Found

The end of season nine brings us the first main cast member of the show to leave. Fiona Gallagher, one of my favorite and one of the most important characters has moved out. From the pilot episode, Emmy Rossum has brought the keystone of the Gallagher family to life and she’s going to be missed.

A lot came together on the season finale so let’s start from the top.

Deb moves front and center as the matriarch of the family. With Frank parked on the couch for the next few months recovering from the broken leg, he’s now a full-time burden. Fiona offers to kick off the solution making and Deb says she’ll handle it. A schedule is made to rotate his care and everyone helps except for Liam who is still missing in action. Good timing on him but it makes Deb go looking for him which finally reveals to the family that he’s moved out. Except, he told everyone days ago but no one was paying attention to him.

Now that Liam knows what a functioning home is like, he sees no reason to go back with Deb. He does hand her a list of demands to get him back and a bewildered Deb leaves him be for now. This is two circumstances where Deb took over for what Fiona normally does: organizing care for the family and going to get family from their life in crisis walkabouts.

Deb also bonds with Carl over Kelly the “Heart Beaker.” It’s been a while since these siblings have run together and during this close time she finds out about how bad Carl is feeling. As far as she knew, he was only upset about Kelly. In a heartbreaking scene she finds out that he was also rejected from West Point and he’s going to drop out of military school and work full time at the fast food place to begin working towards store manager. He’s given up and resigned to work long hours next to a fryer. With Liam out and Carl in pieces in front of her she realizes she’s got a lot of repairing to do, something she’s watched Fiona do her whole life.

She takes the high road when she meets Kelly again, telling Kelly that Carl has given up because he now has nothing to work for. Deb was wrong for what she did and what Deb wants isn’t what matters here, it’s her brother. Kelly and Carl had the relationship that was important. When Kelly finds out that Carl is dropping out of school, she marches to Carl at work and pulls him out by his ears. Even Carl’s boss is impressed. It’s a reunion that’s fit for Shameless.

That leaves us with Fiona. She watches Deb steer the ship with a sense of surprise and awe. The groundwork for this started around 2 years ago when Fiona went into real estate and moved out. They were all adults and had to fix their own problems and pay their own way. It was the start of Fiona looking out for herself, she was done with being The Fixer. But then Fiona crash landed back into the Gallagher homestead and she found herself back at the start.

Max wasn’t kidding though, getting her that $100,000 payout in just a few days. A way out was delivered into her hands and the growing sense that she had to take advantage of it couldn’t be ignored. Frank is back sucking the life out of everyone. Deb wants to take over Fiona’s bigger bedroom for her and Franny. Watching Deb handle Frank meant that Deb could take control of anything. Her reasons to stay kept getting smaller. Fiona even gets away with punching the neighbor with a $2,500 fine. Her lawyer tells her to drop the nonsense, grow up and move on with her life. Looking for another push, Fiona goes to visit Ian and jail and he agrees with the lawyer. Fiona is surprised by his answer and he calls it then and there: You are looking for someone to tell you “no.” To pick the easy way for you on a decision that is scary. You have no reason to stay stuck in the mud.

So Fiona does it. She’s caught by Deb packing her bags and Deb runs to get Lip who understands what she’s doing right away. He doesn’t try to change her mind and insists on having a going away party for her and everyone runs out to get everything together. With all of the reasons for her to stay put out of the house, she makes final preparations to leave. If she doesn’t go now, she doesn’t think she ever will.

And then the scene. Frank is on the couch and they have a final confrontation. While he may praise her to others about raising the family herself while he and Monica were slowly killing themselves, he can barely say it to her. With his feebled body on the couch, he doesn’t even initiate the goodbye and his response is curt and shitty.

“You did a good job. Monica wasn’t up to it, you stepped in and helped. Thanks.”

“Helped? I did it all, Frank.”

“Well, if that helps you sleep better…”

“…See ya around Frank.”

“I doubt it.”

Fiona doesn’t try to fight the ego. Why bother shouting to a brick wall? Frank is Frank and that’s always the reason why people want to get away from him. He’s obviously upset she’s leaving, one in a list of many who have done so, but he can’t outwardly admit that. Life goes on and Fiona gets on a train to parts unknown to start her own. Not without a final gift to her family: $50,000.

Emmy leaving creates a big hole in the show. She’s been the nucleus for nine years and it’s going to be weird without her. This changes the family dynamic with the most reliable sibling being taken out of the picture entirely. So what characters step up? Will Deb simply take over Fiona’s standing? Ian is coming back next season, will they add any more new main characters? Bring Kev and V more? While this is sad, at least Fiona isn’t dead. This is the chance to do more with other characters and I hope they don’t leave Fiona as an after thought as is the norm for the show. It’d be nice for her to be mentioned her here and there so we know where she is. This feels like a momentous season that had some good peaks, I hope the writers can keep the momentum going.

Lost

Liam exists! And everyone is miserable!

So it turns out the writers directly address one of my biggest WTFs about the show and that is, where is Liam? Turns out that his entire family hasn’t noticed he’s been gone for two days, Fiona looking for him one morning and asking everyone where he is. Liam’s been with his friend/bodyguard at his grandmother’s house. While everyone is slogging through the swamp Liam has been kicking back watching TV and eating awesome food. When Liam’s friend asks him why he doesn’t answer his phone, he responds, why should I? They didn’t realize I was gone for two days. Can’t say I blame him.

So back to the misery pit. The Kelly situation comes to it’s natural peak just like I thought it would. Carl is distraught over Kelly breaking up with him and Deb is smug about it. With the break up done she now thinks she has her foot in the perverbial lesbian door. While sulking at work, a guy comes in to rob the store. Thinking the gun is fake, Carl tells him to bugger off and the gun goes off, just missing him. Not a good time to mess with Carl. He jumps the counter and beats the dude with the fryer basket. While Carl fends for his life, Deb sneaks a smooch on Kelly and she does not get the response she was hoping for. Kelly heads for the door (she goes as for as to apoligizing to Deb for leading her on) as fast as she can. Kelly and Deb now know Carl was right and at the end of the episode, Carl and Deb bond over “Kelly the bitch.”

While Fiona took the “stay off the streets” route last week by going to a meeting, Frank stuck to his stride and true self and crashed in Fiona’s old apartment building again. Not a smart move as Frank wakes up to a wrecking ball coming through the wall. He barely makes it out but breaks his leg. He waves off any help and limps home, collapsing in front of the Gallagher home. The kids get him into the house and it’s revealed why he said no to the help, he had all sorts of drugs on him. He manages to finish his drug deal in time to get taken to the hospital where Fiona sticks with him as long as she can before meeting a lawyer about her assault case.

The interesting thing here is the divergent path of the two Gallaghers. Fiona is on the first step back to sobriety. She knows she can’t stay in the pit she’s been in for the last few months…she ended up right next to Frank and she knows where those choices go. She’s going to her obligations. On time with her lawyer her gives her advice that could mean she avoids jail time. She’s already going to meetings and she’s looking for a job. Through the entire episode we watch her make progress. She’s not “cured” of course, she’s still in the pits but she’s looking for the light in the darkness to find a way out. Much like Deb and Carl’s heart to heart, Fiona has one with Lip about how she feels like she can never get ahead. And at the meetings she doesn’t think she can call herself an addict, but she knows it’s in her family and she’s been dealing with her losses with alchohol. Frank is the opposite. He rides that addiction train through another gauntlet. Through the hospital system for the umpteenth time, he’s barely tolerated and he’s literally left on the street to fend for himself at the end.

Lip navigates another crisis with Lori. She’s getting a lot of pressure from her father, and he comes to visit Lip at work to talk about the baby. Lip doesn’t know what Lori is doing with the pregnancy and this makes it sound like she (or her dad) has made the decision to keep the child. As we know, Lori doesn’t take to others calling the shots, so this power play by her father may push her into a choice that spites her dad. On top of this, there’s a history of breast cancer in Lori’s family and she gets tested for a gene that greatly alters her own life expectancy when it comes to being pregnant or not. It’s possible that having a child could prevent her from getting cancer. Lori never wanted to have kids. It’s a lot to handle and they are both forced to wait for the test results.

Kev and V are back to the sweet lovin’ but Kev’s stamina has taken a hit over the sexless 2 weeks. Kev is afraid the surgery changed him and Kermit and Tommy at The Alibi are no help with the pep talks. Something does come up to distract him: their twin swap trick at the school comes to an abrupt end. It took months for the sisters to figure out the Ball’s had more than one kid which is pretty amazing. Now caught, they have two options, pay $1400 in back tuition or Kev needs to play the role of Jesus at an upcoming church event. It’s an easy choice but Kev has two shoulder a massive, heavy cross for 150 yards. No on said scamming came without punishment.

The final note for the night is Fiona’s run-in with Max, the guy she got into the deal with for the retirement home property and her apartment complex. You know, the guy who ended up with everything. At her new job working the graveyard shift at a gas station, he walks in to pay for gas and snacks. Shocked at where she landed since he’s last seen her (behind an inch of bulletproof glass in the hood), he offers Fiona a way out. While the retirement home deal is not expected to move forward for at least six more months, he offers to buy her share of the investment deal out. She’s going to get her $100k back.

A window has opened in Fiona’s pit and she can see the light that’s leading the way out. Her efforts to get back on her feet, no matter how small and insignificant they seemed to her, are paying off.