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Shameless Rewatch Thoughts!

Lazarus

This episode brings my favourite season of Shameless to a close in style. I feel like it doesn't *quite* hit the highs of Emily, but it's still so so good and it closes out most of the season plots beautifully.

What happens, you ask? Frank recovers in hospital and gets discharged. Sheila gets turned down when attempting to adopt the kids she's been looking after. Lip gets turned into a sugar baby by Amanda and isn't sure how to feel about it, or her. Fiona gets a surprise early release from prison, and her PO arranges a new job for her. Carl accidentally lets on that he cares about Bonnie, and she instantly flees. And Ian won't get out of bed and Mickey is worried, and Fiona and Debbie think it's probably bipolar.

The episode is bookended by Frank, and I noticed that the music played over the opening shot over a very frozen lake Michigan and the long pier that Frank uses in the last scene is the same as the music in that last scene... I should look up what it is, because it's very pretty, but I'm not up to that right now, so I'll try and remember later.

Anyway... I'm gonna start with Frank. Frank doesn't really do all that much in this episode. He wakes up, and he's much more compos mentis than he was when we saw him last episode. He's suddenly with it and the reactions from Sammi and Sheila imply this is a sudden change.

And this is the point where he finds out he's married to Sheila. Sigh. Sheila is very excited about that, and gets the kids she's trying to adopt in to take pictures. It's all very weird and there is no real indication about what Frank feels about all of it... Like he's surprised, sure, but he goes along with Sheila for a bit. And, post-surgery wooziness aside, it's very Frank. Firstly, he needs someone to help look after him as he recovers, and if they're married maybe she's willing. Secondly, he is never one to turn down a scenario until he's worked out whether he can benefit from it.

Leave aside that he's still legally married to Monica and that he did not consent to marry Sheila in the slightest, he's not gonna annul or contest it unless he knows he can't get anything from Sheila out of it. So he goes along with things, albeit slightly grumpily. The fact that Sammi adds her own snark to proceedings and Sheila seems utterly oblivious to Frank's confusion about the wedding, again just makes her come off as deluded... Sheila, he was unconscious, even if you assumed he heard and understood your proposal and your insistence, you cannot believe he remembered the actual wedding. Sigh. It's whatever.

We don't get much actual Frank in these Frank scenes. He tries to cadge drugs from every doctor and nurse, who all blithely ignore him, which seems... Well I have complex feelings because it's fucking Frank, and so yes by all means ignore the asshole, but there isn't any on-screen recognition from these people that he's an asshole who's lying about pain to score a cheap high. So it just looks like the medical professionals are uncaring about a patient being in pain. (And that's even ignoring other things I have complex feelings about "drug-seeking behaviour" and compassionate treatment of addiction etc... this is my stupid shameless blog and not the place.)

And we get a scene where Frank's staples are removed and he's given a very cut down version of the discussion a doctor should have about aftercare, and anti-rejection medication. It could have been a good scene, but it's not my favourite... It's another where they shortened and truncated things in a way that makes the doctor look shitty in a way that I'm not clear was intentional. There are a lot of shitty patient-doctor interactions in shameless and some seem to be deliberately making a point about short-staffed hospitals and poor patients getting short shrift. But sometimes it just seems like they wanted to impart as much information as possible in one scene. I can't decide which this is. A good doctor would not deliver critical information like that while performing an uncomfortable procedure... But a show trying to make a point quickly might.

Other than that, the heat is on Sammi and Sheila who for whatever reason (plot) are now very much at odds... The animosity builds gradually so it's not too much of a shock, but it does gloss over the moments where they both worked together to save Frank, and how Sammi was gonna be the maid of honour and was very much complicit in the wedding. I get that now they're married and Sheila has gotten very proprietary, so I can see why Sammi would get upset and annoyed... It's just a bit irritating, I guess. Sheila's continued weird behaviour now extending to alienating Frank's children.

Either way... Frank is pissed off that he got a whole new liver and isn't allowed to drink. It's very Frank. I hate him so much. The doctor's reaction could and should have been better and I hate that it's just kind of shrugged off.

Sammi telling Sheila not to correct her child felt very real, as far as ways to escalate this conflict go... I don't care very much about the conflict, but I do have some kind of twitchy parenting feels about that. I think Sammi and Sheila are both not great parents (the show even makes a point of that by having Sammi snap at Chuckie while she's still arguing with Sheila about it) but it did feel quite real as a point that Sammi would definitely bristle at.

It culminates in Sheila trying to keep Sammi out of Frank's room the morning of his discharge. If Frank feels any kind of way about that, it's not shown... Instead Carl sneaks in behind them and wheels him away.

The final scene on the pier is... Something. It's a great scene. The performance of it, from Frank is beautiful. Carl looking small and conflicted and cowed behind him is also beautiful. And Carl maybe doesn't understand. He didn't hear the shit about not being able to drink so... Maybe he thinks this is Frank all better now. Good as new.

The way Frank yells at the world makes me simultaneously so angry and so sad. It's wonderfully played. It's a crunchy, delicious scene that I hate and love in equal measure.

Mostly I come back to I hate you Frank. I hate what he's done. That he denied he was dying as he got sicker, that he was a horrific human being to everyone around him all through it. That he got tremendously lucky to get a liver at the last moment and is now acting that this was somehow his own hard work. That the world was trying to punish him, rather than liver failure being an inevitable consequence is his own actions and choices. He's despicable. He encourages his 12 year old kid to drink hard liquor, and drinks some himself despite the medical reasons not to. Fuck you, Frank. For real.

And who knows what Carl was feeling all through that... The look on his face is so sweet, he's clearly having a lot of feelings, but I found it hard to work out what the prevailing one was.

I just remembered that he does ask Frank if he's sure about giving him the bottle, so I think he's mostly sad. Glad that Frank survived. Sad that he's just the same as always and his brush with death didn't change him. Carl got more character growth out of a fake cancer storyline than Frank did out of a whole season of dying of liver failure. Poor Carl.

That segues nicely into the rest of Carl's episode, where his emotional state was slightly easier to read... Namely Bonnie.

There's obviously more timeline fuckery here, because Fiona's storyline implies a nine day gap from last episode, Ian and Mickey's storyline implies next day from last episode (though I choose to believe there was a day or two in between). Lip's admonishment about Bonnie staying implies she's been around at least a couple of days.

Whatever, I get sadder the more I think about timelines.

Carl shares a beer with Bonnie they're having a nice time... Then he offers her a necklace he stole and she flinches. Because "you're not falling in love with me or anything weird like that are you?"

And then she's gone. She leaves, and when he tries to find her van or anything, she's gone completely, almost as if she was never there.

It's sad... Bonnie was an interesting character and this is an interesting choice from her, but we don't really get to see the impact on Carl beyond his initial disappointment and sadness. I guess we'll see if there's any impact next season... Maybe this unlucky first love is the reason he starts dealing drugs? Who knows. It felt a little... Undercooked, I guess. Like there were some parts missing to the story. I can read in between the lines for why Bonnie flees, being afraid of love, and the obvious romantic intent of some of her actions doesn't wreck that. It just feels a little like someone didn't know what to do with her so they wrote her out quickly without thinking about repercussions.

Carl's young, it's possible he's entirely unbothered, and I completely get that he wouldn't talk to anyone about it because half the problems in Shameless are a result of people not really being able to talk to each other... But it feels like an odd end to the story. First love can hit hard... I'm surprised they don't make more story out of it, if nothing else.

Before I move on, I probably have to mention Sheila and the tribal council and the fact that she doesn't get to adopt the kids... But I don't want to say much. It's an irritating end to an irritating story. The kids have a grandfather Sheila didn't know about because they didn't tell her because he didn't have WiFi. The one little girl obviously cares about Sheila and will miss her... The others seemed largely indifferent, and on one level it's sad that these kids don't real screentime to give the story any emotional weight. On the other hand, I don't care. I don't care whether Sheila gets the kids, I don't really care about Sheila by now. I'm sad that they didn't find an interesting way to use Joan Cusack and this character, but other than that I don't really care. Which is sad. But the story didn't get the weight or time it would have needed to land, and... It didn't deserve that time because Sheila isn't a focal character in that way. They should have woven her in with the Gallaghers better instead.

Oh well.

We then get a bit of a reconciliation between Sheila and Sammi when they realise Frank didn't come back there... It's tentative, but it allows them to make it look like they can keep this situation going until season 5 without imploding. Which is I guess all they were going for.

Gonna go to Lip next.

Lip has another good episode, but after the perfection of that sequence in the previous episode, it's a little more personal and quiet. Amanda is at the Gallagher house, and it's unclear whether it's just the next night, or if she (and Bonnie's family) have been there a few nights. Whatever, I'm not doing more timeline rants, honest.

One of the things I like about shameless is how none of the love interests ever really baulk at the Gallagher chaos. Amanda is no different... Her parents were dicks about it, but she just slots right in. She doesn't say anything about the mess or the disrepair, or complain about the cold (even when Lip does). She takes it completely in stride when Lip, Carl, Debbie, Chuckie, and Bonnie and her five siblings pile into her fancy saloon car... It's ridiculously unsafe (and just from a driving perspective, I hope she's used to transporting heavy loads because that will definitely affect her brakes)... But it's also hilarious just watching them all pile in to the car like that.

Amanda also asks Lip to come to some kind of weird ceremony at her sorority... And insists she's gonna buy Lip a fancy suit for the purpose. The pretty woman reference was amusing. I loved how much fun Amanda was clearly having with it, and how uncertain Lip was about what the whole thing meant to her.

And the actual event is creepy as fuck... I don't know if that's an actual thing that happens but I went to a uni with its share of weird traditions and I never came across something with that much singing and chanting, even in chapel... Then there's an oddly intense moment of eye contact and a kiss between Amanda and Lip, and while you can see his uncertainty, you can see her, once again, starting to fall in love with him. It's brilliant and I love them. I was also worried about where he was holding the candle when they kissed because they show him holding it before and after but but during. But obviously they didn't get horribly burned so it's fine.

Amanda was one of my favourite Lip love interests... I've only read one fic where she was endgame, and I kind of loved that alternative future for him, but ultimately I don't think it would have worked out... Still, I'm enjoying her scenes a lot.

And afterwards, they go to the diner where Mandy works and that scene is wonderful. I love Mandy in that scene... It's such a wonderful and understated performance from Emma Greenwell. We've got Lip with his college friends, finally fitting in, making friends, having fun... And then we see the heartbroken face of the girl he left behind.

She pretends not to know him, and her voice in that is fucking perfect. Something else I can help you with? More sugar?

The point where he gets the message is... Poignant.

Mandy deserved so much better, but I love this. Seeing her try to move on from Lip. To ignore seeing him happy, seeing him succeeding, seeing him be exactly where she wanted him to be, and leaving her behind in the process. Her still using makeup to cover up bruises from Kenyatta. Her working a minimum wage job in a diner and being felt up by scumbag customers. It's awful and it's so so good.

I'm in two minds, because my initial read was her feeling conflicted about seeing him successful... But then I remembered that she got hit because of Kenyatta's jealousy about Lip so there's probably a lot more to it here, with her pretending not to know him being a lot more about protecting herself than about her feelings about Lip. And now I'm even sadder about it.

I love you Mandy, I wish you'd found someone better, or learned to be happy and make it on your own.

All Lip gets from there is a conversation with Fiona, so I'll talk about that then. Next up is Debbie.

Debbie doesn't get much this episode, but we get to see her stepping up in her Gallagher responsibilities. Ian has entirely opted out, it seems, so she's second in command. She makes a great team with Lip, working out the household accounts... And she does a wonderful job of guilt tripping him into going to see Fiona in jail, despite it being a 3 hour journey each way, and that bring an absolutely reasonable reason not to, especially with college! But it's kind of delightful that she manages it with a look and Lip caves.

Later Debbie makes sure to be the one to answer the door for pizza (I know they're tight on money, but I hope that one pizza was not the only food for all those kids because my two can polish off nearly a whole one by themselves on hungry days). Then Debbie cadges a ride with Matty to a couple of places... And it's concerning because it's a "we are very much back on" type behaviour from her. In her eyes, she saw off Seema (sort of) so he's fair game again, especially after he said he'd take her to the dance. And... Ugh. Debbie no!! I also cringed at the scene where she wakes up she kisses a picture of him, which is average 13yo behaviour but... It's Matty. Ugh.

I don't have much more to say about it except that it's kind of an odd place to leave the story for the season... Nothing is really resolved or set up, it's just there. All the other characters seem to get something to at least close out the season (okay maybe Lip not so much either, but at least we get the conversation with Fiona where we mention his successes). So it's weird to have Debbie just... Continue. It's fine, it just doesn't have the air of either a resolution or a "to be continued" and I think they could have done something more to land it either way.

Fiona. Fiona's episode is, for the most part, excellent again. It manages to take her through the dark and end in a place of hope and it does it very beautifully. It also makes it abundantly clear that this happens because of systemic faults, and extreme good fortune, rather than any particular virtue of her own. It's as much a recognition on the part of the writers that she's fucked up a lot and had a really hard season so we need some idea that it's not going to put her in the pits forever.

The scenes in jail are pretty powerful... We see a woman who is making faces at Fiona and offers her a pill. Fiona reacts as if it's bullying, and so I read it that way... Though from what we see it could also be really misguided flirting. She gives Fiona a pill, and we don't see what Fiona does with it. I remember first time around being very nervous about that when she gets pulled off the line for a drug test... And she's made to wait ages before we find out... She's being released! It's very tense, and effective, though I personally found some of the scene cutting choices a little odd (with flash-forward shots of her getting out intermixed). It lacked surprise second time around but that's fine too.

Fiona's PO "I'm not your friend" (Wikipedia tells me her name is Gail, though I don't remember hearing that) gives Fiona a lift back to Chicago and a new ankle monitor, and gets her a job at a diner/restaurant with a guy who clearly makes a habit of taking on risky cases.

I loved the conversation in the car, with Gail telling her she has to take responsibility for her own choices no matter how bad she's had it. It's a powerful speech... It's also one of those ones where I think "I broadly agree but I do also think society makes it really hard to make good choices sometimes" which is also part of the point. Because Fiona's got lucky here... She's found someone who's going to make it just a tiny bit easier to make better choices.

I assume Charlie was supposed to be a continuing role into season 5, because on the face of it he's the role that Sean takes up in season 5. Which is fine, shit happens, but I wish the show gave a reason for that rather than pretending it's the same person (but a different actor and a different character name and a different restaurant/diner). It's whatever, and I get why they didn't... It's enough having Fiona land one job because of the kindness of a guy who offers jobs to felons. Getting two in quick succession is plain weird.

Finally, though, Fiona gets to return home to a sleepy household and she's there in the morning when Debbie wakes up and comes down. The reunion is wonderful, and beautifully performed. The hug is so great, and there's also this beautiful tone to it where Fiona thinks Debbie is crying because she's happy to see her but Debbie's crying because of Ian... And also probably in relief that Fiona's home so there is another adult to pass some of the responsibility off onto.

And Fiona has been home less than twelve hours when she has to go to the Milkovich house to see Ian... They never can catch a break, can they?

I have a question about timelines, of course, because Gail says overcrowding means release after "10-20 percent time served" which on a 90 day sentence means Fiona's been in at least a week... While all other context in the episode suggests a day or two. But who's going insane over Shameless timelines? Not me. (Okay that's a lie. I hate it so much)

But then we round out the season for Fiona with an absolutely gorgeous conversation with Lip. It's so good. I love it wholeheartedly. They start by catching up on the situation with Ian, and how Lip is doing in college. They talk about genetics and nature versus nurture. And then Fiona admits that she made stupid mistakes and it's on her now and she's sorry. Lip stepped up so wonderfully while she was fucking up, and this conversation really beautifully says "I'm back in this now, it's not all on you" while still acknowledging that they can never really walk back what had to happen because of her mistakes and bad decisions. It's so so good. I love it. Emmy Rossum plus Jeremy Allen White equals magic. Gorgeous stuff.

Which leaves me with Ian, but really with Mickey.

Sigh.

One reason I want to believe it's been longer than a night since last episode is that I want desperately to believe this is not Mickey waking up the morning after coming out. I want to fill in scenes where he and Ian cleaned each others wounds and had conversations that veered from elation to terror. And they wouldn't acknowledge everything about what Ian forced to happen. They wouldn't cleanly discuss that Ian did a shitty thing. But it would be there between the lines.

But they'd have at least a day off being happy together. Licking their wounds, maybe, but happy. They'd fuck. They'd wind up curled up on Mickey's bed. They'd have made a decision that Ian could stay at the Milkovich house.

I can write a fill in fic (in my head, don't be silly I'm not actually going to *write* it) for all of this. But it still pisses me off that it didn't happen. That for all the show tells us, Mickey wakes up with Ian the next morning and Ian just... Won't get out of bed.

Ian's behaviour during the christening party maybe makes sense as him coming out of mania and heading for the low. I can rationalise it that way, though I don't know enough about bipolar to know how that works. So he's irritable and the jealousy and feeling sidelined bothered him... And then knowing he almost got the man he loves killed tips him all the way over into full blown depression. Maybe.

But I still choose to believe there was a day or two. Even against all the evidence in the show.

That being... Exhibit one. Svetlana.

Who has dyed her hair and bought a strap on to... Show that she can still please him as a wife even though he's gay?

I don't get her. I love her, and the performance is wonderful as always. But it's bizarre. They never gave Svetlana enough of a reason for being in the marriage in the first place. There is no way she didn't see what was going on when she was first called in... So how did she really feel about being asked to marry this guy she was used to rape? There's nothing on screen. At all. Her anger about him refusing to help her with the baby seems real... A "we're in this and he's yours so you need to share the responsibility" but I don't know what she expected out of the marriage, or what he experience of it was like before Ian showed up again. There's just so much that doesn't get explored or shown at all, so... We get this frankly bizarre choice of her to say "I can be redhead and have a giant dick too".

But when Mickey is unmovable on that? She quickly switches track. Actually I hate dick, there's a girl who's really into me, but we have a baby so suck it up. Renegotiating the terms of their arrangement in a way I really like. The end of that scene is amazing. The "burger king and Macdonald's on same street, or maybe we say fuck it and go to Wendy's" is BEAUTIFUL. I love her voice and I love her and I could watch her all day. I just wish the show had done the leg work with her relationship with Mickey to make it all make sense.

(And this is why I will forever rec The Russian by Avalonia, because it does such a good job of synthesising Svetlana into a coherent character while only breaking from canon in small ways later on)

So... A+ scene for the performance, and it does land where it needs to emotionally, it's just a bit of a weird starting point. I can't believe Svet ever believed that would work... But never mind.

We have various scenes of Mickey trying to get Ian up, to increasing irritation and concern. We get the wonderful "sleepy face" and we get worry passing between Mickey and Mandy.

But Mickey goes "to work" (to drink at the Alibi). And we get another absolutely wonderful beautiful favourite Mickey scene. He's so on edge. So afraid that coming out will change how everyone sees him and ruin everything he worked for... We get a shitty gay joke from Tommy and he yells at the whole bar.

And then we get one of the most wonderful Kev moments ever. "Were you surprised? Cos I wasn't surprised." And... Just reeling off a bunch of celebrities who've come out as gay. And how it was sometimes brave because of society, but always okay. Kermit and Tommy and V get in on it. And Mickey just stands there, shell-shocked, trying to process that aside from his dad, no one really cares.

And Kev buys him a drink. To butt buddies. Long may they slam and slap.

It's so good it nearly makes me cry. It's just beautiful.

But of course he doesn't get to enjoy this victory either, because then we return to his worry about Ian. So much that he goes to the Gallagher house to find Lip, and instead gets Debbie and Carl (and Liam along for the ride... Lovely to see him with Svet). And they know what this is.

And Fiona the next morning only confirms. It looks like bipolar. It's what we've seen with Monica.

It's another tremendous scene. Noel Fisher really put the work in this episode. "You me us. We're looking after him here. He's fucking family." And all the conflicting emotions he must be feeling. Fiona trying to convince him that Ian needs help when all Mickey's hearing is 'you're gonna lose him again'. How hard must it be to know that you did the hardest thing you could imagine to keep the man you love with you, only to have him be stolen away by a disease neither of you have any control over. His reactions are imperfect and difficult... But so so believable. The instant denial and anger. So real.

And Fiona? Can't really do anything about it. At least not right now. Not when she's just got home and has a new job and can't afford to fuck up.

Ugh. My heart. My feelings.

And that's season 4. That's it. I have so many feelings about it. The show reaching its potential in so many avenues, still falling short in a few more but the closest it ever comes to being all of what it could have been. A little more consistency. A little more thought to the backstory and motivation of a few key side characters. It was incredible... It could have been incandescent.

I love it so much. This episode is a hard one, but it's still so good. So crunchy and interesting and I love these guys so much and want good things for them, so it's so hard to see them suffer this way. But that's also what's so compelling about the show.

Sigh. Contentment and discontent in a single show. I love it so much.

Au revoir, season 4. I'm sure I'll watch you again.

--

So when I started my rewatch, I only committed to rewatching up to season 5. So I will be rewatching season 5, but I'm still unsure if I'm going to keep up with the roundups. I do them for me and I've started to find them a little more effort... I keep pushing out starting them and it's only wanting to watch the next episode that makes me finish. So I'm gonna see how I feel when I start season 5. At the very least I'm taking a week off because I'm not gonna have time to start season 5 this week. But I'll decide whether to write it up after I watch it. So... Maybe see you soon. Maybe not.

(And to the couple of people who do like these posts and maybe even read them... Thank you for joining me on my brain rambles 💜)

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