When Was the Last Time You Thought About Denis Leary?

Dad Shows observes the 20th anniversary of 'Rescue Me'

FX Networks; Hannah Roman

Rescue Me was the first Dad Show I ever watched. 

Denis Leary and Peter Tolan’s post-9/11 firefighter dramedy premiered on July 21, 2004, the summer before I started high school. I remember watching the premiere on a family vacation and feeling like I had never seen anything that combined heavy drama with edgy comedy this way. (I hadn’t watched The Sopranos yet.) I liked the show, and I watched it off and on until it ended after seven seasons on September 7, 2011. 

Rewatching the first season now for the first time since it was on, I was struck by the decline of Denis Leary. He was big in the ‘90s and ‘00s, but you don’t see him much anymore. I think part of this is by choice on his part, and some of it is changing cultural tastes. 

Leary emerged as a stand-up comic in the early ‘90s with a pissed-off blue-collar Boston Irish guy persona and material he ripped off from Bill Hicks. His novelty song “Asshole” is still pretty funny, and he remains one of the best at saying the word “asshole.” The contemptuous way he says “Party’s over, assholes” in an episode of Rescue Me when punishing his family members for their misdeeds has stuck with me for years. “Party’s over, assholes.” Say it, it feels great. 

He transitioned to film and TV as quickly as he could, starring in movies like The Ref and Operation Dumbo Drop. In 2001, he and Tolan created the ABC sitcom The Job, about an asshole NYPD detective, which somewhat shockingly returned for a second season in January 2002 considering the timing and subject matter. It didn’t get a third. Leary and Tolan returned two years later with Rescue Me. Tonally similar to The Job and featuring many of the same actors, Rescue Me was a better fit on edgy upstart FX than The Job was on Disney-owned ABC. FX had recently started producing HBO-style shows, and Rescue Me’s blend of macho comedy and gritty yet soapy drama helped define that network’s aesthetic. Rescue Me isn’t remembered as one of the defining antihero dramas of the era, mostly because it’s not as good as the top-tier ones like Mad Men and The Shield, but Leary deserves a lot of credit for what he was able to do with the show. 

Rescue Me was timely in a way that TV dramas don’t really even try to be anymore. It was grappling with the effects of 9/11 on New York City firefighters in real time. And it had a complex main character. Leary’s Tommy Gavin is not defined by his trauma, though it’s part of him. He’s not defined by his sexism and racism and homophobia and all-around macho assholery, though it’s also part of him. He’s not defined by his bravery and heroism, though it’s part of him. He’s not defined by his alcoholism, though it’s part of him that the show portrays very realistically. He’s all of these things at once, the way people are in real life. He’s an unusually complete and well-integrated character. He’s a Draperian antihero. Leary and Tolan wrote him very well.       

Rescue Me was a show about masculinity written from a distinctly hetero male perspective that came out at a time before the cultural conversation around masculinity became insufferable. Now anything directly engaging with this kind of blue-collar masculinity either revels in the ugly parts or pathologizes it with mawkish “mental health is important, bro, but men don’t talk about their feelings” corniness. Rescue Me dealt with the good (service to others, courage, honesty) and the bad (most of the rest of it) in a way that avoided being overly sentimental or heavy-handed. It was pretty emotionally authentic, even when the plot verged into Days of Our Lives territory.  

And I think that’s part of why Denis Leary isn’t around much anymore. He was at the midpoint of “toxic” and “progressive” masculinity in a way that’s hard to reconcile in the Trump era. 

Rescue Dad

Leary is a self-described “Jack Kennedy Democrat” who always took pride in being an equal-opportunity offender. His audience consisted of liberals and conservatives, because in the less polarized climate he got famous in, being an angry white guy was a nonpartisan identity. But there are fewer slots now for guys like Denis Leary, and being one requires a willingness to navigate culture war minefields. And Leary, who’s a “let’s find common ground in how Democrats and Republicans both suck” guy, doesn’t seem interested in navigating. He did the “nonpartisan angry Democrat who hates both Trump and P.C. culture” thing into the Trump years a little bit — he published a book in 2017 called Why We Don't Suck: And How All of Us Need to Stop Being Such Partisan Little B*tches — but it seems like at a certain point he decided it wasn’t worth it. It’s hard to be a centrist Democrat boomer with a big mouth and a history of plagiarism in the social media era if you don’t want people yelling at you from both sides on Twitter all day. He keeps his social media feeds professional, promoting things like his recurring role on Law & Order: Organized Crime, his wife’s novels, and his admirable, meaningful work raising money for firefighters. 

Leary doesn’t really do stand-up anymore, and he never started a podcast. So his angry nonpartisan blue-collar Boston guy slot got taken by Bill Burr, who is better at stand-up than Leary ever was, at least from a nuanced thought perspective. Burr hasn’t created a show as good as Rescue Me, though. 

There’s a chance Leary is just enjoying his life, spending time with his family, doing philanthropy, taking acting roles without the pressure of also having to be showrunner. And he probably is doing all that. But I wonder if he would create a show again if he got the opportunity. (His last show, FX’s little-loved Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll, ran for two seasons from 2015-2016.) 

He does have some shows coming up. He’s part of the ensemble in a White Lotus-esque Netflix comedy called No Good Deed, which is a smart move for him. He’s also part of the ensemble in a holiday comedy called Oh. What. Fun., which is also a smart move. Taking supporting roles in stuff that could be popular is a good way to earn goodwill. And he’ll be starring in a Fox sitcom called Going Dutch that sounds like the perfect lead role for present-day Denis Leary: 

Going Dutch follows an arrogant loudmouth U.S. Army Colonel who, after an epically unfiltered rant, is reassigned to the Netherlands, where he is punished with a command position at the least important army base in the world. After serving with distinction in every warzone of the last three decades, he now finds himself in charge of a base with no guns, weapons, or tactical purpose. Instead, it has a Michelin-star level commissary, a top-notch bowling alley, and the best (and only) fromagerie in the U.S. Army. Surrounded by a diverse group of underdogs, the colonel tries to reinstall military discipline and professionalism with the help of the base’s previous interim leader, who happens to be his estranged daughter. 

“A cranky old guy and some woke young people having to learn how to coexist” is a layup 2024 broadcast sitcom premise. I could see it running for two seasons.  

I want to be clear that I like Denis Leary. I actually like him more now than I did before I started writing this. He seems like a decent guy. The stand-up plagiarism stuff is an albatross among serious comedy fans, but he’s talented enough to have endured. He didn’t plagiarize Rescue Me. I’m sure if I interviewed him I would enjoy the conversation. I’m rooting for his comeback. Not that he ever actually went away.