stagmania

As already noted, she worked hotel housekeeping, and did waitressing. I recall that scene of her coming home from the demeaning sports bar job that she hated doing and wiping away tears. And there was a whole plot at the end of that season about her taking a job with Jasmine's travel agency (she bailed on JimmySteve the first time to stay and take that job).

She worked a lot of odd jobs in the first three seasons, hustling like crazy before finally landing the cup job in season 4 (and blowing it). She definitely worked hard and did a lot for her family. I just take issue with the show trying to pretend she did it alone and the rest of the Gallagher kids are free-loaders. I think the point is supposed to be that she doesn't have sincere feelings for Kev and Vee, but they think she does. She's just using sex to leverage a better position for herself and her kid.

She wasn't paying the bills when she moved in with Gus. There was a scene where she came back and she had forgotten it was school time, and then Debbie told her they had no food or water. She just bailed on them with no warning and left them to fend for themselves. I think you hit the nail on the head: re what we're in store for with Mickey's return. They've been retconning the hell out of that relationship since Noel Fisher quit, and I suspect he's only back to put the final nail in the coffin.

And again, this idea flies in the face of the entire history of the show. They've all been contributing all along; Fiona was never doing it alone and has in fact abandoned them once already.

I'd bet cold hard cash that we're never seeing Caleb again. Trevor is the new guy, plus Debbie has definitely been ruined as a character (she was so great in earlier seasons, sigh), but Fiona is still her guardian and responsible for her. Sometimes kids are assholes, that doesn't mean their parents get to disavow or abandon them.

The plots have been going in circles for years. The writers seem unable/unwilling to commit to actual change. Season 4 was the exception (and I don't think it's a coincidence that it's the season that got them the most praise and critical attention), and they were poised to make the leap and actually let their characters grow-and then Season 5 started and they hit the reset button and failed to follow through on almost everything they had set up. For me, that was when things started really going off the rails, and they never bounced back.

Just came here to post the Joss quote. But don't bury the lede, now: he settles on Spike/Angel in the end. ;)

But since when do Ian and Lip and Debbie not pay? This has been the premise of the show from the very start-they ALL contribute. Even when Debbie was 10 years old, she was running a daycare out of the house. We know Carl contributed a ton of money during his brush with drug and arms dealing. So this whole idea that Fiona has been keeping things afloat all on her own (as a diner waitress?) just came out of thin air. Plus, remember in season 5 when she randomly decided to live with Gus and abandon the kids she's responsible for without so much as a conversation? The writers can't seem to remember any of this stuff, so it's really hard to take this storyline seriously. Fiona used to be my favorite character, and I am just so sad about what they've done to her. There are ways to have stories about her craving independence and freedom without betraying her core principles, but everything about her characterization for the last three seasons has been so sloppy.

The idea that Ian could be an EMT despite being a high school dropout with a potentially dangerous mental illness was always implausible, but they've gone ahead and made it even more ridiculous. He put a patient's life at risk and almost got them killed, and all that happens is his boss shows him this dumb video and asks him to get his meds checked? No, sorry, that is not how any of this works. The whole Fiona declares her independence storyline might be interesting if she hadn't already essentially abdicated her guardian responsibilities a few seasons ago. She hasn't taken her role in the family seriously for a long time.

The Ian story in this episode is quite possibly the most offensive thing they've ever done to his character. Which is saying something.

I completely agree, Frank was much more tolerable and sometimes even interesting when there were still things to explore in his relationship with his kids. Now he's just there, even though none of the other characters can tolerate him. It's a bizarre thing to have a main character that feels so untethered from the rest of the show.

That makes sense if you find Frank's antics funny. I haven't in a long time, and in earlier seasons I vastly preferred when he was used in a more serious way, to highlight his relationships with his kids and Monica and the effect he's had on them.

He has said publicly that he hopes the show goes for 10 years and he loves being part of it. And clearly the writers like Frank, too, or they wouldn't make him such a huge focus. I would love it if they let him fade to the background sometimes and focused on more robust storylines for the non-Fiona siblings, but I don't think it's ever going to happen. They switched it out with Homeland, which normally airs in this timeslot in the fall. Over the summer the showrunner requested extra time to write the next season, so Homeland will now premiere in January and they moved up the production schedule for Shameless to fill in the gap. Which means this Shameless season was put together even more hastily than usual!

Definitely the latter. They seem to have a compulsory need to write gay male characters having sexual contact with women. They even did this with Ian back in season 3, in a scene with Svetlana that got cut in the aired episode but still appeared on the DVDs.

They did the same thing to Caleb that they do to nearly every love interest once they're done with them- make them the bad guy out of nowhere and undermine everything we knew about their characterization. Can't say I'm surprised. I was a huge Mickey fan and I don't really want him to come back, for the reasons you outline here. No way will they do it justice or put in the effort to clean up the mess they made. Agree with everyone who says they're tired of Frank. I've been there for years-I wish they'd had the courage to go through with killing him at the end of season 4; it would have opened up a lot of possibilities for refocusing the show to be more about the siblings and their family dynamic.

Nick/Jess throughout season 2 was the peak of the show IMO, but clearly they don't know what to do with them once they're together. Definitely time to call it. This is my assumption, too. I don't think they'd be going back to this well if they thought they were continuing beyond this season.

Jake's casual wokeness is my favorite note in his characterization. I was a little sad not to see the whole crew in this one, but the Holt and Jake duo is always comedy gold so it worked for me. So glad to have this show back!

Been absolutely dreading reliving the Ray storyline. Here we go.

Are we sure Nova is the oldest? With the reveal about Charlie having a different mom and not living with them, I just assumed she was oldest and Nova and Ralph Angel were the result of a second marriage. Though there certainly is potential for a more complicated story. The dynamic between the three siblings is so spot on, and reminds me exactly of me and my two closest siblings. Two sisters coddling their younger brother and leaving him out of major decisions. It's kind of a reflex.

I just caught up with this show, and I really love it. In only two episodes the universe, tone and family dynamics already feel so firmly established, and it's just beautiful to look at. Obviously we're just getting to know them, but all the characters seem complex and multifaceted, and it seems that the writing takes pains to avoid black and white situations or paint anyone as wholly right or wrong in a given interaction. The cast has great chemistry and I'm already feeling the family bond (and the kid playing Blue may be the most adorable child actor I've seen in an age). Coming from a big messy family with lots of siblings with different parents, beliefs and income/success disparities, the relationship dynamics feel spot on to me. Very much looking forward to more. On the subject of this particular episode, the fights and tensions that sprung up around planning the funeral felt very real. All the siblings were trying to do their best, but there will inevitably be clashes over something they all take so personally. I appreciated that none of them were being painted as wrong or ill-intentioned, but rather making understandable mistakes in their attempts to help and their efforts to cope.

I'm not going to lie, I'm slightly heartbroken that we're probably never seeing Gendry again.

I think the message was pretty explicitly and elegantly laid out in Stone's closing argument. We'll just have to agree to disagree on how well the rest of the show supported it.

Absolutely. I'm not advocating for overly simplistic characters in general, only pointing out that these revelations about Naz worked counter to their theme (that was underlined in Stone's closing argument), and that they could have been more thoughtful in fleshing out his characterization. Also, I'd be inclined to give them more credit for making him complicated if they ever bothered to examine these parts of his history beyond using them as shocking reveals. We never got any sense of how Naz felt about any of it or how it fit into the larger picture of his life or self-conception. But the writers should know and understand what their overarching message is and take care not to undermine it.

But that's my point-the purpose of it was to create suspense about the outcome, whether that means doubting Naz or anticipating that the jury will. In order to do that, they stepped on their own theme and made Naz's characterization even more opaque.

That's exactly how I feel about the out of nowhere revelations about Naz's history. If the idea is that the criminal justice system is fundamentally toxic and they're trying to demonstrate that through showing how easily a few months in Rikers can change an essentially innocent man, what exactly is the logic behind these random reveals that Naz was actually shady and violent all along? There's isn't any, beyond the desire to shock and keep the audience guessing about his guilt. There were other ways to make the trial suspenseful without going there. The way they did it completely steps on the point they're trying to make.