Black-Haired Ginger

So far this is the best episode of the season. A lot of plots make a turn and a few Gallaghers get into trouble. Classic Shameless dark humor that’s been missing this year makes a triumphant return.

Without Xan, Lip has started to drift. Lip isn’t good at taking care of himself, he needs to watch/take care of someone else to keep himself busy and to keep his addictions from taking over. So his life now is basically to go to work and then come home. When he gets a rare moment to be with himself, a sort of vacation really, he doesn’t take long for him to start climbing the walls. So he turns to exercise first and when he’s tempted with alcohol, he buys every brand of cigarette to give him something to do since alcohol is his poison but nicotine is more like a safer hobby to him. While looking for something to do, Lip stumbles across two new interests. First is a new business: a sober coach. A client would hire him to keep them sober because something very important is coming up (think athlete and court-ordered drug tests). This is a perfect fit for him as he already has plenty of experience with this. The second is motorcycle street racing. It’s dangerous and more importantly a ton of fun. I think we can all expect that this massive adrenaline dump will become an addiction.

Deb looks for more advice on the path to understanding who she is. The falling out with Alex has crushed her and she doesn’t know what to do. So she turns to the only lesbians she knows, the couple that live in Fiona’s apartment building. They manage to help her out, in essence giving her the basic philosophy of “you like what you like.” Hopefully, she drops every gay stereotype she picked up in order to “fit in” now. She also drops Alex once she realizes that her issue with Alex isn’t one of sexuality per say, it’s that they are a terrible couple. Deb wisely moves on, where she ends up is anyones guess but it looks like she’s on the path to finding who she is.

Carl is pushing on to get to West Point. He meets a well connected wild girl at a West Point mixer and it starts out well until it swerves into disaster. When she looks into Carl a bit more she sees that he isn’t a scumbag (I mean, he is a Gallagher so there is a lot there) and they move past their awkward first meeting.

In other wild girl news, Liam gets sucked into a crazy vortex with the school bully that forced him to get a body guard. She catches him alone in the hallway and pulls him into a closet. Something happens in there, Liam thinks they had sex, but he’s not sure (he’s like, 10 years old). So when he gets home, he tells Lip who’s shocked and then later on she shows up at the house with a ton of crap in tow. When he asks what she’s doing there she dumps even more crap on him: I’m moving in with you because you’re the father of my kid. Since Liam isn’t sure what she did to him earlier that day, he has no clue about what’s going on now. When Deb and Carl come home they pow wow with Liam about what this monsterous girl is doing there. Luckly Deb has motherhood experience and knows this is a shame (Carl thinks she’s full of it too, but confers with Deb about now being able to know you’re pregnant the day you have sex). The siblings team up to get the trouble maker out of the house. Liam is far and away my favorite character this year. The stuff the writers have been throwing at him since last season has been some of the best and Christian Isaiah is a great young actor.

It’s been a few years since Frank’s liver had enough of the abuse and packed up shop. I’ve been wondering for a while about when his health was going to take another dive and it happened this week. When you’re urine resembles maple syrup, you got a problem. So he winds up in the hospital and gets the great news that his anti-rejection meds have stopped working. After 5 years, he now needs to switch meds but the name brand stuff costs a fortune since he doesn’t have insurance. He can swing the generic but the side effects are a gauntlet of horros. In typical Frank mentality, he doesn’t think much of the potential misery (to be fair he doesn’t have a choice) but one does catch his ear: erectile dysfunction. On the way home with Kev and V, they pass by a longerie shop and he freaks out when he finds that he gets no reaction to the models in the window display. This starts his panic spiral that his life is truely over. If there is one thing Frank holds dear on this mortal coil, it’s his libido. And in typical Frank fashion, when he gets slighted in anyway he defaults his rage to The Man. The government, the healthcare industry, big pharma, it’s all rigged to screw over the comman man (and again, to be fair, he brings up some good points). Upon leaving the hospital for the second time after trying to shock his member back into working order, a sour and now cinged Frank is trolling for painkillers (one of the funniest scenes in the series happens here) when he stumbles upon a like minded damsel in distress. She steamrolls him and Frank is awakened! I hope that guest star shows up again, it would be amazing.

Ian and Fiona’s stories cross this week. Faced with a tons of jail time or less jail time with an insanity plea, Ian isn’t sure what to do. Fiona is totally sure what to do and goes with him to see his lawyer to push for the insanity plea. The woman in charge of the Gay Jesus movement insists that Ian go to trial because the movement is way too important to potentially let the whole thing get undermined by that admission that Ian is bi-polar. Fiona isn’t having any of that and when they leave, Ian tells her to take a hike and leave him alone. Fiona doesn’t know why and Ford, Lip, and Deb tell her to let him go when he disappears after getting advice from Mr. Malkovich about prison time (another One of the Greatest Shameless Scenes). She’s baffled by everyone being so calus about Ian skipping bail but they all say that he’s an adult and he’s making his own decisions. Ford is adamant that Ian isn’t her responsibility any more, her concerns should be focused on her and their relationship. While trying to track down Ian, she misses an event she and Ford have been planning for months and Ford is annoyed. The good news is that Ian comes back to face the music and goes for the plea deal. The whole ordeal turns into a positive moment with Fiona and Ford.

While everyone else is making life altering choices, Kev and V continue down the Vagina Safe initative. Their work at The Alibi has gotten them a lot of positive attention from the local activists and that brings Kev into the trenches with the women who have been deeply traumatised by sexual assault and human trafficing. His efforts with the bar pale in comparison and he wants to retreat to the sidelines so those directly affected can be the ones heard most.

Do Right, Vote White

Quite a bit of heartbreak this week!

Election day comes up quick and Mo is down in the polls by a huge margin. Any campaign director found is pretty much gone. Frank has hitched his pocketbook to Mo and barrels ahead while ignoring the mountain of evidence that keeps piling up that Mo is a pedophile. Frank has always been motivated mostly by greed so his actions aren’t too surprising.  Fiona has her business suit on and plans on stumping the neighborhood for the candidate who’s the most pro-business. This rubs Ford the wrong way who does his best to keep his mouth shut and let Fiona make up her own mind. Present day Fiona is a different woman from years ago and she now looks to get the advantages she needs to keep succeeding, even if it’s mostly a 180 from how she was brought up and where she’s from. Butting heads with Ford and the locals makes her second guess her motives and wonders if she’s a traitor. Then she comes head to head with Frank’s intimidation scheme at the voting station at the local elementary school. An all out riot breaks out and a beaten up Frank retreats back home to discover that Mo actually won. Once again back in politics, Mo swears to again, do nothing as a Senator. And get paid for it.

Liam’s school protection is going well. He lets his bodyguard cheat off of him and it’s basically free sailing to the end of the school year. He is so far advanced from his classmates that his test scores quickly grab the attention of the school administration. Next year, Liam is being moved up a few years to 6th grade. He’s not going to be in any classes with his bodyguard so that protection is going to be gone.

Deb is a mess. Ian’s assertation that Deb isn’t gay comes home to roost.  While Deb is having a heart to heart with Alex, she candidly talks in a way that points this truth out to Alex. So faced with falling in love with another straight girl, Alex knows there is no future with Deb and breaks up. This whole relationship rose and fell in about a week, so when Deb moves back in crying of a broken heart, her siblings give her no empathy as they didn’t know she had moved out or who Alex is.  Another relationship turned to dust it’s hard to see where Deb will go from here. Odds are she’ll swear off men and women until she stumbles into someone who gives her enough attention.

Ian is at a crossroads too. Disenfranchised from being Gay Jesus and running for his life from a group of homophobes, he has no direction. Does anything he do have any meaning or impact? If he stays with or drops the Gay Jesus movement, does it matter? Is there a point? His biggest problem is his upcoming court date. His lawyers says if he doesn’t cop to a plea deal, he runs the risk of doing 10-15 years. How much he is willing to fight is the question.

Carl gets called out on stealing the recommendation to West Point and gets challenged to a duel by a very irate preppy. Surprised by such a confrontation (the kid wants to fight to the death), Carl has some thinking to do. Ian questions Carl’s “killer instinct,” after all he’s harboring old dogs in the basement. If he can’t euthanize a dog, what’s he going to West Point for? His future isn’t going to be teaching marching drills but sending out kids who look just like him into war zones. So Ian throws more doubt into Carl’s head so he seeks out another source of advice: a well-known vet who served in Afganistan that lives, gun at the ready, in the neighborhood. Carl gets the inspiration he needs.

Xan’s mother comes back out of nowhere and Lip is pushed up against the wall. He cares for Xan like his own and knows that Xan will probably be ditched in a matter of weeks once more by her mother if he lets her go. He follows the mother around long enough to see that she’s hooking. Brad says he has no choice but to let go of Xan but Lip struggles with the facts. Yes, it’s her mother, yes he has no legal rights in the matter, but he’s afraid of the trauma he’d be sending her into. So Lip sells his project motorcycle for a heavy profit and offers the mother $10k to walk away and sign over her parental rights to him. This was shocked at the offer but from his perspective, it makes sense. The anger from the mom quickly fell to the side when she sees the envelope of cash. He had the official documents with him too. All of it seemed to be swaying her until Xan, who followed Lip out of the house when he suspiciously left at dinner, sees her mother. A tearful reunion, Lip knows he does have no choice. Xan wants nothing more than to be with her mother. I’m sure a lot of Lip’s old hopes with his mother came back to him at this moment. When Lip leaves the money for them and leaves, I like to think that Lip is considering that if she needs to in the future, Xan can find him. He’ll be her backup.

Kev and V’s hard work to de-grossify The Alibi pays off. They get revisited by the author of the newspaper report and the bar is taken off the list and women start coming into the bar. This leads to a knock on effect they never thought of: with their success, they’ve become an authority on how to turn things around. The owner of the bar who is now number 1 on the “rapeist” list asks them for help. A new business is born!

Weirdo Gallagher Vortex

Frank really likes being a campaign manager. The man knows how to hustle and he’s really good at it when the idea is his own inspiration and it means getting money from other people. He’s out and about town with Mo White and just the two of them are managing to get some traction with the locals. Mo is friendly enough and “South Side Pride” is an effective slogan. And then Frank finds out that Mo is wearing an ankle monitor because of a minor he had a relationship with (she was 15 when they met and she lied about her age, they were together for 5 years). He’s in the final 6 months of wearing the bracelet but this is a mountain of a problem for anyone looking for work, let alone someone trying to get into politics. Frank soldiers on but Mo lets it slip at The Alibi so now the secret isn’t so secret anymore. Campaign Manager Frank’s job just got more difficult.

Deb has reached a crossroads. Fighting against the patriarchy, she’s become friends (and partners in crime) with Alex, a gay woman who’s a welder just like Deb. They have a lot in common, have a good time and they end up making out. This throws Deb’s sexual identity into question. She’s had some experience with women in the past but this is largely new territory for her as she’s now emotionally engaged in this budding relationship. She turns to Ian for advice. He doesn’t think she’s gay, or bi-sexual and he doesn’t offer her much help. When he tells her he’s as lost in life as she is, she  responds with “at least you know you’re gay.”

Ian’s at a loss with what he’s lost. “Shim” aka God, has stopped talking to him (or has Ian stopped listening?) since he got out of jail. He has no direction in life anymore and the first one he runs into about his problem is Frank. Always the sage, Frank tells him to stick to the classics: Buddism, Jewdism, and Christianity. Ian seeks out representation for each one and doesn’t get any answers.

Carl isn’t looking for answers, he’s looking for results. He pops into The Alibi and fills V in on the community service he’s doing to try and get into West Point. The big hurdle is that their congressman’s office blew him off for a recommendation. Then V hears his name and realized that the congressman was a client of hers in her dominatrix days. Carl guilts her into helping him and she busts out the leather gear and pays a visit to her old friend’s office. Carl gets the recommendation.

Lip has another crisis with Xan. While he is her guardian, legally he has no power. Xan breaks her arm at school and that puts Lip’s relationship with her under the microscope. He does his best not to totally lie, telling the staff that he’s not her parent or legal guardian…but her brother. They can only release her to a parent or guardian and there are insurance issues that need to be addressed. Lip can’t do anything about any of this. He’s just trying to take care of Xan until her mother comes back (more like, maybe, hopefully, shows up out of nowhere). He tries to get Brad to say he’s Xan’s father and he shoots that down immediately. He has no desire to get pulled into the weirdo Gallagher vortex. This one is a powerful vortex as it has to do with a minor. Brad keeps telling Lip to back away from this whole thing. Xan isn’t his responsibility and if she needs major help, like she does now, he can’t really help her. The staff sees Brad leave in a huff and asks Lip if he was Xan’s father. He says yes and that move raises too many red flags for them. They call DCF, which Lip has been trying to avoid this whole time, so he panics. After creating a diversion, he scoops Xan up and runs out of the hospital with her. This is probably going to make Lip a wanted man. I’m not sure what the consequences of this are legally, but Lip needs none of it.

Fiona is in a good mood, having invested in an empty lot of land that is going to be developed into a senior living facility. With 100k invested in the LLC with the guy that Ford doesn’t like (she’s looking at a 30% return pretty quickly) Fiona feels like she’s got a lot to look forward to. Ford doesn’t think so. He doesn’t like that guy so much he not so subtly throws shade every time they talk about it. Ford doesn’t trust him at all and that makes Fiona feel like Ford doesn’t trust her in both a romantic and professional sense. This has brought up a lot of insecurities in Ford and Fiona doesn’t know what to make of it. Ford’s essential problem is that he’s jealous. When the conversation of what their relationship is comes around, it throws Fiona off more. She’s happy with how their seeing each other and is more occupied with the career side of her life so she doesn’t know where this is coming from. She goes to V for advice who tells her, if you leave your relationship– your intentions–with Ford up in the air, it leaves too many questions open.  That causes problems. Communicate people! It’s important for healthy relationships.

Liam is in public school for the first time and the environment is less than ideal. Low standards would probably be the best word for it. He’s far and away the most advanced student in his class and now he’s got a bully breathing down his neck. Liam is quick to adapt though. There’s a monster of a boy in his class and after letting the kid cheat off his quiz once, Liam gets the idea that he’s found his protection. Looks like it’ll work.

Finally, Kevin stumbles across an article about the worst bars in the city and The Alibi is ranked as the most “rapey.” He takes offense to this and then looks around the bar and seemingly for the first time, notices the not so subtle objectification of women motif that’s plastered on every wall. Frank isn’t the only one with a mission now as Kevin works to clean up the bar, and their patrons, image. By far the funniest aspect of this week’s episode.

Mo White!

It’s Oldest Sister and Youngest Brother Day on Shameless! Due to Frank’s sexual escapades with the PTA, the parents have turned on him. That means Liam is punished for Frank’s actions. He’s kicked out of the private school with a few weeks left of the school year and he doesn’t know what to do. Fiona has decided not to bail Ian out of jail so she has a $50k hole burning in her pocket. She wants to invest it and starts looking at commercial real estate. While she dabbled in that sector with the laundromat, she’s stepping into a much bigger pool. Ford tells her to watch out when dealing with a certain guy he’s worked with before but Fiona is all about getting her real estate hustle on. With Liam sitting around the house kicked out of school, Fiona takes him with her. Liam is a really bright kid and has picked up on a lot of rich people lingo while at school. With Liam and Fiona teaming up, they outplay the fancy real estate agent and it looks like Fiona has found herself on the first rung of a very long and lucrative ladder.

Frank, meanwhile, is on to his next hustle. He’s strapped for cash again and finds himself running around town picking up campaign signs around the neighborhood. $5 a sign from the opposition is quick and easy money. This puts Frank onto the political tracks and when he gets rebuffed for wanting to pick up more signs, he spins it into his own crusade. It looks like political representation is starting to look less like him now (diversity! ack!) and he wants to do something about it. At the Alibi, he whips the local clientele into fundraising their out of nowhere champion, Mo White. This is going to get interesting.

Debbie is also out and about beating her own political drum. With the reality of her being paid less than her co-workers simply because she’s a woman, she does more research and she’s all fired up about it.

Carl is now back home and for some no good reason, it looks like whatever happened to Kassidi is going to be ignored. Carl shows no sign that anything happened and she doesn’t appear in this episode at all (not the first time Shameless has done something and quickly don’t-think-about-it-and-move-on). Carl still has his sights on getting to West Point and needs high ranking recommendations for his application. He also needs community service to bump his character quality up. With no real job experience he gets placed with a guy who euthanizes dogs on the cheap. Wary of the whole ordeal, he goes along with it until it’s go time. One of the dogs is a service animal and Carl draws the line, he wants these old dogs to go out on their own terms, when they are ready to pass on their own.

While Lip has been watching over Xan for awhile, things have been going well. That is until this week when she’s baby sitting Kev and V’s twins. She steals a woman’s wallet at the park and ditches the twins. A real crisis, Lip has to make things right and meets a kid at AA who is not doing well. When the kid asks Lip to be his sponsor, Lip shys away from the request, which Brad thinks is dumb. With some words of encouragement from Brad, Lip becomes a sponsor.

Ian gets out of jail! Not because of Fiona, but his Gay Jesus following. They crowd funded the bail money as soon after getting out, Ian sees that his following has been active without him. Gay Jesus has grown without him and now that he’s “back” all of these events and appearances have been made for him. Ian is in not a good mental place. It’s hard to tell where he is and he certainly doesn’t know. Getting pushed back into the spotlight freaks him out and Ian runs for it. Of all the plot lines, this one is my least favorite and I have no idea where they can go with this. Is Ian going back to the street? Will the family have to rescue him again? Odds are, since he ran he won’t be found for awhile and he’ll miss all the obligations he has to do to keep himself out of jail.

Last but not least, Kev and V look for a pre-school for the girls. And gad zooks is it expensive! After being priced out of one place they find one that looks more like a dog kennel. They run out of there and find another location that’s run by nuns. It looks great, the price is right, and they go, hey, this is a Jesus Rules family! Then the bad news: there’s only one spot available. With no other choice, Kev and V begin coaching their kids how to appear as one person at school. That makes sense it it will absolutely work!

Are you there Shim? It’s Me, Ian.

The Gallaghers are back! Time to catch up with the fam.

Ian is in jail after the last stunt we watched him pull at the end of last season. He’s doing…well? He’s brought his crusade into the prison, standing up for the vulnerable against the predators. Ian has made himself the leader of those being abused and taken advantage of, causing a sex strike. Given the situation, Ian is making a positive difference and he seems to be enjoying the roll. So much so that he’s dismissive of  Fiona when she visits and tells him she’s close to getting the 50k for his bail. Ian is acting “off” leading to the obvious question of if he’s on his meds. He waves it away again and the rest of the family (and her boyfriend Ford) is wary of bailing Ian out. More than just bailing him out, they’re concern that Ian is going to flake on his obligations and leave Fiona out to dry. Fiona is pretty gung ho about it, with the mentallity that Gallaghers stick together. Ian is in trouble and he has no one else to rely on. It’s an interesting twist as the kids, who really aren’t kids anymore, aside from Liam, are throwing red flags up. They are all working for a living now and they are not behind what could very well be throwing 50k out the window on someone who currently can’t be relied upon. Fiona is in a bit of a moral quandry. Getting the hesitation from Ford  was one thing, getting it from all of her siblings makes her worry.

Frank has been busy using his manley capabilties on the female population of the PTA and his rather lengthy and unsafe sex practices come to roost in the community. Good on Frank for his ability to spin a situation in his favor. Mostly. Liam continues to buck what Frank tries to teach him and does his best to be honest.

Lip is keeping things going on his end. Still sober and with a new short hair cut, he’s watching over Xan while her mother is who knows where. Brad has put himself together and has asked Lip to be his best man at his wedding. There, Lip meets the maid of honor and it is now pretty obvious he has met his new hard to get obsession.

Deb is cracking along at work, welding everything she can get her hands on (with her new steel toe protectors firmly strapped to her boots) when she finds out that she’s getting paid $3 less than the men. Deb swings into action to make her point and lands herself equal pay.

Carl is flexing his stuff at bootcamp. He’s well into the positon of bossing his cadets around and one of them is…below par. A strike against Carl getting a major promotion. The other strike is his wife Kassidi, who has posted herself right outside the gate, professing her love for Carl to whomever walks near her. When the Disappointing Cadet hears Carl complain about Kassidi, he gets an idea. Just before the end of the episode the guy tells Carl “No one will find the body.” Cue panic.

Finally, Kev and V are on their own with Svet gone. Their twins are going buckwild and the bar is just managing to stay afloat. Struggling to wear out the kids and getting quality time for themselves it finally dawns on them: Pre-school!

It’s great to be back with the Gallaghers. Everyone is doing their own thing and the stages have been set for their own drama. Carl’s is the most serious and Lip’s is the most obvious of what will probably happen. I think the most interesting will be Fiona’s major decision about Ian as this signals a possible major change in the family ethos.