Dylan McDermott is coming to “Shameless”!
Wait, that's not right.
Derbel McDillett is coming to “Shameless”!
Also not right.
Dermot Mulroney is coming to “Shameless!”
That's the one.
The frequently-confused-for-McDermott actor will be joining the fifth season of Showtime's acclaimed series, playing “ex-bad boy and recovering addict Sean Pierce,” who will be the new manager at the diner diner where Emmy Rossum's Fiona got a job at in last season's finale.
Though it will be a new character, he's essentially filling the slot of Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who was introduced in that exact capacity (and with that history) in the season 4 finale. It's a shame Morgan couldn't stick around, given how good he was in that episode (and how refreshing it was to see him in full character actor mode for the first time in a while), but I suppose the same diner can't employ two different ex-bad boy recovering addicts in managerial capacities. And even if it could have two, it would make much more sense for one to be Mulroney and one to be McDermott, who is otherwise engaged elsewhere in the CBS/Viacom empire as the co-star of CBS' “Stalker.”
On the plus side, it'll be easier to tell the two actors apart with these gigs, as opposed to last season when McDermott was (I think) starring in a Washington D.C.-based hostage drama on CBS, while Mulroney was (I think) doing the exact same thing on NBC.