You’ll Know the Bottom When You Hit It

Don’t be mad. It’s no ones fault.

Xan

A lot of what I was hoping was going to happen, happened this week. Lots of necessary talking and confrontation goes down. Plus, the classic Shameless side talking digs come fast and furious. Surly Fiona can be really funny.

At the start of the show, Xan says the above line to Lip and once she leaves with the DCFS agent, he promptly goes to Fiona’s room to pack up all of her stuff and throw it onto the curb. In a heavy Fiona episode, anger is the focal point.

Fiona spends most of her day at The Alibi and day drinking Fiona makes a quick impression on V. When she asks for a vodka on the rocks, V accidentally makes her a vodka cranberry. Frank moseys in just after a blackout starts after setting up a supply line to sell the neighborhood the needed essentials at a significantly raised price. Since no one in the South Side prepares for anything, it’s a good time to be a hustler. Since Fiona has nothing to do and about $100 to her name, she strikes a deal to help Frank sell. Her business acumen kicks in and she gets much more ambitious than Frank. Ditching a half-assed wagon idea, she creates a stand for them to sell much more. It works.

When Fiona makes her way home in the middle of the afternoon and finds her stuff outside, Lip is there to greet her with a fight. They have it out in the kitchen and Frank breaks it up (for quite possibly the first time in his life). Lip tells her to GTFO and she tells him to GTFO of her house. Lip tells her to go to a AA meeting and Frank rolls his eyes at the judgment. When Fiona storms out, Frank leaves too but with some parting advice for Lip: You should be thanking her, raising 6 kids by yourself isn’t easy.

So Fiona and Frank go back to The Alibi. Furious Fiona asks V if she can crash at her place and Frank divies up the days take, Fiona gets aggressive and Frank now has advice for his daughter. While they continue to drink, he tells her she’s a bad drunk. That makes her laugh at loud and he lays it out to her: you’re abusing the gift of booze. She doesn’t get drunk and have fun, she gets angry and wants to fight everyone while thinking about the past. In eccense, Handle Your High or else. Normally when Frank gets on his soap box it’s the ranting of a brain pickled by substance abuse and scams, but this is downright sage like wisdom that only Frank can deliver.

As the day goes on everyone is sweating it out with no power, except for Liam because again, he doesn’t exist. Deb continues to buddy up to Kelly which drives Carl nuts and the battle comes out in front of Kelly. She’s weirded out and doesn’t understand Carl’s reaction (still naive of Deb’s true intentions) and she breaks up with Carl because he’s too clingy.

On the positive side with Lip, he talks to Tami about the pregnancy and makes some headway. His main message is that if she keeps the child, he’s on board for fatherhood. He’s not going to ditch her or the baby.

To my delight, V is brought in to engage with Fiona. Today marks the first time V has seen her in her full collapse, she now knows what’s going on in her friend’s life and can see what state she’s in. This isn’t her first rodeo of course. V has been there to catch Fiona when she’s fallen and vice versa. Since Lip wants Fiona out of the house, V goes to talk to him to try and fix things. He’s adamant about kicking Fiona out because it’s time she hits rock bottom. If he doesn’t she won’t get better and V is doing nothing more than enabling her. V objects at first but he makes a clear impression on her.

At the block South Side party Kev put together, it turns out that every town in Chicago except for the South Side has power back. Fiona, primed and ready to continue her quest to rage against the machine leads the group on a march on the north end. En route, their momentum and catchy chants stop short when the power comes back on. Everyone is happy that the power is back and are ready to go back and kick it at The Alibi. Except for Fiona. She’s incensed and tries to rally them to keep going, raise hell to make change happen. No one cares and Fiona lashes out, making V move in to carefully calm her friend and lay the news on that she isn’t welcome to crash at the Ball home anymore. Fiona puts on a stiff upper lip in a show of understanding and leaves the party.

The next morning we get to see Fiona at the bottom. Frank is passed out next to her on the floor. Apparently, they met up later that night and continued to drink. They broke into her old apartment complex which is now a full-fledged dump. She can barely move the hangover is so intense, there is no water on in the building, and she vomits in the hallway a few times. She picks up one of the business magazines she left behind. It has her name and address on it, a subscription. A woman in a power pantsuit striking an executive power pose is on the cover. This was Fiona, what she was working so hard to achieve, to move her life forward for the first time. Now she has nothing left from that time and any happiness and optimism she had have been replaced by uncontrollable anger.

The final scene warmed my heart. Lip is at a AA meeting listening to a man talk about his life’s greatest regret and Fiona walks in and takes a seat. With the poignant voice over from the man over the scene, Lip looks over and sees his sister for the first time in a while. Shameless at its best.

The Hobo Games

We’re getting close to the end of the season and thus the end of Emmy Rossum’s time on Shameless. Fiona’s exit on the show is taking shape and it’s getting weird to say the least.

Before we go full breakdown, I feel like we need to go over some annoying Shameless tropes that continue to fester. This series has never been keen on continutity. Big events tend to happen in a vaccuum where once it happens, it’s never thought of again. Characters are often written off in this way, they just take off. Minor characters are even killed off with no repercussions whatsoever. It’s like it never really happened, the community never reacts to it, characters don’t seem to be affected by it.

We are on season 9 and that’s a lot of storytelling. The character list is well into the hundreds now so that turns into a kind of tide where the writers use characters for a specific thing, abandoned them and then pull them out of the drawer when they need to try to fill a gap, make something happen. I can see the utility in that bad it’s really bad when main characters are used that way. Since the kids on the show (I’m referring to the entire main cast) have gotten older, they increasingly live separate lives. Most of the time the siblings don’t know what each other are doing. That’s 6 characters, 8 including Kev and V, 9 with Frank. That’s a ton of characters to juggle and a huge challenge to manage well. But in particular, Liam is an after thought. His character was a toddler when the show started and they relatively recently got and actor to make Liam an active character. How he literally disappears is absurd. No one talks about him and he’s not even shown in the house unless he’s part of the plot of the episode. The way he’s portrayed, he doesn’t actually exist in the family.

Kev and V are treated in much the same way, except they are always given a C plot to keep them active. This couple is supposed to be the Gallagher’s oldest friends, they live I think on the same street. You’d never know that because it seems like they live in a different city as they barely interact with the Gallaghers. It’s been like this for years, so why bother coming up with shoe string stories for them? All of this sits next to the Fiona and Lip plot that’s unfolding now.

So here we are at “The Hobo Games.” Starting at the bottom of the importance scale, we have Kev and V going through a vasectomy story.

Deb is flirting with Kelly as hard as she possibly can, enough so that Carl notices and doesn’t like it. Despite knowing that Kelly is straight, Deb has it in her head that there’s a good chance Deb can turn her. Kelly is going to need to confront this pretty soon (she’s just having a good time hanging out with Deb, they’re friends now) as I’m sure if Carl doesn’t say anything, Deb is going to cross a line and it’s going to get awkward real fast. I think in the end this is less of Deb wanting a romantic relationship and more that she needs a friend. Fiona often ignores her so she has no female to talk to (there’s an idea to get V meaningfully involved).

Liam does not exist.

Frank has made it to the final stages of The Hobo Games with Mikey. They’ve got a shaky alliance going and it stumbles into a phony gay military veterans scam to make it into the grand finals. During this whole contest, he’s been away from Ingrid while her ex-husband continues to drop by the house in an effort to get her away and back on track of a healthy life. She calls Frank who tells her he can’t come home yet because he has to finish the contest (50k is on the line) and that makes her furious which makes her question Deb who once more says that she cannot rely on Frank. So, a “test” is concocted and Ingrid tells him that her body is freaking out, something is wrong with the sextuplets. With this crisis put in front of him, Frank stays committed to you guessed it, the contest. This is the push that Ingrid needed to pull the parachute. Not only does Frank lose the contest (thanks Mikey) but he loses Ingrid as well. Frank, always the dirtbag agrees to a lump sum payoff to stay away from Ingrid, waving any parenting rights as well. Not that he has any, as the father is actually Carl. So that’s the end of Ingrid and I say that because Katie Sagal is a big name so the odds of getter her back are pretty small (and her story has nowhere to go).

Now for the main event: Fiona and Lip on a crash course that feels rushed and half baked. This episode starts a few days after the last one so a lot is skipped over. The last we saw Fiona she was in the back of a cop car and all of sudden, she’s waking up in someone’s apartment. We learn, many scenes later, that Deb paid her bail. A whole lot of aftermath was skipped over and glossed over in what I think is a detriment to the show. Fiona has embraced the drunk life and it’s not a secret. She’s been spiraling for months, her family have seen this before and don’t offer to get her help. Deb just demands money from her and then looks worried.

Lip is running around with his head on fire. Xan showing up last week put him into overdrive mode and after Tami establishes herself as a rock, she’s now sketchy. She ditches him and Xan and then won’t reply to any of his calls or texts. He handles getting custody of Xan by himself and it’s an uphill climb but he commits to it. While he’s out getting things together for Xan, DCFS shows up that day. There is no way on Earth a government agency shows hours later for an inspection like that. This whole scenario sets up Fiona’s first “failure.” She’s sleeping off the hangover when she’s woken up by this guy from child services. She has no idea what’s going on and does her best to give the guy a tour. At the same time, Deb has left a huge hole in the living room floor to install a new furnace. V also left her 4 year old twins with Deb, who stuffed them into her daughter’s pack and play and left all 3 kids in there. They are Deb’s responsibility and the house is a disaster, none of which Fiona had anything to do with. So the inspector leaves with no good notes. Lip arrives home with Xan just in time to try and salvage the end of it but can’t. So he’s mad.

Fiona’s second “failure” is meeting Jason while she’s looking for Lip to apologize to him for not doing a hail mary earlier. Who’s Jason? Good question. Lip is his AA sponsor, a character we haven’t seen or thought about in ages. Yes, along with Xan we have another pop up character to make a fight happen later with illogical circumstances. Fiona has never met Jason and doesn’t know he’s in recovery (it’s his 100th day to boot!). She sits down in the bike shop to talk to this dude and while she pours out her heart, she makes herself a drink. He’s eyeballing the bottle the whole time and asks if he can have some. She says sure, oblivious of his past. Jason doesn’t just fall off the wagon, he ends up doing heroin again, and he calls Lip in a pit of despair seconds after Tami tells Lip she’s pregnant. That’s why she’s been ignoring him, she’s been freaking out.

Lip’s entire world is burning around him. Tami bolts, their last words sounding like she’s done with him (keeping the child in any manner a question). He’s failed Xan, she’s going into the foster system. And now his “awful” sister ruined another person’s life in the same day (to his credit, Jason tells him exactly what happened, that it’s not Fiona’s fault. Lip ignores this). It’s been a dramatic 24 hours.

This brings us to the final scene at home where Lip confronts Fiona in front of Deb, Carl, and Kelly. And yes, Liam isn’t there. She rightfully defends herself, first saying “Who is Jason?” She apologizes for the pain she inadvertently caused and then he lays into her about Xan blaming her for everything and tells her she has to move out of the house.

There’s a lot going on her obviously and very little of it works well. I understand why Lip is mad and he should be. He’s deflecting everything onto Fiona who is a mess right now. She’s made mistakes for sure but none of what he’s furious about is her fault. No one in the family talks to each other so this is what happens. It’s completely unreasonable to hold Fiona responsible for any of it. No one knew what Lip was doing, he didn’t even ask anyone if it’s ok that Xan moved in (highlighted by Lip bullying Deb into sharing her room with a kid). “Old Fiona” might have been able to do a little better with the inspector but she can’t make miracles happen. Everything else was Deb’s doing and odds are that dump would fail any inspection no matter what. And Deb was right there on the couch listening to Lip lay into Fiona and she didn’t say anything to defend her sister! Plus, the only reason Fiona met Jason was because Lip wouldn’t answer her calls and she went out looking for him to apologize for something that was out of her control.

I expect Fiona to push back hard on Lip’s nonsense next week and she absolutely should. This whole set up is forced and stupid. I’ll be pissed if this ends up being the thing that makes Fiona leave. Deb better speak up or she’s awful too.

I always hate it when Lip and Fiona fight because I love them so much. They are the oldest kids, conscious of the worst Frank and Monica days and were always there for each other. They have links to each other that the other kids don’t because of their age. Over the years they’ve been through so many trying times and have come through the other side. Liam getting into Fiona’s cocaine years ago is so much bigger (and well done) that it makes this ordeal look extra stupid and unbelievable.

This is why Kev and V need to be part of the actual show. I miss this couple (real friends!) being a part of the Gallaghers lives. V and Fiona go way back. I can’t remember the last time V talked to Fiona and when they did it was probably two sentences. Sure they live separate lives but this isn’t real life, use your characters! Kev and V wouldn’t want to help Fiona.

While the Gallagher’s have never been one for interventions, leaving a person to do what they want, but the total hands-off on Fiona makes no sense. Frank is a lost cause, he’s abandoned them so many times they’ve become numb to it. But watching Fiona turn into Frank and letting it happen? That’s far from how they feel about her. Their deep love for Fiona who’s done everything for them for their entire lives. Fiona is who they are legit loyal to so this whole set up is gross.

I don’t like what’s going on and I hope what happens next doesn’t betray who these characters are. They’ve written themselves onto a cliff, they better not fall off of it.

Los Diablos!

Frank dives into becoming the Hobo Loco spokesman and quickly discovers that it’s not going to be easy as he thought. A lot more people show up to the audition and one man clearly has the same resume that he does. They compare life stories and have mutual respect for each other until the guy tries to ride Frank’s back to the finish line. With 6 possible babies on the way, Frank ain’t sharing anything and goes into full skullduggery mode to get through round 2 of a week-long elimination.

Speaking of those 6 babies, Ingrid continues to use the Gallagher home as shelter and she spends a lot of time with Deb. Deb is quick to point out that if she’s going to stay she’s got to pay her share of the bills (and she also reassures her that Frank is not going to be there for her or however many kids she has). Ingrid’s ex-husband shows up and tries to get to her to leave with him to get her back to sanity. It doesn’t go well, to the point where the fertility doctor chases Ingrid around the house. In the panic, Deb gets stuck under the house while doing some homeowner maintenance and when Kelly comes to her rescue, that newfound lesbian-curious light flicks back on. It’s gonna get weird. Kelly doesn’t notice anything (it was a subtle look from Deb) and Carl wasn’t around to see it because he was getting shaken down at his new job at the local crab shack. Carl’s also clueless about his (much older) boss’ advances on him, which were pretty hard to miss. It’s gonna get weird.

Much to my delight, Tami and Lip are getting closer. She makes the initial move to boot, which is very telling. Lip tags along to volunteer at a old folks home and when they come home after a day of bonding, Xan is waiting for Lip on the stoop. Her mother ditched her again. Lip is furious and Tami jumps in with both feet, taking the more motherly approach to the situation. It’s a tremendous show of character, something I never saw in her until now. God I hope this works between them. Lip could use some legit stability and maturation. That goes for Tami too, but we just met her so Lip has a more storied past to us.

Fiona has another rough go at work. This time she’s counting out the registers after the night shift and she leaves the money out to get another drink from the back. When she comes back, three shady guys are waiting for her and they leave when the cook comes out with a knife. Sketched out, she closes the place (the diner is 24 hours) and sleeps in one of the booths. When Eliza comes in for the morning shift, she finds everyone waiting outside and they find Fiona inside. It’s another mark on her record. It freaks Fiona out and she realizes how sloppy she’s getting. She throws out the remaining booze in the house, takes the time to get herself together and goes back to work only to get fired. Fiona’s business partner has had enough with Fiona’s behavior over the past few months and doesn’t believe Fiona’s pleas of getting her life back together. This sends Fiona back to the booze and she’s surly as ever. Deb is quick to point out that she needs to get a job.

Liam gets a job by creating his own. He and his bodyguard friend open a lemonade stand down the block in front of one of the neighborhood’s most recent residents (read: gentrification). She calls the cops on the police, they are shut down and when Fiona finds out it is time for Southside justice. She rallies the neighborhood for a block party in front of the lady’s house. Fiona, already hopped up from being fired takes it too far and pops the woman right in the face. Right when the police show up no less. She makes an effort to flee but doesn’t get to far. The last we see her is in the back of a squad car.

Finally, Kev’s dreams of a big family are briefly met. They track down Santiago’s sister who is scheduled to come stay with them. Kev is stroked and he dresses up Santiago just like him in an effort to Americanize Santiago. The twins aren’t having it, they are not a fan of this random kid showing up and stealing their spotlight. So for them, it’s great when the news breaks that Santiago’s dad was deported so he and his sister have to follow him out of the country. With this chapter closed will Kev and V just move on and try for another adoption?