The week after

I feel like I've written about nothing but "Rescue Me" for the last week, and since the latest episode barely dealt at all with The Incident, I'll keep this brief.

With a lot of the storylines running in place -- the Chief's non-bartending job and struggle to find money for his wife's care, Garrity and Maggie, Probie's non-relationship relationship -- the big developments came from our pair of Oscar-winning guest stars. I'm particularly torn about Susan Sarandon stealing Franco's daughter. On the one hand, she stole his kid. On the other hand, it's not like she plans to shut Franco out of Keelah's life, and she gives Tommy a much more reasonable explanation for why she'd be a better parent to Keelah than Franco -- one of the few times in this show's history where a woman has taken the moral high ground over one of the guys and really seemed to deserve it. But still, she stole his kid! (And, yeah, Franco stole her, too, but from disinterested foster parents, and he's her actual father.)

Meanwhile, enter Marisa Tomei as the latest gorgeous babe to fall improbably under Tommy's manly spell -- or not. I like that she blew off his proposal for revenge sex, and that, even when she finally agreed to it, it was more out of a desire to get back at Johnny than any kind of attraction to Tommy. (And the previews make it look even more fake and businesslike.)

The hour's strongest moment came, as it often does, when Tommy was confronted by the ghosts of his past -- not just Jimmy and Connor, but Billy the well-endowed fireman who died in "Inches." As much as this show can piss me off in other ways, I stick around for scenes like the one at the end.

What did everybody else think? Is Susan a heroine or a manipulative baby-stealer? Is Marisa really just having fun, or is she going to become Sheila 2.0? And how long before Jerry smashes a beer bottle over his boss' head, and/or steals money out of the till to pay the bills?

The column took yesterday off, but today's features an interview with Bill Lawrence about his attempt to resurrect "Nobody's Watching" via YouTube.

And in another "Scrubs" musical link: Payback is a bitch.