S06.E06: NSFW

[dangwoodchucks]

^ Carl and Fiona look a LOT alike.

I noticed this mostly in that shot of Fiona at the diner as Gus is leaving.

[whiporee]

 

Fiona made a firm choice to take on guardianship. She was warned that it was forever and that she couldn't take it back, that these kids would always be her responsibility, even if she wanted her life back someday.

 

But the other choice was foster care, and the show has made reference several times to how bad foster care was to Fiona and Lip in the past. 

 

I'll put it this way -- if you went spelunking and got trapped in a cave and the only way out was to cut off your arm, you'd cut off your arm and be happy you got out. But that wouldn't stop you from lamenting the loss of your arm, being pissed that it happened to you and, to a degree, kind of resentful that it happened to you. Fiona took on guardianship of the kids because there was no other choice. She knew the kids had to stay together -- and not because of some family-is-holy shit but because she had experienced what life in foster care could be like and would do whatever she could to keep her family out of that. She may have overreached, but I don't think it was her longing to be a mother or mother figure to anyone; it was because she honestly thought there was no viable option. 

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

 

All Right, Shameless, Now Let's Get In Formation
It's halftime on Shameless's sixth season, and we're wrapping up some storylines, including Lip and the Naughty Professor, and Carlz N the Hood.

[stagmania]

But the other choice was foster care, and the show has made reference several times to how bad foster care was to Fiona and Lip in the past. 

 

I'll put it this way -- if you went spelunking and got trapped in a cave and the only way out was to cut off your arm, you'd cut off your arm and be happy you got out. But that wouldn't stop you from lamenting the loss of your arm, being pissed that it happened to you and, to a degree, kind of resentful that it happened to you. Fiona took on guardianship of the kids because there was no other choice. She knew the kids had to stay together -- and not because of some family-is-holy shit but because she had experienced what life in foster care could be like and would do whatever she could to keep her family out of that. She may have overreached, but I don't think it was her longing to be a mother or mother figure to anyone; it was because she honestly thought there was no viable option. 

 

I get that-which is why I said I would understand if the show had Fiona just expressing regret for that decision or lamenting her past choice, but that's not what they're doing. They're having her behave as if not being their guardian anymore is a choice she can actually make with no repercussions, and it's not. She can't just leave Carl and Debbie to their own devices, she can't run away with whatever love interest is holding her attention at the moment and just be their sister. She's legally responsible for them, but the show is not being clear about that in the way they're presenting this story. Not to mention, given her past issues with CPS and her child endangerment conviction, that should be part of the ongoing story here. 

[iMonrey]

 

Speaking of Sammi, I never liked her storyline, so I'm not thrilled to see her mother added to the mix.  However, I still hold out hope for a reveal that Frank is not Sammi's father after all.  Probably not the case, but I can dream.

 

Yeah I was expecting one of them to go "Who are you?" Because we've never actually been told how Frank knew Sammi was his kid for all these years, and a couple of seasons ago when he was asking about her mother, it was clear he was remembering someone else. Also, Frank and Sammi weren't a match for a liver transplant. But, I guess Frank and Sammi's mother do know each other after all. 

 

The actress who plays Sammi is on American Crime Story this season so I don't know if she'll show up here. I didn't think we'd be seeing Amanda this season because that actress is on Superstore now, but she was able to do a couple of episodes so maybe we haven't seen the last of Sammi.

 

The thing with Caleb, I think, is only meant to show us how fundamentally different he and Ian are. They are attracted to each other for the same reason anyone is attracted to someone, but they are polar opposites when it comes to their approach to that attraction. Caleb expects to go on dates and get to know each other, Ian expects a quick back-room hookup. I really think that's all there is to it. 

[STOPSHOUTING]

Though the scene was certainly the most powerful and well-acted of the season, I truly wish that Nick's story had ended differently. There are so few people of color in the Gallhager's world, minus Vee, a fact that has always struck me as wholly ridiculous and unbelievable, given the show's supposed setting. This mostly Caucasian dynamic made more sense in the London-council-flat-set original and at the very beginning of the U.S. version's announcement I had actually hoped they'd make the Gallagher family African-American. Anyway, that they would take one of the few minorities that actually interacted with the Gallaghers in any meaningful way, encourage viewers to care and come to know him over the first half of the season and then sacrifice him to gain sympathy for mini-thug Carl really rubbed me the wrong way.

 

And the house ... Give. Me. A. Break. Auctions, which I've already discussed do not happen within days of foreclosure (sometimes not even a year), and definitely can not be rescinded. Heck, you can't even SEE inside a house to be auctioned, legally, beyond window peaking at most.  And you can't mortgage the cost either. It's a cash auction. That's the point. You get what you get. Fiona could try to buy it from the buyers who have remorse, but they sure as heck can't “rescind the offer,” because it wasn’t an offer, it was a bid.

 

While some auctions do give you time to pay, if you don’t, it often goes to the next highest bidder, who can then decline or accept their final bid amount, and if THAT falls through, it goes back on the auction block, which does happen.

 

It’s like the were talking instead about a short sale which, also, move as slow as molasses, often taking months to get approval/rejection of offers by the owning bank, but works much more in other ways like a traditional sale. But that wouldn’t have given them the dramatic auction scene, only to put their characters right back in place two episodes later.

 

That’s the biggest problem with Shameless as it currently is. When they aren’t randomly changing their characters entire personalities, they’re just running them around in circles, recovering old ground over and over: they're in danger of losing the house, Fiona makes poor relationship choices, Lip falls in love with inappropriate girls/women, etcetera. 

[Tatum]

 

I... am cautious about the Helene story line. I've never disliked her -- she's in an open marriage and Lip is an adult; they can have sex if they want to -- but this whole thing with the college makes me... well, I'm cautiously waiting to see if anything else comes out of it. Basically, the administration's whole issue is that she's supposed to be discreet about it and... it's not like she chose to have someone post a topless photo of her on the internet. She's really the victim here, in a lot of ways, and I understand her being mad at Lip, if she thinks it's his fault. I also understand why she wouldn't just suddenly dump her family and career for him, even if she thought about it one night when she was drunk. Also, he beat up her son one time, which was pretty uncool.

 

This is something that is bothering me too. I mean, on the one hand, Helene broke the rules, and she should not have been sleeping with Lip while he was her student. So any consequences she suffers from that are fair. On the other hand, he took a topless picture of her without her knowing it, which is bothersome to me. I get it that he did it because he thought it was an artsy picture and he had no intention of showing it to anyone, but I would be deeply disturbed if someone did that to me, regardless of what their motivation for doing so was. And for Lip to be so careless to leave that picture on his phone for anyone to find- well I would be livid if I were her. She has behaved unethically by sleeping with a student but I do feel a little sorry for how this came out. And Amanda is a bitch. She didn't do it to save a future student from being victimized by Helene, she's just a woman scorned who humiliated Helene because she couldn't directly retaliate against Lip.

[sazzat]

Agree on the Nick ending. Really well-acted, but a shame to see that character just become a catalyst for change in Carl. That's actually my main quibble with the show. I watch because the actors can be amazingly good with what they're given, but while the writers sometimes do so well, more and more often they're moving toward quick and clichéd ways to wrap up their own plots without really making changes. Carl went through this phase, and they were ready for the phase to be over, hence Nick kills the kid and Carl goes home. 

 

Certain characters --Fiona, Frank, Lip--are stuck in repetitive loops when they don't have to be. There are really interesting and natural places to take those characters other than "oh, we're gonna lose the house again! Oh wait, Carl magically has 100k from his two-man gunrunning and protection racket," "oh look, another relationship has made me question my responsibilities to my family, hold on, I fucked it up," "my wacky drunk highjinks have brought me back, yet again, to the family that would have cut me off long ago," "I have no sense when it comes to women even though I have a lot of experience with this by now."

 

Of course the rules of real life are adapted a bit for the sake of dramatic license, and it's not like I need to see Fiona going through every last real step of buying a house, but the degree to which the show ignores timelines, invents unrealistic consequences at some times, and other times totally ignores things that would prevent easy resolutions, is an annoyance and a hindrance to storytelling and character development. So is the jerk back to cartoon humor that they sometimes do. Shameless can do slapstick and black humor really well, but I feel like they're having a harder time balancing it with the dramatic material. It doesn't work for me to have a character do something awful and have the show play it off as "Ha ha! It's Shameless, it's supposed to be an outrageous show!"

[terrymct]

Sorry, can not agree. Fiona is legally married to Gus and yet she has sexual intercourse with somebody else without his consent? Can not see anything worse than that in a relationship. And yet she still has the audacity to ask for his help?

 

Didn't she cheat on him with his brother to boot?

[Tatum]

Didn't she cheat on him with his brother to boot?

 

That was Mike at World Wide Cups. She slept with his brother numerous times.

 

I believe Fiona only cheated on Gus once, with Jimmy. But it's unclear what happened during the season hiatus. I think the writers are hinting that Fiona and Gus reconciled off camera, and were together when Sean told Fiona he changed his mind and wanted to give a relationship with her a try. I think we are supposed to infer that Fiona just left Gus without a word to jump into a relationship with Sean. That's what I think Debbie meant in a previous episode when she said Fiona "ghosted" Gus. And if that's true, that's way worse than a one time slip with an ex boyfriend.

 

But if we are keeping track, Fiona cheated on Gus with Jimmy, cheated on Mike with Mike's brother, slept with her married former classmate, and fucked Jimmy in the bathroom of a restaurant while she was on a date with another guy.

[terrymct]

But if we are keeping track, Fiona cheated on Gus with Jimmy, cheated on Mike with Mike's brother, slept with her married former classmate, and fucked Jimmy in the bathroom of a restaurant while she was on a date with another guy.

 

That's a whole lot of chickens looking for a means to come home to roost.    Yes, Gus is dragging out his payback, but Fiona not an innocent victim of his abuse either.  Sean may be the one she sticks with over a longer term since he's at LEAST as f'ed up as she is.

 

Fiona needs to return Gus' ring and file for divorce asap.

[Dee]

Sean may be the one she sticks with over a longer term since he's at LEAST as f'ed up as she is.

 

Fiona may be a cheating cheater who cheats but she hasn't murdered anyone. Yet.

[40Love]

Carl and Fiona look a LOT alike.

 

I think the actors who play Carl, Fiona and Lip look very much like they could be siblings IRL. 

[Captain I0]

I'm not loving that Debbie is turning into a mini Franka, sexual flexibility and all. I've never liked her character but this storyline is worst than her "accidental" rapist storyline. And that's saying something.

Don't forget that she's only pregnant because she lied and said she was on the pill to trap a kid, who was going to use a condom, into knocking her up.

 

It's sad that they wrote such a drastic change in her when she got into puberty, but she's really been nothing more than a sexual predator for three straight seasons at this point.

[nomodrama]

I'm sorry, but Nick gets absolutely no sympathy from me. He killed a small child, with a freaking hammer. How did he even know that boy was the one who stole the bike, what if someone else stole it and gave it to him, or the mom bought it off the person who stole it. Listening to the mother's screams was absolutely heart breaking. 

[Swartz]

Fiona sucked that baby right out of her.    She deserves all the bad shit that happens to her. 

[DrSpaceman]

Even though Fiona was pretty low for what she did to Gus, I think Gus was being a dick as well.  The song, yes, she deserved it.  Not helping her out to keep her from losing her house just by signing some paperwork about their crumbled married?  That's just awful.   

The whole Nick story was just way too Lenny and George from Of Mice and Men.