(M4) "He's got back acne on his goddamn ears!" - Tommy

Pretty good timing that this episode was scheduled to air the same night at the MLB mid-summer classic, huh? As unfortunate as it is, you just can't have a conversation about baseball anymore without bringing up the subject of steroids. That's why this minisode was so well done though. Steroid use in baseball has been a hot topic for a number of years now, so the initial time-frame of when this conversation took place was ambiguous at first. Even though Lou was talking about Mark McGwire as if he were currently active, that still gave you a big window. Then Jimmy Keefe walked in.

(M3) "I like a bar with a nice clean head." - Lou

I'm gonna have to agree with Lou on this one. Nothing is more disgusting than walking in to a bathroom at a bar and seeing water(?) all over the floors, toilet seats with yellow stains, no toilet paper, and sinks that don't work. Some people though, that won't bother them. After all, you are just going in to pee and leave. Unless you're Lou. And you've had 12 beers. And the "pains" kick in. And there's no toilet paper. And you use your sock. The most troubling thing to me about that? There's lot of people who would probably do what Lou did in the same situation. Ugh.

(M2) "Do you have a boner?" - Franco

Wow... if Tommy isn't drinking anymore, maybe he should start. Fantasizing about his estranged wife is one thing. Thinking about your deceased cousin's widow isn't much better. Getting it on in your dreams with both of them? Well... OK. But having a sex dream with The Probie (even if Mike isn't "The Probie" anymore... he still is) is just plain freaky.

(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.