Rescue Me: Fast (minisode premiere) - VIDEO

(M1) "Holy sh*t, you haven't had a coffee, a smoke, or a Twinkie in three days dude?!?" - Mike

Rescue Me is back... sort of. Since the full order fifth season (we're getting 22 episodes!) has been bumped until spring 2009 because of the writer's strike, Denis Leary and Peter Tolan decided to give us fans something to watch in the meantime: ten, five minute minisodes. Last time they did this, between seasons 2 and 3, we got one fifteen minute minisode and it was hilarious. All I'll say is this: it must be the wolf! Anyway, these short vignettes are what makes Rescue Me so great. More often than not, it's those goofy scenes in the firehouse (and not the ongoing plot) that make an episode memorable. Despite the fact that I'm bummed it'll be so long before we get new episodes, I don't see how a batch of these minisodes can be a bad thing.

One thing to keep in mind with these shorts is that there's really no connection to the rest of the series in terms of time frame. In this case, it happened after Black Sean (or is it Bart again?) joined the crew. But that sort of adds to the point of these minisodes - they could happen any day, at any time, with the 62 Truck boys.

Sean, foolish idiot that he is, has decided that going on a fast would be good for his body. Once he gets in to describing it though, it quickly becomes apparent that he's bought into one of those celebrity cleanse gimmicks. He eats nothing, drinks some concoction in a bottle, and then craps his brains out for three days straight.

Unfortunately for Sean, Lou made some of his extra crispy homemade doughnuts (and yes I said "dough" and not "do" - there's a difference) and Sean is forced to watch everyone else eat them. Naturally, he caves to the peer pressure and finally shovels a doughnut into his mouth. As Lou said, that's why it's called a fast. Because it ends that way - fast.

Some thoughts...

• I know I already mentioned Black Sean, but I had completely forgotten that he and Needles were part of the crew now. It took me a second to recall that, oh yeah - Jerry shot himself.
• Where was Franco?
• I loved how Sean began dragging on Mike's cigarette while he still had a giant wad of unchewed doughnut in mouth. I'm sure washing it down with Needle's dip spit was delicious.
• "Think's he's the white Gandhi."
• Not that I would expect Garrity to pick up on this, but if he's so worried about the toxins entering his body, then maybe he should consider a career change.
• I hope I never have a crap that looks like a green rubber glove with fingers sticking out of the water. My god, that sounds painful.

Funny stuff. What does everyone else think? Will these minisodes pacify you until the new season arrives? At least it gives us something to watch until The Shield returns in September.