Throughout the third season of Showtime’s Shameless, Mike Aurigemma will discuss the ins and outs of each episode. Please beware of spoilers.
Wow, what an episode. These last few have just been fantastic in my mind and this might sound harsh, but I think it is because of the lack of storyline’s involving Debbie. I do not hate her character, but it just seems like everything involving her is really not that interesting and does not impact everyone else that much.
I really do not know where to start off for this episode as there was so much going on, but my favorite portion of this one was the interaction between Carl and Frank. This was the first time we saw Frank show any signs of being an actual father. Even though what he was showing Carl was incredibly wrong and an awful example to set, just the whole handshake between the two of them made it seem like Frank actually cared. Then obviously Frank took it a step further when he stepped up for Carl and told the police that Carl did not have anything to do with the burglary. Now you can twist this and say how Frank has to be acting like this for a reason to get something out of his family and kids. Maybe this is the way for him to convince his kids to take him back into the house, but either way it was a big step for his character and something that really made me love this episode.
Then there was Mickey’s wedding, which did not end up going how I was expecting it really. I just had a feeling that Ian was going to pull a Mandy and try to hurt Mickey’s wife. Instead it just became a shit show as Lip also showed up and went off on Mandy, who quickly made a jump to another date. I was expecting more of a blowout from all of this, but I think Lip really kept it under control as he got Ian out of the situation. That could have escalated a lot faster and now Mandy knows why Ian was constantly asking her about Mickey so it will be interesting to see that play out. And we really do not know if someone will ever inform the police that Mandy was the one who tried to kill Karen. It looks like Lip was trying to make Karen remember that, but now with her moving away with Jody that is going to create more problems. I still think we could see both Ian and Lip move off to different places in next season, with Ian going to the Army and Lip going off to college.
With the mention of some possible characters moving on I have to talk about the whole Jimmy and Fiona fiasco. Now clearly Jimmy messed up big time with everything and the situation with Estefania may have cost him his life. I do not think we will see Jimmy go out that way as I think if they were going to kill him off they would have just shown him dying. In my opinion, I think he may have to go back to Brazil to stay with Estefania, which would obviously kill his chances of going to medical school and moving all of the Gallaghers. I knew that right when Fiona met her boss that was going to end up with them becoming a lot more intimate and I have a feeling we will see more of him in next season.
I thought this was a great episode and was good enough to even be the season finale so I am interested to see how they will top this episode next week.
The Waiver Wire 
When a man teaches his son to break into a house and steal and then takes the full blame, leaving the boy with smirk at getting away with it, we have a problem. This is the first time the show made me sad and angry for the wrong reasons. I think this episode went too far. I accept the title and expect shameless behavior from any and all of the characters, and I never miss an episode. But introducing one’s son to a life of crime is not good, even for this show. The rest of the episode was good and in keeping with what this show does, and I love it. It also set us up for some characters to leave the show while getting us ready for next season.
Wait, wait, wait. So, Mandy was impregnated by her father and the neighborhood raised money for her abortion, Mandy’s father later held a gun to his own son’s head and forced him to have sex with a prostitute who he is now basically having a shotgun wedding with, and lets not forget, a teenage girl just ran over another girl for liking her boyfriend. Frank Gallagher called Social Services on his family and once cost a woman the heart she was waiting on and then had sex with her, literally, to death. He sneaks valium to babies that aren’t even his!
This show is wrong, edgy and meant to cross the line, and I love it. Love, love, love it. I mean, this isn’t 7th Heaven, this is a hard life they’re dealing with. And even though I wouldn’t do a lot of the things I see in this show, I can’t look to pull it apart morally to decide which murder or crime is ‘too far.’ It’s all too far. That’s why it’s Shameless.
I think this show has gone too far at times before, but you have to understand that is what you are in for. I think Frank telling Carl that he caught cancer from his grandmother definitely took things to a different level. With that being said I just thought the interactions between Carl and Frank were the first signs it looked like Frank wanted to be a father of some sort. Even though it was terrible what he did it was still a big step in his character development.