‘Shameless’ Staged A Twitter Hack To Announce A Fan Favorite Character’s Return

Shameless faces a tough challenge in season 10, which has everything to do with Emmy Rossum’s departure as Fiona Gallagher. That was an unexpectedly strange sendoff (she simply left and skipped her party) but Showtime’s gearing up to fill her enormous shoes, at least partially, by bringing back a fan favorite character. There were multiple options that might have helped in this situation, and sadly, we’re not talking about Justin Chatwin returning as Steve/Jimmy, but what happened instead is a better choice and one that makes sense.

Showtime appears to have made this decision on the heels of Cameron Monaghan declaring that he’d return for season 10, which presumably means that his character’s getting out of prison. His convenient cellmate — and former/current lover, Mickey Malkovich — is now returning to the series (as a regular), too. His previous season 7 departure at the U.S. Mexico border was a real heartbreaker, given that Mickey had always been the series’ most layered character (and Noel Fisher displayed an incredible range of emotion).

Shameless announced Mickey’s return in an “internet” sort of way, of course, by pretending that the series’ Twitter account was hacked by a super “Gallavich” fan. People soon screencapped and reacted to this oddness.

https://twitter.com/Iewisabelle/status/1116475087669071872
https://twitter.com/RhageInACage/status/1116479296657190915
https://twitter.com/clownfop/status/1116498326281773056
https://twitter.com/mickeysnoel/status/1116497651833483264

Before things carried on too long, Showtime confirmed to TV Line that the news was genuine, and Mickey’s definitely coming back. Cameron Monaghan also stepped in to acknowledge the good news. “Glad we could finally say it,” he tweeted. “Welcome back to #Shameless, @noel_fisher. Missed you, my friend.”

Thank goodness this didn’t go down on April Fool’s Day, right? If that was the case, people might not have been so congratulatory about the well-executed publicity stunt. Let’s just hope that Shameless doesn’t bring back Gay Jesus. Ian deserves a much better character arc than that fiasco.

https://twitter.com/kindofsortofok/status/1116466137267613697
https://twitter.com/caylamasters/status/1116496614141640704
https://twitter.com/_giselmars/status/1116479579676454913

(Via TV Line)