We Become What We…Frank!

Welcome to season 8! It’s time to catch up with the Gallaghers. Monica’s inheritance left the family with some decisions and we come back to the family not too long after last year’s finale.

All that meth meant a lot of potential money. While Fiona ditched her share in Monica’s casket, the others kept theirs and Carl is using his old connections to unload each bag one at a time (from what I could tell each is worth around $10,000).

Carl, out of boot camp for the summer, sells his first and buys some toys with it, the largest being a hot tub for the backyard. He’s thriving in the military and is sticking to the daily regiment to keep his newfound focus.

Debbie is hustling like only a single mother can. She’s working as a fee collector at a parking garage while going to school to get her welding certification. Using Gallagher resources, she uses a dog crate for Frannie while she works and leaves her with Neil when she goes to class. She’s still got a crush on her instructor and it’d be shocking if she didn’t try to get to know him. In another instance of that Gallagher grit, she handles an aggro customer at work like a pro. When Carl gets her money, she spends it on her own welding gear so she can practice whenever she wants. She’s committed!

Ian is pining for his ex something fierce. I guess it’s progress that the guy is willing to talk to him still, but Ian’s got his work cut out for him.

Lip is sober and the struggle is real. He’s got a great sponsor that looks out for him and gives him great advice which he desperately needs. And he’s more or less listening. In the same boat that Ian is in, Lip is pining for his ex just as hard. He’s doing his best to give Sierra her space and kind of ease his way to her again (going as far as paying an outstanding bill of hers on the sly) but her trash baby daddy has come back around and it makes that effort hit the skids. That’s a massive trigger for his drinking and he fights it off, which was amazing. I thought for sure that would make him relapse and in another major move, he gives the rest of his Monica money to Professor Youens to pay him back for footing his rehab. “Thanks for the rehab” indeed!

They’ve finally decided to make Liam a functioning character now. He’s aged up and given lines with his own plotline now. Frank got him into that private school last year and they’re using him as the token black kid to boost their diversity image to prospective parents checking the school out. He might be young but he knows exactly what they’re doing.

Fiona has reached the point for another quality of life change. She’s off Tinder and coming back around to being ready for a relationship. She’s laser focused on keeping all the plates she has spinning and turning a profit. A lot of work keeping the diner going (heads up, ICE is here!) and fixing up the apartment building she bought last year. Looks like she’s good at being a good landlord as she makes quick friends with one of her tenants (hello new character) and she gets a hell of a price for the first apartment she fixed. Sounds like there are some real characters in the building so I’m sure we’ll get a wealth of stories out of them this year.

Frank. Does exactly what you think he did. While in mourning for Monica, he used all of his meth (he says he shared it if you believe that). And now that he’s come back to Earth from his high sabbatical (“Where the hell have you been?” ask all his kids) he’s re-evaluated his life. He’s wronged a lot of people so it’s time for an Apology Tour of the neighborhood. Yeah, Frank’s going to be busy.

V and Kev are struggling to make ends meet after Svetlana successfully snaked them out of The Alibi. Svetlana had great reason to (she did save them from themselves in a business sense) but V is furious. Svetlana has turned The Alibi into a Russian bar and V ain’t having it. Svet tells her it’ll all work out if they become a thrupple again and V says no with her fists. Kev is still working at the gay bar and doing some sanctioned (with V’s very clear guidelines) side work, he finds out he has breast cancer. Only Shameless can come up with that way to get an initial diagnosis. While Kev privately gets checked out by a doctor, V makes the move of the episode: she gets ICE to raid Svetlana’s bar.

It’s good to be back! Great start, let’s see how dysfuntional we get.