DNR

While Deb acquiesced to Lip’s demands to sell the house, she isn’t doing anything to help him fix the place to be put on the market. No one else is either as they go about thinking about their immediate future. They also have the matter of a very famous and expensive stolen painting to deal with.

Lip is doing everything he can to keep his head above water. Tami and Fred are staying with her parents while he fixes the Gallagher house. There’s a surprise gas leak so that means even more time and money to put in. He manages to sell his Indian project bike to the guy buying his rental but for thousands less than it’s worth. He now has $9k more than he did the day before but it’s a hit to his self-worth. He checks in with job applications and the only positive bite he gets is for $15 an hour with no benefits. There’s no release to the pressure on Lip in the foreseeable future.

Deb takes Frankie on an across-town quest to find a place to live. She immediately starts to panic when she can’t fight the feeling that she can’t function alone. She’s lived in chaos her entire life and anything less than that isn’t normal. She and Mickey remain pissed at Lip for putting them out for looking for a new place to live.

Liam is on a mission to get into a STEM school and he needs to talk to his main competition for one of the few spots available to give him an edge. No one wants to deal with Frank so Liam remains the good Gallagher and brings him along for the trip. This is the best part of the episode with some of the best writing. Liam and Frank’s relationship has always been unique and a bright side of the show since Liam aged up to a speaking character. Liam does everything he can to keep his ailing father on track but when he ruins Liam’s plans he’s not sure what he can do. In the scene of the episode, the two are sitting on the house stoop at the end of the day. Liam says “I can’t do this” and Frank answers “Do what?” “Take care of you.” “You don’t have to do that.” And then Liam has to tell him-again-that he has dementia. Frank doesn’t believe him and he tells him to look at the notes written on his arm. This-temporarily-centers Frank again and he feels bad for Liam. These two spend the most time together by far and Frank never shies away from giving his youngest son all the wisdom he’s gained over the decades. Most of it is horrible but still, it’s meaningful. Frank admits he’s lived his life the way he’s wanted to and that’s important to him. So when it’s time to go, he’ll be happy enough to go because he’s done everything by his rules. Their arc for the episode ends with getting Do Not Resuscitate tattooed on his chest.

Mickey and Ian travel to the Westside to look at apartments that are shockingly cheap. Brand new construction in a cut off at the knees market by Covid. If you can prove you can pay the rent, the place with amazing amenities is yours. Ian loves it and Mickey loves the pool. It’s a massive upgrade and Ian is all for the potential of moving up in life but Mickey can’t handle the change. He’s just like Deb, born, raised, bred to live in the scrappy world of Southside Chicago. Leaving his neighborhood feels like a betrayal to everything he knows and who he is. Ian makes the executive decision to sign the lease and this causes Mickey to dig in like Deb and ends up getting into a fist fight with Lip about moving. Mickey is a hilarious from start to finish. He finds everything distasteful about the Westside and every observation he has had me cracking up. “Why are you running when no one is chasing you?!”

With each work assignment, Carl’s ethics have been put to the test. He goes on eviction duty with Tipping and Carl has hit his breaking point. Everything is so stacked in the favor of the wealthy that Carl can’t keep putting his down while the people he lives with get stepped on every day. He ends up arresting the wealthy vulture doing the eviction and gets read the riot act by his boss. If Carl flames out of being a cop, likely quitting because it’s so hard to get fired, I don’t know what he’s going to do. He truly wants to help his neighborhood but I don’t see him getting into activism on his own. The only possibility is that he meets a person that becomes his mentor and leads him into a profession he never considered (or knew about) before.

Kev and V have a breakout day in Kentucky. They both get offered jobs that have the potential to boost their income up at least two tax brackets. It’s hard to believe they will stay in Chicago now. They are discovering too many benefits to stay put.