Editor’s Note: Please welcome Kate O’Hare to the pages of Big Hollywood. As a longtime fan of her television coverage, it’s a real privilege to have her as part of the family. — JN

Perhaps the most direct TV reaction to 9/11 was the FX drama “Rescue Me,” starring Denis Leary as Tommy Gavin, an out-of-control member of the FDNY’s fictitious Ladder 62/Engine 99. It aired its finale on Sept. 7, but I wasn’t there.

I was there when the show began strong in 2004, with Tommy dealing with stress of 9/11, both the horror of the event and the guilt over surviving when his cousin and best friend, Jimmy Keefe, didn’t. It was irreverent, often profane (as much as ad-supported basic cable could bear), raucous and full of moments of dark humor and heroism. I once asked some Los Angeles firefighters about it, and they said it was tame – so I never doubted its veracity in portraying the secret lives of the FDNY.

But, as many Hollywood things do, it went too far, too weird, too vicious, too strange – especially in its portrayal of Tommy’s faith, which vacillated between “Father Ted” and “The Omen.” And it was way too hard to believe that women would fall that hard for Tommy Gavin, over and over again (they may fall for Leary, but he doesn’t just wear Denis Leary’s face, he IS Denis Leary, famous comic and actor).

Having been in New York in Oct. 2001 and seeing the memorials everywhere to the fallen firefighters and police, and then joining them again in Manhattan for the first St. Patrick’s Day Parade since the Towers fell, I wanted so badly to keep loving “Rescue Me.”

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Back before the show “Rescue Me” went completely off the rails, there was a great episode where Denis Leary and the boys in his firehouse were ordered to go to sensitivity training. The training session went awry when the racially-mixed fireman started keeping score on which ethnic group had the most offensive nicknames. They were talking volume and level of offense taken at the utterance of such epithets.

Me and my racially group of friends had these same kind of conversations, except that we weren’t racially mixed, we were a bunch of young dumb white guys. But I had black friends confirm our findings: there’s not really a racial epithet you can sling a white person’s way that carries the venom that a word used over-and-over-again by rappers carries for African-Americans. But my thinking has evolved.

There is a word you can call a white person that carries with it all sorts of horrible implications, and that word my friends is RACIST. (more…)

Too much information about an actor’s life breaks the ability for the viewer to believe the character the actor is playing. Daniel Sunjata is one of those actors I wish I knew less about. He’s one of the stars of the hit show “Rescue Me,” and after reading of his beliefs that 9/11 was an inside job, I find it difficult to see his character Franco, as real. Good thing for him the producers decided to write his conspiracy theories into the show so now his acting won’t be a stretch. In fact it won’t be an act at all; it’ll be his truth, which leaves me seeing just another vapid Hollywood actor looking to push the envelope of their stupidity instead of minding to their craft.

Two of the greatest actors of our time, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Daniel Day Lewis are the sort of actors that truly let me enjoy their work because I know next to nothing about who they are as people. And I don’t want to know about them, I just want to experience the joy of their craft.

Daniel Sunjata has been quoted as saying “There’s alternative theories about what really happened on 9/11,” he told TV critics in January. “They’re not discussed a lot in the press … I’m really gratified that they allowed that to be focused through my character, because I happen to subscribe to a lot of those theories and beliefs that 9/11 was an inside job.” Daniel, they’re not discussed, because they have no foundation in reality. (more…)

Ever since I wrote critically about the TV show “Rescue Me’s” attempt to incorporate 9/11 truther conspiracies into their plotline, I’ve received a small but intense amount of hate mail, including even a short missive from one of the actors, a 9/11 truther himself.  He said I was “really dumb.” Which, I must admit, isn’t as bad as another truther wishing I would die from AIDS – or the other one who opined on the size of my genitalia.  But hey, no one ever said these folks were classy. 

“Rescue Me’s” Daniel Sunjata

But it got me to thinking. Many of the letter writers said I should maintain an open mind over such matters, because, as these conspiracy theorists note: it’s not about having the answers, but raising the questions. Some narrow minded jerks might say that’s way too easy – you can raise questions about everything and still be right about nothing – which is why conspiracies are so much fun, after all. But whoever says that would be narrow minded. 

And probably racist.  (more…)