Laughs and tears at 'Rescue Me' wake

THE SHOW "Rescue Me," Wednesday night at 10 on FX

REASON TO WATCH Series finale

CATCHING UP Members of Ladder 62 -- Tommy Gavin (Denis Leary), Lt. Kenny Shea (John Scurti) and firefighters Sean Garrity (Steven Pasquale), Mike Selitti (Michael Lombardi) and Bart "Black Sean" Johnston (Larenz Tate) -- have charged up to the higher floors of a burning building to save some trapped kids -- yes, reminiscent of 9/11. And then the roof blows off.

WHAT THIS EPISODE'S ABOUT Producers actually considered ending "Rescue Me" with Tommy's death, but FX rebuffed the impulse. Nevertheless, there is a fatality and one that brings the full force of the series right back to where it started. Can Tommy -- who has already mulled suicide -- withstand one more blow to his psyche, and another brutal reminder of his fragile humanity? Will he grab the nearest bottle? What about Janet

(Andrea Roth), and their new baby?

MY SAY "Rescue Me" dedicated itself to the memory of the 343 firefighters killed at the World Trade Center. In contrast, the vast majority of TV entertainment shows over the past 10 years never even acknowledged 9/11, much less the FDNY's supreme sacrifice. "Rescue Me," however, was never a charitable act, but an audacious one: Could you take a boorish alcoholic fireman who was pretty much draped in cliches about the hard-drinking-slugging New York Irishry and turn him into a hero?

This series said, "No, you couldn't," which is why it succeeded. Leary's Tommy Gavin wasn't meant to be a hero, but he was meant to be human, with his flaws writ loud, vulgar and scathingly funny. Yet, the core of this flop of a husband and father was unyielding iron. In a final scene that directly mirrors the opening moments in 2004, Gavin barks at a bunch of stiff-backed wet-behind-the-ears recruits that "people die. We're firefighters -- we die a lot." That psychically scarred Tommy knew this and still bounded up three stairs at a time into some imploding building was his enduring act of heroism, and also the purest form of tribute to all those who have ever done this job.

As a TV series, "Rescue Me" had -- like most shows -- its good and lean years. The last few have felt listless; the first few were licentiously funny. (Those could be both tribute and tonic.) The show tended to be a long Irish wake: At times hilarious, at times bleak, and the balancing act wasn't always pretty to watch. Leary and his production partner, Peter Tolan, wanted to blast viewers off their couches, even if the pyrotechnics sometimes yielded more soap than shock.

As such, the last couple of episodes -- last week's "Vows" and Wednesday night's "Ashes" -- are almost perfectly representative. There are plenty of laughs, some tears and a couple of eye-rollers.

In the end, "Rescue Me's" big generous heart wins out, and the final shot -- of a skyline where two great buildings once stood -- packs a wallop beyond words.

BOTTOM LINE A solid reminder of why you loved this show in the first place, or still do.

GRADE A

SERIES B+