Love Songs (In the Key of Gallagher)

Here we are, the end of Season 5. My general thoughts are that it was a really good season. A lot of independent stories that broke the Gallagher’s into groups, but it all kept them together in the end.

The theme was love and loss, with equal part sex and heartbreak. Some major changes in all the relationships of this season.

Lip comes to a bit of a crossroads with his Mrs. Robinson love arrangement. He’s put in a rather uncomfortable position in his adult relationship and goes along with it. This drives the final wedge between him and Amanda as she finally comes to the conclusion that they aren’t in a real relationship. Great public breakup, just enough awkwardness to make Lip feel like the tool he really is. Lip goes home.

Ian gets to know Monica a bit better on their hitchhiking trip to her boyfriends trailer. While he felt alienated and uncomfortable at home, there’s simply no place for him with his mother and meth cooking boyfriend who looks to be just a few older than himself. This run, just like the kidnapping one, comes to a halt. Ian goes home and to the shock of everyone, breaks up with Mickey. I see Ian in purgatory, stuck between hating how the medication makes him feel and how dangerous he can be without it. Without meds he’s himself, a person he feels that doesn’t need to be fixed. That feels normal to him, but how will he manage? Out of everyone, Ian is in the worst space of the Gallagher’s at the end of the season. Mickey sent out to drift is not good either.

Fiona is just terrible at relationships and it gets told right to her face. She clipped Jimmy out but is still running back and forth between Gus and Sean. Both of which are nebulous relationships. I guess Ian isn’t the only one in purgatory. She betrayed Gus so he’s really wary of her. Sean has his own intense issues and really can’t tolerate her wishy-washy personality. With things looking on the outs, she hops over to Sean right away with a smile on her face only to get shut down (at one point even getting denied being called a friend). Sean really knows who she is. Fiona just isn’t going to get what she wants out of either of them.  I think Gus will be gone next year, she might still try with Sean. All of this has kept her out of the family drama which leads to Debbie….

…who is just a ball of anger right now. She resents Fiona pretty much entirely now. She uses Fiona’s choices as bases for her own and when Fiona objects, Debbie shuts her down with her hypocrisy. It’d be a good trick if Debbie wasn’t a stupid kid making horrible decisions time and time again. Everything Debbie thinks she understands always blows up in her face because she knows nothing. I wanted to see Fiona really dig in and call her out, but she’s so out of the loop she really can’t. All it took for Debbie to believe her “kid with Derek” plan is a good idea was for him to say “I love you” back. It convinced her of this adult plan when she has no idea what she’s doing. If she is pregnant (which I think she is), it’s going to blindside Derek and she’s going to run crying back to Fiona. She’s got Derek pegged all wrong (she really needs to pay attention to all the times he shows he’s terrified of breaking his dad’s rules). This is going to be major next year.

Frank’s love story with Bianca comes to a close. A person he truly cared for and wanted to help. I’m not sure how he’s going to process this loss. He’s skipped on so many relationships before with little thought, but Bianca was a much different story to anything he’s been through. She was terminal reckless while he always skirts the edge. Her death is him being abandoned. I really liked Bianca, one of the most memorable characters and plot lines of the show. Frank returns home and he can’t talk to anyone about it. He’s really depressed and no one has any clue what he’s been doing for the past few weeks. The dichotomy of his interaction with his sons when he gets back (the screen grab at the top of this post) was really striking. He’s truly bummed out, expresses his feelings rather poetically to Ian and Lip. They laugh (and bond a bit) over Frank being frank with them, but have no context about what he was on about. To them it was just their dad reappearing after weeks of not giving a shit.

I really loved the end. More or less a reunion at the Gallagher home with a final shot of insanity. Having Sammi show up like the Terminator just as Ian and Mickey are breaking up was a stroke of genius. It was such a Shameless moment, perfect way to end it.

Everyone is looking for happiness and it looks like Kev and V’s reconciliation was the only silver lining. Fiona probably has no husband or boyfriend. Ian breaks up Mickey, Lip breaks a girls heart but has blossoming (?) cuckolding relationship to turn to. Frank has been crushed and Debbie may or man not be ruining her life (she will be ruining her relationship with Derek though). Actually, the one bright side is that Chuckie and Carl seem to be doing the most with their detention time.

With this, Shameless is completely primed for another great season. I can’t wait for next year.

Fugitive Number One

That #1 would be Lady Ava Crowder. Her shoot and run last episode put her mug shot on the top of the list and a whole lotta people mad at her. Vasquez is furious that she turned as in convinced that Raylan had been scheming with her the whole time. He’s putting the squeeze on everyone to get Raylan back under heel, but Raylan managed to stay out. He’s got a lot riding on this one and is really the only one who can catch her.

Avery continued to try and make things work and just about all of it came crashing down on him. Boon runs off to harass Loretta again, I find it hard to believe he (and Avery) think they are going to make any headway with her at all.  Avery also made up with Hale (maybe a truce) and tells her he’s going to handle all their problems. He goes after Carl and Earl, Boyd’s crew in lockup, to force them to get info about where Ava is and then kill him. Pays of some crooked cops to help him. As history has already proven, Avery is great at picking terrible people to work do his dirty work.

Much of this episode showed off a lot of misdirection. A lot of people thought they knew what was going on and no one actually did. Just about every decision made things worse.

Boyd, seriously wounded and in custody manages to get out of the hospital thanks to Avery. He’s after Ava along with just about every cop in a three state radius. Raylan is hot on the trail, after getting info from Boyd about Ava possibly running with her uncle Zachariah. That idea turned out to be true as he’s the only one she could turn to and needs help just physically moving that amount of cash. Their best bet is to traverse the mountain trails, completely off the grid, but the plan hits a brick wall when they find their guide dead in his cabin. He died alone, quite some time ago. The walls are closing in on Ava, she’s running out of options.

Two major highlights this week. The Hale and Duffy encounter that happened due to Mike turned out to be absolutely bonkers. I didn’t see it coming and I’ll leave it at that.

The second highlight was the Boon and Raylan encounter in front of Avery. Raylan is in a rush to bring this insanity to a close and Boon is all over him like a puppy. Boon is just raring to go, it’s hilarious. And then that little news bomb that Hale disobeyed his orders…

We’re getting down to the wire, it’s going to be interesting to see who makes it to the end. It’s all about Ava now and she is screwed. She can’t get caught by anyone, it’ll be death or a fate worse than death for her. I figure her best bet is to leave most of the money behind. It’s just slowing her down too much. She could probably carry a few hundred thousand comfortably and that’s more than enough to get by. When your back is to the wall like hers is, you gotta cut the greed nonsense and make some real choices to get away. I have no idea how she thinks she can even spend $10 million in cash anyway. It’s pretty silly the police choppers don’t have infrared cameras on them, so they would have been found on that fly by. I’ll ignore it for the sake of good TV though.

Season 5 turned out to be a really solid 16 episodes. Things started off with a bang with the escape from Terminus and they managed to keep every episode important regardless of action and death content.

This show walks on a very precarious line every week. The gore hounds want carnage all the time, so a “slower” episode often gets derided as being boring or that “nothing happened.” Something always happens though, you have to pay attention. There’s great character insight and change. Going from a death trap to the brutal environment of wandering the land took it’s toll on everyone. There were major reveals, major internal strife in the group and some very big character losses.

Alexandria itself was like adding a new character. Reintegration into a fledgling, normal society is not easy. PTSD skews everything into darkness.  There’ s a lot there to be wary of, but a lot of that was from the baggage the group brought in with it. “Being out there too long” was the best way to put it. Big Bad Rick made serious waves and although his explosion was extreme, it was needed. I think Carol stole this season, she went through it all this year. Rambo Carol at the start, to my favorite, Incognito Carol at the end. Loved seeing Morgan! He’s like this old thread weaved into the show that may finally get his time. He’s changed a lot and might be the ground that Rick needs.

Through the madness, humanity was (mostly) held down in the end. Both Sasha and Glenn held it together when pushed. Gabriel, a ghost of a man, admitted his trauma and defeat out loud. Rick was proved right.

Major set ups for next season are well established and look to offer up some serious juice. The power at Alexandria is likely to shift, I’m looking forward to see how Morgan is used too. The Wolves are going to bring back the external group threat to the show. The later half of this season was really internal “We are the walking dead,” but this group should bring some serious external terror back. Nothing quite like really good antagonists to stir up the pot.

Drugs Actually

The season is coming in for a landing and some plot lines are coming to a conclusion, a lot of stuff happened that I didn’t foresee, really fun episode from start to finish. Some fantastic acting too.

First, I’ll talk about The Snitch as it was the biggest mindblower for me last week. I thought the revenge plot would kick things off, but it was a much slower burn. Everyone is mad as hell, but Sammi stuffed the first encounter easily. Guns can do that. Deb seemed to really relish in coming up with a revenge plan, but Mickey jumped ahead of her a bit. Pretty disturbing to see Mickey react so casually to killing someone, but he’s not exactly a good person. I think this was the first major event for Mickey and Deb to handle together, they usually don’t get much screen time together. Putting her in her moving stuff seems like a rather cross your fingers plan, but good news for Sammi as she woke up mid move. Will she rear up next week or just take it as the final shot from her half-family?

V and Kev duked it out for most of the episode, but it looks like our favorite neighbors are going to hold it together. It was great to see them happy together at the end for the first time in awhile.

Sean and Fiona have such on screen chemistry, it’s amazing. Their diner scene was great to see play out. It’s hard to believe Fiona and Gus have any future together as they just don’t match up any more. Sean and Fiona may be a bad together from having the exact same serious flaws, but that might be what actually keeps them together in the end. There’s no break in period for broken  people, it’s more like common ground. Are they strong enough to keep bailing out all the water that keeps filling their boat? Much like seeing V and Kev happy, it was nice to see Fiona smile and be happy with someone.

It’s a trip to see Frank uncomfortable about the debauchery that keeps him going. He really loves Bianca and didn’t see what was going between them. She’s been racing to the end of a bridge where he’s been mindful of when to jump out of the car to just get scraped up. He’s been near death before but always had the spark to fight back. Bianca being terminal, has been using Frank’s corruption as a farewell party. His conscious actually kicked in for once (crack is bad for the immune system). I thought for sure she was going to leave him in the dust, but you can’t keep a charmer down for long. It’s been a blast to see them interact and now I’m wondering if Frank will literally help her to the end. Could she convince him to help her commit suicide? I’m having a hard time read her, she’s so adamant not to get any treatment, but will she even wait until she feels really sick? She’s been living like there is no tomorrow. Hmmm…

As much encourgement Lip has gotten (and needs) to elevate his life by applying himself and “getting out,” he really got a glimpse of the other side of the fence. The relationship with Helene is weird enough as it is (the reaction from her husband about the tie was a real red flag. Oh and Norbert too if I’m reading that one right). Those roots to royalty are really being put to the test has he was in the thick of the gentrification. He punched back at it, but I don’t know how he’s going to react going forward. It’s going to get really weird.

That leaves us with Ian. That meeting at the Army base was brutal. He’s sitting at the head of the table while his brother and sisters are trying to help get him cleared of wrong doing by basically an insanity plea. He must have felt like he was being eaten alive. I felt so bad for him. Shocked to see Monica let alone the news that they’ve been talking. Who else could he talk to though? Like he said, she understands. Amazing scene with them talking through the glass. Chloe Webb is an incredible actress, just amazing stuff bringing that intense writing to life. It’s this kind of touchy and on the fringe material being done so well that elevates Shameless above all other shows.

Next week is the season finale, I’m both looking forward to and dreading it.

Trust

A great game of cat and mouse this week, Raylan just waiting to spring his trap on Boyd. Ever the clever rat, Boyd can smell a trap set that specific cat.

Boyd made his decisions on who to trust. He shakes off the betrayal of Zachariah (I’m still waiting for him to show up, Ava thinks he’s still alive too) and makes his final moves to get the $10 million. All in with Ava! He pays off Limehouse for the necessary getaway materials and goes on the offensive. He sends his only two soldiers to go after the bank truck knowing it’s a decoy. By completely screwing them, he gets the distraction he wanted to go pick up Hale by gunpoint so he can ransom her to Avery. A plan that finally worked! He buzzes down the dirt road in a crappy pick up truck to meet up with Ava who is waiting with the getaway car and fake ID’s. He drops a dime on Hale hiring him for the heist too. His cackle was the greatest as he got into the truck. I thought Avery was pissed when Loretta dumped on him at his party, but this is some next level stuff. He can’t trust anyone now as Raylan tipped him off to her betrayal earlier too.

ADA David Vasquez has decided to make things difficult for Ava though. He’s adamant that she’s contributed nothing as a CI, so her deal is null and void. When they snag Boyd, she’s going back to jail. This really bothers Raylan (and me) and tells her what’s going down. She’s given the latest details on Boyd so the feds can get him with the money too! Annoyed beyond any measure of human cognizance, she then tries to think of other ways to save herself. What if she gets Boyd to confess to killing Dewey? That’s something.

Hold on to your hats folks, because Ava says forget all this nonsense and pops Boyd at the meeting place! The sound Boyd made when he got shot was just classic. I’m not sure if it was more shock than pain. She waves Raylan goodbye knowing that the chase is on. Ava has to get to Canada or Mexico as fast as humanly possible. I must say I didn’t see this happening. Getting her deal pulled out from under her feet was the dumbest thing the ADA could have done. Total game changer for Ava, someone who’s had a boot to their head for that long is bound to snap back in a bad way.

The side notes this week were Duffy and Boon. Mike puts things together about Duffy being the snitch and made a move to give him up to Hale. His timing was a bit off though as she was in Boyd’s custody at the time he called her. This should pan out in a big way next week. Hale’s got to tread carefully on this one, since she’s in deep water with Avery already. She can’t let Duffy talk to Avery, that whole “she’s all about killing you too” thing would not fly well.

Boon is a model employee. Does what you tell him to. Fantastic dialog with Raylan in the diner and he really got to show off his Professional Creep abilities in his final scene. All for a hat too…a man obsessed with Raylan just completed his look. Only question now is, how long until their final confrontation?

The show has jumped off into a new tragectory and I love it. Anything could happen now, really exciting stuff.

South Side Rules

A lot of loyalties and trust put to the test! Let’s run them down.

Fiona continued to back Sean in his time of need, even with some rather rude accusations (which were well warranted). She does have his back though. When Debbie decides to go go all the way with Derek, she does the right thing and tells Fiona about wanting to go on birth control. Fiona fights the urge to high horse it and does the right thing. She makes an appointment for her and they go together. Fiona has her back. Great to see this bond come through at an important time.

Frank tries to stick with Bianca when he gets kicked kicked out by her in the morning and then later, aside by her sister (which was well warranted). As we saw last week, Frank has really found a friend (he may try more than that, but there is at least some sort of actual legitimate bond there). V even gave Frank the same reaction I did at first, “What’s the scam?” He got all mad about it and left The Alibi in a huff. He stuck with it though, camping out in front of her apartment building with a bit of vodka. Frank’s stubborn as a mule attitude paid off in a good way for once. I really like this road for Frank, I want to see it play out.

Lip got a much needed wake up call from Helene. His scheming splashed back on him again and she threw his “South Side Rules” in his face. If he doesn’t cut the nonsense, he’ll never get out. Lip saw this for himself at the beginning of the season, but someone of real authority (and perversion…) reminded him of it matter-o-factly.

Mickey and Ian back in full force. Ian is so disconnected from the meds that he purposefully burns the hell out of his hand on the grill at work. Still apathetic and angry about everything, he got Mickey to go on a bit of a bender with him. It actually made them reconnect and have fun, something they both were missing. With things on the upswing, that brings us to The Shameless Moments!

First, Debbie got the brain dead idea that having a kid would be a good thing. To “choose” her own family. She lies to Derek about being on the pill (never see her take it and the doctor told her it takes 48 hours to start working). The mountain of a horrible idea this is. I wanted to jump through the screen and warn Derek. It drives me insane that she could think this was a good idea. I hope to God she doesn’t get pregnant.

AND THEN THE SNITCH. Colossal, Earth shattering, revenge by Sammi! Ian let it slip that the Army was looking for him (with a list about the length of his arm). He comes home with Mickey and then she apologizes to him right as he walks in the door. Ian and I both go, “What’s this about?” and two dudes in fatigues pop out! He gets dragged into a car as Fiona comes home, Sammi drops a nasty line on Fiona and even has the nerve to go back into the house! If next weeks episode doesn’t start with the biggest Gallagher fight in series history, I don’t know what direction up is anymore. There is no way Fiona and Mickey don’t drag her out by her hair into the street and pelt her with everything she owns in the house from the second floor windows. They wanted her to hit the bricks before? That’s nothing now. Holy animal. I can’t believe she went back into the house, I’m still going nuts about it.

Can’t wait for next week.

Burned

Avery had quite a bit of a rollercoaster ride this week. One thorn removed, another one in.

The big mover this week was Loretta McCready, who we haven’t seen in some time. She swung around her home grown flag right in Avery’s face at his own party and he was none too pleased about it. Some not so subtle threats (hello new character Boon) only made her look into local defense possibilities. Loretta is confident she can boot Avery and his “city mouse” girlfriend out of Harlan County. I’m rooting for her, it’s great to see an old character come back with new and reinvigorated purpose.

Avery’s merc problem was successfully rubbed out by Hale. If Seabass knew who Hale was, he never would have let her get her handbag. She’s got an interesting phone book at hand, that kind of clean up service can’t be easy or cheap to find.

Duffy, you little rat! When it fits, it fits.

With that out of the way, Avery still had Boyd to tangle with. Always the opportunistic, Raylan successfully made Boyd fast forward his “steal the money” plan by two days with a well placed lie. This move gave the action but not the result Raylan was looking for. The detonation under the safe went off but it didn’t work. For some reason, I thought it would, as did Raylan, so we were both surprised.

Zachariah finally strikes! I’ve had my eye on him since his first plan didn’t work out and I’ve been wonder how he’d do it.  Chaining Boyd right under the blast was a good one, but with Carl saving the day, Zach better have made a contingency plan for Boyd coming at him.

Gotta say I wanted to Ava to really go pop off on Boyd after he went after her thinking she was scheming with Zachariah. Greed always clouded his judgement, he should have known better. That greed has completely taken over now. Not deterred by being nearly blown apart and buried at the same time, Boyd is committed to stealing the money as Avery moves it from the safe. Raylan, of course, knows Boyd is going to go after it since his plan didn’t work (not knowing the specifics of Zachariah’s wrath).

Boyd is so mad it’s going to be a real test for him to pull himself together. This heist wouldn’t be easy without Raylan shadowing him. Should be some wild action next week! Cops and robbers here we come.

Carl’s First Sentencing

This week Ian’s story took a bit of a break. He wakes up in a rather alarming way and agrees to go back on meds. Mickey watches him (as does everyone else).

Kevin got an unusual temp job on campus! Didn’t see that bringing him back to V in the end like that (“Good talk man.”). He better not tell her what he was doing over the weekend.

Lip gets a bit of a break and he doesn’t see “the angle” on why he’s been helped out with tuition. Not surprising as he’s never really met a truly charitible person in his life before. In typical Lip fashion, he’s clear of one problem and right in the middle of another head scratcher. I don’t know how he does it, but it seems like every woman he gets close to is a landmine. The revelation that she’s married was certainly a surprise, but when the husband is okay with it, this is a whole new road to travel. College is certainly a learning experience. Now are they going to bring the hacker kid back into it, or will this triangle be his undoing? Or both?

I really didn’t think Carl was going to go full gangster. Shows what I know as it’s probably the right choice. If he ratted on his boss, there’s a good chance he wouldn’t make it through this season. As Lip said, “It was bound to happen sooner or later.” As terrible of a road he’s on, let’s face it, he’s been on it for awhile now. Carl was never going to be an outstanding citizen, he’s probably the most like Frank out of all of the kids. He would never get to 9th grade let alone graduate high school. He’s genuinly excited to go away! There’s no telling what he’s going to learn in juvie. Interest in seeing how they handle showing it.  A year is a long time, can’t really skip what he’s up to. Poor Chuckie! That bag of rocks barely knows what’s in front of his face if it isn’t a pancake. Sammi stole every scene she was in, it was pretty wild the lengths she went through. As messed up as it is, she’s probably the best parent on the show.

Fiona is stretched all over this episode. She halts her self interests in favor of her brothers which I liked to see. When Sean hits the dirt (due to things out of his control) she’s the only one there for him. Would she let go of Gus and be with Sean? She has a lot more in common with him.

Really liked Frank’s story this week. We’ve seen him do benders before and I thought this one would be just like his others. Frank is a hell of charmer when he really turns it on and Bianca was an easy mark for him. He got a lot out of those two days with her and so did she. I was pretty shocked to see him not take the money and run. Did he actually make a friend? They had a lot of great moments, it was fun to see Frank guide her into somewhat safe debauchery. I hope he sees her to the end, I think that’d be incredible to watch.