DAVID BIANCULLI

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SEX&DRUGS&ROCK&ROLL
June 30, 2016  | By David Bianculli

FX, 10:00 p.m. ET

 

SEASON PREMIERE: For Season 2, Denis Leary and company don’t indulge in a moment of scene-setting: If you don’t know these characters well from last season, you’ll have little or no sense of how they came together, stay together, or are so comically dysfunctional. (A fast binge view of Season 1 is highly recommended.) But basically, Leary plays the former lead singer of a vintage rock band hoping to make a comeback, but with Leary’s long-estranged daughter, played by Elizabeth Gillies, as the new, very talented lead singer. The new season begins with the death of a former musical peer, and has several subplots going at once, with Leary’s trademark deadpan dialogue, the best thing about Rescue Me, so prevalent and enjoyable. My favorite subplot: The continuation of last season’s idea about band member Rehab and his pretentious idea to do a rock opera song cycle about the Irish potato famine. Last year, that was laughably ridiculous. This year, after the mega-success of Broadway’s Hamilton, suddenly it’s finding interest – and investors. For an interview with Robert Kelly (Bam Bam), see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.

 
 
 
 
 
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