Denis Leary Paints a Dark Picture of an Alcoholic
Denis Leary has spent the greater part of his career being an asshole, and the recent season of Rescue Me, season 6, is no exception to the rule. After years of alcohol abuse and a R’epertoire of selfish, manipulative behavioral tendencies (mostly due to the selfish, manipulative behavioral tendencies between his wife and his lover), his character on the racy FX television show reaches an all-time low when he convinces everyone who once held an intervention for him to drink again. When the new wife of someone dear to him dies in a car accident on the way home from the bar they all work and hang out at, he’s faced in the last episode with bold abandonment and betrayal from one of the closest of his friends.
When I was in high school I thought “I’m An Asshole” was the funniest thing since the invention of the squirting flower. No Cure for Cancer was an amazing feat of comedy to me, though as I got older I thought it to be rather low-brow and unintelligent. It didn’t help that I had learned comic legend Bill Hicks had been running very similar material across his crowds years prior. But I later found out the two comics were good friends and in situations like this it’s extremely hard to tell who came up with the joke first.
Leary’s subsequent releases haven’t been all that amusing, but after seeing his roast on Comedy Central and the first season of Rescue Me, I found myself liking his style more and more. For his role on the show, Leary’s humor is absolutely perfect. No one does the “I really could not give a shit” attitude better than him, not to mention the portrayal of someone who’s addiction to alcohol and drama is acute and too close to home for anyone who knows such a blue-collar worker’s lifestyle closely.
One would think that the 9/11 thematic material would grow old but, along with the drama of the show, it’s easy to allow it in. Tommy (Leary’s character) has hallucinations of his cousin who died in the 9/11 disaster, a frequent meeting from a ghost who brings 9/11 back into the meme-sphere quite cleverly. It makes for a story that holds true to not only New Yorkers but the whole country on a weekly basis. One might think that it was also a capitalizing on the disaster and I guess it is, but it’s good. The only show on television that could get away with it, maybe even the only film of any sort that can.
The writing is extremely dense but fluid and makes for a powerful and entertaining watch. Denis has received Emmy nominations for Best Lead Actor and it’s content has been praised for taking risks on drug abuse, homophobia, depression and alcoholism. If you’re willing to accept that these are people that could be next door to you, the language, sexual content and drug content is forgivable, or at least something some conservative or religious folks could look the other way from. It’s too good of a show to cast a stone at, let’s just put it that way..