Throughout the third season of Showtime’s Shameless, Mike Aurigemma will discuss the ins and outs of each episode. Please beware of spoilers.
Now I am not saying this was a weak episode, but probably my favorite part of this episode was the fact that we ended up getting a little bit of Liam in this one. We even got to hear him speak for the first time and I am hoping that he is soon capable of having a bigger role in this show.
One person who has definitely been getting a bigger role has been Mandy and how she is clearly falling for Lip. It is obvious that Lip still does not want to fully commit even with how the episode ended with him being with Mandy. Kevin really hit the nail on the head when he blamed the reason Lip was messed up was because of Karen. For a second I thought we were even going to see an appearance by her, but luckily that still has not happened. I am still up and down on Mandy, but I liked her a lot more this episode. Still the tension between her and Fiona is getting old and I am hoping that will stop at some point.
Now speaking of Fiona, she clearly had issues with Jimmy in this episode. I understand both sides of their argument as she clearly does not have time to deal with his problems as well as everyone elses. But looking at it from his standpoint, it would be nice if she was there for him like how he is always there for her. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out especially with the fact that he went back to Estefania later on in the episode. And does that seem like a smart idea when her father can easily kill you?
I do really like when Veronica and Kevin are involved in each episode and we definitely got it in this one. They both enrolled Veronica’s mother to help be a surrogate as it looks like Veronica cannot have a kid. I can handle any storylines that involve these two because it usually gets tied into the Gallagher’s as well, but I just cannot take any more of the Jodi and Sheila stuff.
I guess if I had one complaint about this show it is that they seem intent on having each kid with their own storyline in almost every episode. Ian has his, then Debbie will have her plot and on and on for each kid and sometimes it seems like it takes away the flow from some of the main storylines. Granted I still love the show and did not have a real problem with this episode, but I would like to see some of the major plots become a little more developed. In this episode it might have just been that they wanted to create all of these storylines and have them all culminating at the end with the appearance of someone from child protective services. This could have easily been what they were trying to get across and make sure that all of the kids had these things going on with them ending at the Gallagher house and now trouble could be looming. This will definitely be huge for this show going forward and if Fiona ever finds out it was Frank who made this come about that might be the last straw. I am really excited to see where this goes because this will now mean that the Gallagher’s need to come together and I think those make for the best episodes.
The Waiver Wire 
too many stories. too hectic. the program needs to settle on one or two major stories and develop them better. but everyone had a story in this episodeand that made it too crazy, and that is saying something for this show. I watch every week, but this episode was one of the weakest. Still, it ended on a promising note. What’s going to happen to the kids? Bring it on.