Gallavich!
The season finale brought the plane in for a clean landing, bringing us to the start of the final season’s wild arcs.
Mickey and Ian’s big day arrives and things kick off with a disaster: Mickey’s dad, Terry, burns down the venue. Mickey’s first thought is to kill his father to solve his lifetime of problems that has culminated in today’s homophobic powered arson. They manage to stop him and his only other plan is to give up. Deb takes a stand and rallies the troops to make the wedding a success where everyone they’ve invited can celebrate.
Every character gets pulled into the scramble in pulling this party off so this finale had all of my favorite Shameless moments. The whole cast interacts and that’s very rare.
A venue is needed for over 100 guests so that becomes priority number one. It’s narrowed down to The Polish Doll, and everyone splits up to get everything brought there and set up.
Starting with Liam, his personal goal is to get Frank to show up and get a nice car for Mickey and Ian to drive away in at the end of the reception. He goes to Franks winter house and first makes an honest plea; Dad, you should attend your son’s wedding. Frank doesn’t care so Liam quickly shifts gear, appealing to Frank’s greed and ego. He tells him they are selling the house for $200,000 and he’s going to be left out of it. That whips Frank into a frenzy and Liam succeeds in roping Frank to drive to the wedding in the sweet Mercedes. Liam watches over Frank for the day and finds out Frank had a rather sordid ordeal with the woman owner of the bar many years ago. Frank’s afraid to go in but when he’s spotted, he finds out it’s all water under the bridge and they make up.
Tami is furious at Lip and is doing everything she can to avoid him. Their argument takes a temporary back seat to the wedding as Lip and Deb go to work securing The Polish Doll. There’s a whole lotta homophobia in town (The Doll has a bat behind the bar that’s nickname is about as far from a veiled threat as you can get) so they lie saying Deb is going to be marrying Mickey and play the distraught “my wedding is ruined by a fire” bride-to-be to get an extra pity push on the owners. V finds Deb a wedding dress to completely sell the lie and other arrangements are made to hide the fact that it’s going to be a gay wedding for as long as possible. All the deliveries are then moved from the Gallagher house to The Polish Doll and it the Gallagher hustle looks like it’s going to work (Mickey is caught happily commenting on how good the tables and chairs look).
In the fray, Julia shows up to the house claiming that since her mother kicked her out of the house, she has to move in with Deb. Deb is beside herself and tells her to leave and sprints off to prepare for the wedding. Julia, thinking she’s come up with a great plan, meets Sandy and then meets Sandy’s fist. Julia has a lot to learn on the ins and outs of how things operate in the South Side so once laid out she gets less aggressive and lays low. Carl ends up talking to her at the reception where she admits that she isn’t gay, she’s just been curious and her last experiment clearly hasn’t worked. Spurred by the admission, the two run off to the bathroom together.
With V off helping Deb, Kevin is left more or less alone to handle the bar until the wedding. His down-to-the-salt-of-the-earth gym has started well. He’s got 20 paying clients and he’s succeeded in getting half of them to barf into the vomit garbage can. The true sign of a great work out. This means extra income, which Tommy sees him hiding. Kevin isn’t exactly subtle so V notices the move as well. When she confronts him at the end of the night, he surprises her with a wedding ring. While he’s got to go through the trials and tribulations of ending his legal marriage we found out about a few seasons ago, it’s a major deal for these two and we’ll get to see our favorite neighbors make it super official in the final season.
Tami attends the wedding with Fred, which is a relief for Lip to see. No one else knows about their fight and he takes this as a good sign, maybe she isn’t that mad at me. She is. They have a blow-up fight as Tami is getting ready to leave and it doesn’t go well. She tells him she’s taking off for Milwaukee with Fred and if he’s so sure about sticking so close to his family, he can stay here. It turns into threats of going to court and they only stop fighting because Fred becomes upset. When she leaves, he goes to the bar for a Coke. I was happy to see him calm himself down and not do anything stupid but when the bartender asks him if he wants rum in his drink, he hesitates for a moment and says yes. He quickly drinks two and I got really worried. He fell off the wagon and anything could happen. At the end of the night, he walks to Brad’s house and tells him he needs to find a meeting. A major sign of relief from me to see him realize his mistake right away and seek help. Tami is there and while they see each other, they don’t talk.
The last we see of them is the next day when Tami walks in on Lip starting to work on the house he rented. A fixer-upper is putting it mildly and Tami is clearly skeeved out. I never thought she’d step foot in there so this was shocking to see. Lip is quiet and just as surprised to see her as I am. She asks for a facemask and they start working together, side by side. Knowing he drank and went to a meeting right away made a major impression on Tami. She had a lot to think about that night and her conclusion was not to run away. This was a major test for their relationship and I’m happy this was the outcome. For the two of them, this is both the hardest and best relationship they’ve ever been in.
Despite Terry’s rage, everyone Mickey and Ian are close to come together to give them a day to remember and the happiness they deserve. With all the contingencies in place, the ceremony went off without a hitch and everyone got to celebrate and have a good time. With all the strife that happens in this family, it was a lot of fun to watch this all come together. The only downer for me is that Fiona was never mentioned. That would have been a nice touch but it’s not the end of the world. I really hope they can get her to do an episode or two for the final season as they need her to do a proper send-off for the show.
But! It wouldn’t be Shameless without a solid shot of drama to leave us with. Halfway through the episode, Julia told her mother that she was staying with Deb. The morning after the wedding, two police officers show up at the house. Carl wakes up next to Julia and answers the door where the police say they are there to arrest Deb for statutory rape. Julia is underage and clearly Claudia went nuclear after their phone call. Deb sprints out of the house and we’re left with this open can of worms. Carl needs to watch out too because he’s at least 18 (I’m pretty sure Deb is 19).
In a final dose of dark humor, Ian and Mickey are together in their honeymoon bed in their just-married bliss. While talking about what their last name should be, they hear the distinct sound of a speeding car just outside screech to a halt. They roll to the floor to avoid a maelstrom of bullets. Looking up at the ceiling amongst the falling debris, Ian laments that Terry is “still a little bit upset” about their marriage.
This was a strong season and a good amount of ground was covered for everyone. I’m glad Liam got more attention this year even if they bailed on some things prematurely. His character has also seen the most exposure as we saw the inherent good in him battle what he’s been taught by Frank and the circumstances he finds himself in due to his environment. He’s the only one who cares about Frank. Everyone else has had more years with him, and thus more experiences of betrayal and neglect. I think the bond that Liam has comes from Frank spending more time with him in his formative years than anyone else. The older kids (Fiona) always took over when he and Monica would disappear and while we saw comparatively few of those times on the show (we never saw Fiona as a young teen when she was forced to grow up fast) I got the impression that Frank has been around in the past few years more than he ever has. Hence why he’s been with Liam more. And–let’s be real–Frank needed a new partner in crime since all of his other kids have sworn him off. Out of everyone in the family, Liam is the only one who reaches out and tries to include Frank, to get him to reengage. It’s one of his most endearing qualities.
Liam has been taught to get yours every single chance you get. Being nice is for suckers and everyone can be exploited, you just need to pay attention. That’s how Liam hustles…plus he’s a legitimately smart kid who could have a bright future if he can combine all of his talents and get out of the South Side. The perfect demonstration of this is in this season finale when he gets Frank and the Mercedes to Ian’s wedding. He’s a lot like Lip in his potential but he was derailed by addiction. Something I hope Liam can continue to avoid.
All of this has gives a kid who often acts older than he is. I especially liked the moments in this season where we see the cracks in the wall he’s built. He loves his family but feels like an outsider. He wants a present farther. He wants to be included more with his siblings. He’s frequently ignored and left on his own because everyone thinks he can take care of himself with no problems. When they do come to him for something, he always steps up. He’s a very loyal guy and I wish more people recognized him. The one thing I’ve wanted to happen, finally happened. Lip asked him how he was doing and if he’s okay.
A happy ending with some sour notes is the Shameless way of things and we’ve been given some great jumping-off points for the final season. This is one of the strongest finales and while I’m sad that we’re getting down to the end of it all, I’m looking forward to seeing where this road ends up.