What the hell is 'Rescue Me' about?

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I hate to beat a dead horse, but since I've been deficient in my IDWID writing, I guess I'd better write stuff when it comes to mind (which, after all, is the point of a blog).

Anyway, I just watched the second-to-last episode of "Rescue Me's" aimless fourth season, and I'm convinced that this show is now a pointless stream-of-consciousness about random stuff that goes on in the lives of random — usually crazy — people. This show has the focus and attention span of a hazy, non-functional alcoholic, which is ironic considering that Tommy gave up drinking.

Let's see if I got tonight's episode right:

• Lou is guilty about the possibility of an affair with his cousin's girlfriend, but she eggs him on with food. Whether they actually end up doing anything is apparently a mystery, and — either way — irrelevant to everything.
• Tommy's daughter is such a spoiled brat that it makes my skin crawl. The credit card Tommy lent her has been used by her "musician" boyfriend to charge untold thousands of dollars of stuff, and the daughter thinks she's entitled to berate her dad in every scene.
• Tommy's "girlfriend" (Gina Gershon) only wants sex. What does this mean to Tommy or the story? I don't have a clue. Gershon has been in three or four episodes now and I still don't see the point of what this "relationship" is trying to tell us.
• Mike (old probie) and "black Sean" (new probie) get into a fight that comes literally out of nowhere, as if the writers decided they needed more conflict in the firehouse but had no idea how to come up with something that made sense. Or apparently Mike wants to become Tommy, hence the boozing. Huh?
• Tommy is apparently going slowly insane, and now sneaks into fires during his off-hours wearing his dead cousin's coat, in an attempt to start rumors that ghosts are going around saving people from fires.
• In one such example of said premise above, Tommy goes into a fire and finds a woman in a nighty waiting for him to rescue her — but first wants him to have sex with her. They start to, and are nearly killed in the fire as a result. This fits no pattern of behavior of any rational person on the planet. Add it to the list of spectacularly unlikely "Rescue Me" sexual situations.

In short, either this show has zero direction, or it's trying to say that everybody in it is completely and totally certifiably insane. Here's hoping the season finale can bring some sort of sense to this madness, but my judgment of this season right now is that it's a dismal failure of endless meandering. In other news: FX's "Damage" is solidly intriguing. And "Friday Night Lights," released on DVD last week, is excellent. There are two recommendations instead of "Rescue Me."

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