Clinging precariously to life after being shot by Uncle Teddy, Tommy Gavin is forced to confront his past through a hellish dream. Though Tommy's body is in an ambulance, his mind is in a raging fire where, as his friends try to rescue him, he careens between disturbing confrontations with his family, haunting visions of fire victims he couldn't save, and the corpses of the firefighters who...

As he nears his return to duty, Tommy is troubled to learn just how much Franco and his friends pitched in with his family while he was recuperating from his gunshot wounds. While warning Franco against getting too close to Janet and the kids, Tommy begins to see what his drinking and subsequent brush with death have cost him at home. Meanwhile, responding to Sheila's urgent request, Tommy...

After ridding his apartment of all whisky and vodka in an effort to keep him and Colleen from drinking, Tommy calls Damien to say he is on his way in for his first day back on the job and demands that his friends at the firehouse do nothing to celebrate his return. However, after arriving to find that nothing was planned to welcome him back, Tommy is miffed. Yet he puts his disappointment on...

When a competing firehouse looks to take advantage of Lou's condition, Needles and Tommy hatch a plan to spring him from the hospital.

Seething and drunk after watching Franco leave the apartment, Tommy heads to Cousin Eddie's bar for a drunken tirade in the storage room with the ghosts of his cousin Jimmy and his late son Connor. Retrieved by Colleen, Tommy then takes her on a drunken escapade that lands them at another bar in Queens. After an argument ends with Tommy leaving Colleen on her own, he arrives at Sheila's...

In the wake of their joint blackout, Tommy announces he is taking Colleen to a meeting at a new AA chapter that very evening. But when Tommy's day begins with his inability to save the young victim of a drunk driving accident, he quickly begins a downward spiral. Dejected over his latest failure and the sorry state of his own life, Tommy refuses to go out on the next call, where Black Shawn’s...

With the charges against him dropped following his drunken baptism of his daughter, Tommy arrives at home to discover that, though brutal, the technique seems to have cured Colleen of her drinking habit. Then, after encouraging Black Shawn to extend an olive branch to Franco following their street fight, Tommy arrives at work to discover that the firehouse has been shuttered. And after Mike...

As publicity over the schoolhouse rescue gives 62 Truck a new lease on life, Janet agrees to give Tommy one last chance, but only if he ends his affair with Sheila.

As Tommy pledges to get his life back on track and care for his family and Lou continues to ignore his failing health, Damien struggles with his decision to quit the department.

With Damien left paralyzed and unable to speak just as he was about to quit the FDNY, Tommy pitches in to help a frazzled Sheila, especially now that Mickey has disappeared and started drinking again. And when Sean's efforts to honor the memory of firefighter Patrick Mahoney lead to the naming of a pavilion in Central Park after him, the firefighters plan to attend the dedication. Already...