- In the aftermath of the fire, the members of 62 truck struggle to pick up the pieces and look towards the future. Down at The Rock, the new probies receive a familiar speech and stand before a new leader.
- Firefighters kick through the ashes of the warehouse fire that trapped 62 truck. The 62 truck itself sits empty outside. Bodies are draped with sheets in the morgue. Lou identifies one of them, but it's too charred to tell who it is. An honor guard plays as an unseen person gets ready for a funeral.
Bagpipes play at the funeral as Lou leads the procession of five caskets down the aisle of a packed church. Lou is scarred and walking with a cane. Janet, Sheila, Katie and Colleen sob in the pews.
Lou limps up to the podium to say we are gathered to honor five men, his brothers, who were given a choice to flee for safe ground or to move deeper to help the two kids who needed them. He gives an impassioned, heartfelt speech: "These men, these five extraordinary human beings will forever live in my heart and in the memory of all who knew them, and in the public records of this great city as heroes, the bravest of the brave. I shed no tears. I cry out, not in agony. I beseech the sky not in anger, but with pride, in a voice that is strong and clear. I am a better man and we are all better people for having known them. Good night my dear friends, my five unforgettable brothers, I shall see you on the other side."
The mourners rise and applaud.
Tommy wakes up on a couch. He's battered, but alive.
He sits down in the kitchen over paperwork. Needles joins him and tells Tommy, that as acting lieutenant, he's going to have to deal with emptying out the locker. He also needs Tommy to fill out a full report of what happened inside.
Needles says the fact that Tommy made it down the staircase alive is a miracle.
Tommy says it doesn't feel like a miracle right now. He goes to work on his report.
In flashback we see what Tommy saw, including the latex gloves hanging from a pipe in the burning warehouse and someone announcing they're in the middle of an arson.
They made their way to a ladder, but went back in the fire when they heard teenagers calling for help.
Mike gave his oxygen to a kid, Lou announced they were in the middle of a powder keg. Needles told Nils to get off the roof. Sean and Franco pounded on the door to get out. Lou told Tommy to go, saying they'd be fine.
Tommy tries to write.
After the blast, Tommy wakes up at the bottom of the stairs. He calls for the guys, and he sees Franco, Sean, Mikey, and Shawn complaining about his leg.
Tommy goes to help Lou in the corner. He's lying facedown in his turnout gear. Tommy turns the body over, but it's a charred corpse. Lou is dead.
He yells at the other guys not to come over and takes off his own jacket to cover him up. The others look on, stunned.
Tommy contemplates his report and takes out a bottle of Jameson's. He downs a shot. Then he picks up the bottle and hurls it across the room. He picks up an ax and hacks up the room.
Then he snaps back to the present and closes the drawer with the unopened Jameson's in it.
He opens another drawer and pulls out a paper. It's an application for retirement.
He puts it in the back of his locker, where he also finds that Lou has left him a letter, to read after he's gone.
Tommy comes home, with a "major announcement." He tells Katie and Janet he put in his retirement papers.
Back at the station, we see a bashed up Franco come into the kitchen and greet Mike and Sean. Sean's arm is in a sling but they're both alive and breathing. Sean asks Franco if he got reassigned yet.
Franco says he doesn't care, as long as it's not here.
Black Shawn comes hobbling in on crutches, but otherwise in one piece.
Sean says he's thinking about putting in for a transfer since things don't feel the same. Shawn says he's thinking about quitting because Colleen isn't happy he's FDNY.
Mike says if they're all leaving, he is too. "What can I say boys, it was fun while it lasted," Shawn says.
Sean says they'll see each other again, like at Lou's funeral, when they spread his ashes.
Another round of unprintable ball busting ensues.
Tommy brings Damian home to Sheila. She's not planning on taking Damian to the funeral. Tommy tells her about the dream he had about the eulogy, like he got guidance from Lou.
Sheila tells him she's there if he needs to vent.
Tommy tells Sheila he put his papers in. First she thinks he applied to be a lieutenant, then she thinks he means transfer. She laughs her head off when he says he's retiring, then offers him booze. She thinks he's over-reacting to Lou "biting it."
Sheila tells him he needs two things to survive: sex and fire.
Tommy extricates himself to go to the playground with Katie and Wyatt.
Once they're there, Katie explains they just watch Wyatt and keep him from eating sand. Tommy's nervous, but Katie tells him it's easy. She tells him she'll handle it and orders him to sit down.
A man joins Tommy on the park bench. He scoots over and introduces himself. He keeps crowding Tommy on the bench, complaining about all the women there. He warns Tommy not to shout and upset the kids. Tommy tries to talk about the Yankees game, but the man didn't see it because his wife had book club and there's no TV on book club night.
Tommy sees a woman explaining sharing rules to the kids and gets irked that they're playing with Wyatt's toys. He goes over and she aggressively explains that they all take turns on all the toys. Soon, Tommy has angered all the parents and made himself the outcast with cursing. They call the police on him.
He takes Wyatt's shovel and leaves. Katie tries to explain that he can't impose his own world view on their value structure. Tommy argues that this is America and if you buy a blue shovel, you're allowed to play with it.
"Oh my God," Katie says, "I don't think this is going to work."
Tommy asks what won't. "You in the real world," she says.
In Tommy's truck on the way to the funeral, Franco observes to Sean, Mike, Shawn and Tommy that this is the last time they'll all be together. He notes it's a profound moment.
Tommy's only response is to critique Franco for chewing gum loudly.
He tells him to chew quieter and think about Lou.
In the back seat, Mike announces that he wants to look inside the box of ashes.
Sean goads him into it. Mike starts to peel open the box to peek and Tommy again yells about the gum. Franco in the front and Black Shawn on the other side in the back both roll down their windows right when Mike opens the box of ashes.
And in a giant cloud, the guys are surrounded by ash one last time.
They pull over and dust off. Tommy announces it's like "Lou-maggedon." They try to dust off the bits. Franco has Lou up his nose, Shawn swallowed some Lou and Sean somehow has Lou down his shorts.
Tommy yells at Mike for opening the box. Mike says it's not his fault, the other guys opened their windows and created a vortex. Tommy takes a moment to be stunned that Mike used the word "vortex" correctly.
They try to figure out what they're going to spread at the service. They decide to go get something ash-like at a nearby store. But first, Tommy tells Sean they need all the Lou out of his butt crack.
Cut to Sean on the side of the road, squatting with his pants down over the box, brushing ash from between his legs. And that's when the State Trooper rolls up.
Mickey leads the service, then asks everyone for final thoughts. Maggie says he'll remember that Lou was kind and didn't treat her like she was something that had to be endured. Franco says Lou was a great lieutenant and he learned a lot from him. Needles says he had a big heart.
"He loved life," Janet offers.
"And cake," Sheila finishes.
Teddy says he had an encyclopedic memory for porn.
When everyone else is done, Tommy says he doesn't have a lot to say, but Lou does. He takes out the unopened letter from Lou.
"Dear Tom,
If you're reading this, it probably means I'm dead. It might have come as a shock to you, but I'll tell you now, I was living on borrowed time."
[This is news to Tommy.]
"My heart went back awhile back. I won't bore you with the details, but at this stage of the game, I'll be lucky if I finish this g--damned letter. If it wasn't my ticker that did me in, please tell me I died after eating 15 pizzas or after sex with multiple women or one really big one. Either way, that works for me. But seriously, I hope I went on the job, doing the work I was meant to do, doing the work I was meant to do surrounded by you and the guys.
Since it was mostly about food with me, I'm going to leave you guys with a recipe: Take one, self-absorbed, pretty boy Puerto Rican, add one long on attitude, short-on-experience black guy, then add two morons -- one more stupid than the other. Mix together and let sit. Finally add one battle-scarred, haunted, formerly drunken Irish a--hole who screws up his life like other people breathe. Blend all the ingredients together, turn on fire and hope for the best.
Sounds like s---, doesn't it?
Well, brother, I've tasted it. I've eaten it up these last few years, it's delicious. OK cornball, I know, but you guys together have something great. Me being gone doesn't change that. Find yourself another good looking, slightly overweight spoiler of women and you're back at full strength. Keep the crew together and keep fighting the fight. Don't worry about me, Tom. I had a good life, I knew brotherhood, I knew being good at something. I knew what it meant to have a friend. Yea, we had our ups and downs, we're in a major down mode at the moment, but with you, the ups are good enough, I'll take the downs.
I love you, Tom -- not in that way. OK, maybe a little in that way. I'll always be with you. Your pal, Lou.
P.S. don't forget what the bagpipers are supposed to play. If you mess up, I promise I'll haunt you forever, a--hole."
With that, the bagpipers start playing Iron Butterfly's "In A Gadda Da Vida."
Tommy takes the box of not-ashes and flings it over the side. Only Mickey sees. He takes the box and sniffs it, smelling chocolate.
Tommy confesses it's Duncan Hines Red Velvet cake mix.
Franco joins Tommy on the overlook, noting it's the end of the road. Shawn crutches up. He's not sure what Lou meant by "long on attitude" but he's going to miss him.
Sean walks up and says they should have gone with the Fluffy Yellow instead of the red velvet.
Mike comes up and hugs Tommy for dear life.
Tommy, Janet, Shawn and the girls comes home. Katie wants Hawaiian pizza. Janet calls for Tommy. She's having the baby, like now.
Shawn freaks out because he's going to have to deliver his mother-in-law's baby, he's sure Tommy will pass out. Tommy promises he won't and sends them for boiling water, string, scissors and his tool box.
Tommy takes a look and announces it's happening right now. Everybody curses up a storm as the baby makes its way out. Tommy calmly encourages Janet, only grimacing slightly.
Katie sees it and screams, "Oh my god, it's deformed!"
Then she says never mind, it's just a penis. It's a boy and it's fine. Janet and Tommy coo over it. Tommy immediately calls it Lou. Janet tries Alexander, Phillip or Joshua. Tommy calls the names too feminine, but uses another word.
Janet congratulates Tommy on making it through the delivery, and then he passes out.
When he wakes up, Janet tells Tommy to say hello to his new son, Shea Gavin. She can't handle Lou, and Ken doesn't work, but she likes the sound of Shea, his last name.
Janet tells Tommy she thinks he has to go back to 62 Truck. Katie told her what happened at the playground. She loves him, but if he sticks around, she's going to kill him.
Down at The Rock, the names of 343 fire fighters are displayed on a memorial as Tommy makes an announcement about the names being of the first responders. He addresses a gathering of young recruits, telling them to study the names. They'll realize it's not a job, it's a calling.
Tommy gets in a recruit's face then continues on, telling them one day they'll really be tested by running into a burning building when everyone else is running out. That's when they'll find out if they're real fire fighters. He tells them some day they might run in but their buddy won't and they'll ask themselves why. The answer isn't at the bottom of a bottle.
Firefighters die a lot. He lost his buddy, his best friend, his cousin, his brother.
Some people say it's God's will. "I don't know. I don't even know if there is a God. I hope there is, because that would mean that one day all this s--- is going to make some sense," he says.
Shawn, Sean, Mike and Needles listen nearby.
Tommy wraps up his remarks, then turns things over to Lt. Franco. "Good luck, douchebags," Tommy says.
Tommy gets in his car as Franco yells at the recruits. Ghost Lou joins him in the car, suggesting they get the fat recruit to cook. He also asks Tom to get a picture that isn't so "chinny" for his plaque. He loves the name Shea Gavin, says it's great for a restaurant.
"Duncan Hines cake mix, huh?" Lou asks. "Well. I guess that's kind of symbolic, or ironic. Not quite sure which."
Tommy and his dead friend drive away as Franco reads the names of the 9/11 dead; everyone haunted by the same ghosts again, where it all began.
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