Omar G gave this episode a grade of
C+
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B
Jimmy got his own episode? Jimmy the firefighter? Seriously? (Sigh...) Fine. Great. I'm there.
First Johnnie Cochran charges me $26,342 for the hour he spent at my duplex last week explaining Doc's episode, now this. You know, I hear the Almighty has a great sense of humor, but God: I don't get it. You're gonna have to explain this joke to me, because I hear the setup, but there's no punchline.
The episode begins with previouslys of Jimmy getting shot at the end of last season. As you'll remember, Jimmy was shot during a fire by a disgruntled former fireman, and has been on the road to recovery ever since. And that paragon of morals, Kim, has been using his convalescence as an opportunity to get her mack on even as he is about to marry another woman. Nice, Kim. Can't wait to see what kind of trouble you stir up in your personalized episode.
"Jimmy's Mountain" (or as I will call it, "Jimmy's Phallocentric Excuse for a Life") begins with Jimmy explaining in a voice-over (if it's the beginning of a second-season episode, it must be a voice-over) saying that the most difficult thing to do in sports is to hit a major-league fastball. Hey, I could do that. All I'd need is a bat and a machine to slow down time by about nine-tenths. ["And isn't it the curveball that separates the wheat from the chaff?" -- Sars] Jimmy is then shown in slow motion swinging at a fastball. It's 1993, Yankee tryouts. Every spring, he says, they let people come out and take three swings, to see if they're good enough to move on to fielding for a shot at the big leagues. Jimmy, who has always been nothing if not cocky, had it all figured out. He'd play in the minors, move up to the big leagues, and do product endorsements for Nike. Yeah, if "Just Do It" means "Just Sleep With Your Ex-Wife." As he's swinging, we go to flashbacks of Jimmy as a fireman. That, he says, was his backup plan. Against his will, he says, he learned to love the job. He's good at it, he says. We move on to clips of Jimmy being taken to the hospital with a gunshot wound as Kim tags along. Even then, she's turned on, I'm sure. We then get gratuitous beefcake footage of Jimmy in skimpy shorts and a muscle shirt, working through physical therapy. Sweat, muscles, more sweat, a nasty scar on the leg. Jimmy remembers how much he fit in, and then how getting shot screwed it all up.
The montage finally ends, and it's just Jimmy and Brooke in the car, and Jimmy's saying he's nervous to be going back to the station. Brooke says he doesn't have to come back to work early. She also hints that he should check out brochures for the inn they're booking for their June wedding. Jimmy doesn't even pretend to be interested. She looks awfully haggard here. The summer was not kind to Brooke. Jimmy says his goodbyes, and she watches him leave. Her eyes are adoring. Jimmy starts walking to the station and flashes back to the Yankees batting tryouts. He says he wishes they'd given him one more swing. Don't we all. Jimmy continues to walk toward the station in slow motion, smirking his little naughty-boy smirk. We go to the opening credits.
Johnnie Cochran isn't around, so Cosa the cat is free to dance in the living room all she wants during the song. Heh heh, this is funny: Eddie Cibrian got duped into doing NBC's In the Beginning... and he's all dolled up and wearing lots of eyeliner. It's pretty hysterical, y'all.
Jimmy walks up as the other firefighters are arguing about REO Speedwagon (because it's extremely important in this day and age to argue about such relevant contemporary artists) and washing the trucks. Jimmy comes up talking about redneck hillbillies and gets a huge "Whoah!" greeting from his buddies. They crowd around him, and the testosterone level shoots so high that all women within a city block start growing facial hair. Somebody points out that Jimmy wasn't supposed to come back till the following week. He makes a lame joke about "CP Time," and all is forgiven. Lots of male bonding hugs.
Inside, Jimmy is referred to as "Paperwork Factory," and the guys wanna see his scar. He pulls up his shirt and shows off a nice pink puffy line going up the middle of his stomach. Ladies, is scar tissue sexy? I'm just wondering, because I'm looking into a nice, long stab wound across the lower abdomen if so. ["Depends on how you got the scar. If it's a story that starts out, 'So I got reeeeeally drunk,' it isn't sexy." -- Sars] One of the other guys pulls up his shirt and shows where he got hit by a Cadillac tail fin. Another guy shows a leg scar where he was pushed off by a girl who he was getting frisky with. What is this, Chasing Amy again? No, wait, it's Lethal Weapon 3, and they're all going to start making out with each other. Or it's Jaws and they're all about to get eaten by sharks. Jimmy undoes his pants to show off another scar, and this one isn't even one the audience can see. Just as he's doing that, a serious-looking woman is walking up the stairs behind him. The guys make jokes about it "being a big sucker" and how if it was any closer to "his boys" he'd be a soprano. No, if he was a Soprano, he'd be reading off a better script. The woman looks embarrassed and walks back down the stairs, then knocks to make her presence known. The guys stop talking, and Lt. Johnson greets the woman. Her name is Taylor. She is introduced to the rag-tag group of guys, and Jimmy is invited by the Lieutenant to show Taylor around. They're interrupted by a call on the intercom: a fire needs their attention. Jimmy takes off, and Taylor looks a little frustrated. On their way down, Jimmy asks if the woman they saw was "the Alex Taylor from 78." Ah, she's got notoriety. Jimmy is assigned as "Can Man" instead of nozzle and doesn't seem pleased about it. The boss won't hear it. Jimmy is the "Can Man." (But is he the "Can-Do Man"?)
In the truck, Jimmy is putting on a new set of firefighting gear. It's tight. When he tries to explain, Alex says she knows that they're new, because his old gear was the victim of a shooting. "Everyone know who you are," she says, and not happily. One of the guys asks, "Who's Wally Pipp?" He gets razzed for being a New Yorker and not knowing that. Alex and Jimmy don't look very comfortable with each other. Wally Pipp, apparently, was replaced by a rookie named Lou Gehrig, and was then never put back in the starting lineup. Ah, baseball parallels. Got it. The driver actually says, "Lock and load" as they get to the scene. Testosterone, people. Can you feel it?
Things go slow motion as they arrive at the fire. Alex and Jimmy grab medieval-looking picks. Jimmy, who is carrying the dreaded "Can," is put to the hydrant. He argues with his boss, but again, to no avail. It's hydrant duty for you, Mr. Jimmy. Jimmy rushes to the hydrant, pushes some lackey out of the way, and gets to work. Before finishing, he gets up and takes off. The lackey asks why Jimmy doesn't finish this line first before running off to start another one. Jimmy takes off, his machismo cutting a swath of destruction. Jimmy runs back to the building to help and Lou tells him to get back on assignment. He looks like a kid caught trying to put out fires in the cookie jar. Lou points out that Jimmy didn't take out the line. In slow motion (you know, this episode would be about twelve minutes long if not for all the slow motion), Jimmy starts kicking at a snag. The kink in the hose won't untangle as the firefighters need water. Jimmy works at it. Bastard. Water finally makes it. Jimmy looks up at his fellow firefighters, desperately wishing he were up there, about to get killed. He watches kids watching the other firefighters. Yeah, you wanna be a hero, we know. Fade to white. Go to commercial.
Post-fire. Oh. I need a cigarette. One firefighter got his helmet melted. The male firefighters are already bitching about Alex, saying that if they assign her to can or hydrant instead of the hose, that they'll get named in her suit. What suit? You know, thinking that everything revolved around the hose is very phallocentric. Doc, who is standing nearby with Carlos, asks if the woman he saw was Alex. He used to work with her back when she was a paramedic and before she took the fire exam. One of the firefighters says she should have stayed a paramedic. Carlos says, "Too bad she's litigious. Girl's got a great ass." Who knew that the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling was more enlightened than NBC Monday Night?