stagmania

I'm not even sure if we're supposed to think he did realize it at the last minute. Getting Mickey there and then going home may have been his intention all along. No way to know since they didn't bother to let us in on his thoughts at any point. He was totally opaque through this whole episode.

Particularly bad fanfic. That whole thing served essentially no purpose other than fan service, and the writing seesawed so much on the conception of the Ian/Mickey relationship that it didn't even have an emotional impact, at least not for me. Next week Ian will return to his life like it never happened. I guess I'm happy for the people who are still really invested in Mickey and can now imagine him having a nice life in Mexico.

LOL @sazzat that pretty much sums it up.

Holy smokes. Emmy Rossum playing hardball in contract re-negotiations, and standing up for equal pay to her male co-star (who, let's be real, is more of a drag on the show than an asset). I don't really want to see another season of this show, but if she's successful, many kudos to her.

Ah yes, two separate appearances in different seasons, but the same calendar year. They announced that he's returning again a couple months back.

Like I said, that's a valid way to see it from Ian's perspective. I was pointing out that it looks pretty different from Mickey's, and both can be true. There is not a single person in this thread who claimed Mickey is a saint, so no, it's not a rare occurrence to recognize his flaws.

Or: Mickey got raped at gunpoint and then forced to have a kid and marry the prostitute who was used to rape him, and all Ian could see was his own broken heart so he offered him absolutely no patience or understanding and abandoned him at the worst moment of his life. IMO, both of these takes on that particular part of this story are true. My point is not that either one of them are wrong or right, but that the things they went through together were intense and traumatic and way too much for two damaged kids to handle. They both made bad choices and failed to communicate and hurt each other, but the feelings they had for each other were real, and so they tried and tried again. It was a complicated and dysfunctional love story with no villains that unfortunately came to an abrupt and unfitting end due to real world interference. So why oversimplify it? I don't get that impulse, but I prefer complex stories and layered characters.

Ian isn't doing better because of Mickey's absence, though. He's doing better because he got his shit together, which is what Mickey wanted him to do (and why Ian dumped him, if you recall). Honestly, debating this is a little pointless because they did a 180 with Ian's character between seasons 5 and 6 that made no sense, so his-post Mickey life doesn't really track with where he and Mickey left off. There were a few more (pretty important) seasons after this stuff you mention here. I completely agree that their relationship was unhealthy in many ways, but that was a function of the way they both grew up and not because Mickey was a terrible person. Ian contributed plenty to the dysfunction as well. And they learned how to do better together over time. What I don't understand is why the show (and so many viewers) seem eager to pretend that huge character growth never happened.

@kathe5133 I don't even know where to start. I disagree with pretty much everything you just said about Mickey and their relationship, and don't believe it's supported by the show canon. I'll just leave it at that.

What bothered me is not that Fiona didn't think Ian should go with Mickey-of course he shouldn't choose a life on the run; that's just good sense. But she definitely framed it as Ian was doing much better without him and said that Mickey would "set a match" to his life, as if Mickey himself isn't concerned with Ian's well-being. In fact, Ian's well-being was Mickey's primary concern in their relationship, and he did more to help him than Ian's own family did. And if you watch their scenes and listen to Mickey's dialogue, he seemed to have no expectation that Ian would come with him, and was mostly there to say a proper goodbye. I think Ian jumping in the car with him at the end surprised him as much as anyone. Cameron Monaghan has been on Gotham for several years. It's a small part and he does it concurrently with Shameless. I don't believe he's being written out or that Ian's actually going to Mexico.

I'll also add that retcon stands for retroactive continuity. As TotalHellion mentioned, it means changing the established history of the show. Shameless has done this before, as have most shows, but usually it's about small things like character backstory. For example, in season 1 the Milkovich mother is referenced as if she's alive, and then in season 2 they retconned the backstory to say she'd been dead a long time. It's much more jarring when they try to pull a major retcon with character relationships like they're doing with Ian and Mickey here. We saw their relationship unfold over five years, so having the characters within the show frame it as something it wasn't is more akin to gaslighting, which is why Ian and Mickey shippers pretty much went apoplectic when they started doing it.

Under the bleachers? He leaned in as if he was going to kiss Mickey, but they weren't alone. Mickey asked him to come meet him at the docks later, which he did, at which point they pretty much got straight to it, with a few feeble protests from Ian in between kissing.

I think that probably allowed Ian to do what he wanted without as much guilt. But his actions with Mickey seemed motivated by feelings for Mickey, not a reaction to Trevor. He cheated on Trevor with very little hesitation and then just took off with Mickey without a word, so it didn't come across to me like Trevor was top of mind.

I think this was the primary motivator, yeah. They've gotten very little critical/media attention since season 5. Plus they really haven't known what to do with Ian since Mickey left. Regardless of how I feel about the story they're telling, I can't deny that Ian is much more compelling when he's sharing a screen with Mickey. This is an interesting idea, but I saw little evidence of it in this episode. Trevor became an afterthought pretty quickly once Mickey showed up; I don't think Ian's choices were motivated by his feelings about what Trevor was doing.

It's utterly baffling to me the way the writers have decided to retcon one of the best parts of their own canon. Ian can move on from Mickey, and they can have an interesting and touching final goodbye arc, without having to turn Mickey into something he wasn't. I don't think I'll ever understand the choices they've made about how to write Mickey off and end this relationship. As such, their scenes tonight felt pretty empty to me. They were well-acted, but I could feel the writers' manipulation in every line and the dissonance between Ian in this episode and Ian's attitude about Mickey for the last two seasons was enormous.

I snorted. I'm just over here dying over Mickey and his prison break. Sure, show. Sure. I don't think we'll be getting a murder, but I do expect a quick bit of love triangle action with Mickey playing the bad boy ex who briefly tempts Ian back to the dark side. They killed Mickey's character and that relationship long ago, so I guess I'll just watch and be amused. I used to love it when Monica appeared, because it produced such great and meaningful stuff with all the kids. It has lost its impact for me.

I thought Richard's death as a catalyst for growth and change was underused in general. It was the focus for Emily, but I would've liked it to be more at the center of Lorelai's arc (instead of contrived romance stuff with Luke) and a big driver for Rory, as well. It could have grounded their existential crises in something much deeper and more meaningful. But I guess that wouldn't have been a great tonal fit for all the whimsical whackiness they wanted to shoehorn in.

That's You've Got a Friend. The theme song is Where You Lead. Both written by Carole King, though!

Yeah I don't think I can really speak for them on that level. My point is that plenty of fans didn't like the revival, and you shouldn't assume that it's because they weren't real fans or because they watched the show wrong. It's nice for y'all if you liked it; some people really didn't.

They love the show. They did not adore the revival.

Most of my diehard fan friends (I'm more of a casual watcher) hated it and wish they hadn't watched it. It tarnished the original for them. So I wouldn't go making promises! As a few have said above, it is kind of hilarious that AS-P's grand plan was the laziest possible ode to herself-Rory writes the show and repeats Lorelai's history. Imagine if she had gotten the chance to end the show this way in season 7 when Rory was much younger. What a slap in the face that would've been.

I've always seen Rory this way and honestly felt a little vindicated by her adult characterization. It's completely in line with who she was becoming over the course of the original series. Which is not to say that it still wasn't disappointing to see that she'd grown so little. I thought this revival was a hot mess. There were some threads of greatness here-namely anything to do with Lorelai and Emily that was centered on grief over Richard. But on the whole it felt meandering and unfocused, and there was a shocking amount of time wasted on random diversions that had little to do with anything meaningful for the characters. Many of the relationship stories required believing that they had all remained in stasis for years, as they seemed more suited to picking up right where the characters left off than a depiction of where they would be nine years later. And in Rory's story especially, so much was left unaddressed and unresolved after months of hype (though this may be because the creators are angling for a revival, part 2). To say nothing of the minor characters that were left adrift (Paris and Doyle, anyone?). It's just a little hard for me to process that Amy Sherman-Palladino had a decade to dream up what she would do with these characters if given another chance, and this is what she came up with.

Ian has been unrecognizable for a couple seasons now and Mickey was destroyed on his way out, so I don't think there's really any characterization left to ruin. Even if it's bad (it will be), the damage was already done long ago. They've never been willing to show gay sex. Ian and Mickey were involved for 5 years, never had a real sex scene and only kissed on screen twice. The show actually got a lot of backlash for that, which I assume is why they tried to show more with Caleb. I've fallen behind on the show and popped in here to see if it was worth catching up. I'm thinking no.

Where did you hear Monica is coming back? If I were Joan Cusack, I would stay far away from this mess. Sheila is the only character that got a decent ending; I hope she doesn't come back to have it ruined.

Wow, I missed a lot. I can't believe how much has already come out about the new season! Big things will be happening sooner than I thought. Yeah, given that they seem perfectly at ease with Cersei/Jamie, I don't see this being a barrier the show wouldn't cross. And I would bet that they won't underline the aunt/nephew thing when it's revealed who Jon's parents are. It'll be there, but they won't put any emphasis on it. I think finding out Jon is a Targaryen by blood would actually be appealing to Daenerys.