Sean continues to hallucinate as he recovers from kidney surgery.

Lying in his hospital bed, recovering from kidney cancer surgery, Sean Garrity is at the heart of this week’s “Rescue Me.” This, despite the fact he is nearly comatose and dreaming of vegetables.

In one of the more memorable openings of the show, we see the inside of a fancy midtown apartment that slowly disintegrates in front of our eyes. To the haunting strains of Duffy’s “Syrup and Honey,” we see Tommy, Franco, Mike and Black Shawn fall into the empty apartment and then desperate for a way out, Tommy finally picking up a burning chair and throwing it through a window that enables them to escape via a fire truck ladder.

Because “Rescue Me” is such a character-driven show with the majority of the scenes set outside the job, we sometimes forget the harrowing dangers firefighters face in their everday lives. This simple, yet powerful, scene is an effective reminder.

Standing outside the apartment, Tommy and Lou enter into a serious discussion, not about Tommy’s latest brush with death, but with a far more meaningful topic – their love lives. Tommy admits to carrying on simultaneous relationships with his wife, Janet, and his cousin’s late wife, Sheila. Tommy tells Lou that the relationships come with no strings attached, to which Lou scoffs, saying, “These are women. They have more strings than a baseball.”

A defensive Tommy says he’s handling the situation well, saying “I’m manning up. I’m Peyton Manning. I’m Eli Manning. I’m the whole @#$% Manning family!”

Tommy questions Lou’s budding re-romance of former prostitute Candy, who he has seemingly forgiven despite the insignificant fact that she previously stole $26,000 from him.

Lou proposes a bet, saying that Tommy’s relationships will fall apart before he sleeps with Candy, and, if it does, Tommy will clean Lou’s apartment. Tommy says if Lou gives in to Candy’s, um, sweetness that Lou will clean his own apartment. Lou says it’s not a problem because he’ll just get a second hooker to clean the apartment. Tommy asks if they really got those and Lou assures them they do, “they have everything on Craigslist.”

At the hospital, Sean is visited by his firehouse brothers. Pointing to the TV, his mother says that Sean loves Steven Seagal, but all they have on is musicals. They stare at their fallen friend and worry about his future. Though unconscious, Sean hears their concerns, and is suddenly wearing a top hat and tails, singing ”How lovely it is to be a vegetable.”

Completely vegetative, cucumbive or potative, noncommunicative and green. How noble immobility!

Granted, not exactly the most politically correct scene, but funny nonetheless.

Tommy is told by Janet that their daughter, Katie, is coming home from prep school and has requested a family dinner that includes her parents, sister Colleen and her former boyfriend Black Shawn. Desperate to make his daughter happy, Tommy asks Shawn to forget that whole firehouse in the shower thing and join his family at dinner, ala Sidney Poitier in “Look Who’s Coming to Dinner.”

Dressed like the “lost, retarded Huxtable kid” (according to Colleen), Shawn tries too hard, leaving his ex-girlfriend kicking him under the kitchen table and Tommy threatening him with a salad fork.

Katie, however, has a great time and caps the evening by quizzing her father about his drinking, leaving Tommy stammering to find just the right answer for his 10-year-old. He takes a bottle of Irish whiskey from the home and goes to Sheila’s for a late rendezvous that is interrupted when her son comes home early.

Still seeking a quiet place where he can drink and watch a family DVD, Tommy chooses a logical location – in the hospital, next to his comatose friend. Mrs. Garrity takes the bottle from him and takes a couple chugs, then tells Tommy it’s time to pray. She urges him to get down on his knees and they say the “Our Father” together as Tommy looks at the screen and sees images of his late son.

So what did you think of the episode? How long will it take Sean to recover? Who’s going to win the bet between Tommy and Lou? What horrifying things are going to be discovered in Lou’s apartment by the unlucky loser who has to clean the mess?