Redemption? Well . . . Nah

“Basically, in my experience, the firefighters around the country, especially the guys in New York, love the show because it’s a glimpse into what it’s like to be in what’s considered the greatest firefighting force in the world, which is New York,” Denis Leary, the show’s acid-tongued star and co-creator, told reporters.
The critically acclaimed, highly rated series follows Tommy Gavin, a divorced, alcoholic, Irish-American firefighter and father of three as he copes with the losses of his best friend, Jimmy, and fellow firefighters in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. A blend of side-splitting comedy and heart-wrenching drama, the series has been hailed as an accurate, warts-and-all portrait of what it’s like to be on the job in the Big Apple. That said, Leary and his producing partner, Peter Tolan, admit they are getting a little heat from firefighters who think the show might be a bit too honest in portraying the guys in Ladder Co. 99 as a rowdy, politically incorrect, pack of deeply flawed heroes.
“In New York, it’s a mixture of guys that I know, that things are based on, getting worried their wives or girlfriends are going to believe that everything on the show is absolutely true,” Leary, a 47-year-old native of Worcester, Mass., acknowledged without apology. “Then there’s, I think, a general feeling with some of the older guys that they didn’t realize how true it was going to be, and it’s cutting close to the bone. That’s the nature of the beast.”
The collaborator perhaps most qualified to judge firefighters’ reaction to the show is Jack McGee, who plays the homophobic, no-nonsense chief, Jerry Reilly. McGee worked as a firefighter for 10 years before becoming an actor.
“You’ve got 50 guys [in a firehouse] and everybody expects them to be these superhuman beings, but they make mistakes,” McGee said. “They just happen to be blue-collar workers, hanging out in the back of a garage, doing a job that they never get prepared for. Doctors and nurses go into their professions, and they’re exposed to the carnage on an intellectual and an educational basis, and these guys are just blue-collar guys that bring them to the emergency rooms.”
Leary said he noticed the age of the FDNY firefighters he consulted seemed to correlate with how they feel about the show. Observing how many men in their early-to-mid-40s suddenly found themselves as senior members of their firehouses after 9/11, Leary said these guys generally liked the show, but were concerned about recommending it to the younger men in their houses because they didn’t want to condone the kind of behavior it shows.
“Guys that were a little bit older were saying, ‘I think it’s really funny, but I can’t say it’s funny in front of my crew now because these are all young guys, so I have to act like I don’t think it’s funny,’ ” Leary said, recalling how he had similar conversations with police officers who watched his short-lived 2001 cop show, “The Job.”
“So, there’s people like that who find it’s true and it’s funny, and there’s other guys who are like, ‘You shouldn’t show that on TV.’ But the problem for me is, when it comes to whether it’s a film or television, that the best material is always taken from real stories and real life and real behavior.”
One of the aspects of the show firefighters and civilian viewers seem to find most compelling is the rivalry between the FDNY and the NYPD, a storied competition that has reportedly worsened since 9/11.
“If a cop comes to your house, he might be coming to help you. He might be coming to investigate you. He might be coming to arrest you,” Leary said, trying to explain why some police officers resent the affection people have for the Bravest. “When a firefighter comes, they’re always coming for one reason and one reason only and that’s to help. That’s the basic bottom problem. After that, it becomes this public-servant question about who’s got the most dangerous job and who gets the most attention.”
Leary said that rivalry heated up because the FDNY earned the world’s sympathy when 343 of its brothers perished on Sept. 11, overshadowing the NYPD’s loss of 93.
“That battle that’s always been there between them, even in some families between brothers — you know, one’s a cop, one’s a firefighter — just got even worse,” Leary said. “The stuff that the cop used to forgive the firefighters for and just wave off, like drunk driving or a drunken brawl between firefighters in a bar, whatever it might be, this time, they decided, ‘Well, you know, screw them. Why are they getting all the attention?’ We’re dealing with it in the first episode of the second season.”
Leary hinted his character Tommy, who has two brothers in the NYPD, will be seen dealing with this conflict directly in one of the new season’s first episodes.
“I don’t want to give too much away, but it comes up comedically and dramatically in the beginning of the second season,” he said.
That combination of laugh-out-loud funny and gritty drama, which has become the show’s hallmark, will continue throughout the second season, co-producer Tolan promised.
“As dark as we go and as dramatic as we go, within that same episode, we feel that we can go as far in the comedic direction as possible,” he said. “We’re just always trying to show that balance of people living in a life-or-death situation and how they get through the day and how they react in the face of that.”
One challenge that Leary’s character will face in the new season is the fallout from his taboo relationship with his best friend’s sexy widow, Sheila. The topic was broached at the end of last season when some of his fellow firefighters beat him up after hearing he was sleeping with Sheila.
The actor said Tommy’s predicament is a real one that numerous firefighters are going through today.
“It’s that ‘You don’t date my sister unless you get my permission,’ ” Leary offered.
Describing this type of relationship as a “tough angle to play in a firehouse or a fire crew,” Leary said there have been several accounts in New York City of firefighters beaten or harassed for crossing the line with 9/11 widows, whether their motive was for love or money.
“There’s been all these obtuse reasons,” he said. “But my experience has been, the people that I’ve seen that it’s happened to, it really is about grief and recovery and that thing of emotionally being on the same page.”
Tolan added that Tommy’s affair with Sheila happens because they both miss Jimmy. Leary, too, seemed to sympathize with the couple’s need to be together, even if it flies in the face of a time-honored, FDNY tradition.
“When you write a rule in the sand, it’s an unwritten rule,” Leary explained. “You can’t legislate somebody’s relationship with somebody else. You can’t tell them that they can’t have it. And, yeah, homes are being broken up; families are being broken.”
Tolan said one of the reasons this phenomenon is so prevalent is the sheer volume of widows left behind on 9/11 and the many firefighters who wanted to comfort them, even if they themselves were married.
“You’re talking about a society — that is, the families of firefighters — that was torn apart by one event,” Tolan said. “It’s almost like you can’t judge the reaction to that event since it’s never happened before, and, pray God, it never happens again on that scale.”
Given the many trials and tribulations Tommy endured in the first season — his cousin dies, he battles alcoholism, he hallucinates, his ex-wife starts dating again, his teen daughter is nearly killed in a car accident — viewers might wonder: Can his life possibly get any worse?
“Well, yeah,” Leary said.
“Always worse,” Tolan chimed in. “And I think what we like to do is offer some hope and then snatch it away. … What we do, rather expertly, I think, is to say, ‘Here is the possibility of redemption — no, I don’t think that’s going to work out.'”
Added Leary: “But again, without giving too much away, it’s based in reality. It’s what people wish for Tommy, in order for Tommy to get better. That experience has been something I’ve seen people go through. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to make things better. It might actually make things worse. So, as we go toward redemption, hopefully, I think there are going to be some very dark doors that need to be opened.”
(Filming of the second season of “Rescue Me” is currently under way. The series premiere is set to air this summer.)