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.