Urban Transport Planning

Yeah, we still have two spies on the show.

The show picks up right after Elizabeth’s mission imploded. Instead of talking about what happened, Elizabeth unloads on Paige about leaving her post. She broke every protocol and endangered the entire mission. She even goes as far to say, if you weren’t my daughter, you’d be finished. If Paige didn’t know she had a shield of favoritism around her before, she knows now.

I was worried about how Paige would be affected by seeing her mother covered by the brains of a dead man and she’s handled it way better than I ever thought she would. A big factor is that she thinks the American killed himself. She doesn’t know that the bullet was intended for her mother.

The house divided shows again. Philip and Elizabeth have different approaches to guiding Paige through this. Philip takes the gentle road. Asks about her feelings, talks calmly and generally wants to ease Paige around. Elizabeth takes the hardline stance. She’s mad as hell and offers no comforts to Paige. No, you can’t stay here tonight, go back to your place we’ll talk about this later.

When Paige leaves, Philip moves in. He may be out of the game for a few years but he didn’t forget any of his coercion techniques. He manages to get mission information out of his wife. She opens up a lot in the comfort (maybe shield is the better word) of their home but she stops talking before she says too many details. It was hard to tell if she realized what Philip was doing or if just by instinct she knew to draw a line because he isn’t working anymore.

This episode shows more of what Philip is comfortable with now. He doesn’t miss espionage. When Henry calls from school, Philip is all about talking to his son about hockey. He only deflects the call because a volcano is spewing lava into the living room behind him. He gives a sales pep talk at work and we find out the Jenning’s are a bit cash strapped at the moment. He wheels and deals delaying a payment for Henry’s private school tuition. He likes being a traditional American dad.

Elizabeth is just neck deep in the meat grinder. She’s doing everything with the original mentality she had when first placed in the USA years ago. The Soviet way is right, America is wrong. She talks to Paige about the sacrifices they must be prepared for in their line of work. The mission with the American went wrong because she rushed the correct process to work an asset because of the strict deadline. She loves her homeland. She spends time with Paige and Claudia listening to their music, cooking their food, watching their TV shows. And then when she leaves Claudia’s apartment, America comes crashing back down like an anvil.

In another stark scene for contrast, Elizabeth brings home a bit of the food for Philip. He says it smells great but demurs that he just ate Chinese takeout for dinner. He’d love that home cuisine, but he’s just too full. Elizabeth quickly takes the dejection and moves to throw it away (their protocol so strict that that shouldn’t have a shred of Soviet anything in the house) and Philip quickly moves to take a bite. It does nothing to break the sadness of the close up off Elizabeth dumping the food into the sink and turning the disposal on.

Meanwhile, we get to see Renee possibly angle Stan to get a job at the FBI. He quickly shuts it down. Also shut down is Sofia and Gennadi. Sofia wants a divorce so the stable relationship they need is ruined and she’s running her mouth to the man she met. It’s too risky to keep them on the mission (which only Gennadi was seemingly doing) so the FBI pulls the plug. That means the two will be separated by witness protection to keep them safe. It means that Gennadi will be separated from his wife and child. His family is being physically pulled apart.

Stan also pays a visit to Oleg, who is none too pleased to see him. Stan explains how he told (and threatened) the FBI to leave him along. Oleg isn’t exactly moved by the explanation and apology so Stan moves on to the business on hand. Whatever you are here to do, don’t do it. Oleg doesn’t say anything.

The episode ends with Philip and Elizabeth on their own missions. Elizabeth works a mark for security details at a facility that holds the radiation detector she needs. Philip goes to meet Oleg. After getting the information she needs, Elizabeth strangles the mark to death.

Elizabeth is a ruthless soldier. Chills. Another rock solid episode.

Tchaikovsky

Everything is getting worse for Elizabeth. She’s being put into more and more dangerous situations by herself at an alarming rate. Her life and Philip’s have never been more different. He’s upset about a long time client going to a competitor and she has to figure out how to do a lunch meeting in the State Department cafeteria!

Philip is largely in the back seat now. He exists on the peripheral of Elizabeth’s world. He goes about his separate, civilian job while she’s in the trenches of trying to continue the Soviet Union’s fight in what are, historically, the waning years of the Cold War. He checks in with Elizabeth about Paige and that’s about it.

Elizabeth is juggling and spinning plates at the same time. And one of those plates is her most valued: Paige. While Paige is gung-ho about the secret family business, she’s still green. It’s a good three years into her training now and while she’s in the field, she’s not that good and Elizabeth is worried about her. Even worse, she’s still treating her with kid gloves.

There’s no way around it: Paige is a creampuff. Elizabeth knows this and it sounds like she’s thinking long-term with this in mind. When she talks to Claudia about Paige, she see’s her daughter being embedded into an organization like the CIA where she can stay behind a desk to pass information along, not doing covert ops on the outside.

The work that her parents do is gross. They’ve done terrible, psyche-damaging things. Philip hit his limit years ago. When Paige first found out her parents were spies, they eased her into it. They lied to her about any notion of using sex or violence to accomplish their missions–they convinced people with words. We’re talking about a young woman who got really conflicted about pushing Pastor Tim out of the country last season. She felt guilty about changing his life behind the scenes and that was a dream scenario come true for him. What her parents kept from her is that he was almost killed to get him out of the way. Elizabeth is still fronting to Paige about the world her daughter is now in and she can’t keep doing it. Paige reads about using sex as leverage and coerision and Elizabeth tells her it isn’t true. She then fights with herself about lying to her and sort of admits that it’s possible. That you can get close to targets and how dangerous that is. This all comes to a head when Elizabeth pushes an old American contact for a lithium-based radiation detector and it goes horribly wrong. Last season Paige freaked out over getting jumped in a parking lot and seeing her mother kick some ass. What’s going to happen to her now that she’s seen a man’s brains all over her mother’s face? If Paige wasn’t her daughter, Elizabeth wouldn’t be training her this way. She’s being a parent first and it’s caught up to her.

Aside from the deal gone wrong, Elizabeth is also keeping tabs on her American negotiator mark, Glenn (the husband of the ill woman, Erica). Erica is deteriorating quickly, Claudia tells Elizabeth that her goal is to keep her alive until after the summit. Elizabeth is really uncomfortable on this mission. She’s not a real nurse so her bedside manner is terrible. She openly distains art, which is basically Erica’s life force at this point. Erica has no patience for any kind of nonsense so she forces Elizabeth to sit down and take a crack at drawing. She’s going to make Elizabeth look at the world differently. In another uncomfortable scene, Elizabeth offers Glenn help to shorten Erica’s suffering.

Then she’s got her old contact set up a lunch meeting at the State Department to catch up (he thinks she’s also an employee). A Soviet spy getting into essentially ground zero for getting caught is a hell of a task and when forced into it, Elizabeth commits to it (Claudia’s face when she tells her where the meeting is, says it all). She barely pulls it off and ends up getting valuable information. Ronald Regan is apparently going senile. That means he isn’t running the show…the people around him, who are even more hard-line about the Soviet Union, are most likely calling the shots now. This throws out the rulebook the Soviets have been using.

Meanwhile, Stan and Dennis’ mark from last season is in bad shape. Sofia was always a risk, she’s a blabbermouth. The man she met, Gennadi, ended up being a lucky get. He was all about helping out and has become valuable for the services their department put them on (it looks like an info courier). Stan has moved departments though, so he’s removed from managing them. Gennadi asks to speak to him directly and he goes to help out Dennis. Sofia is fed up with Gennadi and wants a divorce. She’s convinced he’s cheating on her and she’s met a “nice man” at work. Gennadi doesn’t know why she kicked him out. Her talking to another man is bad enough (re: blabbermouth) and the dissolution of this relationship could completely kill this asset (literally too, what Gennadi does is dangerous). Also, Oleg has been spotted by the feds in the country. He’s got all the right paperwork to be in the US, but Dennis would like Stan to talk to him if they were to cross paths. I look forward to seeing that.

Finally, I noticed a disturbing undertone throughout. Elizabeth planning for her end. Everything is riding on this summit. All of her missions now are putting her in danger. The odds of getting caught at the State Department were huge. She tells Claudia what she wants her to do with Paige if she gets caught. Talking to her old contact (starting at the bookstore) made her worry about her home and thus her future. Her contact thinks the US holds all the cards and that the Cold War is really close to coming to the end. That means the end of Elizabeth’s work…in failure. She and Philip devoted their whole lives to this. Odds are, Philip would be okay with this outcome. Elizabeth, definitely not. From her perspective, she sees the end of her life. Prison, the ever-present threat of death, failure of her life’s work. And this fear makes her push the second old contact (he went to them in 1981 about the Star Wars program) too hard. He freaks out and she almost gets killed. One dangerous job turned out okay but the second is a disaster. The consequences are going to be major.

Dead Hand

Here we go!

Some time has passed since we last saw the Jenners. It’s 1987 and they’ve gone forward with the plan of staying, with Philip retiring from the spy game and Elizabeth continuing the work. Henry is now at board school and has a spot on the hockey team. Judging by the girls in the stands cheering him on, Henry is doing well socially as well. Paige is now in college (I think she’s a junior) and has stuck with her parent’s secret job. She informs her mother about a certain professor at the school and she’s in what looks like regular contact with Elizabeth’s handler, Claudia.

Philip and Elizabeth now live separate lives. The change in Philip is immediately apparent. The travel company is thriving in new, larger, offices. He’s into line dancing, he’s got a sweet car, and he has the time to go see Henry play hockey. Elizabeth is in the trenches. She’s up to her eyeballs in the shadows. She’s working some kind of angle in someone’s home as a caregiver and another job has her managing a man in a honey pot scenario. Then Claudia sends her to South America to meet in super secret, a Soviet general.

Philip is happy. He looks much better, he genuinely smiles. He digs what he does at work (we watch him give a rousing pep talk to his employees) and he’s embraced line dancing like you wouldn’t believe. He knows the steps, he loves the environment. Elizabeth is burning herself up at both ends. She never stops working for the Mother Land. She looks dower and exhausted every waking second. They made the right moves for each other. Philip is no longer at risk of imploding and Elizabeth still has the drive to solider the immense pressure and responsibility for spying for the Soviet Union.

Paige is committed too. She’s actively doing work with Elizabeth, staking out men who are involved in the huge summit meeting in Washington between Ronald Regan and Mikhail Gorbachev that is coming up in 9 weeks. There’s another woman working with them but she doesn’t know that Paige is Elizabeth’s daughter. While on the job, a guy who works at the nearby Navy facility (looks like he’s on security duty) notices her in the car. While investigating her, he pulls a shady move to get her to go out with him over the weekend. He asks for 2 forms of ID and she gives her drivers license and school ID. He keeps the school ID as collateral to get her to come out on Saturday.

When Paige meets up with Elizabeth later, she’s upset that she was noticed by security. But Elizabeth reassures her: you did everything you were trained to do. You didn’t raise suspicion and gave him fake info. It’s nothing to worry about.

Now this mission from the South America meeting is a massive one. The man she meets tells her of Dead Hand, the Soviet “last resort plan” to strike the United States with nukes should America strike first. The system is being built to be completely automated. One person needs to start it and it can’t be stopped. He and his side of the “old” government are afraid Gorbachev is going to give away the Dead Hand project in return for the US to stop their “Star Wars” defense program at the summit. They believe that the US can’t be trusted in these negotiations, that have to keep Dead Hand, and it’s very existence, to keep the Soviet Union together. Elizabeth is on board. Her mission is to find out what’s going to happen at the summit. If Gorbachev intends to sell out the Soviet Union, they’re going to have him killed to stop it. And in a chilling move, the man says, “Now that you know of Dead Hand, you can’t be arrested” and gives her a necklace with a cyanide capsule hidden in it.

And then Philip is drawn in from the other side. Back in Moscow, Arkady is now in command of the program that runs the spy operation, basically Elizabeth’s boss. He finds out about Elizabeth meeting with the Soviet general and that was not sanctioned. Soviet leadership has splintered. The general represents the side that wants no change, that the US can’t be trusted. Arkady represents Gorbachev, that it’s time to change politics to keep from being left behind in a changing social and economic world. Arkady needs to know what Elizabeth’s mission is and he can’t use his power because there are defectors all over the place. It would tip off the other side. So he seeks out Oleg, now a family man working for his dad in transportation to fly to the US to talk to Philip. This is crazy dangerous for Oleg. If he gets spotted in the States, he’s never getting out of prison. If he gets caught by the anti-Gorbachev movement at home, he’s dead. Arkady leans on Oleg’s patriotism to get him to go.

Using the old dead drop techniques to contact Philip, Oleg meets up with him (I love the spy stuff so much). Oleg uses the same lines that Arkady used on him to get Philip to move. At first, Philip swears up and down that he wants nothing to do with this, he’s been out for years. But Philip has embraced America. He doesn’t disparage his new home like Elizabeth and Paige do (and it’s unclear how in touch he is with what Paige is currently doing with her mother). So Elizabeth is for the status quo, while Philip is for the change. They’re on different sides in the same house. And then there is the ominous final request Oleg gives Philip. If he finds out Elizabeth is ultimately up to no good, stop her at any cost..,

Elizabeth takes matters into her own hands with the Navy officer. She figures out where he is the same night Paige meets him (which is also the same night Philip meets Oleg) and shanks him on the street! Elizabeth took this dude out with extreme prejudice. She doesn’t want anyone to know about Paige and made the executive decision to cut off this threat then and there. A burst of violence and extremes in an otherwise calm episode.

Finally, Elizabeth returns home. Another brutal day, another life on her hands. Philip wants to talk to her right when she walks in. She’s in no mood to talk and shuts him down at every turn. More than just wanting to sleep, she’s angry at him. Jealous too? It must make her boil that all of this is up to her now. For the longest time they shared the burden and like she told Tuan last season, you need someone to be by your side for this line of work or you’ll never make it.

Now, I’m not sure what Philip was going to tell her. I got the sense he wanted to tell her everything because he doesn’t want to play spy in his own house. He’s done with it and wants to warn his wife of what’s going on. But would he have? He lets her go upstairs without saying anything and I don’t know how he’s going to approach this now.

Riveting start and I skipped over Stan (still with Renee) and the Anderholts (Dennis being Stan’s partner) who now have a baby. There’s a very brief scene with Renee seemingly fishing for info (is she a spy?) while Elizabeth eavesdrops.

The honey pot scenario was left entirely alone but the caretaker job got some significant looks. I didn’t catch what the husband does but there was a rather large focus on the ill wife being an artist. She constantly draws and Elizabeth pays no mind to it until the woman talks to her about it. While this woman is very attuned to things, very observant to create (she draws Elizabeth while she’s sleeping at one point), Elizabeth is very detached. She doesn’t care or think about anything beyond her mission. Elizabeth tells her she doesn’t really look at art and the woman laughs. When Elizabeth does focus on one of her rather haunting works, you get a sense that she sees herself.

This year, Baskets was a season about growing up.

Christine Baskets has her kids, they’re who she holds on tight to. Her father was terrible and her brother picked up many of his traits. While they aren’t estranged and meet up, Christine has needed to assert herself to him many times. Her DJ twins are successful, career wise anyway. As such, they’re on the own and only check in here and there. They’re distant.

Chip and Dale are in her orbit. Chip tried to leave Bakersfield (and failed) and Dale made his own business in town (which eventually failed along with his marriage). Chip and Dale have had a difficult time succeeding and with their father committing suicide years ago, there’s that specter always hanging over them. Christine especially feels guilty and worries about Chip and Dale (especially Dale this season).

A lot of what Christine does is to provide for her kids, to fix what goes wrong. She’s always the safety net. They know where they can find her no matter what happens and despite how many times they take advantage of her.

She also adopts Martha in a way. Maybe she’s just looking for a friend but she ends up treating her like a child. It’s not until Martha tells her how controlling she is, does Christine realize that she doesn’t listen to what people tell her (much like Dale).

The Baskets Family Rodeo represents the pinnacle of Christine’s efforts. A massive investment to get them all working together. And Chip and Dale, of course, do what they always do. Chip was the first one to come around though. He’s the more clear-headed of the two and considering how much he fights with Dale (which is almost always his fault) that’s not a surprising turn of events.

Dale had a really rough time this season and his meltdown(s) were especially bad this season. His constant pushback on Ken turned out to be an exemplary demonstration of how good of a person Ken is. Someone who does and can make his mother happy. Ken isn’t an enemy.

Considering how obnoxious Chip and Dale can be, it’s a wonder how well the writers can make this show work. A large part of that is how good Zach Galifinakis is at playing both characters. They share similar traits but they read as two completely different people. And Louis Anderson holds them together as Christine. Now she may not be the constant glue as her boys have come to realize that they aren’t kids. They need to grow up and rely more on themselves.

I’m very happy this season of The Detour turned out so well. I think how much I hated the season finale of 2 skewed by the perspective of that entire season when most of it was really funny.

This season took place entirely in Alaska with the Parkers still on the lamb. With the family on the run for going on two years, they’re all getting worn down and in desperate need to get some semblance of a life back. When you have to lie to everyone (and your parents being often bad at said lying) that’s hard to do. There was a good mix of outlandish gags with honest family moments. The Detour has never been afraid to be absurd and I think this arc found a good tone to stick with.

With the family trying to settle in one place, it gave everyone something to do and work on. Robin and Nate try to get jobs, Jareb’s run as town mayor was hilarious, and Deliah’s struggle to be a normal girl was the strongest part of the family. She’s rebellious (the hell she gives her mother is great), smart, and witty. She keeps her cards close to her chest and you have to keep an eye out for her.

And man did they stick the landing. The complete opposite of last year. It was like watching a murder mystery come together (and as such I won’t be specific about what happens, I think it works best to go through the realization of what happens with the characters). It weaved together many smaller moments from the entire season brilliantly and brought the main arc of the series to a close. The set up for another season is intelligent, something I never considered at the start of the season. I was surprised and honestly affected by the last moments of the show. The writers knew exactly where they wanted to go when they started writing. Next year (if it happens, I don’t know if it’s been greenlit) is going to be very different and I’m excited to see where they take it.

The SYFY Channel got a lot of weird looks when they announced Krypton. A show in the Superman world without Superman that starts two generations before he’s born? Has anyone asked to see that?

So out of the box thinking and the potential is there for something interesting. It’s an alien planet with a society that’s been talked about in the comics for generations but has never been explored in any extensive way. Superman is part of the DC trinity so there’s a lot of love and expectation there.

The premiere kicked off this week and I like what I’ve seen so far. The production is really good, SYFY put up the money to make Krypton on TV. Great sets, costumes, and attention to detail. CG set extensions and full CG scenes (cityscapes and ships) are very well done. So the world looks believable. What about the characters?

I don’t recognize any of the actors, so for me, there’s no cast hook to reel me in. I’m fine with that and it usually makes it easier for me to like characters and suspend disbelief. I don’t know the actor from anything else so the role they are playing “is” them. So far I like all the cast I’ve seen too. The writing can be a bit on the nose (scenes are clearly built to push you on one side of the good/evil character scale) but I’m OK with that for a pilot. The show is doing everything it can to get the audience onboard as quickly as possible. Here are your main characters and here’s the problem: find out what happens next with us!

So without Superman. what is this show about? The show is called Krypton and it takes place on Krypton so the built-in canonical story of Superman’s home blowing up cuts any “gee, what’s going to happen here?” off at the knees. So what’s the pitch here? Adam Strange travels back in time (and to another planet, another good trick) to deliver Superman’s 21 year old grandfather, Seg-El, a dire message. Something is coming to Krypton to keep the galaxy’s greatest hero, Kal-El, from being born. And that thing is The Destroyer of Worlds, Brainiac.

In terms of Superman villains, they don’t get any more dangerous than Brainiac. A major foe in every metric, it makes sense for the android alien collector to come up with the idea of going back in time to keep the biggest thorn in his side from making it to Earth. They show him too and he looks amazing! An actor (Blake Ritson) in prosthetics, it looks like they’ll be using little to no CG for his portrayal. This gives us all sorts of angles to consider

First, we get to see the society of Krypton and Kal-El’s family explored in ways we’ve never seen before. And what’s Brainiacs full plan? Kill Seg-El? His wife or maybe both? Wait until they have a child (Jor-El, Superman’s father) and kill him? Then we have the destruction of Krypton, the reason why Kal gets sent to Earth. Does Adam Savage tell Seg-El about it, potentially messing with what happens? Does Brainiac offer to help stop the destruction of Krypton, saving billions of lives? He could make the deal that no Kryptonian leaves the planet in return (and also the promise that he himself won’t harvest from the planet and destroy it)?

There are some shades of Game of Thrones on display. Family names are a big deal on Krypton and there is a very clear class system at work. While Krypton is really technologically advanced, if you’re not born into the right family, it looks like your life is going to be way more difficult. The show starts with the House of El being ripped of it’s standing so we’ll be seeing a lot of that.

Finally, one thing jumped out at me. While everyone speaks English for obvious reasons, I don’t think I heard one attempt at making new vocabulary. All slang is American, even “shit” is used as a curse. That jumped out at me as being very odd for a world that is very far from our own.

I’m excited to see where this goes. If they can keep this quality and improve on the few sagging bits, SYFY could have their next The Expanse on their hands.

Channel Zero: Butcher’s Block has finished its run and I think I liked No End House more. The hook for Butcher’s Block was cannibalism but I never thought the show ever got scary. Something always felt missing and by the end, I wasn’t surprised to come away with little more than a shrug and thinking “I guess so.” Maybe I had no connection to the mental illness action, or I missed the important subtext, but very little stuck with me. Some wild imagery brought up the creep factor (the representation(s) of Alice’s fears being the standout) which is what I’ll remember most. I didn’t get attached to the sisters like I needed to and outside of Rutger Hauer, none of the characters stood out to me. I’m having a hard time articulating my disappointment for this. I guess I just wanted more and maybe it wasn’t developed in ways I thought it should.

McMafia is….alright. Feels rather paint by numbers and nothing really special. This week’s episode with getting into the dock was well done, but I’m having a hard time finding good reasons to stick around. And why did they name this show McMafia? McMansion is the obvious wordplay but I don’t understand what kind of possible relation they’re going for. AMC doesn’t even seem to believe in the show as it’s being replaced for a week by the premiere of The Terror.

This week’s episode of The Walking Dead was the best I can remember in some time. Angry and impulsive Rick is the best. We finally we got to see him go after with Negan and get to him. They charge right in without wasting time and the fight turned out to be one of the series most unique action scenes (could have used less dialog though). Maggie is getting more screen time and I like seeing her throw he weight around. The more executive decisions, the better. I thought Michonne was going to pistol whip Enid, so there’s another successful scene. And Simon being fed up with the status quo is great! That power dynamic needs to be thrown in a blender because Negan is beyond boring. Keep hitting the same notes and everyone is going to start demanding to hear a new song.

Now the challenge is if I can remember it all.

Arrow is finally going through a story arc that is bringing something new to the table, not just whatever bad guy is the biggest problem. Internal strife has pulled the team apart and it feels like something of long-term consequence is happening.

Gotham is on its third Poison Ivy but it looks like we have hit the comic book version with this one. And if I’m not mistaken that was The Toymaker! It said Krank on the storefront window so that’s a rather recent pull from a modern animated Batman show. Rebel without a cause Bruce cracks me up and Selina finally sees him and calls him out. I look forward to this every week and I’m happy it’s back.

The Walking Dead had a powerful episode. Funny how that happens when it’s about a character you care about. Interesting set up for the last half of the season, I’m not much of a believer that they’ll make it work and keep up the quality.

Atlanta is back! It feels like it’s been forever. Guest appearance by Katt Williams and he was fantastic! Earn is trying to keep his space next to Paper Boi and the plot used for Katt created a revealing look at how Earn feels and what his fears are. Strong character study right out of the gate.

The mini-series Waco finished but I haven’t watched the final episode yet. Really good, Taylor Kitsch is fantastic.

Baskets remains awesome, I have an odd love for this show.

McMafia is a new show on FX. I usually dig the shows this network picks up so I gave it a shot. The show is about Alex Godman, the son of a Russian mob boss who was kicked out of the country. Alex grew up in England and lived a luxurious childhood, an Ivy league school education and now heads his own business on Wall Street. His uncle still works on the less legal side of business and a bad deal brings Alex directly into a world he’s tried to keep clear of. An interesting pilot episode with the hook of the show coming in the last 10 minutes of the show. I’m intrigued by the setup and I really like the lead actor, James Norton, who I first saw on the fantastic Happy Valley.

And that’s just the start. Once April kicks in, we’re looking at Silicon Valley, Westworld, Archer, Krypton, The Terror, and The Americans. My backlog of series is growing, there’s not enough time in the day.

The Detour is back on TBS. I hated the season 2 finale but two episodes in and the show is back on track.

Baskets is back on FX. More people should be watching this.

Happy! has finished it’s first season run. Wild show that was smartly 8 episodes long to tell its story. That left no time to waste so it moved along and had no chance to get stuck in a rut or overstay its welcome. I think enough background to the characters were given and satisfying resolution at the end made for a complete story. A good start with a perfect set up for more, I look forward to the next run.

Sleepwalking

The best way to talk about a season finale is to look back at the arc of the entire season.

We’ll start with Kevin, V, and Svetlana. After duking it out all season, Svet becoming depressed over her rival beating her to ultimate gold digger status opened the door for our favorite next door neighbors to get her to move on clean and clear. Lining up an old wealthy man is a challenge though and Svet got desperate last week with her replacement bride scheme. A risk, to say the least, Kevin and V go along with it, working to cover all the angles to get Svet hitched in a wedding most people seemingly already saw as a sham. They do find success in getting the bride to the altar with a near-death groom but this story isn’t over yet. Coming into this I thought two things could happen: it would blow up on the wedding day or Svet would get away with it and her time on the show would come to an end. The writers have a different idea. Svet gets married but there is a prenup. There is no info on the actual clauses but it’s definitely going to be The Next Problem for this trio (and Svet currently doesn’t know it exists). Not sure how I feel about this as it felt like this story for Kevin and V had been heading for closure. Kevin’s family that came around this year seems to be forgotten and his domination angle disappeared without a word (strange that they never gave V her scene to shut it down). While this group will always be the third string in the story department, I’d like to see them get mixed back into the Gallagher whirlwinds.

Deb has been a soldier all season long. Doing her best to be independent and provide for Frannie, she doesn’t take grief from anyone. Sure she’s made some bad decisions but she took a horrible injury like a champ and continued on her way. Derek made one last appearance to give her one more life hurdle to navigate. He’s getting married to the woman he found after ditching her and Frannie and wants joint custody of his daughter. He left because he was a scared kid with nothing going on and now that he’s made his own moves in life he wants to get involved and be responsible. This, of course, makes Deb furious that all this time later he now wants to be a decent person. She ends up talking to Carl of all people (in a rather odd scenario) about it and it sounds like she could be warming up to the idea that getting help from Derek would make her and Frannie’s life better. Child support would be huge but I don’t know how well Deb would deal with Derek’s wife being around her daughter all the time. It’s a grown-up decision, that’s for sure. Not sure if Debbie has grown up much in that department though.

Speaking of Carl, he takes the male Gallagher route in decision making by running from his problems. Sure he loves Kassidi (as much as a trapped teenager can be) and wants to be with her but his obligations to his Army brothers is just as strong. Since Kassidi can’t be reasoned with, running is the easiest option. She catches him though and chains him to the bed which makes you wonder how much of this she’s actually thought out. Lucky for her, Debbie is no help to him (everyone did tell him not to marry the crazy girls so he’s gotta learn). Unfortunately, Liam is a help to him. With a midnight assist, Carl makes it to the Greyhound bus out of town.

Liam’s been bobbing around this season like a cork. He pops up in everyone’s lives (usually in the kitchen) but he’s been closest to Frank. I must say this has probably been Frank’s best behaved season. He hasn’t truly done anything horrific to his family and managed to do a lot of good. Even for Liam. Sure he got him involved in some scams, but nothing that would pull him down the drain. Until the last con, to rob the father of Liam’s friend. Everything else has been a pretty easy explanation for Frank to get Liam on his side. But this one involves a friend, a person Liam cares about (and is a reprieve from his Southside Chicago life). He stakes out the mansion for Frank (quite smoothly might I add, he’s picked up on quite a few grifting tricks from Frank) and it looks like it could be quite the heist. But Liam is different from Frank, he has a much louder conscience that points him in the right direction. He gives Frank the wrong code to disarm the alarm system and leaves him to fend for himself. Rather poetic and a smart way to keep himself clear of getting the Frank Gallagher reputation of “Do Not Trust.” What doesn’t kill Frank… lets him live to scam another day. At this point it’s for the best, he doesn’t know any other way to live.

Ian has been looking for a reason to live for awhile. A sense of purpose is the better way of putting it. This “Gay Jesus” title seems to fill that void. Being an EMT he’s recognized that he enjoys helping people. This social movement that is growing behind him gives him the attention that I think he ultimately craves. Blowing up a van is rather extreme and has consequences that take Trevor to remind him of. Blowing up that van did get him tens of thousands of internet views so his time in the spotlight is far from over, as witnessed by his grand display when he gets arrested.

Lip is another Gallagher who has been searching for himself. He’s lived through others, taking on their problems, to avoid is own. It’s easier to ruminate on problems that aren’t your own. While everyone rises and falls around him, he’s been diligent about keeping sober. That’s really the only tangible goal he’s had in some time. That and the project motorcycle Brad handed over to him. Idle hands are the devil’s playground and building something has served Lip well when he has nothing else concrete to turn to. So through Charlie screwing up and Lip doing his best to stay out of it, pushed Sierra back to him. With all the relationship drama it’s made him think about himself. How he met Sierra and what their relationship was like. In a major milestone, he realizes that them being together isn’t good for either of them. He’s still in murky waters. He wasn’t sober for any part of the time they were together. He doesn’t know what will make him happy and what he wants so he can’t be a reliable partner for her. It’s pretty stunning idea coming from him. Lip doing the breakup is something I didn’t foresee. She’s shattered and he’s not too happy about it either but he’s finally putting himself first. He tells Brad (whose on an upswing) who agrees he made the right call. Eddie meanwhile, has taken off leaving her niece in the lurch. She’s around the shop all the time so Lip has become friends with her and seeing a kid in need of help brings out the nurturer in him. Unlike his role with Sierra, he can do a better job at giving this kid some stability until she finds out what’s next for her.

This season Fiona has been making professional moves. Wheeling and dealing trying to climb up that economic ladder. She’s done well (with a side of luck) until this lawsuit threatens the rest of her life. And then there is Ford, the looming question mark in her personal life. She has a lot to figure out and she works things out with Ford first. After being run over by Sean she turned to Tinder to cope. No dating, no commitments, no attachments. Just hookups. So when she met Ford, she had enough of the hookup world. Maybe she wants a relationship after all. Ford’s a mystery though. A world traveler with relationships all over the world (and even when they’ve broken up, they’re still friendly? Who does that? That’s the real head-scratcher for Fiona who’s known and seen only dysfunctional couples aside from Kev and V). So they’ve hooked up and gotten close over the summer but there’s…ambiguity to it. So she flat out asks him: what are we? What are we doing? Is this future worthy? Considering what he’s gone through with (and for) her and he hasn’t run for the hills, I’ve been thinking he’s ready to commit. He’s seen and known her enough to know what’s up. And he tells her as much. With this revelation, she’s ready to tackle her lawsuit problem. She gets advice from the developer that bought the laundromat after getting some rather unnerving options from her lawyer. The tip: give them an ultimatum that won’t kill you and will seem like a good last-ditch deal for them.  And who gives Fiona the tip-off to start the bargaining? Frank. Seek out Pyro Pete. He makes a smoke bomb that successfully forces the squatters out of her building and then the final press: lean on the greed of the husband.  She offers them a few thousand bucks in cash to drop the lawsuit and take off. Plus, a promise to send them monthly payments for the next year wherever they land. She wisely puts the crunch of the decision process, telling them a lawsuit can take years to play out and bluffs that her lawyer is sure Fiona is going to win and they’d get nothing. Burning cash in front of them starts the timer for the rash decision. Fiona’s gamble pays off when the husband folds. She is free of a major problem and things are looking up.

While not the best season of the show, it was another solid one to add to the series. The absurdity was reigned in, keeping it from falling off the rails. While that made for fewer high stakes situations and dark humor, I liked the balance. Especially because the journey of a lot of the characters (I’d put Lip as my favorite) was really good. A good sense of movement and I’m still all in to see what happens to the Gallagher family next.

A Gallagher Pedicure

A Super Shameless episode! Finally, the crazy gets cranked up.

Sierra drops in on Lip, her lunatic father has been released from jail on probation. She’s terrified he’s going to look for her so Lip takes her in. With such a threat out there, Lip figures it’s best to get this guy off the streets again. He finds out what halfway house this guy is staying in and instigates a fight. He gets Eddie’s niece to record it and lo and behold, who strikes first? Later in the day, Sierra is overjoyed to hear her dad got locked up again and Lip pretends to not know anything about it. Points to Lip.

Deb has got a serious problem on her hands. Or foot. The pipe that smashed her foot crushed two of her toes and it’s going to cost a fortune and a long time to get them fixed. So Deb goes the Gallagher route and shoulders this herself and takes the cheap DIY approach. She sterilizes pruning sheers (Deb, those look super rusty) and inlists Liam to cut off her three toes. She takes some painkillers with some alcohol and gives the final instructions to Liam. He passes out, she gets mad and passes out too. And who comes into the house? Frank. Taking in the scene, he knows exactly what’s going on and does Liam’s job with no hesitation. If she doesn’t get an infection I’d say this is a win for Debbie.

Since we’re talking about Liam and Frank, we’ll stick with them. Liam’s rich friend has invited him to go on vacation with his family. They’re going yachting and it looks/sounds amazing. This kid’s dad is crazy loaded. At this time Frank is annoyed he can’t retire. Turns out working a legitimate job for 6 weeks in your entire 50+ year life means you have no savings. Even trying to steal the identity of three people is less lucrative than you may think. So Liam asks Frank again if he can go with his friend and Frank comes to realize that he could be an arm’s length away from a rich guy opportunity. He meets the father and when the scope of this guy’s wealth come apparent, the scam gears in Frank’s head start spinning.

Gay Jesus Ian is really hitting his stride. When a young kid comes to him trying to hide from his family, those that are there to advise Ian warn him to back off. The kid is a minor and that complicates things. After a failed kidnapping attempt the father comes to Ian to reason with him. Ian hears a lot that mimics his own life and that makes him turn to the kid to suss out what’s true. He doubles down on protecting the kid when he hears the answers.

Carl and Kassidi are stuck in a loop that needs to be broken just for the simple fact that something interesting between them needs to happen. It’s the same thing on repeat. They have lots of sex, they’re both happy, they go do something, Carl says he’s leaving for military school, she wigs out, he apologizes and bends over backward for her to make her happy again. This time he tells her he won’t go back to school, something that everyone around him knows is a death sentence for him. Is it going to take some kind of intervention to jettison this spoiled brat? I hope it’s dramatic and loud to make this storyline interesting again.

Fiona heads into battle. After getting terrible news from her lawyer (she could very well be on the hook to pay the family off for the rest of her/their lives) she tries to reason with the squatters in her apartment. Fiona has made a few bad choices by being a good and understanding person. The barricaded themselves in the apartment and are essentially holding her dog for ransom. When she hears the dog in distress, Fiona snaps and digs into the Gallagher bag of tricks. Ford helps her block off their door so they can’t get out, stops the running water, and bumps Fog Hat at full blast into the walls. Then the rescue mission. Ford cuts a hole into the wall for Fiona to crawl through and Fiona finds the dog tied up in the hallway. Dog in hand, one of the kids sees her and sounds the alarm. The mother chases Fiona and tackles her down the hallway. With a hasty dog pass to Ford, Fiona delivers a few well-placed kicks to break free so she can crawl back out. Hole sealed up and some celebratory love making ensures. Now, what kind of fallout comes from this could go either way. They double down on the lawsuit or they come to an agreement to a much lower price (best case scenario: they take the max 500k payout from her insurance).

Gold digger Svetlana gives up. She can’t figure out how to get it done like Freelania managed to do, so she eats crow and goes to her for advice. It doesn’t go well. Freelania would rather step on Svet’s throat than help her out. Freelania cackles away to organize her wedding leaving Svet exasperated. She doesn’t know what to do and then her future hobbles up to her. Freelania’s fiance is senile. He thinks she’s Freelania and a plan is born! Cut to Svet dragging a rather large and heavy  bag into The Alibi.

Next week is the season finale!