S05.E12: Love Songs (In The Key Of Gallagher)

[whiporee]

Also, I have to defend Fiona in regards to Gus. It's not like they had a long love affair -- they screwed a lot for a short time and he proposed and she accepted. Then Jimmy -- the one she looks at as the one who got away, the long lost love -- and she reacts stupidly and sleeps with him. But if you had been dating someone for a couple of weeks and ran into an ex you thought were dead, and he's telling you how much he loves you and all that shit ... it's easy to see how someone might.

Fiona, because she's a kid, doesn't see it as a deal breaker because screwing around is what kids do. Gus is older, and that means something, but he's pissed that she's not living up to his perspective. She confessed -- didn't have to, but she did -- and he's held it against her. Also, the cheap shots are uncalled for. He's not perfect in this deal -- he screwed and then rushed someone a solid decade if not more younger than him -- he had to figure there would be a few bumps.

And she did ask him to stay. She did ask to go with him on tour. He said no both times. A lot of this is on him.

[The Solution]

Frank isn't attractive in a real world sense but he would be to a dying woman who has never really lived.

 I dunno. IRL, William H. Macy is 65 years old. Even though Frank is supposed to be about 52, if you scrub off the first ten or so layers of grime, Frank has a pretty amazing body for someone who's either 65 or 52. Just sayin'.

[Blue Castle]

 

I  don't like that they are happy to show tons of hetero sex and few gay sex scenes. Maybe it is the actors, but whatever it is, it is not a good thing.

 

It’s not the actors.  The show wrote a sex scene and the actors filmed it for the third episode of this season.  It was then edited out, presumably to make room for more exciting ‘Fiona and random dude’ scenes or Frank being an asshole.

 

 

It's an unfair and sexist burden that's been placed on her and I think it's perfectly natural that she want a break from it even if she doesn't know that's what she is doing.

 

I agree that Fiona had an unfair burden placed on her, but I don’t think she ever believed her family was a burden.  She felt burdened by her poverty.  She felt burdened by her lack of opportunities.  She felt burdened by her narcissistic father who only sees his children as people he can use.  But in the first four seasons she literally said, “Those kids are my life.”  Lip told her in season one to leave with Jimmy because he could step up; but she chose not to leave.  Jimmy wanted to take her to a hotel for one night and it took a bunch of convincing for her to go.  In season three the impetus for her to gain custody of the kids was not that they would go to foster care (she was planning to clean Frank up and use him to get the kids back).  Her motivation was when she learned that Frank had betrayed them - she then decided (and she never once wavered) to seek custody of them herself.  It felt more like her deciding to take control away of her life more than anything.

 

In season four after she endangered Liam she missed her role as a caretaker greatly and that was partly what led her to further falling.  She begged Lip to bring Liam back so that she could mother him again.  When she got out of jail the first thing she did was make a big breakfast for her family.  In the fourth season finale she was a woman who wanted to recommit to her maternal role.  Who wanted to recommit to being responsible to the people who needed her.

 

This season all of that flew out the window.  And that would be fine if there was a story behind it - like what you were saying - if she unconsciously wanted a break from this (but even if it’s unconscious for the character the audience should know somewhat what’s going on).  But I don’t know what happened for Fiona to change her so radically from 4x12 to season 5.  Why does she basically abandon her family and her previous motivations? Is it because she feels guilty about last year?  Or is she acting selfishly because she just can’t give of herself anymore?  What story are they telling?  I have no idea.  What I saw this season for Fiona was a bunch of shuffling love interests and a half-baked abandonment of the family she once loved so fiercely.  For unknown reasons.  I can speculate wildly about what was going on with her, but I really don’t know.  It was terrible storytelling, imo.

[Pete Martell]

Meh, I don't get the negative response in here. I'm not watching to see Ian and Mickey get a happy ending or any other succesful ships. I want to see a (logical) development, but nothing of all that coupley things, or rather more than just "will they get/stay togehter"-stuff. That's why I don't think Kev and Vees story was pointless this season. Rather that they end up exactly where they started makes sense and is a strong storytelling point. Sameways, Ian's breakup does make sense from his point of view.

 

I think one of the major complaints some fans had is that it didn't seem logical. It mostly felt like something the show pulled out of their ass because at the last minute they weren't sure whether Noel Fisher would be back.

 

The other problem is that they chose to frame it as will they/won't they. They chose to have all that blather from Monica about love and acceptance, and to have Mickey race to see him. They can't have it both ways and suddenly have Ian making self-loathing comments about how he's not going to be an "old queen" getting married. They want to bait and pander to this nonsense, complete with selling overpriced tat to fans, and then shut it down to try to show how "edgy" or "real" they are. And they handled it all terribly, treating Mickey's feelings as a joke, literally treating his life as a joke, encouraging viewers to yuk it up with Fiona and Ian if Mickey is shot to death in the street.

 

If that's how they see Mickey, or Mickey and Ian, fine, but it's time to be honest about it and stop using badly written soap opera cliches to avoid genuine, coherent material.

[Pete Martell]

As for Ian and Mickey ... I care very little. Mickey's a bad guy. The fact that he's gay and in love does not take away from the fact that he is a bad guy, and I don't find his relationship with Ian in any way redemptive. But as for Ian, I've been around a few bipolar people, and this idea of not liking who the meds turn them into isn't uncommon. Monica was a train wreck, but I can see her point -- the madness is a part of who he is, and everyone keeps telling him to reject it. The drugs make him into someone else, someone whose thoughts he doesn't recognize. Maybe a better man would accept that as his fate, but it's hard to condemn someone who wants to be who they are.

 

The problem I have with this storyline is it mostly feels like an excuse to have Ian do random things for shock value or to move the plot along, and they can always just say, "Don't blame him! It's the illness!" He's amused at the idea of the guy he love(d) dying and the automatic response from many is, "Don't judge him! That's the bipolar! Not him!" So anything he says or does that viewers don't agree with is now handwaved.

 

I don't care if he gets back together with Mickey, because I don't think the show knows how to write it and I've seen enough self-loathing gay men on a million other TV shows (and they seem to be taking Ian down the same road so I now care even less), but it's tacky to see mental illness used as a crutch in the writing, to where anything and everything he says or does will be perfectly fine.

Edited April 7, 2015 by Pete Martell

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Did they say how long it had been since Bianca was diagnosed?  I think she'd only been hanging with Frank a few weeks.

I think it was either the end of episode 8 or the beginning of episode 9, right around the time that Gus left to go on tour. This week Gus mentioned he had been gone for five weeks so that's about how long ago Bianca received her diagnosis.

 

I was really hoping Debbie would punch that guy at the pharmacy. Dude, stop perving on teenage girls!

 

It's too bad that Lip and Amanda's relationship has deteriorated to this point. They are both to blame though. She is the one who said they were casual/not exclusive and she has clearly been hooking up with her roommate and telling Lip about it so it's only fair that he should be able to hook up with whoever without any jealousy or consequences from Amanda. She fell in love with him but didn't have the balls to say anything so she just kept getting pissy about Lip having sex with his professor and not being around whenever she wanted to have sex or hang out. Most of the blame falls on her in my opinion. But I agree that Lip realized things had taken a turn and instead of saying anything, he just left.

 

But that brings up a point similar to the band guy telling Fiona that she would have to be the one to break up with Gus because he's a nice person and she isn't. Whose responsibility is it to end things? Especially when things are already a bit nebulous as they have been with Gus/Fiona and Amanda/Lip. In the case of Fiona/Gus, it's definitely changed. When he left to go on tour, she wanted to make things work and he didn't seem sure if he wanted to. Now that he's been back all of a day, their positions have reversed. Gus seems like he's willing to work on their relationship but as usual, Fiona already has one foot out the door and her eye on someone else. I couldn't believe when Sean said he didn't want to be That Guy who sleeps with a nice guy's wife and Fiona's response was, "What if I break up with Gus?" First of all, you are MARRIED. You can't just break up. Now you have to actually file for divorce. But secondly, I couldn't believe that she was bargaining with Sean to see what she had to do to get him to hook up with her and admit he had feelings for her.

 

In the case of Amanda/Lip, I have mixed feelings. Their understanding, which was very explicitly stated as non-monogamous, meant that Lip doesn't owe her any explanation for sleeping with someone else. Amanda is the one whose feelings changed so the onus is on her to bring it up to Lip if she wants to change the status of their relationship (aka stop sleeping with other people). But Lip needs to be really careful. She knows that he is sleeping with his professor and if she has really gone off the deep end because she is soooooo in love with him, I would not put it past her to report Lip's professor just to get back at him. But at the same time, Amanda and Lip were friends with benefits. That's FRIENDS with benefits and he hasn't been a great friend to her lately. Sneaking off while she was heating up pizza was a shitty thing that a friend wouldn't do. If he could tell her feelings had changed but he didn't want to address it directly, he could have just suggested they hang out somewhere in public (as opposed to alone in his dorm room where she might want to have sex).

 

I couldn't muster up any positive feelings about Frank being in Costa Rica with Bianca. As I said a few weeks ago when he first started hanging out with her, it is painful to watch him be nice to a total stranger when he can't be that nice to even one of his own children. His interaction with the kids is always so selfish. He uses them to get whatever he wants and then he ignores them until he needs them again to run errands or steal things for him.

 

While I understand that Ian doesn't like the way he feels on medication, he hasn't been on it very long and he should at least give it a chance. Knowing that he stole Mickey's baby and then almost took Debbie's head off with a baseball bat should be enough to make him want to see how he feels once the medication has taken effect. Can he live with himself if he does something awful the next time he's manic? And after seeing how terribly Monica's behavior affected his family, how can he want to be that kind of tornado to his siblings?

[Rosedust]

And they handled it all terribly, treating Mickey's feelings as a joke, literally treating his life as a joke, encouraging viewers to yuk it up with Fiona and Ian if Mickey is shot to death in the street.

 

It actually pained me to read that sentence.

 

There were so many possible ways to write that break-up, in a way that upheld the continuity and integrity of the characters and relationship...but to watch Ian laugh as Mickey got gunned down...I just can't.  It is forever etched in my memory.

 

Even if Noel stays and they reunite them, that callousness cannot be unseen or forgotten.

 

I'm still utterly baffled at the complete disregard toward everything they built with those characters.  Did no one in the writing room say, "Eh, maybe this isn't the right note we should end on?"

[redlaces]

Bianca told Frank she found out she had stage 3 pancreatic cancer 10 minutes before she was examining Frank's infected bullet wound., then they go to the Alibi. Was another number given later? I

[Tatum]

 

Fiona, because she's a kid, doesn't see it as a deal breaker because screwing around is what kids do. Gus is older, and that means something, but he's pissed that she's not living up to his perspective. She confessed -- didn't have to, but she did -- and he's held it against her. Also, the cheap shots are uncalled for. He's not perfect in this deal -- he screwed and then rushed someone a solid decade if not more younger than him -- he had to figure there would be a few bumps.

 

You'll get no argument from me that Gus was beyond stupid to propose marriage to someone he'd been on one date with. And he may not have known everything about Fiona's family and legal trouble, but he knew enough where he should realized he had to proceed with caution. But, after the bad decision he made led to the inevitable fallout,  he took his time on tour to lick his wounds, but he still stayed in touch with her and asked how everything was going. The only "cheap shot" I think he's said was in response to her laying a guilt trip on him for leaving her for 5 weeks and it was well deserved. Gus has handled things way more maturely than Fiona.

 

I could give Fiona a pass for the Steve/Jimmy incident. It was wrong, but still, I could see how it would happen.

 

Where Fiona absolutely loses me is showing up at the cafe to talk to Sean, as a way to hedge whether or not it's worth telling Gus she doesn't want to work things out. The decent thing to do would be to decide that since she does love Sean (or at least thinks she does this week) that she needs to cut Gus loose, whether or not things work out with Sean. But she's not. She's making sure Sean will be waiting in the wings before she ends things with Gus, and if Sean tells her that he doesn't want to be with her, she'll go back to Gus and say she wants to work things out. And then she'll continue to flirt with Sean and feel conflicted, or along will come another guy who "gets" her and the cycle will start all over. Fiona is being very selfish, just like she's been for the last two seasons.

[india wilkes]

I have seen posts from people who have bipolar who said how Ian treated Mickey was not a symptom of having bipolar. it was just plain mean. 

 

I understand the character of Mickey may not be back, but does that really mean that "hey, we gotta turn Ian into an asshole and make him not care at all about Mickey!" ?

 

From day 1 of this season, Mickey has been there. In episode 8, he came back at the end of the episode and Ian seemed relieved he came back. 

 

Ian voiced his frustrations in episode 10, but as we saw later, they seemed to be okay again and were on their way to go on a date. 

 

After hanging out with Monica, something drastically changed. Monica tells him "You need someone to love you for you," blah blah blah.....and that somehow means "I need to dump Mickey....."

 

I dont have a problem with a breakup. it happens. I have a problem with how it actually went down. It did not make sense. Mickey tells him he loves him and Ian seems to be confused as to what that means. Mickey then recites freaking wedding vows and Ian just mocks him.

 

WHAT? I don't understand it. 

 

Wait. Maybe I do. Maybe in season 6, we will figure out Ian also has a personality disorder. That is the only way to explain it. YES. That has to be it! 

Edited April 7, 2015 by india wilkes

[dangwoodchucks]

 But that brings up a point similar to the band guy telling Fiona that she would have to be the one to break up with Gus because he's a nice person and she isn't. Whose responsibility is it to end things? Especially when things are already a bit nebulous as they have been with Gus/Fiona and Amanda/Lip. In the case of Fiona/Gus, it's definitely changed. When he left to go on tour, she wanted to make things work and he didn't seem sure if he wanted to. Now that he's been back all of a day, their positions have reversed. Gus seems like he's willing to work on their relationship but as usual, Fiona already has one foot out the door and her eye on someone else. I couldn't believe when Sean said he didn't want to be That Guy who sleeps with a nice guy's wife and Fiona's response was, "What if I break up with Gus?" First of all, you are MARRIED. You can't just break up. Now you have to actually file for divorce. But secondly, I couldn't believe that she was bargaining with Sean to see what she had to do to get him to hook up with her and admit he had feelings for her.

 

Where Fiona absolutely loses me is showing up at the cafe to talk to Sean, as a way to hedge whether or not it's worth telling Gus she doesn't want to work things out. The decent thing to do would be to decide that since she does love Sean (or at least thinks she does this week) that she needs to cut Gus loose, whether or not things work out with Sean. But she's not. She's making sure Sean will be waiting in the wings before she ends things with Gus, and if Sean tells her that he doesn't want to be with her, she'll go back to Gus and say she wants to work things out. And then she'll continue to flirt with Sean and feel conflicted, or along will come another guy who "gets" her and the cycle will start all over. Fiona is being very selfish, just like she's been for the last two seasons.

THIS to both of these. Fiona just can't survive without a man in her life. That little smile of glee after she and Sean kissed - I'm not sure if she looked like a 13-year-old kissing a boy for the first time or if it was a smile of "yep, I got 'em now". Why would she want to trade in a stable guy for one who is barely hanging on? I may be in the minority, but I thought she had more chemistry with Jimmy than she's had with any of her other men.

 

So all it takes for Lip to fall in love with a woman is to wake up tied to her bed with her husband watching them have sex. Boy was Mandy going about it all wrong.

 

I really could care less about Ian. The actor isn't that good and the storyline is just going in circles. Meds on. Meds off. It's all very realistic, but it doesn't make for entertaining TV. If Noel Fisher does return and they keep him apart from Ian, he could do fine interacting with Kev & V at the Alibi. Maybe go into business with them again.

 

The Frank and Bianca stuff was meh, but what was up with Lip and Ian cracking up when Frank told them she was gone? I understand how they feel about Frank, but damn.

[Tatum]

 

So all it takes for Lip to fall in love with a woman is to wake up tied to her bed with her husband watching them have sex. Boy was Mandy going about it all wrong.

 

Eh, I have a theory on Lip. The only two people we've seen him profess his love to are the professor and Karen. While they couldn't be more different, they both had something in common- they never acted like they needed Lip (in fact, Karen pushed him away when he told her he loved her). While both are more than willing to fuck him, quite enthusiastically, they have both given him the impression that he could disappear the next day and they would go on about their business. Mandy and Amanda, meanwhile, were hopelessly clingy, and Mandy had the added unappealing trait of being needy, like she was counting on Lip to save her. If there is one thing that repels Lip, it's the idea of someone outside of his family being dependent on him.

 

Looking back, even before it was obvious that Amanda was developing strong feelings for Lip and getting jealous of the professor, their friendship, or rather arrangement, was always kind of one sided. It was always Amanda who was coming to see him, Amanda who was offering to do him favors, or Amanda asking him for a favor. I never thought Lip loved Mandy but at least he seemed to have some affection for her, and did instigate contact with her of his own accord. Lip seemed to regard anything with Amanda as a business transaction.

 

Amanda is pretty abrasive and overbearing so I can see why he didn't have strong feelings for her or seek out her company, and she totally set herself up for this problem, but I still felt so sorry for her. I think we've all been there (perhaps not punching someone or publicly yelling at them) but just the point where you realize that you like someone a lot more than they like you. Worse yet is when you confront them about shitty behavior (like in Amanda's case, the fact that he just left her in his room without a word) not only are they not sorry, but they're just hoping that you're mad enough to leave them alone and spare them the awkward break up moment.

[Advance35]

I think we've all been there (perhaps not punching someone or publicly yelling at them) but just the point where you realize that you like someone a lot more than they like you.

 

Could this also apply to Ian and Mickey.  Ian's been through a lot and while he cares about Mickey to an extent, maybe he doesn't care as much as he use to.   While in an unfortunate switch, Mickey DEEPLY cares/loves Ian now but the level of emotional investment is one-sided.   Who would have thought, when the whole thing began Mickey could rival Karen Jackson in how callous he could be to Ian, and he would on occasion up the ante with violence but Ian was relentless, he wanted Mickey and he wasn't going to stop until he got him.   And now, for the moment, he doesn't want him anymore.

 

I was sad to see CM's latest tweet because I think Ian and Mickey going their sepreate ways for a little while would allow different avenues and dynamics to be explored with the Mickey character. 

 

I think the loss of the Mickey character would/will be a harsh blow to Shameless because the character is such a good source for both humor and conflict.   The Frank well has run dry, Sammi just didn't have "it".   I can't think of any recurring character that's been able to balance humor and pathos so well.  And because Mickey was sequestered (and still flourishing) with Ian alone for Seasons 1-4, putting him in scenes with the Gallaghers gave those actors someone new to play off of.

[Slovenly Muse]

I actually think that Amanda had done a fairly expert job at reeling Lip in. She started things very casually, with no expectations or pressure, and then gently began to step up her efforts as she got a feel for him. Almost as if he were a stray cat she didn't want to frighten. Every time she took a new step in their relationship, she did so in a very calculated way, while playing it off with seeming nonchalance. For example, when she got him that watch in the premiere, she told him what she COULD have had inscribed on it and they both had a laugh. So she teased him with the idea of the added commitment that comes with an inscribed watch, but didn't actually offer it to him (she did, however, offer him the uninscribed watch, which he accepted, feeling that it was a lesser gift than it could have been with the sappy inscription, which made it feel "safe"). SHE was the one who asked HIM whether he would see other people over the summer before responding in turn, allowing him to set the level of comfort/commitment. She invited him to stay with her family, and after the money he took from them last season, that was a pretty big deal. She basically set Lip up with her father, resisting the idea of them bonding JUST enough to actually push them together, and then seemed pleased when it worked. She stepped things up again with "vagina sex," increasing their level of intimacy while playing it casual the whole time. When he got distant, she began talking about her roommate, introducing the possibility that she had other prospects, probably hoping to make him realize that he might lose her, and maybe wanting to inspire a bit of jealousy... She's really had his number all season, and I've admired watching her work! So I'm not at all surprised that she reacted in a big way when she realized she'd lost him for real to this fling with his teacher. I only wish she'd been a bit more dignified in her reaction, because all that shrieking felt really cheap, and I thought her character deserved better.

[tennisgurl]

So...my thoughts.

 

If that is the end of Ian and Mickey, that would be an enormousness insult to all the fans who have watched and rooted for these characters. I hated HATED that break-up scene. I would have been ok with them breaking up, as sad as I would have been. But the way it was done was a bit middle finger to their fans. It was terribly written, out of character, and made absolutely no sense.  This is how you treat the most popular couple on the show? Really? The only story line that didn't become either insulting or boring, this?  

 

Mickey is this show best character, in my opinion, and if this is the end they wrote for him, I will be utterly disgusted. I literally start crying just thinking about it. Thats how much these assholes have made me care about him and Ian and their relationship. And here is the weird thing. Before that ending scene, Ian totally loved Mickey. Even if he was not always capable of showing it (and that's mainly because they never got the screen time they deserved), I could see that, even under the fog, he was still in love with Mickey. This ending just came out of the blue. Their story was the most emotional, the most consistent, and all around best of the season (and over the whole 5 years of the show) and having it end this way would be baffling. A part of me feels so upset, that I don't want to watch anymore. I feel like my loyalty as a fan has been awarded with a massive betrayal. All the characters I love have become shadows of their former selves. That all being said...

 

If the show gets it together next season, I`m sure I`ll come back. And I don't think the saga of Ian and Mickey is over forever. I expect that Noel will be gone for awhile in the start of the season, but eventually will come back, when Ian realizes that he made a huge mistake, and has to try to win him back. He will realize he loves Mickey, and hopefully Mickey will forgive him, and this show can admit they struck gold with this pairing, and actually treat them right. I`m sick of the constant drama with them. I just wanted them to have a season where they were just together, had hi jinks, and lived their lives. Maybe next season will end with that, because I am convinced that this isn't the real, official end. They break up and leave each other pretty much once a season, and while this was the worst by far, I`m willing to just move on from it, if they fix it. 

 

Hopefully, the writers take a good, long look at this season, and get it straitened out. And I am hoping and praying that they can work something out with Noel. Its amazing, considering he started out as a pretty minor character, but there is no Shameless, for me, without Mickey. Especially if the alternatives are "Fiona makes bad relationship choices" or "Frank is a drunk". 

Edited April 8, 2015 by tennisgurl

[Blue Castle]

I am really questioning whether I can be a fan of this show anymore. At this point I would only come back because I love many of the actors. In that finale the only good things were some of the performances.

I was so excited for fifth season after the wonderful 4th season and it was a train wreck. The writers didn't just create mediocrity, they burnt this show to the ground.

[india wilkes]

Obviously this show has changed dramatically (and not in a good way) this season, but I wonder why. Sadly, I blame the award culture. Yep.

 

They were a drama, but weren't getting recognized. So they changed their category. Comedy.

 

It's been noted that Sammi (brand new newcomer) got a ton of screentime doing 'shameless' things this season. Same goes with Frank, but he's always been that way, and we know that the show is gonna take advantage of William H Macy's name.

 

That said, Nobody else on the show is being recognized except William H Macy. He finally did win an emmy, right? Anyway, I think the showrunners are so thirsty to win more that they'll just stick as many weird and out of character scenes now in the show. Which is sad, because I feel like they really ruined it this season. 

Edited April 8, 2015 by india wilkes

[whiporee]

Different perspectives, I guess. Because I thought this season was all about Ian and Mickey. Ian got practically an entire episode by himself or people running around asking "Where's Ian?" If anything this year, everyone else's storylines were given short shift as we wandered through the madness and true love of those two. It may not have been the storyline people wanted, but with a cast this large, the amount of screen time their story was given was more than generous. i think that's because it was the easiest story for the back half of the season to tell, so they decided on that instead of other things. 

 

After I wrote this I started thinking about the whole season. I think there are three things that went wrong. One of them was the gentrification story (which parallels Lip's own) petered out, and it had potential for good moments. If I was guessing why, I'd imagine that real estate is boring and that the people who'd be set up as the villains are the very people who subscribe to Showtime, so they'd be calling much of their audience assholes. Plus, it's hard to make the argument that it's better for places to stay rundown and shitty if there's an option. Unlike the British system -- where one can almost deal with the idea if staying within your class -- Americans think everyone should aspire to better lives, and that translates to property, too. They established this idea of the neighborhood getting improved (and, for the record, it's hard to imagine the uncle who owns the house not jumping at the chance to cash it in) and then realized they had nowhere to go with it beyond frank making rich lesbian jokes. There's a real story there about where do these people living so close to the edge go when their old neighborhood no longer welcomes them, but Wells being Well,s they decided against really telling it. 

 

The second problem is that we don't want these characters to be assholes anymore. We've grown to know them and like them, so we
(and the writers) don't want them to be shameless in their actions. We want them to grow into better people. So Vee's no longer doing porn for dollars and Mickey's no longer shaking down store owners. Even Frank -- who killed Butterface for reasons I don't remember -- gets an air of humanity with Bianca. But they still need the stuff that made them famous, so they brought in Sammi to be the mean gross one who had no limits, and figured we didn't care about her so no big deal. In contrast, Sammi seems too far out -- having Chucky shit on Sheila's table, shooting Frank to gain his love, fucking the guy on the sofa to get Frank's attention, turning Ian in -- that it doesn't fit. They end up with a comic book contemptable character who doesn't fit in with he rest of the pathos. You can see it in Carl's storyline -- what he (and Frank) did to Chucky was reprehensible, but we're supposed to take the Gallagher's side, but since we know everyone involved, it's hard to do that. So they make Sammi seek revenge, and hijinks follow. Doesn't really fit. 

 

Lastly, the thing that went wrong was the timeline was too long. It started in the summer and we're at least midway through the semester. Shameless has always worked best with condensed timeframes -- a Chicago summer or winter -- stretching it out made it hard for there to be urgency. It would have been good to watch Lip really struggle with construction work instead of bailing two episodes in, or to see Ian's bipolar start to manifest itself, or see Debbie train more tone a fighter or whatever. How long has Fiona worked at Patsy's? How have we seen this friendship with Sean develop? A lot happened, but it all took too long. 

Edited April 8, 2015 by whiporee

[GaiusB]

The Solution, on 06 Apr 2015 - 4:39 PM, said:

You're right. Lip was just using her, just like all of the Gallaghers use everyone who comes into contact with them. We heard Fiona, who at one time was the most sympathetic Gallagher, be told that she just isn't a good person. None of them are. Lip is better suited to a dilettante who fucks him in front of her husband than he is to Amanda.

This is why i always shipped Lip with Karen. They had great chemistry and they deserve each other. Girls like Mandy or Amanda are too good for him, there is always a power inbalance - they love him fully, he just use them.

 

Speaking of Mandy, now when she and Micky are gone, there is a serious lack of rootable characters. Now even Fiona, who traditionally was the hearth of the show isnt rootable character. Her "this guy or that guy" dilemma is hardly something a viewer can be strongly invested.

 

I hope next season will be better then this one. My two biggest wishes are: 1. Fiona to become likeable character again, 2. Lip to finally face the consequences for his shitty behaviour and fall hard.

[Tatum]

This is why i always shipped Lip with Karen. They had great chemistry and they deserve each other. Girls like Mandy or Amanda are too good for him, there is always a power inbalance - they love him fully, he just use them.

 

Speaking of Mandy, now when she and Micky are gone, there is a serious lack of rootable characters. Now even Fiona, who traditionally was the hearth of the show isnt rootable character. Her "this guy or that guy" dilemma is hardly something a viewer can be strongly invested.

 

I hope next season will be better then this one. My two biggest wishes are: 1. Fiona to become likeable character again, 2. Lip to finally face the consequences for his shitty behaviour and fall hard.

 

Eh, I'd rather they just completely table any kind of romance for Lip and Fiona in all of season 6. Even if Lip gets his heart broken, that won't be worth it for me.

 

I liked Karen and Lip in S1 and early S2. I have no idea why they completed assasinated Karen's character in the second half of S2. They took a complex, interesting character, and turned her into a complete one note bitch. Anyways, when Karen broke Lip's heart it seemed like he just took it out on the next girl, so I think he should just be without a love interest for awhile.

[Miles]

Okay I can somewhat buy Ian doing something stupid like breaking up with Mickey over having to be himself or somethign stupid lie that (although his experience with Monica should have really opened his eyes, what his untreated illness looks like and that somebody who accepts you not treating it is in fact not true love), but Mickey just taking it? If I was him I would have broken Ian's nose and told him "It's okay honey, I know that broken nose is part of who you are now, we won't get it 'fixed' and I'll fight anybody who tries!"

Let's see how long he can delude himself into thinking that his mental illness is just part of who he is and thus there is nothing wrong with it being untreated.

Also the ending. Are they serious? Ofcourse this show is a comedy, but it was still always somewhat grounded in reality. Now it's "Oh Sammy is trying to kill the man I love with a gun, isn't it funny?! Hahaha! Everybody laugh!" and everybody does laugh. WTF?

 

"LOl. Sammi may kill the love of my life! Better go inside and have some coffee."

I wrote approximatly the same above before I read yours. It's either a case of great minds thinking alike or everybody but the writers could see the enormous problem with this. Probably the latter in this case.

 

There's an interview with John Wells floating around about the finale...and he basically says the future of Ian and Mickey is up to Noel's availability. As of now, Noel hasn't signed on for season 6.

A lot of people are speculating that's the reason why the Gallavich ending was so rushed and nonsensical and...awful. That at least would make some sense. I think they wrote a happy ending for them, but by the time shooting came around, Noel still wasn't committed to another year, so they did a last-minute change and tacked on the breakup in case he decided not to return.

The fact that there was a big rumor going around earlier of Noel leaving, and the fact that Wells admits he hasn't signed yet, I don't think that bodes well.

They could have just let Mickey and Ian make up and let Mickey get shot by Sammi. That would have been tragic, but it would have been satisfying and in character. If Noel does decide to come back, Mickey was just wounded, if he doesn't we start next season at his funeral. How can I come up with a better ending for this season than the writers in less than 5 minutes? Oh right, because they were phoning in this entire season.

 

But as for Ian, I've been around a few bipolar people, and this idea of not liking who the meds turn them into isn't uncommon. Monica was a train wreck, but I can see her point -- the madness is a part of who he is, and everyone keeps telling him to reject it. The drugs make him into someone else, someone whose thoughts he doesn't recognize. Maybe a better man would accept that as his fate, but it's hard to condemn someone who wants to be who they are.

Mental illness is not part of who you are and you don't suddenly become a compeltely different person if you take medication. You will still recognise your thoughts.

Look, psychopharmaca suck. They have a ton of side effects and make you feel like you are not yourself (but in retrospect that's actually not the case at all) and generally physically bad. But quite often, and certainly in this situation, they are the lesser of two evils.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Miles

[paramitch]

I was disappointed in this end to the season, and while I was reserving judgment on Fiona's, Debbie's and Ian's storylines, I'm pretty unhappy after finally catching up.

 

I think I was really expecting that despite some really hamhanded and almost sitcommy writing for Debbie, for instance, that she'd come to her senses. I even liked that big scene of Debbie's with Fiona because it felt earned, it at least addressed (however awkwardly) that Debbie has been watching all of Fiona's mistakes very closely and as of now, she just wants OUT of the Gallaghers (and who can blame her). But the way this was written and addressed, I was incredibly frustrated and even grossed out. They just took it too far. I don't believe this 14 year-old girl would truly be fixated on pregnancy as her only out. Debbie's smart. Or she was until early last season. And she saw more than anything the consequences of those choices. Right now all she's choosing is to saddle her siblings with yet one more mouth. I felt nauseous at most of her scenes this season and especially here. Even Fiona's "shock" at Debbie having a boy in her bed felt weird and wrong -- Fiona knows Debbie is sexually active and basically tacitly endorsed it. Ugh.

 

Same with Fiona -- watching her juggle men this season while the show never actually addressed the yawning discrepancy that suddenly Fiona lives outside the house at will just felt ridiculous. And while I really liked Gus, their romance just never felt believable to me, especially as it felt like a separate storyline on a separate show. I also resent him just a bit because at more than a few moments, Fiona has shown herself totally willing to grow, to evolve, and to meet him halfway, and several times, he specifically rebuffed her and yet he's still somehow the nice guy.

I'm in the minority here, meanwhile, because I really, really like Dermot Mulroney, and always have. I've always found him subtle and underrated, and I like what he's done with his character here this season, especially his total willingness not to play the guy as a sweetheart. Instead, he often gives the guy an edge, and he plays the scenes in which he's warning Fiona away from him with this kind of quiet, heartbreaking sincerity. The sad thing is, I do think there's a good guy in there. But I think he's simply not able to change (or save himself).

I agree that it's not necessarily unrealistic that Fiona, like Debbie, would take this season to rebel against her circumstances. But we never saw that. We never saw her once talk to Debbie or the other kids, or ask for more help from the older boys.She was just suddenly living a weird meet-cute storyline with this musician guy and living in his apartment with no transition at all. And all of a sudden I'm watching a 14 year-old girl become Fiona II (why not the boys, dammit? What happened to Lip and his 'caring?') and parent a tiny little boy in a filthy house.
 

I couldn't muster up any positive feelings about Frank being in Costa Rica with Bianca. As I said a few weeks ago when he first started hanging out with her, it is painful to watch him be nice to a total stranger when he can't be that nice to even one of his own children. His interaction with the kids is always so selfish. He uses them to get whatever he wants and then he ignores them until he needs them again to run errands or steal things for him.

 

This. My main problem with Frank's surprisingly touching storyline with Bianca this season (which I admit was sweet and well-acted) is the ridiculous sexism of the entire premise, not to mention the way it turns his storyline once again away from any caring for his actual children or loved ones:  And of course she's a young, beautiful, skinny girl young enough to be his granddaughter. Who is suffering from late-stage  pancreatic cancer but shows very few signs of the usual symptoms (my sister is a survivor).

 

It's just stupid and insulting. Why not have the doctor be middle-aged? Even an attractive 40something would have been more believable and nuanced, even if still a decade or two too young for Frank (especially a homeless, smelly, penniless, addict whose breath I'm fairly sure smells like the toxic sludge at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico?).

 

But no, she must be young and delicate and beautiful and for some inexplicable hilarious reason, she's also got to be 25 years old and actually attracted to this living corpse, to the point that for the first time in his life, basically, he finds himself feeling actual emotions of love, generosity and selflessness?

 

I agree with those who find it insulting and embarrassing that this storyline was wasted on this season when we could have instead seen Frank discover some kinds of real feelings or responsibilities for his children for the first time.

 

The second problem is that we don't want these characters to be assholes anymore. We've grown to know them and like them, so we

(and the writers) don't want them to be shameless in their actions. We want them to grow into better people. So Vee's no longer doing porn for dollars and Mickey's no longer shaking down store owners. Even Frank -- who killed Butterface for reasons I don't remember -- gets an air of humanity with Bianca.

But they still need the stuff that made them famous, so they brought in Sammi to be the mean gross one who had no limits, and figured we didn't care about her so no big deal. In contrast, Sammi seems too far out -- having Chucky shit on Sheila's table, shooting Frank to gain his love, fucking the guy on the sofa to get Frank's attention, turning Ian in -- that it doesn't fit. They end up with a comic book contemptable character who doesn't fit in with he rest of the pathos. You can see it in Carl's storyline -- what he (and Frank) did to Chucky was reprehensible, but we're supposed to take the Gallagher's side, but since we know everyone involved, it's hard to do that. So they make Sammi seek revenge, and hijinks follow. Doesn't really fit. 

I think you make some superb and insightful points here.  Especially as we watched Sammi go from being a warmhearted if coarse woman (whose scenes in caring for Frank were genuinely heartbreaking) to being, this season, a total psycho who gave blowjobs on Sheila's couch in full view of her family and child (!).

Sammi's behavior, Debbie's and Carl's this season were probably the most out of character to me -- grotesquely magnified beyond all understanding or expectation in order to serve the plot. Ironically, Frank was dialed back in order to emphasize a sweetness and romance (and lack of dirt and even vomit) we'd never seen in him before. Now he's not the man who would have cheerfully robbed Bianca of every dollar, valuable, and pill at her disposal, but a guardian angel who's teaching her how to live. (Ugh.) And suddenly V is a psycho who is so jealous of her own children that she kicks out Kev. Etc. Even Ian running off with a manic, pathetic Monica felt utterly out of character to me.

The only storyline that really worked for me this season in any kind of believable way was that of Mick and Ian, and they tanked that pretty hard with this final episode here. I understood why Ian ran off, but I didn't buy his breakup with Mick or his rationale for doing so. And his behavior in the final minutes was ridiculous -- standing by as Sammi chased Mick with a loaded gun? Oookay.

 

I'm really disappointed in this season. I've grown to like this show and its characters, despite my constant horror at what they do, but this season cheated us by giving situations that simply weren't shameless -- they just weren't believable.

[Chas411]

Finally finished the season and Fiona is a waste of space. As disappointing as I've found most of the characters I've found her the worst. I've not liked her since her self centered breakdown in season four but this season it's just been shitty thing after shitty thing. Making all the other kids problems about her but never actually getting involved enough to help any of them. I cannot stand her.

[terrymct]

On a lesser scale, how does Ian return home without any money at all? Unlike Monica, he does not have meth to sell.

 

 

I'm wondering how Ian got out of the military lock up.   Did the MP's just say "Oh, you were bi-polar when you tried to take a helicopter, then went AWOL?  Ok, all is forgiven, there's the door."