Showtime’s Shameless recently reached a pivotal point when Emmy Rossum’s Fiona Gallagher, the matriarchal glue that presumably held the family together, left the building. In Season 10, the obvious challenge will be to not only maintain the same level of family shenanigans as usual but also sustain the emotional core that Fiona represented. Will the series succeed or flounder? Can the U.S. version of the show manage to surpass the U.K. version that ran for eleven seasons? We’ll hash that out here each week.
All is not well in Gallagher-land on multiple fronts as Season 10 manages to compel in the post-Fiona frontier. Last week’s Shameless return largely unfolded with a “business as usual” vibe for most of the episode’s runtime — until that last 15 minutes or so when Lip and Tami’s baby arrived, along with a dramatic aftermath. The baby was just fine, but Tami nearly died when she began hemorrhaging and needed emergency surgery. How this played out was truly shocking, leaving fans to wonder whether the series meant to kill her off and leave Lip in single-dad land.
Well, Tami is still alive in the second episode, but Lip is indeed on his own, given that she’s still in the hospital. This has led to the grand realization that Lip, despite helping Fiona raise his siblings, has no earthly idea what to do with a baby. (Also, if Lip manages to hold onto those arms while enduring newfound parenthood, it’s gonna be weirder than a jacked Chidi.) Jeremy Allen White’s performance in this episode tops everything that he did while Lip battled alcoholism, which presents the possibility that someone beyond William H. Macy might receive an Emmy nomination for their work on Shameless. Honestly, Macy can (and literally does, at times) play this role while dozing off on a well-worn couch, and Emmy Rossum did much more layered and nuanced work over nine seasons without those award accolades. It’s time for another player to shine, you know?
Maybe “shine” feels like too glossy of a word here, but you catch my drift. It’s brutal to watch Lip break down after these horrors of horrors:
– He dozes off on the toilet while covered in nicotine patches and holding a cigarette, awakening only upon a telltale burning sensation.
– He discovers the baby is “missing” from the living room, only to receive a lecture from V about not leaving an infant alone and wearing a maxipad as a diaper.
— The baby poops in the bathtub. This is the place where only clean and relaxing things are allowed to happen!
— He almost drops the baby and bursts into tears at how hard all of this really is.
— He tolerates Frank telling him, “Get some sleep, son. You look tired.”
White goes though several shades of desperation and anguish as he settles into utter exhaustion mode. Frankly, this is something that most new mothers go through as a given, and watching that happen on Shameless wouldn’t be that interesting. Yet when a guy goes through it? It’s still as worthy of empathy but with new intonations. Maybe, just maybe, this will prompt a bit of awareness in how difficult it is for a parent with no childcare to even think about returning to work.
All of this provides for some tragicomedy, and it’s heartbreaking. Lip isn’t the new Fiona, but he’s going to be forced to stretch into new capabilities, much more so than if Fiona was still around to pick up the pieces. And like Liam tells Lip while he’s wearing a fake breastfeeding apparatus, “You’re like a walking PSA to wear a condom.” For sure. Not to mention this zinger: “Get used to it, it’s your new normal,” Debbie declares to Lip when all he wants is some sleep after 20 hours. Good luck with that, pal.
Meanwhile, in prison, all is not well on the romantic front between Mickey Malkovich and Ian. One would think that this was the ideal situation, right? Almost as if in a dream, Mickey miraculously returned from Mexico, having sacrificed his freedom for a transfer of his choice, and they get to be cellmates. However, the reality of the situation is now stoking flames of regret from Mickey. Mayonnaise isn’t the most romantic lube out there, and living in such close quarters is turning them into a bickering married couple. Noel Fisher’s still bringing his special blend of toughness and vulnerability to the Mickey role, but it will be a miracle if either of these guys make it out without trying to kill each other, even if that’s only metaphorically. Love is dead!
We also need to talk about Liam. The youngest Gallagher usually functions as the lens through which the audience can judge his family antics. This season, we see Liam dressing up as Frederick Douglass and Jimmi Hendrix and questioning whether he’s more like Dr. Dre or Dr. King. This is all treated quite humorously for now, but how long can they sustain the joke? It kinda feels like the show is gimmicking-up the exploration of his Black heritage. You know, like they did with Ian and his Gay Jesus era. Let’s hope this exploration actually leads somewhere concrete. If anyone deserves respect in this family, it’s definitely Liam. That kid has seen some sh*t.
Oh, and thank god for Kevin and V. If they ever write these two for anything other than comic relief (with Kevin now attempting to grift the Amazon return system — that’s gonna blow up) and positive vibes, remote controls are gonna fly.
Showtime’s ‘Shameless’ airs on Sunday nights at 9:00pm EST.
