Sparky

Ian’s parole hearing went well as he is now a free man. Lip picks him up and Tami is all that’s on Lip’s mind. He’s used to taking care of Fred and he’s worried how well Tami will take to being a mom. Ian quickly learns that the Gallagher globe has been spinning without him. No one is home except for Anne’s relatives who he doesn’t know and all the bedrooms are decorated differently (he quickly picks out which one is Carl’s). With family scattered all over, Ian goes to see his parole officer who is running a racket with the local ambulance corps. They’re not doing real work, putting in false insurance claims and the parole officer is getting a cut of it. When Ian objects, his new co-workers tell him to keep his head down. If he makes noise, he will never get off parole…or worse.

Lip is really worried about how Tami will do as a parent. She’s thrown into the deep end just out of the hospital and she’s struggling to handle it. Fred won’t feed from her and he basically cries non-stop. Not unusual for any newborn, but Tami takes it personally convinced that Fred hates her with Lip having bonded with him in the time she’s been in the hospital. Lip calls in some help when he finds out she hasn’t been able to feed Fred all day which crosses a few boundaries. While Tami does take the help from Sara and it makes her life a little easier, she’s mad at Lip for calling another woman in to fix her apparent deficiencies as a mother. Once Tami and Lip are alone they manage to talk about their situation, both their fears, her insecurities, and Lip’s desire to do anything he can to help her. Probably the best scene in the episode.

In other relationship news, Kelly can clearly pick out the growing attraction between Carl and Anne. She’s upset about it but then when it’s revealed that she’s been cheating on Carl, they realize their relationship isn’t what it used to be. With Kelly shipping off soon, it doesn’t look like Kelly and Carl are in it for the long haul.

Carl is Todd’s basketball manager, navigating all the scouting offers that the talented player is getting. With his honed hustling skills, Carl takes care of himself and Todd with perks while setting up everything for Ian’s welcome home party for free.

Deb has moved forward with going after Pepa for her cut of Derek’s insurance money and she’s got more leg work to do than she thought. Pepa is proving to be an expert at dodging court papers so Deb takes matters into her own hands. After some Ninja Warrior level races, she serves Pepa the papers, forcing her into court. And then it takes a turn for the worse when Pepa shows up with legit military lawyers and the woman she’s been listening to isn’t actually a lawyer. Pepa is now on the offensive demanding full custody of Frannie in return for any money.

Our final Gallagher gets two potential piggy banks dropped into his lap when Randy shows up with twins babies in tow. Ingrid has gone AWOL, jumping from a cruise ship, so he no longer wants anything to do with Ingrid and the babies he didn’t father. Frank says no and it comes out that they are genetically Carl’s kids and then gets an idea. He’ll sell them into adoption. He only takes one (the “best one” as scientifically chosen by the one that crawls the fastest) and if it all goes well, he con Randy out of the other baby. This is super gross even by Frank’s standards.

The Balls are on two separate self-discovery journeys. Kev finds out he was the only one on his junior high basketball team not to get molested by their coach and feels left out. Not looking at the obvious benefits of not being traumatized, it goes back to his shallow self-image and confidence issues. When he hears what the coach did to the others, he wisely keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t make anything up to “include” himself.

V is killing it as a pharma rep, leveraging her own lies that Frank would be proud of to sell more doctors on her assigned pill of choice. It’s the biggest career gain she’s ever had and lands an invite to the BBQ, where a lot of doctors and potential commission await her.

I’m happy to see Tami and Lip move forward and Anne and Carl seem like a better match together. I doubt anyone has thought Kelly and Carl would last so this looks like her time is almost up on the show. I can’t see Deb giving up Frannie for any reason so I don’t see what else they can do with her fight with Pepa, so this plot should be over very soon too. Unless Pepa goes all in by claiming Deb is an unfit mother. And what are they going to do to keep Ian interesting, weirder and weirder insurance scams? Will he go the righteous right and take down his parole officer? They said she’s been doing this for years so that could offer him a good challenge.

Gone

Elliot takes a back seat this week and the stage is left for Darlene and Dom.

Dom is the hospital, the surgery for her stab wound to the chest successful. She’s got weeks of recovery ahead of her though and against the wishes of the hospital, she checks herself out to take refuge in her apartment. Darlene finds her here, dresser barricading the door shut. With the Deus Group in shambles, Darlene has come to get Dom so they can hide from the Dark Army.

Dom has given up, she has no desire to try and run. After all, she’s been through–and she doesn’t trust Darlene–she’s content with staying in her safe space and waiting for whatever comes for her.

This episode is all about Darlene trying to redeem herself. The hack is over, her mission is complete but the toll has been great. Dom is the one living person aside from Elliot who’s been through what Darlene has, and Darlene used Dom to get to this point. She has tremendous guilt for hurting someone she truly likes (loves?) and wants Dom to run away with her to keep her safe. Darlene wants to do something to help Dom and keep the Dark Army from hurting one more person. Dom puts up a fight, but when Darlene breaks Dom’s Amazon Alexa–her best friend–she manages to extract Dom from her nest. In their exit of the country, Dom gets a few scares.

The girls meet up with Elliot first, who plans are taking him to Washington Township. The origin of a lot of misery, it’s safe to say Elliot isn’t finished with Whiterose. The Aldersons agree to split up for this, Darlene has thrown in the towel on getting more revenge, happy to have taken the Deus Group’s money. Darlene offers Elliot the opportunity to do the last salvo against the Deus Group, distributing the money, and he declines to say she deserves it (and I agree with him).

Darlene has hired Leon to help them get to the airport on the sly, much to Dom’s shock when seeing him. Her experience with him in the barn was not pleasant so she has reason to fear him. But Leon is a mercenary at this point, so with Darlene hiring him, he’s their friend now. On the way to the airport, they make a pit stop and Darlene lets the money flow to the people. Shocked by how much everyone gets, Dom ever the officer of the law, questions Darlene’s morals. “This is stealing.” To which Darlene fires back, I’m giving everyone their money back from a system that was made and leveraged by the worst people in the world. There’s nothing wrong going on here by this Robin Hood’s standards. Her job done, Darlene is set to leave all of this behind her.

The second scare for Dom comes in the form of Irving. He’s in the airport Hudson News selling his book and it’s quite the emotional juxtaposition. He’s jovial and calm while Dom’s reaction is more fitting upon being next to a complete psychopath. Irving bears good news for them both at least. He’s very excited about his book and the Dark Army has moved on. They don’t care about Dom, Darlene, or Elliot and are doing something else now. A bewildered Dom isn’t sure what to make of it as this crushing threat from the shadows has apparently done a 180. Irving doesn’t offer any reasoning for this but logic suggests that with the Deus Group done, Dark Army’s services for them have come to a halt. There’s no Deus member to direct them and more importantly, no more money. The contract is done and it was the 100 Deus Group members doxxed, not the Dark Army so they’re fine.

With this news, Dom has no reason to run. Now Darlene, the one afraid of moving on alone is back to trying to convince Dom to go to Europe. The two have always been at odds like this. Dom hunkers down and surrounds herself with everything that comforts her in order to suppress her problems. Darlene freaks out and runs. The cycle continues until the very end of “Gone.” Dom doesn’t want to upend her life further, wanting to go back to her mother. She walks away from Darlene. This abandonment sends Darlene into a panic attack and she runs to the bathroom.

When Dom reaches the sign that says Point of No Return, meaning the security checkpoint where you can’t get back to the gates, she stops. She’s heading back to her solitary world, to go behind the walls she’s put up in her life. She turns around and gets onto the plane. Darlene meanwhile has a death grip on the sink counter in the bathroom. A woman voices her concern, asking her if she needs help, needs someone called for her. Darlene manages to stop the attack on her own. Wrestling with her insecurities she’s for the first time made the move to build herself up. She can be independent, she can make her own choices, she doesn’t need anyone by her side to keep herself moving. It’s a fantastic realization to watch her go through as this season has proved, without her Elliot would never have taken the Deus Group down. She did all the work when Elliot failed to show up every time.

With their new look on life, Darlene doesn’t get on the plane and Dom stays on. Dom looks at the empty seat next to her and gets comfortable. She too is deciding to move on in the way that’s best for her.

I think it’s safe to say that this is the last we’ll see of Dom. Her story his done. Darlene, I’m convinced she’s going to find Elliot to help him. Their goodbye was so brief in this episode that it feels incomplete to leave them apart like that. I’m sure she wants to know what Elliot is doing and knows he’s going to need her. Darlene has lost so many people and with her need to protect who is left, she can’t let Elliot go.

Seeing Irving was a major surprise and where he meets Dom feels like Dark Army plant. At the very least it’s a narrative coincidence written in to pull the threat of the Dark Army off the table so they can focus on other stuff. But with 3 episodes left, is it possible to stay on just Elliot and Whiterose? Is there that much story left to go with them? It is hard to imagine Whiterose will simply give up on his large hydron collider, so who knows what insanity he can pull. Irving clearly stated the Dark Army was doing something so maybe they are finishing up with Whiterose. Their hunt for our white hat hackers may be over but that doesn’t mean Elliot (and now Darlene possibly) won’t be walking into their business again.