The head of the U.S. cable network FX defends the so-called rape episode on "Rescue Me," saying justice will come in time, the New York Post said.

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"Denis Leary's firefighter character, Tommy Gavin, will get his 'comeuppance,'" said network president John Landgraf of the alcoholic husband who forces himself sexually on his reluctant wife.

The episode has created considerable backlash from viewers who see the show's producers as condoning spousal rape, the newspaper reported. But Landgraf said justice does not necessarily occur within the context of a single episode. "And that isn't the way life works either," he said.

"For me, it's not that our shows are amoral," Landgraf said. "It's that the morality of them exists in the long, arcing consequences of how human life is lived."

And, as for allowing Gavin to smile as he walked away from his act of aggression, Landgraf said, "It makes Tommy into more of an unrepentant jerk, that he's smiling, with that (triumphant) music. (But) that's who the character is."