S10.E03: Which America?

[ElectricBoogaloo]

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Frank revels in his new position in the Gallagher house; Lip looks for support as the pressures of fatherhood take their toll; Ian and Mickey make a decision about their future; Carl tries to woo Anne despite Lori's efforts to get in his way.

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Original air date: 11/24/19

Edited November 18, 2019 by ElectricBoogaloo

[preeya]

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Edited November 25, 2019 by preeya

[scrb]

Frank uncharacteristically concerned about his friend's health.  He sells tens of thousands of designer goods for $350 yet most of it goes to Mikey's treatment?

He's shown vulnerability before, like for that young female doctor.

Over/under on how many episodes before he reverts to being a selfish prick?

Even Mickey gets sentimental, telling Ian to go home rather than stay in prison with him.  OK Ian can get excited about Lip's kid.  But was he just as excited for Franny?

Debbie's screwed.  Can't return the designer stuff and her job is on strike, because she organized the shop.  

Carl gets another gf, yawn.

Lip gets a cigarette break and gets to visit Tami.  

Liam gets a big bro (not a cracker).  V gets a new BFF.  The viewers get the same plots.

[chabelisaywow]

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Frank uncharacteristically concerned about his friend's health.  He sells tens of thousands of designer goods for $350 yet most of it goes to Mikey's treatment?

I don't understand why he did return the stuff himself? The receipts were right there. Stupid.

[Chaos Theory]

Frank cares about who he cares about.   He did truly loved Monica but in a very selfish way.   He didn’t want her to get well because a healthy Monica didn’t love him back.    Frank is like that with all his relationships.   

[jww]

They broke into the locker twice  cutting the lock twice with bolt cutters which makes little sense since they would have had to replace the first lock with their own lock but then they also cut off the second lock  and then when Debbie showed up her key still  worked on the third new lock.

[iMonrey]

I had a feeling Tami wasn't going to want the baby. She will probably either try to put it up for adoption, which will crush Lip, or she'll run off and abandon him with Lip. 

I didn't understand what happened with the ATM cards. Did Debbie not actually put any money into them (because she spent it all on designer duds)? Or were they all garnished because she opened accounts for all of them with their real social security numbers? Why would Carl's wages be garnished? And BTW that's not how garnishing works, but whatever.

This bit with Liam having relatives down the street is a total retcon, the writers either don't expect us to remember or don't care. Back when it was revealed that Liam was really Frank's child, Frank said something to the effect of "I guess the rumors about great grandma Gallagher and the jazz musician were true." So there was supposed to be some African American DNA in Frank's paternal line, not from someone  he ever knew or would even still be alive.

I got a little worried about how into the baby Ian seemed to be after what went down in the past when he kidnapped Mickey's baby. 

[chabelisaywow]

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Back when it was revealed that Liam was really Frank's child, Frank said something to the effect of "I guess the rumors about great grandma Gallagher and the jazz musician were true." So there was supposed to be some African American DNA in Frank's paternal line, not from someone  he ever knew or would even still be alive.

Also, when Carl took a 23 and Me type test - why did he not have any AA lineage?

[heatherchandler]

3 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I got a little worried about how into the baby Ian seemed to be after what went down in the past when he kidnapped Mickey's baby. 

I totally forgot about that awful storyline!

[juno]

This season is fairly tepid at best. Rossum was really the center and heart of the show.

My choices; hate watch or stop watching. I chose to change it myself. No more Deb and Frank. I fast forward through all their scenes and the show is a bit better. I still enjoy Lip, Carl, Ian, Kev and Liam's stories.

[Armchair Critic]

I liked Ian talking to Lip at the end but I agree with everybody else that they are just treading water. Debbie is not a substitute for Fiona.

[preeya]

Lip hit the nail on the head when he came to the house with Frank's party in full swing and said:

"A fuckin' house party, Frank? What grade are you in?"

[iMonrey]

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I liked Ian talking to Lip at the end but I agree with everybody else that they are just treading water. Debbie is not a substitute for Fiona.

Which is basically why the show threw a shit ton of money at Cameron Monaghan to come back. I thought it was hysterical he basically copped to that. I'm not sure how much that's going to help, though. I've always had the impression his popularity with fans was due mostly to his relationship with Mickey, and it doesn't look like Mickey will be getting out of prison anytime soon.

[chabelisaywow]

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Debbie is not a substitute for Fiona.

I like all the sub plots (even Frank).  I don't miss Fiona too much.  There were times, that I didn't feel sympathy for her when she would say that she sacrificed so much for the family and basically took credit for keeping them together.  She was just as irresponsible. She was also ... ? unreasonable/demanding.  Ie - when she wanted the whole family to follow Jimmy/Steve to Michigan and when she got mad at Sean for not taking them ALL in.  Even when he explained how he had to put HIS son first - she was mad and tried to guilt him. I'm a fairly new watcher - but I really really hope that Lip realizes his potential and sees some success before this show ends. 

[scrb]

It's not so much Debbie running the household where she doesn't measure up to Fiona.

It's more about whether Debbie can fill the role of the female lead that Fiona played.

Youtube suggested this video of Shameless cast when it started and now.  I didn't watch it but the thumbnail showed Debbie as a little girl, prepubescent and her now, wearing a low cut top with a lot of cleavage showing.

Debbie went boy crazy for the guy who fathered Franny but otherwise, they haven't sexualized her at all.  She was this sweet girl who still believed in Frank and loved the infant Liam to death.

Now, I'm not sure they know what to do with her character as an adult.

[Chaos Theory]

19 hours ago, Armchair Critic said:

Debbie is not a substitute for Fiona.

But that’s kinda the point.   
 

The house is pretty much all dudes now and they don’t want another Fiona keeping a leash on them.    Add to that Debbie has her own problems and is a scam artist herself. 

[Christina]

I've always dealt with Frank being on the show because I consider him a barometer of the family. No matter what the others are doing, there's Frank being much worse. Plus, it's fun to cheer when the kids toss him off a bridge into the water and leave him to drown.

For me, Debbie has been awful as a character for quite a while, though. As a youth she was trying to work through the life she was given, trying to discover information about her mother and tried to love Frank. It came across as a pretty truthful storyline for that character. Then, she raped a man who told her he wasn't interested (and I think they actually handled that storyline accurately when it came to the victim and the date-rape), tricked her boyfriend into impregnating her because she wanted to be part of his life, and no the show didn't really put any weight on the boy for not wearing the condom or for not being in his daughter's life, but did make Debbie's character a con artist. She just isn't likable to me and hasn't been for a long time.

I'm also not very impressed with the actress and haven't been for years, but recognize that she has openly discussed checking herself into rehab for alcohol or substance abuse when she was in her teens. She may be limiting her time filming for this and The Connors for health reasons that I do not want to judge harshly when I'm bitching about her bad acting. She's also dealing with bad writing and bad storylines for her character.

This AV Club article summarizes my feelings about Debbie, in a much better way than I can:

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I say all of this because ostensibly, in terms of narrative focus, Debbie has filled in the Fiona-sized gap in the narrative, and I just need to come out and say it: I loathe Debbie. She is a bad person, and not in a way I find remotely interesting. It’s not just that I know that what that is supposed to make her empathetic—her status as a single mother—only happened because she entrapped her teenage boyfriend into getting her pregnant, although I admit that’s a huge part of it. But even if we discount that, Debbie is deeply entitled despite owing a lot to her older siblings, and this season has been risking their financial security on a selfish fantasy that serves no function other than to inflate her self-importance. Debbie’s cavalier approach to life is neither funny or dynamic: it’s just galling, as she is willfully ignorant to the consequences of using Lip’s social security number, and just plain dumb enough not to move her stash once she knows that Mikey knows where it is. I can’t even enjoy her comeuppance because it technically places the rest of the family in jeopardy more than her, and my rage just shifted to how quickly she abandons the prospect of a union the second she needs money. Debbie is a no-good, ignorant, low-life scab, and there’s nothing good that comes out of that.

But there’s a moment where the show’s approach to Debbie becomes clearer, if no less troubling. While the show has typically framed Carl and Liam as Frank’s protégés, Frank has a real moment of pride when he sees the scam that Debbie is running, and all of a sudden you realize the show is actually not trying to have Debbie be the new Fiona. She’s actually the new Frank, a choice that is mind-boggling to me. Beyond the fact that Frank himself is a toxic presence in this show, his storylines a repetitive string of tomfoolery with no cumulative value, the idea that the show can sustain two characters whose Gallagher-family skills are being put to use solely for their personal gain at the expense of their family members is deeply naïve. Whereas Fiona’s biggest mistakes were always framed as a fall from grace, with Debbie I don’t believe that narrative holds. The character has been too terrible for too long for me to see this as anything more than her showing her true self, and their choice to double down on this behavior creates a fundamental barrier to my enjoyment of the series. It’s not just that the show needs to hold Debbie accountable: they need to have her show a semblance of self-awareness and find a way to invest me in her future.

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Now, we could argue that Debbie is young—still a teenager, according to Vee—and therefore her immaturity is more understandable. But in truth, the core problem is that the show’s writers never figured out how to write Carl and Debbie like adults, and the transition to giving them their own stories has always rung false.

The entire article is worth a read, even if you don't agree with his findings, because it's one of the few well written reviews about the show. It seems like most reviewers cut this show off seasons ago, leaving people like me bitching on sites like this one. He points out the little nagging things the show doesn't even try to get right, and gives accolades when they do.

I've long since known I'll bitch about it but continue to watch until it ends, even though it's been more hate-watching than enjoyment. I keep thinking I'm done but tune right back in. So, I'll be hypocritically watching so that I can keep bitching about it.

[chabelisaywow]

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The entire article is worth a read, even if you don't agree with his findings, because it's one of the few well written reviews about the show

Someone commented that the writer watches the show for things to hate and complain about. 

I always seem to be really slow to watch "hit" shows and I end up bingeing. I watched two seasons of "This Is Us" and now watch week to week. The mid season finale just aired and I realized that they've shown 9 episodes and the "plot" hasn't moved.  I find the same with Shameless - I'm just here to see how it finally ends. 

[LibertarianSlut]

On 11/27/2019 at 12:53 AM, Christina said:

I've always dealt with Frank being on the show because I consider him a barometer of the family. No matter what the others are doing, there's Frank being much worse. Plus, it's fun to cheer when the kids toss him off a bridge into the water and leave him to drown.

For me, Debbie has been awful as a character for quite a while, though. As a youth she was trying to work through the life she was given, trying to discover information about her mother and tried to love Frank. It came across as a pretty truthful storyline for that character. Then, she raped a man who told her he wasn't interested (and I think they actually handled that storyline accurately when it came to the victim and the date-rape), tricked her boyfriend into impregnating her because she wanted to be part of his life, and no the show didn't really put any weight on the boy for not wearing the condom or for not being in his daughter's life, but did make Debbie's character a con artist. She just isn't likable to me and hasn't been for a long time.

I'm also not very impressed with the actress and haven't been for years, but recognize that she has openly discussed checking herself into rehab for alcohol or substance abuse when she was in her teens. She may be limiting her time filming for this and The Connors for health reasons that I do not want to judge harshly when I'm bitching about her bad acting. She's also dealing with bad writing and bad storylines for her character.

This AV Club article summarizes my feelings about Debbie, in a much better way than I can:

The entire article is worth a read, even if you don't agree with his findings, because it's one of the few well written reviews about the show. It seems like most reviewers cut this show off seasons ago, leaving people like me bitching on sites like this one. He points out the little nagging things the show doesn't even try to get right, and gives accolades when they do.

I've long since known I'll bitch about it but continue to watch until it ends, even though it's been more hate-watching than enjoyment. I keep thinking I'm done but tune right back in. So, I'll be hypocritically watching so that I can keep bitching about it.

I do agree that Fiona and Deb comparisons are going to be inevitable, but I respectfully disagree with regard to the Deb analysis.  It's important to note that Deb isn't trying to be Fiona, so most comparisons will be unfair.

I thought Fiona was an awful person, and part of it was that she couldn't or didn't recognize it.  I don't think it's cool to purchase clothes, wear them and return them, but how could that compare to committing a hit and run when you're drunk (and not giving a shit once you sober up) and walking onto a strange woman's property and decking her in the face because you don't like the way she regarded your brother?  And I'm just using examples from season nine, because I'm too lazy to go all the way back, and it's already been listed upthread that she felt entitled for her whole family to move in with Sean, or the Liam cocaine thing, etc.

I tried to read the review in full, and I got some more of it, but the site crashed.  I do feel like the reviewer is biased.  "Cavalier approach to life" describes Fiona, not Deb, to me.  "Willful ignorance" for taking the money that was left for her and depositing that money into her family members' accounts because Debbie committed the cardinal sin of using their correct social security numbers?  I'm not sure how wrong that was, because bank accounts don't become frozen or attached, nor do wages get garnisheed at 50% if someone is in arrears for student loans.  That stuff doesn't happen at all without a judgment anyway, and the only time I've heard of it being 50% was for a man who had five kids and wasn't paying child support.  This was never a storyline that Lip had court dates for this, so I thought that one was especially dumb of the writers, because I assume that at least half of the audience has student loans that aren't paid (I do), and I do things in my social security name all the time, so I think it's a wee bit unfair to fault Debbie for doing something that only has those consequences within the four corners of the show.

If they had unpaid taxes and shit, that's their problem.  That doesn't go on Debbie.  

I don't remember the exact circumstances of Deb getting irresponsibly pregnant, but Fiona got irresponsibly pregnant too, so that's a wash with me.

As far as changing her mind about the union?  Why not?  They enticed her with promises of certain things, and it turned out to be a whole other story, so she changed her mind.  Good for Deb for having a mind of her own.  Who does she owe more to, Frannie, her daughter, or the people in the union of which she's not a member?

I don't think Deb is perfect, but I think she's better than Fiona by a long shot.  Fiona was selfish and dishonest in ways Deb is not.  

I do think this show should end, and I'm just watching because I feel like I'm on board this ship and ridin it out.

I'm really not a Kev/Vee/Alibi fan, but I did think the best friend contest was different, so it was ok.  Women are competitive, so I could see them sticking around to see who would win.

I didn't think Vee would have such an over-the-top positive reaction to Liam's mentor.  In an earlier season, she might have just given him the once over glance and we would have gotten the message, but everything Kev and Vee do is so in our faces these last few seasons.  It's awful.

There's no "the talk" in jail.  Everyone knows that when someone is up for parole, they're going to try to leave, unless they're crazy.  I knew there was no way in hell Ian was going to stab that inmate, and that made me sad, because the show can't even do suspense well anymore!

Lip and the smoking, Madonna!  Women have been smoking and raising babies simultaneously for 100 years.  The whole shit with attending to the baby the second it fussed was unrealistic, especially for a Gallagher.  It was just a lead-in for Lip to join Mommy AA or whatever dumb shit they're going to have him do next.  I think Lip is a really good actor--better than Ian--but, dude, if you are actually a smoker, and you don't know the next time you're going to be able to get a cigarette, you will suck that mother down to the filter within exactly one minute, not stand with the cigarette in hand and then throw it.  It's those little things that take me out of a scene.

I like Frank when he's completely selfish, all id.  This Mikey shit is getting annoying.  If Frank only cares about Frank, fine.  If he's going to start caring about people then?  Start with the seven-plus kids you spawned (I'm adding Sammy because the stupid show forgot about her, and I never will).  I didn't mind the sort of bottle episode with Frank and the female med student, because it was written so well, but Mikey week in, week out is wearing on me.  

OMG, Carl is entering yet another dysfunctional relationship.  I'll be damned.

I'll be back watching next week, of course, and I actually think this season may be better than the last two seasons.  It feels like the baby seal viewers have gotten a respite from being beaten over the head with the writers' politics.  I'll take what I can get!

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Clip:

[iMonrey]

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 I think Lip is a really good actor--better than Ian--but, dude, if you are actually a smoker, and you don't know the next time you're going to be able to get a cigarette, you will suck that mother down to the filter within exactly one minute, not stand with the cigarette in hand and then throw it.  It's those little things that take me out of a scene.

Heh, that always drives me nuts too. Cigarettes are expensive, man. And these people are dirt poor. No way they would light up a cig, take a couple of puffs then toss it. They'd stub it out and save it.

[heatherchandler]

On 11/28/2019 at 5:28 PM, LibertarianSlut said:

I like Frank when he's completely selfish, all id.  This Mikey shit is getting annoying.  If Frank only cares about Frank, fine.  If he's going to start caring about people then?  Start with the seven-plus kids you spawned (I'm adding Sammy because the stupid show forgot about her, and I never will).  I didn't mind the sort of bottle episode with Frank and the female med student, because it was written so well, but Mikey week in, week out is wearing on me.  

What ever happened to Sammy?  I feel like that was when the show was at it's best.  I loved her and her chunky son!

[LibertarianSlut]

Just off the top of what I remember about Sammy was that she and Mickey were mutually trying to kill each other and we got no resolution about that; just that they were fighting.  Last we saw of Chuckles was that he was ruling the juvie, because Sammy drew a swastika on his head with a Sharpie.  It led the viewer to believe there was going to some type of showdown or race war with Carl (who joined the black gang in juvie) yet...here we are.  Story of the show.  Abandoning storylines with no closure.  

Why didn't they just kill her off?  She was a very unpopular character.  She could have died in a comedic way.

[chabelisaywow]

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What ever happened to Sammy? 

In jail for trying to shoot Mickey.

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Last we saw of Chuckles was that he was ruling the juvie, because Sammy drew a swastika on his head with a Sharpie.

Released to Fiona, et al. They lost house because Cousin Patrick defaulted on mortgage. Didn't tell Chuckie they were evicted.  Grandma Queenie takes him to commune - may or may not have been eaten by a bobcat? Mountain lion?

[heatherchandler]

12 hours ago, LibertarianSlut said:

Just off the top of what I remember about Sammy was that she and Mickey were mutually trying to kill each other and we got no resolution about that; just that they were fighting.  Last we saw of Chuckles was that he was ruling the juvie, because Sammy drew a swastika on his head with a Sharpie.  It led the viewer to believe there was going to some type of showdown or race war with Carl (who joined the black gang in juvie) yet...here we are.  Story of the show.  Abandoning storylines with no closure.  

I have no recollection of this!  I think I’m going to have to do another re-watch..
 

I do remember Chuckles going to juvvie.

[LibertarianSlut]

^^^ 

Oh man, I don't have another rewatch in me.  My hat's off to ya.

I looked up Sammi online, and apparently she went to jail for trying to kill Mickey.  It all started coming back to me--the reason Sammi and Mickey were warring was because Ian went AWOL and Sammi told the military authorities where he was.

On the fan page, it said Sammi gave an ambulance operator a blowjob in exchange for getting medical help for Frank.  This is exactly what I was talking about--why is Sammi allowed to give a BJ, but the guy Deb is supposed to blow suddenly and serendipidiously takes up the violin before dropping his pants?

This show is getting soft.  Ew.