he and Colleen continued on into the night, going to bar after bar. At one point, they went home with a mother/son duo they picked up somewhere, then somehow wound up at the beach. After that, Tommy went to two more women’s homes — the blond woman who dressed him in women’s clothing and thong’s, and Sheila’s — all the while having pretty much forgotten that he’d been out drinking with his daughter.

When he woke up at home he received an irate call inquiring about Colleen’s whereabouts, and he dragged his pathetic self to the fire house as the guys brainstormed about where Colleen could be, and what had happened the night before.

It didn’t really come as a surprise to learn that lunatic Uncle Teddy and Mickey had laced that bottle of whiskey they’d given Tommy (which he’d been drinking the previous night) with something. The Gavin brain trust had hoped that once Tommy drank the poisoned whiskey he’d feel so ill that perhaps he’d finally get some help. Given that Teddy shot Tommy not so long ago, and is still hanging out with the rest of the Gavins, nothing surprises me about this family anymore. But to see Colleen inadvertently get poisoned with the whiskey intended for her father? That’s some bad karma biting the Gavin morons in the butt.

By the time they found her, lying in the sea grass near the water, I was virtually certain that she’d be dead. But she wasn’t, leading me to believe that there’s yet more room at “rock bottom” for Tommy to fall before he’s gone as far as he can, just this side of hell.

Clacked by Meredith O'Brien
on Jul 28, 2010 @ 13:00 EST5EDT