FAMILY TIES: ROSEMARY & TIMO GAVIN

In the penultimate episode of this season's 'Rescue Me', we've been introduced to yet another sister of Tommy Gavin, Rosemary Gavin. When she was younger, her parents shipped her off to a special school and cut off all contact with her because she had been born a deaf-mute.

Eventually, she learned to speak and now lives in California with a boyfriend where she teaches sign language.

When she first showed up at her brother Johnny's funeral and waved teasingly at Tommy, I thought, "Oh no, here's another chick Tommy's going to end up banging."

One of the other brothers in the Gavin family is "Timo" (a nickname for Timothy?), who is also a detective in the NYPD. I've seen in comments left at various TV forums mentioning that he wasn't to be seen at the funeral nor at the wake/wedding celebration afterwards. But we didn't see everybody in the crowd at the cemetary; and the Gavin apartment is a huge, rambling warren with plenty of side rooms. And as we saw near the end of that episode, lots of characters had disappeared off into those side rooms.

One interesting note on Rosemary Gavin: she shares the same first name as the Kennedy sister whose mild retardation was made worse by a botched lobotomy ordered by her father when she was 23 years old.

Perhaps because of Rosemary Gavin's own situation and treatment by her parents, Peter Tolan and Denis Leary decided to give Tommy's sister the same name.

BCnU!
Tele-Toby