Denis Leary’s cousin was a firefighter. He died in a warehouse fire in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1999, as he and five other firefighters — including one of Leary’s childhood friends — attempted to save people they thought were still inside the largely vacant building as it burned around them.
Leary started the Leary Firefighters Foundation in the wake of the lethal warehouse blaze which brought then-President Bill Clinton to Worcester to help memorialize the fallen. Will Leary be replaying this personal tragedy on the final episode of Rescue Me?
We’ve been here before: In the last scene of an episode of Rescue Me — with a roaring fire looming around Tommy, Lou, Franco, Sean, Shawn and Mike — you know something horrible has happened just as the credits start rolling, but you’re not exactly sure what that something is. Last year, it was made to look like Damien had been killed by falling, fiery debris, but he wasn’t. He was so seriously injured that he’s now in a wheelchair and cannot speak, despite what previews might have led us to believe. So I’m hesitant to leap to the conclusion that the six members of 62 truck — just like the six firefighters in Worcester — perished after becoming trapped inside a building as they tried to drag two people to safety. But it sure as hell looks like somebody died in that fire doesn’t it?
The last few episodes of this final season have been leading up to something big and the conventional wisdom was that Tommy would die. After all, Tommy has finally righted his personal ship. He made it through Colleen’s wedding without getting drunk or making a spectacle of himself. (The whole vows thing was thrust upon him by an inebriated Sheila, so I don’t hold Tommy accountable for that hot mess.) He has said his goodbyes via the prematurely delivered death letters. He has told Janet, in front of a large crowd, that he loves her and would marry her all over again. Therefore, I would not be at all surprised if Tommy died in the finale because it would make sense in the epically dark context of this series.
But killing the entire squad would indeed be a shock. And having their deaths mirror the Worcester fire, the memory of which as been etched into the memory of New Englanders, would be unspeakably poignant.
The questions and speculation which will continue to swirl around in our heads until next Wednesday evening notwithstanding, the episode, overall, felt tonally uneven. I was okay with the first half, for the wedding which devolved into a creative albeit expected derivative of Gavin-esque lunacy. (The whole discussion about whether the Gavin alcoholics could drink “wine soda,” “just” for the day, was classic Rescue Me. It reminded me of when Tommy declared that he was “strictly a wine man.”) But the sudden shift of having the guys show up to a fire, without any kind of a segue, seemed abrupt and jarring. As a viewer, I wanted to be transitioned from the sloppy mirth of the wedding, to the lethal scene but the show’s writers appeared to be in a rush to get there.
I’m not. I’m in no rush to have this series end, to see the guys of 62 truck perish. Not yet.
Clacked by Meredith O'Brien 
on Sep 01, 2011 @ 09:34 EST5EDT
The first scene of the fire was very very abrupt. The wedding shenanigans is happening one moment, then the guys are at a fire. My first thought was that I had somehow fallen asleep and missed a scene or two.
Being a fan of Denis Leary I know the story about his cousin dying in the warehouse fire and when I saw that this was a warehouse too ..I thought..no..he wouldn’t kill the whole crew off to echo that fire would he? The show has always had a dark side, wildly funny one minute and wildly heartbreaking another so it fits their MO.
Thank you for covering this show, I look forward to your post every morning after.
I could see the final episode being as if they all somehow miraculously survived the explosion only to have a twist ending that they are all ghosts and died in the fire.
Apparently the jarring cut from the wedding to the fire was FX’s fault. I read the cut critics got without ads had after the scene with Sean proposing to the farter (does she even have a name) and the camera pans upwards only instead of seeing the manor where the wedding took place it was the burning warehouse. FX went and put a commercial break there messing up the transition.