S08.E02: Where's My Meth?

[ElectricBoogaloo]

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Frank re-lives his 20s and joins the workforce for the first time! Fiona grapples with evicting someone from her building. Lip works out a plan to sabotage Charlie's chances with Sierra. Ian and Carl make a troubling discovery about Monica. Kev says his goodbyes as he prepares to go under the knife.

Promo:

 

Clip:

Edited November 6, 2017 by ElectricBoogaloo

[CarolMK]

I might be the only one, but I find Frank much more tolerable when he's sober, same with Lip. Frank is actually getting a sense of pride and accomplishment with this new job, or at least I think he is.

Glad to see Kevin doesn't have cancer. Thank goodness I won't have to watch that the rest of the season. 

I like seeing Fiona without a boyfriend. She's a badass in whatever she does, and being a landlord that doesn't put up with crap is awesome.

Again, this might be me, but for the moment there are too many characters on the show. They can drop the ones we only see for a minute or so. 
That said, I am really enjoying the new Liam character. 

[Miles]

Well that wasn't super insulting or anything. Suggesting that every chubby gay is just desperate for a skinny guy to come along, so that the "fat fuck" can worship the perfect physique of the slender men.

But what do I expect from these writers? They never got anything gay-related right.

Hey writers: Get some gay men on the staff. Maybe they'll tell you that bear bars are a thing because a lot of men are actually into that body type, not because sad lonely fat men need a place to hang and hope that maybe some day a skinny person comes along and looks at them.

Edited November 13, 2017 by Miles

[DiabLOL]

2 minutes ago, Miles said:

Well that wasn't super insulting anything. Suggesting that an every chubby gay is just desperate for a skinny guy to come along, so that the "fat fuck" can worship the perfect physique of the slender men.

But what do I expect from these writers? They never got anything gay-related right.

Hey writers: Get some gay men on the staff. Maybe they'll tell you that bear bars are a thing because a lot of men are actually into that body type, not because sad lonely fat men need a place to hang and hope that maybe some day a skinny person comes along and looks at them.

I was super disappointed by this too and really,  I already thought this show has been circling the drain for years but this was low.  

[Gulftastic]

Debbie has become such an entitled little cow. Her move back to Casa Gallagher can't be far away. Re-introducing the Grandmother might bring problems also.

[iMonrey]

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Debbie has become such an entitled little cow. Her move back to Casa Gallagher can't be far away. Re-introducing the Grandmother might bring problems also.

Yeah - Debbie tries my patience under the best of circumstances but wow, is she taking Neil for granted or what? She's been insufferable ever since she had that damn baby. She went from being one of the more sensible members of her family to the most delusional. 

[Dminches]

So, is Frank actually trying to be a normal person or is he just in the middle of another scheme?  I actually think the former.  Maybe I am just naive.

[Chaos Theory]

Frank actually succeeding in life is a weird kind of funny.    I think he is sincere about wanting to live a straight life but he is essentially a lifetime addict so my guess is it will last until it doesn't.  Plus he will still show addict behavior even when not using.  

Debbie is definetely taking Neal for granted.  Its weird that Debbie has turned into the most Frank of them all.  The person who will take advantage of any person or citation.  Maybe she is not an addict but she is a user.   Of course Ian is most like Monica which is probably why he was having the most trouble letting her go.   

Fiona is a badass when she is not with a guy so I am enjoying her just focusing on making her new apartment thing work.  

Edited November 14, 2017 by Chaos Theory

[Dee]

Kevin & Veronica singing End Of The Road was hilarious.

[Dminches]

7 minutes ago, Dee said:

Kevin & Veronica singing End Of The Road was hilarious.

 

As well as Kevin not knowing if benign was good or bad.

[WaltersHair]

Ian practicing medicine without a license while sweet, is a bad thing. Misdiagnosis is in his future and being caught at it may be as well.

I knew Kevin would be safe as soon as he went to that support group. Overkill for a biopsy. But I am glad that is not his storyline.

I think we're going to find out that mom with 12 kids is babysitting them for money. It's been a while since I rented anything, but I think there's a lengthy appeal process involved before eviction. I seem to remember it took one guy a year to evict a really bad tenant.

I'm willing to bet rich mom will try to get Liam for custody. Monica is dead and there was always more than a bit skepticism that Frank was his biological father. Fiona in a courtroom fighting for her kids is gold. Just speculation though.

Debbie is the worst again. Playing Frank Jr. to a tee.

I hope Carl doesn't get caught selling. I like that he's in military school and hopefully on his way to a good life. But, this is Shameless.

[Dee]

How old are the Gallagher kids now? If Lip is 23, Fiona's gotta be close to 30.

[DiabLOL]

I've had at least one breast lump biopsy. It was done in my doctor's  office with a needle and took 5 seconds tops. No sedation or gauze or support groups. This was over 10 years ago.

[LuciaMia]

Well Debbie may be behaving badly , but she is looking good. But I don't remember her being that busty. And somehow, I thought she and Neal were married.

Since Monica would disappear for years at a time, youd think Frank  wouldn't have been under her influence all that much.

Poor Liam. He doesn't have much hope of keeping any friends from his snooty school.

[sazzat]

Debbie is married to Neil. She lied to the stylist guy. 

I, too, was not a fan of the "chubs" references. It's not even the first or second time; multiple times Shameless has shown fat as equaling desperate for the attention of a thin person. Surprising that Trevor would talk about fat men that way - this is supposed to be a very aware character. 

I like Trevor's presence and do think he's cute but don't see the romantic chemistry. Let Ian have a friend for once. Hey, let him learn to navigate a friendship with an ex who is also gay and out. Fiona, too, needs friends, so I hope that's where they're going with the tenant. Please, Shameless, don't do the obvious temporary lesbian storyline. 

Thinking about Svetlana owning the bar just pisses me off because that storyline was so endlessly stupid, so I would appreciate them junking all references ASAP. 

Would Debbie be that callous about Frannie, even pawning her off on the woman who kidnapped her last season? At the end of last season we were supposed to see a maturing Debbie who took more responsibility for securing her future and had a plan. If this season's Debbie is tired of motherhood I'd like a more complex look at her feelings. Otherwise it just seems like she     gets rebooted every three months.

Consistency and continuity in the show bug the shit out of me as usual, and the things like the gentrification of the neighborhood except not so much/more unneeded mentions of characters' ages/Trevor is progressive but not about body size/joining a support group without even a diagnosis are just arrgh. And the tattoo! There are no circumstances, zero, none, where a sober person enters a tattoo parlor and says "give me a tattoo of some woman on my shoulder blade but I will give no further detail about what I expect so that you will make her nude with giant tits before I can see what you've done." Someone said it would be funny to tattoo tits on the gay kid, and this is the best they came up with? Was he supposed to be drunk and I missed it?

[Armchair Critic]

15 minutes ago, sazzat said:

Debbie is married to Neil.

I thought she was too, but when she came home Neil said he was her boyfriend not her babysitter, so maybe they aren't.

[aemom]

On the Shameless wiki, it says that Neil is her fiancé. 

[Tatum]

I am pretty sure they got married at the courthouse last season. The courthouse scene didn't take place on camera, but Debbie was hustling him to get ready and saying they had a busy day, and one of the items on her agenda was to get married.

 

14 hours ago, Dee said:

How old are the Gallagher kids now? If Lip is 23, Fiona's gotta be close to 30.

I am pretty sure they mentioned Fiona's age as 21 during the pilot episode. The timeline is so wonky since each season doesn't equal a year, but if we are figuring she was 21 in January 2011 that would make her around 27-28 now.

 

At most, Ian can only be 21 now, but he's been drinking in bars without any trouble for the last 5 seasons.  I think Carl and Debbie are pretty close in age so he's probably around 18 and she's probably around 17.

 

I can't even guess with Liam. If he was 2ish in the pilot he'd be like 9 by now?

 

ETA: oh wait. I think Debbie is older than Carl actually. I remember she was upset he was going through puberty first. So she's 17-18 and he's 16-17, probably.

Edited November 14, 2017 by Tatum

[CarolMK]

The idea of the Gallaghers having friends is interesting, and I think that Ian's female partner on the EMT route could be developed further. Also, seeing Lip for the first time with friends in a support group rather than just with a girlfriend is also refreshing. Frank always had his friends at the Alibi but now it appears he'll have some types of friendships now with his work collegaues. And Debbie is friendly with people from her school, I guess? Or are they just people she met in the bar? Liam finally found a friend this season too, and even though it probably won't last, I thought it was funny that the rich kid thought Liam's family was awesome.

[Chaos Theory]

I think to a kid just stopping by who probably has helicopter parents the Gallagher home would seem like Disney World.  Do what you want.  Eat what you want.  No bed time. 

A fun place to visit.   Just sucks living there.

[iMonrey]

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So, is Frank actually trying to be a normal person or is he just in the middle of another scheme?  I actually think the former.  Maybe I am just naive.

When his boss pulled him into his office and said "I'm onto you. You're not really interested in being a worker for LLL." Frank sort of looked liked "He figured it out." I wasn't sure what to make of his reaction. Almost acknowledging it was true, he didn't really want to work there.

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Ian practicing medicine without a license while sweet, is a bad thing.

Practicing medicine? He's not writing prescriptions. He's doing stuff any regular EMT would do - checking blood pressure, passing out Pedia Lite, condoms, etc. 

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Debbie is married to Neil. She lied to the stylist guy. 

If they are supposed to be married then clearly even the writers missed the note. Neil absolutely referred to himself as her boyfriend in this episode.

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I think Carl and Debbie are pretty close in age so he's probably around 18 and she's probably around 17.

In last season's finale, Frank asked Debbie how old she was and she said sixteen, and Carl said 15. I'm not sure how long ago that was supposed to be, show-time, but not much.

Then we see Debbie drinking beer at the Alibi in this episode.  I realize Vee and Kev maybe aren't real strict about carding but jeez, you'd think even they would want to avoid maybe getting shut down.

[Tatum]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

If they are supposed to be married then clearly even the writers missed the note. Neil absolutely referred to himself as her boyfriend in this episode.

 

I don't think the writers care much what they wrote the previous season. I mean, there should still be cement plaster in the Gallaghers' hallway from Frank's prank last season. Not to mention a giant hole in the ceiling. But the house looks just as it did S1.

 

I am 99% sure Debbie and Neil got married off camera last season (Debbie had the courthouse wedding, along with her GED test, all set for one day), but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the writers decided to forget about that and have Debbie unmarried this season.

[aemom]

Frannie is SO adorable!

[Miles]

On 14.11.2017 at 4:27 AM, sazzat said:

Debbie is married to Neil. She lied to the stylist guy. 

Pretty sure the writers just forgot that fact.

[iMonrey]

I did get a kick out of that nanny's increasing horror over the Gallagher's neighborhood and unwillingness to let Liam out of the car, whereas Liam just shrugged it off like "eh, it's always like this." I'm not sure why, though, Ian and Lip were giving that kid's mom the stink eye while she was waiting outside for her kid after his sleepover. Maybe she said something that got cut, maybe it was her unwillingness to go inside the house, but I'm not sure why she'd let her kid sleep over in the first place.

[Jax7917]

49 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

I did get a kick out of that nanny's increasing horror over the Gallagher's neighborhood and unwillingness to let Liam out of the car, whereas Liam just shrugged it off like "eh, it's always like this." I'm not sure why, though, Ian and Lip were giving that kid's mom the stink eye while she was waiting outside for her kid after his sleepover. Maybe she said something that got cut, maybe it was her unwillingness to go inside the house, but I'm not sure why she'd let her kid sleep over in the first place.

Yeah you would think if the kid's parents are such helicopter parents, they'd know where their son was sleeping before they agreed to let him stay over.

[Snappy]

My husband sucked me into the vortex that is Shameless, and now I'm hooked. Ever since I started watching, I liked Carl, even through his pseuo-gangster phase, but could not stand Debbie. She hasn't just become a brat. She's always been a brat, albeit a brat with a little common sense. Now she's even more entitled, and less common sense. I wish Lip would get a better storyline than just having us wait until he falls off the wagon again. I don't mind Trevor, and love the calm he brings to the chaos of Ian's life. I too, was happy Kevin's storyline about cancer ended quickly and wish the writers would forget about Sveta owning the bar. Among a series of stupid storylines, that is the most stupid and boring.

[Tatum]

That tenant that wrote the $.01 check to Fiona was a real bitch. I thought it was nice that Fiona was suggesting a payment plan instead of just starting eviction proceedings. I know it's different in every state, but I think there are a fair amount of tenant protection laws and I don't think you can actually push someone out after 7 days of non payment. But I wouldn't expect Shameless to research Illinois lease laws and I thought it was nice Fiona was offering some flexibility to her tenants. Also, writing a check like that wouldn't really look that good on the part of the tenant if she's trying to fight an eviction.

 

I felt a little sad for Debbie. Yes, she's been a huge bitch for the last 3 seasons, but has this girl ever had a friend? Fiona had Vee, Lip and Ian and Carl had school friends, but Debbie has always been on the outside looking in as far as friendships go. Her only "friend" was Holly, who was at times pretty awful to her. It's not right how she's treating Neil (or Frannie), but I can see how the prospect of having drinks with friends after a lifetime of looking out for young children and being a misfit can be too hard to pass up. She should, because of the choices she made, but I understand why she's being so selfish now. And I don't even like her much.

 

I wonder why she's working at the parking garage though. Wasn't the whole point of marrying Neil (which evidently has been retconned by the writers) was that he would financially support her so she could stay home with Frannie, and take care of him as well? It seems like she's gone most waking hours so it appears neither one of them is actually getting the benefit that came from their marriage (or now merely relationship) of convenience.  I don't even see why she's still there at this point.

[omgsowicked]

I'm worried that Kevin's cancer plot being introduced and resolved within two episodes was about giving us a false sense of security before they kill him off another way later on. I really like him (and teared up when he and Vee sang in the hospital) so I hope I'm being suspicious for nothing, haha. I mean, Monica just died so they probably won't kill off another character, right? But on the other hand, if they're not setting us up for something, then this was really just for the "haha, dude has a lady cancer" laughs? I mean... OK. (I did like that they had a man with a breast cancer scare, as men are affected by that type of cancer as well.)

[kieyra]

How did Kev and V end up with Svetlana's kid? Didn't I hear Kevin telling "Yvgeny" something?

[Gulftastic]

On 13/11/2017 at 9:44 PM, Dee said:

Kevin & Veronica singing End Of The Road was hilarious.

It started off funny, then became really touching. I had a tear in my eye by the end.

[Booted]

I love Lip and am hoping that whatever this show does it gives him a happy ending but am so afraid that they will not do this. If he has some terrible life or one similar to Franks because of his drinking I'm going to be heart broken. I have become to invested in him as the "good" one to redeem it all. 

[iMonrey]

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How did Kev and V end up with Svetlana's kid? Didn't I hear Kevin telling "Yvgeny" something?

Yeah, I'm not sure what happens with Yvgeny in a situation like this. Doubtful that Children's Services is even aware of him. It appears that Kev and V simply consider him one of their children, a holdover from the "throuple."

[sheetmoss]

It finally dawned on me who Debbie was channeling , Cady Heron(Lindsay Lohan) when she became a self-absorbed Mean Girl

[Chaos Theory]

According to a fandom website Debbie is 16 which makes sense.    She was still underage when she had that relationship with the older dude and then transitioned into a relationship into a relationship with the guy who got her pregnant.   If Debbie was 17 or 18 it wouldn’t horrify Fiona as much as it did but Debbie being 15  made it the kind of storyline that works for the show and even incorporating Frank.

[planet17]

On 13/11/2017 at 5:54 AM, Miles said:

Well that wasn't super insulting or anything. Suggesting that every chubby gay is just desperate for a skinny guy to come along, so that the "fat fuck" can worship the perfect physique of the slender men.

But what do I expect from these writers? They never got anything gay-related right.

Hey writers: Get some gay men on the staff. Maybe they'll tell you that bear bars are a thing because a lot of men are actually into that body type, not because sad lonely fat men need a place to hang and hope that maybe some day a skinny person comes along and looks at them.

That really made me feel embarrassed for watching Shameless. But really, I expect nothing less from Nancy Pimental's scripts. I think the episodes written by her are by far the worst and she lacks sensibility. Either for drama or comedy. Whenever I see her name in the credits, I get ready for a tasteless and offensive sense of humor.

[DiabLOL]

9 hours ago, planet17 said:

That really made me feel embarrassed for watching Shameless. But really, I expect nothing less from Nancy Pimental's scripts. I think the episodes written by her are by far the worst and she lacks sensibility. Either for drama or comedy. Whenever I see her name in the credits, I get ready for a tasteless and offensive sense of humor.

I really think you nailed it.

[Mindthinkr]

I get that it was fun for Liam's friend to be able to jump on the couch and have his normal rules suspended. I just thought that the video game that they were playing was pretty graphic and I thought that the schoolmate would have had a more visceral reaction to it because he's been so sheltered. Got a laugh that his mother stripped him down before getting in their car. Gosh forbid that he brings home Gallagher cooties! 

[Kusa]

I thought they didnt get married because Fiona wouldn't go to the courthouse with her, because she was underage.