The publicist for FX's "Rescue Me" directs the Manhattan cabdriver to a Queens address, where the show shoots. The driver grumbles, directs us to the subway and other places underground and eventually backs up on a potholed block, playing chicken with an SUV.

It's good practice for the crankiness to come. The difference is that Denis Leary and cast are funny. At the end of March, the sets are not fully representative of what unfolds when the third season premieres Tuesday, May 30.

Tommy Gavin's (Leary) house remains as if his son will return to his room with the space posters. Las season, Connor, 10, was killed when a drunken driver plowed into his bike. Months later, that episode haunts. "People flipped out over it," Leary says.

Leary and writing partner Peter Tolan delve into fantasy on the show, but "Rescue Me" works because it is unflinchingly honest.

Leary, whose firefighter first cousin was killed in a 1999 Massachusetts blaze, delivers a show about firefighters that is real. New York firefighters who survived 9/11, when 343 of their brothers did not, are huge fans of "Rescue Me." Some, like retired firefighter Paul Martinowicz, work as extras.

"It looks exactly like a firehouse kitchen," he says of the dim room with industrial-sized pots, a bulletin board featuring a calendar of a babe wearing more tools than clothes, and a long table with mismatched chairs. "It's like being at the firehouse; only thing is we probably won't get killed at some point during the day."

The crew is working on "Rescue Me 2.5," a short available online and on some cable stations until Sunday, May 28. On Tuesday, it will be shown in Times Square.

In it, probie Mike Siletti's (Michael Lombardi) tuna sandwich rots in the bunk room's wastebasket, and Lou (John Scurti) orders him to toss it in the alley. There, Siletti encounters a beast, which turns out to be an Irish wolfhound.

When the majestic dog lopes through the kitchen, Tommy and Lou take pratfalls to flee. They had hired a wolfhound, as Leary's wolfhound has never been off his farm. Today, however they use a makeshift wolfhound -- a sawhorse on wheels with synthetic fur.

Jace Alexander, the director, calls out orders from the fire station's recreation room. Exercise equipment shares space with a foosball table, a television set and a recliner patched with duct tape. Fire department decals and a terrible painting of a fawn and a doe decorate walls.

This set has the testosterone-heavy feel of a locker room, and nothing looks all that clean. And heaven help anyone who takes himself too seriously. Here, pranks are an art form.

Scurti masterminds today's prank. A crew filming an electronic press kit interviews actors about the show. Each guy is to devise a story about how Leary wants to kill him.

"He threw a Molotov cocktail at me," Scurti says.

As Alexander grabs a handful of trail mix from the snack table, Scurti asks how Leary tries to kill him.

"Can you be undermined to death?" Alexander asks.

Lombardi cites death by hockey, saying Leary shot the puck into oncoming traffic.

As the crew adjusts lighting, Steve Pasquale, who plays Sean Garrity, smokes in his dressing room. Pretty much all the actors smoke, usually under signs prohibiting it. That, says retired firefighter Martinowicz, is the sole inaccurate detail as most firefighters don't smoke.

In Tuesday's episode, the guys try to quit smoking, as each deals with his own problems.

Pasquale does not expect Garrity to evolve. "He is too unsophisticated to change," he says. Garrity continues looking for love in all the wrong places and has even trolled for women at a gay party. "He figured really beautiful women hang out with gays," Pasquale says. This season his suicidal dating pattern includes seeing Tommy's sister, Maggie (Tatum O'Neal).

Next door, in another unadorned dressing room, Lombardi relaxes. He, Leary and Pasquale played street hockey at 7 a.m. Leary, who wanted to be a pro hockey player, is "an animal," Lombardi says, admiringly. "He plays hard. He'll go on the ground and block shots. It's a fast sport, if you get hit, you get hurt. Some guy got hit in the balls today." He laughs.

Testicles are a frequent topic on this set, proven again in a few moments when Scurti gingerly eases himself into a chair. The pratfalls have left him in the sort of pain gentlemen do not discuss publicly.

This season, Lou, "more than anyone else on the show, starts in a new way," Scurti says. Last season, his character gave his life savings to a hooker, who he believed was turning around her life and loved him. He was duped.

As beef, fish and side dishes are laid out in the bare-bones lunchroom, Leary sprawls on a plastic chair, wearing a firefighter's uniform. Drinking a Diet Coke and smoking, Leary works constantly as a writer, producer and star of the show. "We write as we go, which is crazy, but it allows us to change directions," he says.

This season Tommy deals with the death of his son, pending divorce and ailing father. "Part of the deal in any big family -- whether it's the older brother or the oldest sister -- there's this responsibility for the parents and everybody keeping in contact," Leary says.

"In this case, it's Tommy, and everybody comes to him," he says. "Lou moves in with him. Now he's responsible for his father, brothers, sisters, Lou, and at the same time he's trying to keep himself closed up from emotions. As soon as he lets his emotions loose, he's done for as a firefighter. There's an unwritten code: If you feel you can't do it, you got to go."