Adios Gringos
While Frank has been the mastermind of bad ideas for a very long time, Liam is taking those lessons and taking charge. More so than any of the Gallagher kids, Liam is abiding by the Frank Ethos so well that he’s surprising Frank.
On Operation Sell Baby, Frank brings Liam along for the assist. In working over a Nigerian couple and an old Chinese man (both are loaded), Frank ends up growing attached to the baby (who is technically his grandson) and Liam has had enough of the con and jumps at the offer of 100k from the Chinese man. Frank gets upset that Liam took the offer so fast and Liam repeats the words that Frank once told him, in business don’t become attached. Unfortunately for them, the Nigerian couple do a runner with the baby. With the scam blowing up, the question now is will they report the kidnapping to the police? That’s way more heat than any of them want to deal with but this is nuts. Odds are Frank could turn this into media exposure to get donations he’ll keep no matter what.
Lip and Tami are continuing to figure it out together. Tami’s jealous side comes out to play only for her to get rejected at the bar, bringing her back to earth and back to Lip and Fred. They don’t know what their relationship is after all so I can’t blame her for stirring up some drama in a predictable Tami way. When Lip introduces Tami to the AA mothers group, he refers to her as “Fred’s mother” after hesitating about how to explain their relationship. She didn’t like that and it’s there where they both realize they’re in weird territory that neither one knows how to navigate. “Co-parenting” isn’t going to work with them as they are much more than that. Tami is overwhelmed and finally says so. The Gallagher house is basically a circus tent and Lip, with the help of Deb, gets them their own space: an old RV parked in the driveway. Hey, it’s a start.
Carl helps Anne’s family defend their business from some really aggressive newcomers and the effort brings the two much closer. It’s one of the sweetest couplings in the show’s history.
With Pepa’s demands for custody of Frannie in return for a cut of the death benefits, Deb goes on the offensive after talking Pepa down to partial custody. She wants Frannie to raise hell when she’s with Pepa to scare her away from wanting anything to do with Frannie. But she’s such a good girl that Deb’s plan has no chance. So she finds a little girl with red hair that’s in the foster care system and works out a deal with her older sister to essentially be Frannie’s evil doppelganger. On first impact, it looks like the plan will work. My fear is that it’s going to work too well and Pepa will call child services on Deb for raising a maniac.
Ian is going with the flow at work until his conscious pulls him into doing the right thing by helping a pregnant woman in need. That’s not to his boss’ protocols and she scares him back into line. The good news for Ian is that Mickey is released from prison early for being an effective snitch. This, of course, means Mickey has to watch his back for the rest of his life and gets his own scare when his parole officer rolls up on him in the weirdest of ways. Fan favorites Ian and Mickey are back together on the outside now, something many wondered if we’d ever see again. It’s a great turn for the show.
Kevin continues his stupid ploy for money in the case against his old coach and thankfully his stupidity exposes his lying. He’s quickly and rightfully dismissed. His better half V gets the shocking revelation at the cookout that she’s lost her blackness (“Mom, I forgot how to do the electric slide!”) and so now she’s got her own self-confidence to build back up. Mentoring Liam for a week obviously didn’t do either one of them a lick of good and her mother lets her know how it is in not so gentle terms.
This was a great episode with a lot of meaningful events happening for everyone. It’s an impressive bit of storytelling keeping this many characters in motion. Most of the plots are a lot of fun and the ones that aren’t are ending. I’m a fan of Carl moving on from Kelly and Kevin desperately needs to do something else.