icl I do really like that shameless has so many gaps when it comes to Ian and mickey. I mean, at times it's annoying, but it also means that so many extra things could just be canon.
I see a lot of people saying that my fic iron bars is canon to them, which I really appreciate and love to hear, but also like, it could be. We know nothing about their time in prison, so none of it is a re-write of canon. It's more of a gap-fill, so it could be what happened.
Same with the s3 sleepover, the gap between s4 and s5, even s7 when the cop says 'you visited Mickey on multiple occasions' is a huge gap because we only saw one so you never really know what happened there. I really like that. It just opens up so many things to the imagination.
I especially love that last one because it could be so many things. Maybe the cop was wrong and it was just that once. Maybe Ian had visited before the one we see in s6. I saw one theory that Ian turned up to the prison a few times between s6 and s7 but never actually visited, just signed his name in and then couldn't go through with it. Maybe he was sporadically visiting in s7 pre-Trevor (unlikely, because mickey says he 'never fucking visited' but Mickey's very capable of exaggeration, and we already know it's not entirely true because we see one visit).
I also love the gap between s4 and s5, because that's when things would have been pretty smooth sailing for them. Ian will have recovered from his depressive episode at some point and would not have been as manic as he becomes later in s5 (he might have even been somewhat steady, because lets not forget that bipolar people aren't always in an episode and can have periods of stable mood even without medication). I lean towards Ian being in a stable mood, tbh. There's a reason we don't have any episodes during that time, and with Shameless that's often because nothing big is happening at that point. I love the idea of them just being domestic and boring and fine and happy in the ~6 months between s4 and s5. Getting used to being out, living together, being in a relationship without hellfire raining down on them every five seconds like in the early seasons.
The s3 sleepover gap I think was intentional. I posted about that a year ago, about how I think the s3 sleepover was purposefully not included in the script because they finally have privacy from everyone to just be together, which includes privacy from the audience. When I posted that I had a few people saying that it's a nice idea but the Shameless writers weren't that intentional and didn't think things through that much, which I disagree with. Sure, the writing gets sloppy in the later seasons, but in the first 5 seasons, everything is very intentional. They clearly do think things through then, so I think it was purposeful.
Either that, or they were nervous about showing gay sex and stuff, which I've heard a few people say, but even then I don't think so. I agree that the writers didn't want to show as much sex between Ian and Mickey as with other characters, probably because they were gay, but they still showed some things in s1 and s2. They show the hands in s1, which implies sex, they show them in the freezer at the KashnGrab in s2, they show Ian bending Mickey over about fifty times, so they could have done that again. But they don't. They leave it completely blank, and I think it's because that's such an intimate moment for them that it's not even open for the audience to see.
Also, Shameless doesn't show intimacy that much. It shies away from it. It's more comfortable with graphic sex scenes than more intimate ones, generally. Intimacy is very much implied throughout a lot of the show, and I think that is for two reasons, one, because Shameless often relies on shock factor, on fast paced scenes, on dramatic moments instead of soft ones (it's a drama at the end of the day) and two, because it's self-aware enough to know that its viewer can realise the intimacy is there without it being shown.
Of course, there are exceptions. There are a few intimate scenes with Jimmy and Fiona, like when he takes her to a hotel. But still, they're few and far between and their intimacy was not as monumental as Ian and Mickey's was, because Ian and Mickey were under threat of death by Terry and had refused to admit feelings for each other for two whole years.
Sorry, I went on such a rant from my original point. Anyway, I love that Shameless leaves some things to the imagination. It lets you explore so many different aspects of what could have happened and it opens a lot of discussion which I love. I don't think I would be as obsessed with it as I am if it had made everything super clear and obvious.
