It feels like three seasons of Reservation Dogs came out all at once in the span of a week instead of three years. It’s been so consistently good and satisfying that each episode was a treat that I never wanted to end. The show is done which is disappointing, but its ending is as strong as its beginning.

We meet the ‘Rez Dogs’, 4 teenage friends, shortly after they lost their friend Daniel to suicide. This–now–clique of 4 is depressed and feeling lost. These kids are Native Americans, living on a depressing reservation in Oklahoma.

I love coming-of-age stories and I think Reservation Dogs is one of the best ever made. The lives of Bear (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), Elora (Devery Jacobs), Cheese (Lane Factor), and Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis) are from a culture that is basically ignored in media. Almost the entire cast and crew are Native American and they dig into growing through bad and good times from a different, beautiful angle. I rarely predicted where the show was going to go correctly, which I really love. This show fits in alongside Atlanta and Dave for me.

There is little to do and little opportunity on the reservation. One of the first things we see the Rez Dogs do is steal a delivery truck that delivers the snacks to the only bodega in town. Idle hands are the devil’s playthings and such. People who are born on the reservation rarely leave. Daniel’s biggest goal was to move to California, where he saw endless opportunities. His friends agreed with him and it became their goal too. With his death, the Rez Dogs feel like they have no goals in life and nothing to look forward to.

The idea of not knowing what you want to do in your and the fear of changing the life you know are major themes of the show. So is the power of a community. What I thought would be a show only about the 4 kids expands into something much more.

Most of the episodes are ensemble stories of the Rez Dogs but the series doesn’t shy away from giving individual characters their own focus, especially in the third season. Even the adult characters, who are often on the sidelines, get their fair share to reflect on their past. They have a lot of regrets and some of them, like the kids, need a light shined on their future.

The Rez Dogs eventually go to California to complete Daniel’s wish. It doesn’t go too well. When they make it back to OK, while disappointed they have learned about themselves and start to think more about the future (this segment reminded me of Mad Max Fury Road, one of my favorite movies).

None of the Rez Dogs have both of their parents. Where mother or father or both are missing, immediate and extended family stepped in to raise them. Friends of the family are called Aunt and Uncle. On the reservation, everyone is family. They may be ignored by the outside world, but they do have each other. That’s something the Rez Dogs come to understand and appreciate.

Take Willie Jack, my favorite character, for example. She is a wise ass and ready to go on anything, scam or otherwise, that will move her friends along together. She sees many of the adults as weird but comes to respect and understand them as she learns about their past. It helps her connect the dots in her own life, and how her experiences are shaping her outlook on her life and others. She opens up to learning and we get to see the spark of a future leader.

As events unfold, their childhood starts fading away and adulthood starts to be a real thing. They reflect on their lives of who has and hasn’t been with them. They come to appreciate their elders and look up to them more. You watch them grow as people and look forward to being adults.

These kinds of stories live or die on the cast, and every actor on Reservation Dogs is a knockout performer. Each kid is very different and they’re defined from the very beginning. It’s like the actors immediately knew who the person was on the page and didn’t have to figure anything out, they just became. And then they walked in these character’s shoes for 3 years.

There’s an amazing amount of love and respect woven into the fabric of Reservation Dogs. It’s funny, heartbreaking, touching, really funny, dark, and spiritual. It’s one of those rare pieces of media that you need to watch to understand. I hope this launches a lot of careers forward in the years to come.

I think the Child’s Play movie franchise is one of the most consistent series ever made. Creator Don Mancini is involved in every single project, 8 movies, and now this TV show. I’ve watched them all except for the 2019 reboot. They’re all worth watching as Mancini always finds ways to make each story fun and wilder than the last. It helps that this series starts in the supernatural–Chucky is a doll possessed by the soul of serial killer Charles Lee Ray.

This nearly 35-year-old franchise changes with the times. From straightforward horror with a psychological bend to slasher movies with dark humor similar to what the Nightmare on Elm Street series steered into. Then when Mancini cranked up the insanity with Bride and Seed of Chucky, it leaned more on black humor and camp. From the second movie onwards these films never took themselves seriously. Mancini just wanted to have more fun with a killer doll and he’s done so. There’s a high bar of suspense of disbelief when it comes to a psychopathic antagonist that’s a 2-foot-tall doll made come to life with a voodoo incantation and Mancini just wants you to take a ride with him.

Chucky is a direct follow-up to Cult of Chucky, with many returning franchise characters joining the new kids of this story arc. The pilot gets right to the point when the main character, Jake, finds a Good Guy doll at a yard sale. This vintage doll has Charles Lee Ray’s soul inside because it’s impossible to keep a bad guy down for long when they can transfer their soul around (a major point in this show). Chucky gets to work manipulating Jake and his friends (smart decision to go back to the series roots by Mancini) to try and achieve his devious end game.

Chucky is simply a long-form Child’s Play movie. Brad Dourif continues his voice work as Chucky, Jennifer Tilly eats up every scene she’s in and the kills are all varied and interesting. All the franchise staples are here. They got a good budget for this as the cinematography and sets don’t look cheap and most importantly, the puppet work and death scenes are all well done. The only glaring issue is that making Chucky walk/interact with actors in full frame is the most expensive effect so they use a child actor as a stand-in for the puppet. They do this sparingly but the child is at least a foot taller than the puppet so it’s crazy obvious when it happens. So far in season 2, it looks like they avoid this by doing full digital erasement of the puppeteers and it looks good enough.

I ran through the first season to catch up before the season 2 premier and I find myself looking forward to the 44 minutes of mayhem each week.

Airs on TNT

I was turned on to Animal Kingdom a year or so ago by a friend. It was a little bit before season 4 aired and I liked the show so much I ran through the first three episodes fast enough to catch season 4 as it aired.

In short, Animal Kingdom is about the Cody crime family that lives in Oceanside, California. Janine “Smurf” Cody runs the enterprise with ruthless efficiency. She’s a career criminal, starting in the late 70s, raising her two kids while running from the law as she does multiple heists with her crew.

Starting with season 4, the show gives a glimpse of those early days with flashbacks that weave in and out of the present day story with her adult children and teenage grandson.

This show hooked me because it’s about a messed up crime family pulling heists. I’m a sucker for a well-told story in this genre and the show consistently delivers. Smurf steers this family around, her three kids, one adopted son, and her orphaned grandson toeing the line. Of course, questions are asked, deals go bad, the cops (and the feds) come sniffing around, threatening the Cody family’s way of life.

Season 5 is different because the order of the family changes. With Smurf no longer calling the shots, the boys are forced to communicate more and work together differently. A lot of family secrets are floating around and without the threat of the almighty Smurf around, competition and allies look at the Cody’s differently.

This was probably the worst season as the pacing feels slower. More time is given over to late 70s-early 80s Smurf to show how she started her criminal empire…and did no favors to her son and daughter. The present day story focuses more on the internal strife of the boys than ever. Pope has to go find himself so his journey leaves his family behind for about a quarter of the season. There’s a challenge of changing leadership and a ton of resentment of how Smurf seemed to favor J, her grandson, over any of her kids that have been her tools their entire lives. Plus, she screwed them all on the way out so the pressure for them to keep their heads above water never lets up. That leads to a lot of risk taking (a hallmark of the show) with interesting heists and two rouge cops strutting around.

While I say it’s the worst season, it’s still a great show and there are plenty of great moments in this season. It took a long time for the boys to come together, but that isn’t surprising. If they only spent 2-3 episodes on such heavy material, it would’ve felt rushed and unsatisfying. Each man is coming from a different angle and they all have their own problems to deal with (which come back to the family). I was expecting a messier season finale, but the set ups for the final season are massive. There are a ton of plot lines in the air and the challenge will be to address them all. Thirteen episodes do give a lot of room and I’m wondering how much more flashbacks we’re in store for. I’m looking forward to watching next year. The identity of the show and characters are well established, it’s just a question of who is going to survive and what condition they will be in at the end. Can any of the Codys be happy?

For I May Destroy You on HBO. It’s her show based on events that happened to her. Writer, producer, director. To say her future is bright is an understatement. Her acceptance speech aimed mostly at writers is powerful and poignant.

Write the tale that scares you, that makes you feel uncertain, that isn’t comfortable. I dare you — in a world that entices us to browse through the lives of others to help us better determine how we feel about ourselves, and to in turn feel the need to be constantly visible, for visibility these days seems to somehow equate to success — do not be afraid to disappear from it, from us for a while, and see what comes to you in the silence. ….I dedicate this story to every single survivor of sexual assault.

Emmy awards ceremony Sept 19, 2021

Juggling a lot right now, just got a trial of Disney Ploose so I’m going to check out The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, and any movies that catch my eye. I’ll watch WandaVision if I can fit it in. I watched 2 episodes of What If…? and I don’t find it too compelling, so I’ll skip the rest.

HBO Max has a 50% off deal this week, so I’ll grab a sub for that as there are a ton of shows that are running now or coming up that I want to watch. First up is finishing Season 3 of Titans, then the new season of Doom Patrol starts, followed by the new season of Succession.

On Netflix, I just finished watching the new season of Kid Cosmic, which was awesome. Love the art style and the music rules. A great story arc for Jo and the set up for the next season opens up the show a lot. They’ve done a lot in only 18 episodes.

I also have my toes in The Punisher (never watched the last season for some reason), the Cocaine Cowboys limited series, New Cherry Flavor, The Outer Banks, and I think the next movie I will watch will be Kate. Season 3 of Sex Education just came out so I’ll be on that soon.

On the non-streaming tip, Season 3 of Miracle Workers just ended and it was fantastic, no big surprise there. This season’s theme was the Oregon Trail and they managed to get a lot out of it. Dan Radcliffe commits to every role he does and he did some wild stuff for this season.

Animal Kingdom on TNT is getting close to the end of the season and I’m liking it a lot. It’s quite a bit different without Smurf controlling everything and this week’s episode (10 iirc) had one of the biggest payoffs of the season. The flashbacks with Smurf and Andrew are filling in background detail (essentially the start of how Andy becomes Pope) and in the present day, the boys are starting to gel at the most important time. Feels satisfying and the problems they are facing keep escalating in good ways.

What We Do In The Shadows (FX) is the funniest show on TV right now, by far. This show makes me scream in delight it’s so crazy. This week they went to Atlantic City and the whole thing is insane. I didn’t see the end coming at all, the writers take this show to crazy extremes, I love it.

I’m catching up on the final season of Brooklyn 99. I had no idea it had started and I discovered it with like 2 episodes to go. I’m halfway through and like it a lot. They gave Doug Judy a legit send-off which was a nice surprise. He’s Jake’s greatest foil so it was fun to watch their last spin together play out.

I’m still watching The Walking Dead for some reason. The last season was so disjointed because of the pandemic so it’s hard to remember anything that’s happened. I have very little investment in the remaining characters. Maggie, Daryl, and Negan being the only ones I’m really interested in. Aside from Gene, I don’t think I remember anyone else’s name.

Father Frank, Full of Grace

Spoilers ahead

I’ve had my ideas for how Shameless could end for a number of years now. I like getting closure, it feels good. That’s hard to do and with a cast as big as this one, not terribly reasonable. Plus, getting definitive answers doesn’t mean you’re going to like them. Shameless could go on for many more years since most of the cast are young adults. Their stories could be continued to be told for years to come until actors want to leave or some dramatic story element takes them off. The latter part has happened a lot in this series.

Shameless, while dramatized and exaggerated at every opportunity, stuck to the basic premise that life is never perfect and requires a lot of struggle and work to get where you are going. No one really knows where they’re going, but there is constant movement. There is no such thing as an easy out on this show and there are consequences to actions. The writers kept to that ethos to the final frame. The decision to end the show was made some time ago, but the Gallagher’s aren’t over. We’re given a look at what could be next for everyone.

Frank is found comatose on the couch with the needle still in his arm. He’s still breathing with a weak pulse but since he’s in such bad health and he clearly made the decision to OD, they decide to wait and see what his body does. This isn’t the first time he’s done this and he comes back every time. This is his MO. While Frank is knocked out, Frannie uses the note he left the family to color on. In a few hours, he wakes up alone and leaves the house. Liam, as usual, is the only one who looks for him.

Kev and V’s commercial real estate agent comes to The Alibi and Kev is still anxious about selling the bar. When a prospective buyer comes around, he has no intention of keeping the space as a bar. Most likely some kind of tanning salon/health store combo. This is the worst news possible for Kermit and Tommy, and Kev gets more apprehensive. V feels the pressure as well, essentially being part of erasing part of South Side’s history and culture. They get an offer lower than they want, estimating that they’d clear about 30 grand.

Deb spends some quality time with Heidi. The normal stuff for new couples, like sex and stealing a car. It’s the kind of life mix Deb is used to and is looking for; an exciting person that will be by her side no matter what. Deb is terrified of being alone and she thinks that Heidi will be committed to her. Doing shady stuff is in her DNA so stealing stuff doesn’t scare her off. But, she doesn’t really know Heidi.

Carl settles into his current law enforcement pocket by issuing tickets to people taking handicapped parking spaces illegally. He’s sticking it to the wealthy and making the city a small fortune, so he’s doing well. Tipping swings by for a visit and Carl, having met Heidi that morning, has Tipping look her up to see if she has a record. It looks like she’s been arrested for almost everything possible. He’s not surprised Deb has found another wildcard, but this one is way beyond the others.

Lip picks up a food delivery job to help make ends meet. He rides around town and sees how others are doing (one looks like a tech incubator). On one delivery he gets a horrible tip after seriously helping out a day trader. This doesn’t help his psyche and he runs into an old friend who is looking to buy the empty lot next to the Gallagher lot. He can only offer $75k, a far cry from the $200k Lip missed out on, but it’s something. Tami comes by and they talk, before she leaves she reaffirms her commitment to their relationship…and gives the knowledge that she might be pregnant again. Two kids with no money will be an even greater strain.

Ian and Mickey work towards moving out of the Gallagher house. Since it’s obvious they now need to get furniture, that’s their first priority. They take the mattress and dresser from their room, swing by a furniture store where Ian gets into a funny fight with a woman wearing a Stop the Steal t-shirt, and stop by Kev and V’s to get first dibs on what they are selling in their yard sale. Ian wants to take the old crib and that throws Mickey for a loop. They never talked about having kids. Mickey rattles off some logistical issues but it comes down to his fear of being a terrible father. He only has Terry to go off of and he was a living nightmare so it’s an understandable fear. Ian believes in Mickey though, he knows that Mickey would steer away from being his father.

This all leads to the final, pivotal scene at The Alibi where Mickey has arranged a surprise wedding anniversary party. Ian had no idea, thinking Mickey forgot.

A lot of celebrations have gone down at The Alibi. It’s been the public hub for the series from the start and with Kev and V leaving, it looks to be likely the last one. Certainly the last for all of these people to be together in one place.

Frank has been out walking around alone for the entire day. At first, I thought it was aimless wandering but he goes to Patsy’s Pies, the diner where Fiona first worked and then managed. It’s been shut down and boarded up and upon recognizing it, he looks shocked that it’s no longer open. He looks inside and we get a final glimpse of another major location of the series. It’s in terrible condition. I think Frank went there looking for Fiona, not remembering she moved away.

He then walks into a church, confused about where–and when–he is. He runs into the back thinking he’s back in his altar boy days and he gets dressed and looks for matches to light the candles before mass. The father in charge is kind to Frank, goes along with what Frank wants, and calls for an ambulance instead of the police. On the way to the hospital, the creeping suspicion that Frank, like Patsy’s Pies, is beyond repair cannot be ignored.

Since Frank’s liver transplant in season 4, I’ve thought that the series would end with Frank’s death. He is the nuclear reactor that everyone navigates around. I also thought he’d die away from any family members. With how he’s lived his entire life, it’s hard to predict anything else.

My biggest hope for this season was for Emmy Rossum to come back. Fiona was my favorite character and her appearing in at least one episode felt necessary to bookend the finale of the Gallagher story. She was the parent to her 5 siblings for most of their life and part of almost every major plotline. Due to covid protocols for traveling and the many disruptions to the final season’s shooting schedule., it became impossible for Emmy to come back. While I didn’t get my wish and that’s disappointing, she was shown in a meaningful and beautiful way.

In the ER, he’s getting a bunch of tests done to figure out what’s wrong with him. He doesn’t have an ID so no one knows who he is until one of the doctors recognizes him as their most frequent patient. Frank is in haze from his dementia and what turns out to be covid, taking him in and out of consciousness. When he wakes up, he thinks the nurse attending to him is Fiona. He compliments her, happy to have found his eldest. He blanks out again and sees Fiona at her best from his memories, happy and healthy. If I don’t get to see Fiona come back, seeing how much she meant to Frank is a gift I will gladly take and remember forever.

As he slips in and of consciousness, he thinks about all of his kids. What we’re shown is the kids in the early seasons of the show, what I perceive as Frank going back to when he was happiest. Monica was still alive, his kids much less opinionated; aka less of a pain in the ass and easier for him to get his way.

The Do Not Resuscitate tattoo does what Frank wants, no extra measures are taken to save his life. Frank dies without any family near him, the nurse whom he thinks is Fiona holding his hand as he passes. She turns off the monitors, lays his bed down flat and the hustle and bustle of a hospital ER with everyone covered in PPE continues without pause.

Frank ODed with no one home and left the house without seeing anyone. In a touching narrative, as Frank’s body gives out, his spirit goes to The Alibi where he sits on his stool at the bar and watches everyone he cares about celebrating Ian and Mickey’s anniversary. He’s in his element: drinks, a party, celebration. He even enjoys a drink…something he’s wanted since the last one he tried made him vomit. When he puts the glass down, it refills on its own and he smiles. The show ends as it started, with Frank’s narration giving a lecture on life while everyone has a good time around a burning car. No one may have read his farewell message but the audience is given that closure as Frank’s last words to us is what he wrote to his family. He gives his honest opinion of everyone, in the most Frank way possible.

In The Alibi we get to see everyone together for the last time and the possibilities of what could come are left on the table. With Kev and V’s uncertainty on selling the bar, Carl and Tipping come up with the idea of pooling their money to buy it. They’ll keep it as is, make it a cop bar to get more regulars. Kev and V may have struggled to always make a profit but this could work. I can’t see Carl ever leaving South Side so I think this is a perfect fit. I like where we got to see Carl go. He was a juvenile delinquent and he still has a lot of issues. But the writers didn’t take him down the obvious path of a criminal for life. He’s done time, he’s done a lot of shady stuff, and he’s clearly not the smartest one in the family. He makes mistakes all the time. But he does have a positive moral compass. He’s loyal to his family and he wants to make the world better. There’s hope and promise in his future.

While Carl knows how off the wall Heidi is, he doesn’t tell Deb. He thinks it’s best to let it play out and he’s probably right. Telling her to ditch Heidi may push her further into her. Deb is the biggest wildcard of the family. She, as Frank says, is most like her mother. She’s just as crazy as Carl but she goes through life with more of a romantic view of the world. Heidi invites her to run off out of state. Take Frannie along, you can find some work repairing stuff while I do some business with my friend. It’s a terrible idea because Deb doesn’t know the extent of how nuts Heidi is so the idea of being with her new girlfriend, being asked to go, kid and all, is something new to her. Heidi is legit into Deb so that’s really enticing. I can’t see her going as she’s so phobic to change, but if she does go I think she’d end up coming back pretty soon after Frannie’s life is put in danger. There is no way that wouldn’t happen. I can see Deb going from one dysfunctional relationship to the next for the rest of her life.

This was a reassuring episode for Tami. She commits to Lip whole heartily. He’s been in a bad place for a long time and she supports him through everything. She likes that he’s picked up a job hates to make ends meet because it means he’s trying. She knows it’s temporary and he’ll be able to move back into the career that makes him happy in time. They’ll make decisions together for their family. And if she is pregnant, they’ll make it work. Lip has grown up a lot too. The younger Lip would have done something really terrible to the day trader. The most likely immediate future for Lip is starting his own motorcycle shop.

Lip tells Ian about the potential sale of the house–for way less money. Ian puts his confidence in Lip making the right decision for them and Lip wonders why. “You’ve basically been our father,” Ian answers. That nearly killed me. It was so honest (and true) and it embarrassed Lip a little. Lip is the smartest one in the family, he’s the betting favorite for being the most successful of all of them. The tight bond between Lip and Ian goes all the way back to the start, when they were smoking cigarettes in the busted car in the backyard and Lip was the first person Ian told he’s gay. They’ll be close no matter what happens in the future.

Ian and Mickey share something special. It’s amazing that not only did Mickey remember their anniversary but he organized a surprise party for it. That’s probably the biggest change of a character in the entire series. It’s safe to say Ian will continue to shave off Mickey’s rough edges. The biggest being getting Mickey to be less aggro about everything. It’s hard to imagine them apart, lord knows Mickey would never be happy with anyone else. Still, the possibility of going back to prison, Mickey at least, is pretty high. With Lip’s hesitancy of having another kid, it’s not out of the realm for these two to take on a large role in a future Gallagher’s life.

Liam proves to be Frank’s final friend. He’s the only one worried about Frank when he goes missing. It isn’t because everyone else doesn’t care or love Frank, it’s that they are numbed by years of this cycle. He’s the youngest of the original 6 and has the fewest memories of all the times Frank has gone on a bender. He has no memory of Monica, he didn’t experience what she put them through. At the start of the show, it was Deb who would fret over Frank the most, her older siblings have become numb to it. It didn’t take much longer for her to join their frustration of helping someone who doesn’t want help. Lip talks to Liam about this and tells him they just have to wait for him to show up again. He always does. When Liam gets to the bar for the party, he’s disappointed that Frank’s not sitting on his favorite bar stool.

As Frank passes, Liam senses that Frank has done so. A calmness comes over him as he looks at the empty barstool and then looks up before joining everyone outside to enjoy the Tesla that’s caught fire. A wealthy schmuck watching his money go up in flames, it’s something Frank would have loved.

I can see Liam going far. I think if he lives with Tami in Lip that’ll give him the best environment to do well in school. As a young Black male, he knows he faces a different world than his family. While they have all struggled he’s going to have to push even harder to get equal footing. He wants to achieve more than he’s seen them do and I think he’ll be able to do it. I can see him being an entrepreneur right out of college.

So the show ends with possibilities, not closure. Three days after the finale has aired, I feel like that’s the best way to end the series. The Gallagher kids are moving on, just more independently from each other than they have before. More kids will be born (I can see Lip and Tami having 6!) and all of their lives will be wild and memorable. There are a lot of questions we can ask. How will they react to Frank’s death? Will Lip sell the house? Where will Deb go? Fiona hasn’t been mentioned since the start of season 10 so how she is doing and what she’s doing is completely up in the air. Fiona’s void in this ending is my biggest disappointment. If that’s the biggest one for 11 seasons and one due to a bat shit crazy pandemic, it’s not so bad. But, that’s life. There are no easy answers and nothing has a black or white solution. It’s up to you to fill in the blanks. You can pull a lot from what was and wasn’t said in the finale (like Frank leaving Fiona out of the note contrasted with how he remembers her). I am happy that they managed to give Frank one final funny gag fitting for his legacy.

I’m going to miss checking in on the Gallaghers 12 times every year. A void has been created. We watched half of the cast literally grow up. I’m attached to everyone, even Frank, a degenerate who caused more pain to those around him than anything else. I can’t even count how many people left South Side to get away from him. Still, I was wrecked by his death.

It’s the power of storytelling and the people creative and brave enough to make it.

The Fickle Lady Is Calling It Quits

Everybody is moving at warp speed and it’s getting tough for anybody to hang on.

Kev and V quickly sell their house for more than it’s worth to a developer that slipped a flyer in their mail. This puts The Alibi on the fast track to be sold, shocking Kermit, Tommy, and Deb. Cleaning up The Alibi makes Kev nostalgic and any second thoughts from V end when the money (minus paying off the house) shows up in their account. When Lip finds out about the sale he’s taken back by losing his lifelong neighbors and the shock that their house was sold with no effort.

Lip jumps at the chance to talk to the developer, who is looking to buy 3 houses on the block for a new development. Lip can stop putting time and money into the house and end most of his stress. With the Ball house and the Milkovich house sold, Lip is in prime position to make the last sale to the developer and asks for $275k. While he waits for a response, he’s over the moon and decides to sell the new stuff he put into the house to get more of his money back. Tami is shocked to hear their fortune has turned but she’s skeptical that Lip should be so happy until the paper work is done. In Shameless fashion, it doesn’t work. The developer goes the other way down the block and buys the house to the left of the Ball’s for $200k. Lip accidentally priced himself out. It was a good idea but he rushed into it, not considering any competition. Frustrated, he goes to the Ball house to talk to Kevin after he blew him off earlier when he found out about the developer from V.

Deb’s feelings of abandonment spiral further down as she goes to Tami for relationship advice. She gives her some real talk, saying it’s not her fault she hasn’t had a healthy relationship, her parents were so dysfunctional she had no chance. This turns Deb on Frank and she jumps him at the Alibi and he gives her some parting Frank advice: find a bigger loser than you and they won’t leave you. Later in the day, Deb runs into (accosted is the better word) a woman named Heidi. There’s a good chance this woman won’t leave Deb for anything, but there’s a good chance Heidi will get her killed. Deb’s level of desperation will be tested.

Carl continues to rage against the machine and gets himself demoted to meter maid. Turns out he likes cruising the streets but getting disrespected for being a meter maid left and right isn’t a perk. He turns his job into a moral positive though, giving tickets only to wealthy people. He runs into Tish and they have a good talk. Impressive considering how things were left between them. She’s also super pregnant and Carl asks her if he’s the father and she doesn’t answer him. With his career in question, what can we make of a possible surprise…would Carl be a good father?

Mickey is having a hard time fitting in at the West Side apartment. Ian bops about looking to make friends and settle in and Mickey is like a dog after a cross-country move. The changes are so great he can’t handle anything. Everything feels foreign to him, he hates everyone he meets and it bubbles over into a hilarious fight at the pool. Ian, champion of being an understanding adult, is able to eventually talk his husband down from his anxieties. Mickey is a lucky guy, it’s hard to believe he could find another person who would be able to care for him so deeply.

Frank’s day starts on a rough brown note and once again Liam is there for him. They go out and do fun Frank stuff; scamming people out of money and then spending it. After his rough encounter with Deb at The Alibi, Frank can’t handle any booze and it tilts him. The time we’ve seen Liam and Frank together has been meaningful. Liam represents a lot to Frank and the show at large. Liam accepts Frank as Frank and that’s probably the most Frank has ever wanted in life. The end of the episode sees Frank writing a note to his family and shoot a life-ending amount of heroin from a secret stash into his arm.

One episode left and I’m dreading it, I hope it’s as satisfying as I want it to be.

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.

Survivors

Turns out the writers decided to take the shortcut. After building up that Brad is likely going to crack under pressure with the police, they just jump ahead with Brad and Lip going to Born Free to sign off on the final paperwork for the sale of the shop. They close the problem they wrote by simply saying that the police did their investigation and didn’t find anything so they’re in the clear. That’s really disappointing (and lazy) but time is of the essence as they have to wrap everything up in 4 episodes.

So, the new wrinkle is that Born Free was bought by a Chicago crime family and they’re pulling some insurance fraud, claiming that what was stolen is worth double what it actually is. Stealing from the mob tends to be dangerous. Things get sketchy when they notice they are being followed. Things work out for the best as the mob boss was told that Lip and Brad can fix anything and he needs a birthday present for his kid to be assembled correctly. They manage to put it together and with the scam going on the parts, Lip figures they’re completely in the clear now. I wonder if this is going to turn into a job offer for Lip. Why go out of the way to introduce mob boss Baggio like this if you aren’t going to do anything with it? Baggio probably owns a ton of cars or owns a few garages where he could use another mechanic. Helping him with his kid in a pinch is a good first impression.

The big problem is the battle for the house. Lip has a timer over his head for his home being taken out from under him and moving back to the Gallagher house or Tami’s parents isn’t a solution. With his share of the sale, he has a down payment. Liam and Deb are convinced if the house is sold, the family is basically done. So Deb digs in further, Lip is furious, and Liam runs around looking for a place for him to live in case the house is sold. His journey takes him all over the place. This and Frank’s day highlight how the Gallagher’s rarely talk to each other anymore. Talking at someone rarely does anything.

There’s basically nothing they can do about Frank, he’s drunk himself into pickling his brain so everyone goes on with their lives ignoring him like they always do. Frank, reminded that the house may be up for sale, pulls at an old heist plan that he’s kept in case of emergency. He’ll get the money to buy the house by stealing some expensive art. He goes around town looking for his old partners and crime to find that everyone is either too old to do some crazy theft or dead. It’s a bad day for Frank (which has some really funny lines).

V goes to Kentucky to help her mother unpack convince her mother to move back to Chicago. This leaves Kevin with the twins and that turns into not a good idea, which many people predict. V’s trip does have a surprise turn: while sightseeing with her mom, it ends up showing her a lot of reasons to leave Chicago with her family. Her mom never says anything about it, so there’s no annoyance or outside pressure for V to get mad at. On her own, she starts thinking about the upgrades they could afford just by moving to another state. This may mean the character I never thought would leave Southside, could.

Since Carl piledrived another department into a ditch, he gets reassigned once more and he gets his first partner back, Officer Tipping. He’s in great spirits which is shocking considering where we last left him. His spirituality has really opened up and he’s not irritatingly positive. His desire to make work as easy as possible and go eat hasn’t changed.

Mickey and Ian spend their day finalizing Terry’s burial plans. In his stuff, they find a box that’s labeled for a mysterious woman named Rachel. This is the best story of the episode as Mickey is torn in every direction. He’s hilarious and the moments they go through are super awkward. Terry’s background is something else and we find out why he was such a miserable person. This thread has come to an end.

When Lip swings by the house at the end of the day, progress actually happens. After he and Deb fight again they do something long overdue. They talk. She tells him she wants to keep the house because she wants to keep the family together. Family is everything to Deb. They might have had a brutal childhood but she had her siblings through all of it. She wants Franny to be close to her family like she was and she’s terrified that this will break them up for good. She tells him Liam basically thinks the same thing. Lip assures her that they are all going to live nearby. It’ll take more effort to see each other (real talk: they barely see each other as it is) but they’ll put the work in. Having a weekly family dinner is his first solution. I would have liked to see them talk more about this (Deb should have brought up Fiona, for example) but it’s a good start. Lip then talks to Liam and Liam admits his fears too. Lip apologizes for making him feel like he’d be abandoned and offers for him to move in with him and Tami. Liam is so happy he gives Lip the biggest and greatest hug. It was really touching to see.

The stinger for the episode is a good one: Frank managed to steal a painting on his own.

Cancelled

I was right about Frank. But first:

After the mega argument with Sandy, Deb decides to go AWOL. She crashes with the bar owner she met a few weeks (days?) ago and spends the day with her. This leaves Franny at the house and Carl takes her to school. With a serious case of the “walls are closing in on me” emotional state, Deb dives into day drinking and ends up hooking up with a married man. She freaks out and runs away from the scene and while she works on sobering up, she gets a call from Franny’s school that no one has picked her up. Deb races to her daughter. At the end of the day, Sandy comes over to talk to Deb. It turns into another argument and Deb lays it all out, she doesn’t think she and Sandy are compatible. This time, despite the irresponsibility of the day, Deb is making a mature decision about one of her relationships.

Ian and Mickey have to take over care for Terry. The rest of the family is useless and Ian and Mickey work all day, so they need to get him an at home nurse because he can’t do anything himself. Terry, being the racist bigot, sends every nurse heading for the hills in a matter of minutes. The final nurse is a retired nun. She’s white, so Terry is okay with that part of her, and she clearly has the fortitude to put up with Terry and put him in his place when needed. Ian and Terry take off for work confident they have this problem sorted out. In a huge twist, the nurse does what countless people have wanted to do to Terry for decades: turns out she’s an angel of death!

Terry has always been a side character, brought in like a tornado in Mickey’s life every so often so I was shocked the writers went anywhere in this direction to finish Terry’s story on the show. Ian and Mickey are stunned and it’s safe to say they aren’t going to do anything about the nurse. I would expect to see Mickey processing his father’s death. He was the leader of that cesspool for ages so it would be interesting to see what happens with the family dynamic now that he’s gone. Of course, the dysfunction in the Milkovich family is off the charts so everyone will just keep doing what they’re doing like Terry just went out for a pack of smokes and never came back. He’s probably done that a dozen times. I do believe this means the family has no claim to that house as they now can’t say Terry is dating the owner. The block could soon turn back to being better but the odds of increased gentrification just went up.

After putting a hole in the wall, Lip gets brought in for questioning about the robbery. He handles it like a champ, knowing that since they haven’t arrested him, they have no proof that he had anything to do with ripping off the motorcycle shop. While he is let go easily, the cops don’t give up and get a warrant to search his house. In a panic, thanks to a tip from Carl, he calls Tami to get rid of the boxes of merch he has stored in the garage. He gets home moments before the police do, but they find nothing because Tami brought everything to her parent’s house. The two bond over the cover-up and all seems well until the loose thread emerges: Brad gets called in for questioning and the new crime duo race to get to Brad before he walks into the police station. Brad can’t handle any kind of questioning, he’ll give everything up after 2 questions. They need to figure out a solution. Brad is such a bundle of nerves, I have no idea how they can manage this. They can’t keep him away from the police forever…they’ll come to him the next day.

V is upset that her mother is moving out of state. She feels this huge loss coming but her mother is excited beyond words. If V is going to do nothing but mope about it, her mom doesn’t want her around if all V is going to do is make her feel guilty. Kevin gets good news at least and arranges a small and special meeting at The Alibi. The courthouse has resumed marriages over teleconference and he slots them a time. Kevin and V are finally, officially husband and wife.

Carl gets assigned to a vice squad and these two guys seem like the coolest people on the planet. Carl soon finds out that these two are also crooked as hell. In a really funny moment, after Carl finally grasps their scam, he asks them why they chose him to ride with them. It turns out that in Carl’s file, it says that he’s a person who is really easy to convince to do just about anything. In his eagerness to please and follow others, it doesn’t take much for a superior to go along with what they want to do. Carl seems to understand what that means, going “oh” and then he quickly smiles and says “okay” and runs off to do their shady errand. What the two cops don’t know is, Carl is also really loyal. The Alibi is on their list to set up and shut down and Carl can’t go along with that. He hatches a quick idea to sabotage the raid and it looks like it’ll keep this vice squad sidelined for a while.

Now for Frank. At the start of the episode, he finds out that Liam’s middle school (which he and all of his kids have attended) is renaming the school because the guy it’s named after now is a convicted pedophile. Frank think it’s stupid cancel culture plowing through his life. The guy did a lot of good elsewhere and his whole sexual predator crimes should just be ignored. So he gets into wanting to name the school. If he can’t get them to keep the name, he’ll pick on that he’s happy with. His solution: name the school after him. Let’s just hope no one knows about his extensive arrest record, right?

For most of this day, Frank does well. But just before he goes to the meeting with Liam at the school, Frank has a bad episode. He talks to Liam about naming the school, says he has to go the bathroom, and complains that there is no toilet paper. So he comes out, grabs a roll of paper towels and then repeats his plan with Liam. Liam is confused and Frank goes back to the bathroom where he says again, there’s no toilet paper. Liam looks at the paper towels Frank left on the counter. Then, at the meeting, Frank gets even worse. For the whole day he was able to remember about what he wanted to name the school and he forgets. It quickly goes down hill from there and Carl has to jump in to keep Frank from getting arrested. He gets Frank to the ER and the kids find out that Frank has alcohol induced dementia. Standing there, Frank has no short term memory. The kids are stunned and the episode ends.

For the first time in…ever? There is no in-credits stinger. It’s just credits. There’s no where to goofily bounce to after Frank’s health reveal to the family. We’re left with two major plot lines that affect all of the Gallagher’s: the sale of the house and Frank’s health. Both are tied together on how/if/what parts of the immediate family stick together. I do wonder what Liam will do, no matter what happens. With Terry gone, that does give him some kind of pressure release. Side pieces that could and do have a lot of importance: fallout from Terry’s death and Lip staying out of jail.

Only 4 episodes remaining.

Two at a Biker Bar, One in the Lake

The debate to sell the Gallagher home roils the siblings into sides with Liam and Carl being on the fence about selling. Ian is against it along with Deb and Lip is pushing for the sale. The day starts with a fight in the kitchen (Deb goes hard on everyone against her) and everyone splits up (except for Liam, he’s hiding at the Ball’s) for the day. 

Deb and Lip call Carl and Liam to swing their vote to their side and neither one of them picks up because they know why they are calling and don’t want to deal with it.

Liam doesn’t want to sell because he doesn’t know where he’ll go if the house is sold. He’s always the odd man out of the family as no one seems to pay attention to him unless they need something. He goes to the polling place with V and she tries her best to talk up the young black man to make his voice heard. He sticks with not wanting to sell the house

Carl has a full day of work to do, going to an elementary school to talk to a class about stranger danger. His co-worker tells Carl that he went through a similar thing that he’s going through with Tish. With one conversation Carl is convinced that Tish is trying to trap him by getting pregnant. As the hours go by, he panics more and ends up confronting her. When you assume everything, it’s easy to be wrong about everything and Carl embarrasses himself.

In the light-hearted story of the episode, Ian and Mickey take the day to find gay friends. They don’t have any friends and realize it’s probably best to interact with people outside of the family. Plus, if the house is sold, they are going to need people to actually interact with. Ian is pretty defensive about their living situation. It’s not ideal, but he’s used to and comfortable living with everyone. Sure they fight but that’s normal for him. They have a funny and fun day out and when they come home, Ian wants to sell so he and Mickey can live independently. This puts Carl as the deciding vote.

Kevin is storing the bikes that Lip and Brad stole and he gets the dumb idea to take one of them for a ride. Can’t say I blame him, but man is it stupid. He gets pulled over by a motorcycle cop and she insists on swinging by his gym to talk to the owner of the bike to buy it. Kev is the second character to panic this episode. He comes up with stupid ideas to hide the bikes, it makes things worse which means Brad and Lip are left with nothing. Brad’s medical bills just got much bigger and now there is no way Lip can afford a down payment to move. This shoves him into applying for a job at a Amazon warehouse (he hasn’t heard anything back from the mechanic positions he’s applied for) and having to move into Tami’s parent’s house.

Tami isn’t putting up with Lip’s moonshots. Her parents aren’t as bad as being homeless, so when Lip’s efforts for the day fail (she doesn’t know about the Kevin disaster) she says, I gave you your chance and now we have to be practical. Lip walks out of the house angry. I’m on Tami’s side on this one. She’s being the adult, as hard as that is for him. Everything is spiraling out of his control which is something he’s never been able to handle.

Sandy is like an onion. She’s got a lot of layers. Many of those layers no one knows about. This week’s exposed layer: she had a son with Royal. And he’s like, 9 years old. Deb is stunned to say the least. And she’s mad that Sandy could abandon her kid. Deb has been doing her best with Frannie and can’t understand why Sandy can’t stick by to family. She even thinks Royal isn’t so bad. Sandy has a very different perspective on getting pregnant at 15 by a 30 year old man. Deb, continuing her “adult” assertive attitude proclaims that she’s going to talk to Royal about getting shared custody of Prince. Deb will co-parent with Sandy. This sends Sandy out the door even faster. In their argument, Sandy picks up on something. Deb’s controlling behavior is from her abandonment issues from her mother, Monica. Deb does not like hearing that and it shuts her down, forced to think about how she feels instead of projecting her pain on others.

With all of this going on, no one thinks twice about where Frank is. We first see him ranting in a bar and when the camera pans back, we see it’s not at The Alibi. Frank doesn’t know how he got there or what bar he’s in. Even worse, he ordered five beers and didn’t touch them. That’s really weird. His dementia is getting exponentially worse. He’s losing chunks of time that seem to be something like an hour long. He gets lost and struggles to find his way home…the Gallagher house he can’t even remember the address to. With night fallen, Frank is walking down the sidewalk in total despair. He actually cries out to his kids for help–he says Fiona first, which broke my heart–and suddenly Lip shouts for him to get out of the way. As Lip storms into the house with a sledgehammer, Frank is relieved to have finally found home.

Lip went right from his house to the Gallagher home and in a manic rage he announces renovations to sell the house are starting and starts hitting a wall with the sledgehammer to make “the open floor plan!” Deb is beside herself in anger as everyone else just stands there watching Lip tear down a wall. She runs out of the house crying and runs into two police officers looking to talk to Lip about a robbery in his former place of employment…

This was another really good episode. V is losing hope about her home (her mom is leaving the state) and everything is pointing to the Gallagher family splitting up. There are two major issues.

1) No one knows about Frank yet. With how bad he is in this episode, I don’t think it’s possible for them not to notice it anymore. How will they deal with it? There are a lot of complicated questions from here. I think this will make Deb dig her heels in more; they can’t split up with Frank in this condition. She’s going to want to take care of him.

2) Is Lip going to be able to dodge punishment for stealing the bikes? The evidence is largely gone, I don’t know if the cops will be able to connect the dots to him and Brad well enough to charge them. If he’s locked up, that changes a lot.