Gallavich!

The season finale brought the plane in for a clean landing, bringing us to the start of the final season’s wild arcs.

Mickey and Ian’s big day arrives and things kick off with a disaster: Mickey’s dad, Terry, burns down the venue. Mickey’s first thought is to kill his father to solve his lifetime of problems that has culminated in today’s homophobic powered arson. They manage to stop him and his only other plan is to give up. Deb takes a stand and rallies the troops to make the wedding a success where everyone they’ve invited can celebrate.

Every character gets pulled into the scramble in pulling this party off so this finale had all of my favorite Shameless moments. The whole cast interacts and that’s very rare.

A venue is needed for over 100 guests so that becomes priority number one. It’s narrowed down to The Polish Doll, and everyone splits up to get everything brought there and set up.

Starting with Liam, his personal goal is to get Frank to show up and get a nice car for Mickey and Ian to drive away in at the end of the reception. He goes to Franks winter house and first makes an honest plea; Dad, you should attend your son’s wedding. Frank doesn’t care so Liam quickly shifts gear, appealing to Frank’s greed and ego. He tells him they are selling the house for $200,000 and he’s going to be left out of it. That whips Frank into a frenzy and Liam succeeds in roping Frank to drive to the wedding in the sweet Mercedes. Liam watches over Frank for the day and finds out Frank had a rather sordid ordeal with the woman owner of the bar many years ago. Frank’s afraid to go in but when he’s spotted, he finds out it’s all water under the bridge and they make up.

Tami is furious at Lip and is doing everything she can to avoid him. Their argument takes a temporary back seat to the wedding as Lip and Deb go to work securing The Polish Doll. There’s a whole lotta homophobia in town (The Doll has a bat behind the bar that’s nickname is about as far from a veiled threat as you can get) so they lie saying Deb is going to be marrying Mickey and play the distraught “my wedding is ruined by a fire” bride-to-be to get an extra pity push on the owners. V finds Deb a wedding dress to completely sell the lie and other arrangements are made to hide the fact that it’s going to be a gay wedding for as long as possible. All the deliveries are then moved from the Gallagher house to The Polish Doll and it the Gallagher hustle looks like it’s going to work (Mickey is caught happily commenting on how good the tables and chairs look).

In the fray, Julia shows up to the house claiming that since her mother kicked her out of the house, she has to move in with Deb. Deb is beside herself and tells her to leave and sprints off to prepare for the wedding. Julia, thinking she’s come up with a great plan, meets Sandy and then meets Sandy’s fist. Julia has a lot to learn on the ins and outs of how things operate in the South Side so once laid out she gets less aggressive and lays low. Carl ends up talking to her at the reception where she admits that she isn’t gay, she’s just been curious and her last experiment clearly hasn’t worked. Spurred by the admission, the two run off to the bathroom together.

With V off helping Deb, Kevin is left more or less alone to handle the bar until the wedding. His down-to-the-salt-of-the-earth gym has started well. He’s got 20 paying clients and he’s succeeded in getting half of them to barf into the vomit garbage can. The true sign of a great work out. This means extra income, which Tommy sees him hiding. Kevin isn’t exactly subtle so V notices the move as well. When she confronts him at the end of the night, he surprises her with a wedding ring. While he’s got to go through the trials and tribulations of ending his legal marriage we found out about a few seasons ago, it’s a major deal for these two and we’ll get to see our favorite neighbors make it super official in the final season.

Tami attends the wedding with Fred, which is a relief for Lip to see. No one else knows about their fight and he takes this as a good sign, maybe she isn’t that mad at me. She is. They have a blow-up fight as Tami is getting ready to leave and it doesn’t go well. She tells him she’s taking off for Milwaukee with Fred and if he’s so sure about sticking so close to his family, he can stay here. It turns into threats of going to court and they only stop fighting because Fred becomes upset. When she leaves, he goes to the bar for a Coke. I was happy to see him calm himself down and not do anything stupid but when the bartender asks him if he wants rum in his drink, he hesitates for a moment and says yes. He quickly drinks two and I got really worried. He fell off the wagon and anything could happen. At the end of the night, he walks to Brad’s house and tells him he needs to find a meeting. A major sign of relief from me to see him realize his mistake right away and seek help. Tami is there and while they see each other, they don’t talk.

The last we see of them is the next day when Tami walks in on Lip starting to work on the house he rented. A fixer-upper is putting it mildly and Tami is clearly skeeved out. I never thought she’d step foot in there so this was shocking to see. Lip is quiet and just as surprised to see her as I am. She asks for a facemask and they start working together, side by side. Knowing he drank and went to a meeting right away made a major impression on Tami. She had a lot to think about that night and her conclusion was not to run away. This was a major test for their relationship and I’m happy this was the outcome. For the two of them, this is both the hardest and best relationship they’ve ever been in.

Despite Terry’s rage, everyone Mickey and Ian are close to come together to give them a day to remember and the happiness they deserve. With all the contingencies in place, the ceremony went off without a hitch and everyone got to celebrate and have a good time. With all the strife that happens in this family, it was a lot of fun to watch this all come together. The only downer for me is that Fiona was never mentioned. That would have been a nice touch but it’s not the end of the world. I really hope they can get her to do an episode or two for the final season as they need her to do a proper send-off for the show.

But! It wouldn’t be Shameless without a solid shot of drama to leave us with. Halfway through the episode, Julia told her mother that she was staying with Deb. The morning after the wedding, two police officers show up at the house. Carl wakes up next to Julia and answers the door where the police say they are there to arrest Deb for statutory rape. Julia is underage and clearly Claudia went nuclear after their phone call. Deb sprints out of the house and we’re left with this open can of worms. Carl needs to watch out too because he’s at least 18 (I’m pretty sure Deb is 19).

In a final dose of dark humor, Ian and Mickey are together in their honeymoon bed in their just-married bliss. While talking about what their last name should be, they hear the distinct sound of a speeding car just outside screech to a halt. They roll to the floor to avoid a maelstrom of bullets. Looking up at the ceiling amongst the falling debris, Ian laments that Terry is “still a little bit upset” about their marriage.

This was a strong season and a good amount of ground was covered for everyone. I’m glad Liam got more attention this year even if they bailed on some things prematurely. His character has also seen the most exposure as we saw the inherent good in him battle what he’s been taught by Frank and the circumstances he finds himself in due to his environment. He’s the only one who cares about Frank. Everyone else has had more years with him, and thus more experiences of betrayal and neglect. I think the bond that Liam has comes from Frank spending more time with him in his formative years than anyone else. The older kids (Fiona) always took over when he and Monica would disappear and while we saw comparatively few of those times on the show (we never saw Fiona as a young teen when she was forced to grow up fast) I got the impression that Frank has been around in the past few years more than he ever has. Hence why he’s been with Liam more. And–let’s be real–Frank needed a new partner in crime since all of his other kids have sworn him off. Out of everyone in the family, Liam is the only one who reaches out and tries to include Frank, to get him to reengage. It’s one of his most endearing qualities.

Liam has been taught to get yours every single chance you get. Being nice is for suckers and everyone can be exploited, you just need to pay attention. That’s how Liam hustles…plus he’s a legitimately smart kid who could have a bright future if he can combine all of his talents and get out of the South Side. The perfect demonstration of this is in this season finale when he gets Frank and the Mercedes to Ian’s wedding. He’s a lot like Lip in his potential but he was derailed by addiction. Something I hope Liam can continue to avoid.

All of this has gives a kid who often acts older than he is. I especially liked the moments in this season where we see the cracks in the wall he’s built. He loves his family but feels like an outsider. He wants a present farther. He wants to be included more with his siblings. He’s frequently ignored and left on his own because everyone thinks he can take care of himself with no problems. When they do come to him for something, he always steps up. He’s a very loyal guy and I wish more people recognized him. The one thing I’ve wanted to happen, finally happened. Lip asked him how he was doing and if he’s okay.

A happy ending with some sour notes is the Shameless way of things and we’ve been given some great jumping-off points for the final season. This is one of the strongest finales and while I’m sad that we’re getting down to the end of it all, I’m looking forward to seeing where this road ends up.

O Captain, My Captain

After leaving Frank handcuffed to a bed last episode, you’d think there would have been more substance to his story added this week but it was pretty bare. Faye uses Oxy to coax a confession from Frank even though she knows how he sold out her fiance all those years ago. Once she realizes he doesn’t remember what happened she uses drugs as a carrot on a stick to keep him talking. By doing this she basically leads him to all the answers she wants to hear so it feels more or less like a waste of time. To end her plan she gives him multiple pills and he passes out, letting her dump him into a car with a bunch of prescription pill bottles. I guess she wants to set him up to mirror what he did 24 years ago.

Lip manages to pull in hustled side work with Brad. They overcharge a doctor to fix his bike so Lip will be able to pocket a few thousand by fixing this bike outside of work hours. It’s a big score for Lip and he doesn’t get the reaction from Tami that he was expecting. Not that she isn’t happy about the much needed money but she’s not happy about their station in life. She inadvertently insults him but she has a good point in the end. We can’t think only of the immediate future, the biggest problem we have now. We have to start working for a better future where we aren’t living paycheck to paycheck. She’s fine with living in the RV for now but that’s not going to be true forever.

Deb is having fun with Claudia and when her older lover runs off to work, Claudia asks her to pick up her daughter from school and take her to her after school stuff (something to eat and spin class). Julia is 16-17 years old and she’s used to her mom’s hookers girlfriends picking her up after school as a babysitter. They butt heads for a bit, Julia testing Deb’s boundaries while trying to figure out who this new random girl is (as she insists she isn’t a hooker). Julia has been through this so many times she considers it a joke and tries to layout to Deb the kind of person Claudia really is. This leads to them trading bad mom stories to each other and Julia turns here, putting her guard down and kissing Deb. Deb is all about it too so now this plot just took a sharp turn I was not expecting. Even though Deb is a few years older, I think Julia is still minor so Deb is getting into extra dicey water on top of the whole “wanting to date another family member” thing.

Carl is having a blast with his vigilante class but he goes too far with it. After a number of kids get seriously hurt, the parents complain so Carl has to be moved to something else. How does Carl feel about trash? We’ll find out next week.

Kev and V have unloaded all of their snail patches and have moved on to another side hustle to make money. They come up with the idea of a mobile health clinic (think as ghetto as you can…the van they’re using is Kev’s old topless maid service mural one along with a high supply of Vick’s Vaporub). So the two hit the street and help super glue some people together. That’s where they run into a 15-year-old girl and her mother from a neighboring state who are in need of an abortion. With shifting abortion laws, the girl is forced to get help elsewhere (they don’t have insurance) and V does what she can to find a loophole for the situation. Word quickly spreads about the “abortion van” and the Ball’s now find themselves deep into a moral, societal, and political issue.

Lip and Mickey’s relationship is more than on the rocks. Mickey bails for the first guy that gives him attention and moves out to live with him. Mickey feels like he now knows how Ian feels about him and he’s not going to wait around for Ian to decide he loves him. This scares Ian into feeling like he’s being forced to marry Mickey or lose him forever. Liam helps him buy engagement rings and then he finds Lip to ask him what he thinks. Lip and Ian don’t get nearly enough screen time together. All the way back to the start of the show, their scenes were some of the best. There’s a certain level of honesty from brotherly love that no other characters can have (Liam is too young still and Carl is an idiot). Lip thinks Ian should wait to get married–to anyone–as simply diving in out of a perceived obligation is a bad idea. This is the opposite of what Deb told him. Do it and get divorced if/when you need to. She thinks he should live in the now to hit every vein of happiness that he can get. Terrible advice but that’s how Deb is living so it fits. When Ian essentially throws himself at Mickey, he sees through it and calls him out on his pity party. Ian has no self-confidence and thus doesn’t think he deserves love, which makes him afraid of commitment. Mickey sticks to his guns, figure yourself out and then maybe we can talk. This is probably the smarted conclusion Mickey has ever come to but is such a dumpster fire that his time living with his rebound is not going to last long.

There are varying levels of interest with each story going on for me. Frank’s was the most disappointing, but I like the beats that Lip and Tami are going through. Kev and V’s are getting surprisingly deep as they always have the D level stories. But we’ll see if anything of substance comes out of it as they tend to rush through their plots.

Some of my favorite moments are when the Gallagher’s are all (or mostly) together and that happens way too infrequently. The scene in the kitchen was hilarious as the kids are coming and going at the start of the day. They all have different stuff going on and they each get these mini-updates on each other that serve up these amazing rapid-fire one-liners. Add in the antagonistic Aunt Oopie running her mouth in the background and Tami mixing it up (more or less taking Fiona’s spot) and you have my favorite scene of the episode.

Debbie Might Be A Prostitute

I thought Deb would ask Ian for advice about her situation because he’s done some stripping work but she asks Lip when she sees him in the kitchen. She’s confused at why Claudia left her the money and Lip isn’t. He tells her Claudia obviously thought you were a prostitute. If she’s wrong, go speak to her about it. Deb then sees Megan who is thrilled that Deb has found a sugar-momma. Way less grossness to deal with compared to a sugar daddy. Deb still isn’t comfortable with the idea of it all and she finds Claudia to talk it out. In doing so they both learn more about each other and Deb makes it clear that she slept with her because she had legit feelings for Claudia and wants to continue an honest relationship. With Claudia’s past and how she’s been navigating her work/life balance she was oblivious to what Deb was feeling (to be fair, Deb was sitting in the known Ho Corner of the hotel bar). It’s possible Deb is entering her first positive relationship in…forever? It might be the first time.

Lip and Tami enter the next new phase of parenting decisions: who is going to be Fred’s legal guardian? If something happens to both of them, they have to plan for Fred’s future. The future has never been considered too much by these two so it’s an interesting family matters issue for them to navigate. Their families aren’t exactly ripe with quality candidates.

Liam hits new management heights as he fends off high-quality management competition for Todd. He knows he’s only been able to land Todd basic sponsorship deals so, in order to keep up, he sets up a major promotion push for Todd to get press. He takes a picture of Todd fixing his shoes and posts it to social media as a guy “finally standing up to injustice” in South Side. He gets the spotlight, but we’ll see what he can do with it.

Carl is gung-ho about making a difference now and he gets the idea to join the police but he’s too young to apply. At the precinct, he’s pointed to a goofy youth organization that the police don’t do anything with (it looks good on a college application). Carl is offended by the squishy and aimless kids he’s introduced to and decides to do everything in his power to whip these kids into shape. In typical Carl dysfunction, he ends up making a vigilante group. It’ll be great if they can keep this going for a few episodes to see how far Carl will get to go with it.

Ian and Mickey’s Paula problem has been taken care of. She was tossed out of her apartment through the window to her death. The window was shut which makes it a more obvious murder over a suicide so all of Paula’s parolees are suspects. That includes Ian and Mickey who both think the other killed Paula. They find out married couples can’t testify against each other so they decide to tie the knot at the courthouse to protect themselves. They are getting married under false pretenses, both thinking they are ultimately “protecting” the other so when the real murderer is found, their relationship takes a turn. They’re both exposed at not truely trusting each other and expecting the worst out of each other. Marriage is a big step no matter what so the question of if they really love each other comes to the front. When Ian asks for their papers back from the clerk, essentially saying to Mickey “I’m not being forced to marry you now”, Mickey freaks out.

Kev and V get a surprising windfall from the IRS and stupidly hand over all of it in a get rich quick pyramid scheme. These fancy snail mucus skincare pads sound like the real deal. They’re gold so they must work! Of course, they end up burning everyone’s face and when they try to get their money back, their signature on the contract says no. So they figure out that the main ingredient is caffeine and that’s the main ingredient in preparation H (thanks for the tip Kermit). They might be able to unload these stupid things to hemorrhoid sufferers. At the very least we get to see them make a really funny promo video. Maybe they should talk to Liam for help.

Things are going great for Frank with Faye until she baits him into a house and handcuffs him to a bed. Faye has a past with Frank that is not in his favor. 24 years ago he got her fiance arrested for selling drugs. Frank lied his way through the trial and got off free while her man has been in prison ever since. Faye is out for revenge. Cue dramatic music!