`Rescue Me:’ What’s better with Cheerios, white or red?

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Tommy Gavin starts his first day at the job by dumping all the alcohol in his apartment down the drain. Well, almost all of it. Seems Tommy doesn’t view wine as booze, much to the amazement of his wife, Janet.

“It’s grape juice with a little extra kick,” Tommy tries to explain, even adding that since it’s a popular drink in France and Italy, it can’t be that strong.

“You see how desperate you are,” Janet declares. “You’re trying to use Italy to win an argument.”

Colleen, Tommy’s oldest who is starting to drink more than him, comes out of the bedroom and asks, “What’s better with Cheerios, white or red?

Ah, another morning with the lovable Gavin clan. Fortunately, much of this episode is spend down at the fire house where Tommy’s methods do less damage.

And what a first day back on the job it was for Tommy. Ladder 62 had 35 calls including one where the gang battles with a rival squad over who will rescue a junkie who overdosed. This requires sticking an ice pack in a place where the victim is sure to feel a chill cold enough to bring him back to life.

It works, but the victim is far from appreciative. He comes to and starts screaming rape.

“You OD’d, we saved your life,” Needles tells the angry junkie.

“You wrecked my high,” he responds.

It was that kind of shift. In between jobs, Mike and Sean Garrity decide they need to give back to the community. This leads to a discussion of potential charity work they could do but unfortunately every cause they can think of already has an actor attached.

“George Clooney is saving all the starving kids and then he sells them to Angelina Jolie,” Mike explains.

The shift finally comes to an end with a church fire where Tommy finally gets some real action saving a life -- a statue of Mary for Father Phil, a tough talking priest played by Peter Gallagher who may just be able to talk to some sense into Tommy.

While the team is kept busy, Lou is having trouble keeping up. He’s grabbing his left arm and while he says he thinks he pulled a muscle, we all know what that really means. Rather than worry about himself though, he starts telling Tom it’s time for him to step back. He warns him that if he’s not careful he’ll end “holding on to your glory days like some schmuck in the last row of a Springsteen concert.” At the end of the day though, it’s Lou lying on the ground unconscious

It’s too early in the season to get excited, but so far each episode of “Rescue Me” has been better than one that preceded it. This one managed to work in every major character and gave the whole cast some real meat to work with, even if they only had a few seconds each to chew it. This was Gallagher’s first appearance, but he will be back in the weeks ahead to play foil to Tommy and his twisted ways.

-- Joe Flint

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