#brad young

[northernexposuregifs]

I lost my best friend over Shelly. And you know something? I didn't care.

Sometimes love will pick you up by the short hairs, Brad, and jerk the heck out of you.

[jademickian]

Sometimes i just be watching shameless then get hit with lines like “Role models and morals are for the comfortable middle-class. Rich people don’t have ‘em, and working guys like us can’t afford ‘em” so i pause and just sit there letting it soak because yeah. it’s a reminder that a lot of the plot points in shameless are a class thing. even the relationships involved elements of class disparities.

[pumpkinrootbeer]

I actually think about lip and brad a lot. Everyone in Brad's life had given up on him and then the most stubborn annoying 20 yr old you've ever met who's got more grief stored in his 5'4" body than one man should carry comes along and decides he's worth something. That he's worth everything. And nothing Brad can do will drive Lip away, and Lip spends days hunting him down. Lip does what Lip does best and throws himself completely into a person, except this time it doesn't end catastrophically. And Brad was the person who Lip went to when his mom died and when he relapsed. And Brad gave our neurodivergent king his first figit toy. And Brad makes Lip his best man and gives him a job and fucking purpose. "If Brad can't make it how am I supposed to make it"

[pumpkinrootbeerart]

colored in kisses

[milkovichy]

Shameless 11x06 | "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good... Eh, Screw It"

“Wait, you haven’t lined up a fence yet”?

[santaperth]

100 days of shameless // DAY NINETEEN - BRAD & CAMI ░ ▶ You're the centre of my earth and i love you!

[somestansomewhere]

Wait…

The way that Lip was Brad’s best man 🥺💞

[gallavictorious]

I love your insights so I thought I would ask about lip and his terrible plan to avoid getting caught with the stolen goods. I don’t see how he gets out of this and he dug himself even deeper this past episode. I thought the bikes were dumped by Kev in 11x7 and now he has to keep brad from talking. And Tami almost encouraging him to continue with this massive problem. Thank god Mickey isn’t yet aware of what’s going on yet (I guess he knows the cops are involved). Mickey would actually be able to handle this with a better plan if he knew the extent of what is going on.

Hiya, nonnie! I love the compliment, though in all honesty I'm not sure how much insight I can offer on this. But let's see, shall we?

Disclaimer: I love to speculate and entertain a thousand possibilities and have a lot of opinions about how I'd like for things to go down, but as for actual predictions about what will happen... I'm often a bit useless, I'm afraid. Mostly there's too many variables for me to feel comfortable making any definitive statments, and at the end of the day I prefer not to get too attached to any one theory anyway. So unless I have some properly hard data to build my case on, it's all fanciful sandcastles, yeah? Don't take anything too seriously.

That said and while I'm not sure how Lip gets out of this mess, I'm pretty damned sure he does get out of it. Don't really see them sending him to prison in the last few episodes of the series, you know? It's possible Brad ends up taking the fall one way or another – he's a character the show might be willing to sacrifiece for some real consequences, but to be honest I deem it unlikely. One way or another, they'll squirm their way out of this!

As for the police inquiry, it doesn't even have to be all that hard (especially if the show doesn't want it to be). Yes, Lip and Brad are the very obvious suspects, but without any proof of them breaking in (and we know they took the security camera) and without any of the stolen goods tied to them (the bikes have been dumped, and the remaining boxes hidden in Tami's dad's basement) the cops haven't really got shit on them. Unless the police finds something else or one of our amateur robbers crack under interrogation, they're likely to walk.

But that's the rub, eh? Brad will obviously crack, and he can't stay cuffed to Tami's car and avoid questioning forever. What to do, what to do? Well, allow me to suggest several more or less likely possibilities:

1. They pump Brad full of some likely drug that will keep him calm during the interview. This is a risky and pretty stupid idea, since drugs are generally more likely to make you open up than to allow you to lie convincingly, but what was robbing Born Free if not risky and pretty stupid? Also, could lead to Brad falling off the wagon and there can be Drama and Guilt and What-not.

2. Do the cops know what Brad looks like exactly? They haven't met him yet. Can they send someone else in to do interview in his stead (maybe with a very convincing fake ID, provided by one of Mickey's contacts, if identification is required when you show up to tell the police you're there to answer a few questions)? This seems a kind of Shameless way of dealing with things.

3. They convince Frank that he did it, and then allow his conviction of guilt to lead him into suspicious behavior as he tries to deflect blame which in turn makes the police think it was him that did it. That's a very cold use of Frank's dementia, but Lip might reason that he's likely to be let off on account of his illnes – or taken into care, which would arguably be a win for everyone! And Lip's been a bit of an asshole this whole season, I wouldn't necessarily put it past him.

4. For one reason or another the cops decide to drop this lead before they have time to interview Brad, and he gets a message that he doesn't need to come in. Why would the cops ever do that? Well, maybe both the investigators we met in 11x07 catch old 'rona and since they're understaffed there's no one to take over a simple break-in. Maybe there's another bigger crime happening and they're needed for that becaue they have Special Skills and – again – this case isn't top priority when they're low on officers! Or maybe someone else confesses to the crime because of... reasons?

Listen, if the show wants the allegations to go away, they'll go away. Whether or not we'll find it believeable is another question, but as mentioned, I think there's a pretty good case for the case realistically not holding up as long as Brad doesn't get a chance to confess. (Not saying my ideas for keeping Brad from talking are realistic, mind you... )

The thing is, though, Lip and Brad's troubles aren't over just because they shake the cops. We know, from the 11x09 promo and the episode description, that the new owners of Born Free are in the mob. They won't be concerned about actual evidence; if they think Lip and Brad did the deed, they'll come for their pound of flesh. Returning to the cops dropping the case – what if the owners (after getting new instructions from their mobbish overlords) get in touch with the police to say ”whoops, our mistake, we found the bikes, all's good here officer, no crime to report” because they'd rather deal with the situations themselves? I could see it. If forced to pick an idea I'd personally think makes the most sense, this would probably be it (which isn't the same as me thinking this is what will actually happen).

(Maaaaybe Layla's cop is very and understandably annoyed by Lip's general assholery and accidentally on purpose mentions to the owners – whose connections are not unknown to the police – that they do have a pretty good idea who did it, but no real evidence, so sorry, not much we can do here really, I guess true justice will never be served, unless... I'm rather fond of this notion, even though I don't find it very plausible. But maybe she can at least break the news of the case being dropped to Lip and Brad and she's really smug about it and they don't get why until they do get why? I don't know why, but apparently I'm a bit invested in her getting to be mean to Lip.)

As for Mickey... I can see him staying out of the whole thing, because while Brad and Lip are obvious suspects, he is not so there's a good chance he won't implicated. What with the emotinal and practical aftermat of Terry's death, he might be too focused on his own shit to pay much attention to Lip and Brad's, and they might hesitate to drag him into it. On the other hand, maybe not – maybe he gets involved and this whole thing is somehow connected to him headbutting Lip in 11x10.

All right, nonnie, I don't know how that was for insight, but I'm fairly confident Lip will get out of this just fine in the end. ;) Thann you for the ask - I had lots of fun thinking about this!