Shameless - Recap: I Bash Your Orange Head
Shameless continued tonight with an episode that finally brought Ian back to the Gallagher home, but this ginger seems like a total stranger.
Episode 8 truly worked off of two main plotlines that centered on Fiona and Ian. Around them, the wacky adventures of the rest of the Gallagher clan and their friends continued as well. To kick off the recap, here’s what happened with some of the smaller arcs this week.
First, Kevin’s (Steve Howie) efforts to protect his family became more serious. At one point, we even witnessed him considering the purchase of a grenade launcher. Sensible, Kev! In the end, however, the attention turned to Veronica’s (Shanola Hampton) mother, who gave birth this week. As expected with this wonky pregnancy plot, things did not go smoothly. After giving birth, V’s mother was simply too attached to the child to give him up. While Veronica was more than happy to have one baby taken off of her hands, Kev was heartbroken over the “loss” of his son. Kev and V had some of their best emotional moments this week, and, if anything, the loss of another child to strange circumstances has served to make us oddly even more excited for the day when Veronica actually does give birth to her twins. I hope Shameless keeps this plot light, as Season 4 has certainly been the darkest one yet. Shanola Hampton and Steve Howie are just fantastic together.
Meanwhile, Lip’s desire to care for Liam had him dragging the littlest Gallagher all over his college campus, landing him tail left and right. Most importantly, Amanda, his roommate’s girlfriend, grew increasingly infatuated with Lip, the bad boy from the South Side with a heart of gold. After a drunken night at an “Anything But Clothes” party, she ended up sneaking into to Lip’s twin bed to wake him up with a morning blowjob. Carl watched on with pride.
Speaking of Carl, he’s been wreaking havoc up and down the halls of his school, bullying other students to quit poking fun at his family situation, specifically what happened to Liam. Suspended and required to drag an appropriate guardian in for a meeting with his targets and their parents, Carl was forced to enlist the help of Frank and Sammi (Emily Bergl). Fiona, of course, was bound to the house. In the end, Frank managed to save up enough energy to give a riveting speech on the positive impact of bullying in schools and the lasting effect a bit of trauma will have on Carl’s victims. Perhaps most importantly here is that Carl is learning that he might not like the way his future is shaping up. His own father is basically certain that he’ll be picking up roadkill and in and out of jail. Meanwhile, his time spent partying with Lip this week just made college seem all the more amazing.
Debs was devastated to learn that Fiona had trashed her “Countdown to Losing Virginity” poster as part of tidying up their residence for government inspection. In fact, she was so upset that she chose to confide her secrets in Sammi during Episode 8 instead. For what it’s worth, Sammi is kind of great. She has a very odd relationship with Frank, but she’s been a decent sister and she means well. For example, she helped Debbie through her first period this week and doled out somewhat misguided advice on boys. Sure, maybe those tips would have worked if Debbie were pursuing someone age-appropriate, but Matty is in his twenties. Debbie has now taken to playing hard to get and, unfortunately, it just might be working.
Sammi also spent much of her time this week helping Frank to scrounge up some money for his surgery by luring people into a fake home sale. Using Sheila’s house as bait, Sammi and Frank sold off furniture, created a faux sense of competition, etc. The whole idea of the scam was to get people to invest money in a product they’d never actually end up getting, the house.
Showtime "Shameless"
Speaking of money problems, Fiona is unable to work as she’s bound to the home under house arrest. Most of her time on our screens this week was spent looking for dough and simply going insane like an animal in a cage. The cabin fever slowly set in over the course of this hour of Shameless, and we witnessed Fiona doing everything from folding and color-coding all of Carl’s shirts to cleaning and scrubbing like crazy. Mostly, though, the best part of watching Fiona this week was to see just how her life has begun to pass her by along with the people in it.
Most of her family, at the beginning of Episode 8, couldn’t stand to even interact with Fiona, especially after she dared to clean out their rooms for the inspection. Lip, meanwhile, continued his own relentless brand of passive aggressive punishment. For example, he pushed Fiona to relax and spend time with Veronica, only to then get enraged when she chose to drink as well, accidentally burning the food he’d brought home from school. True; Season 4 Fiona is a total screw-up, but she does, as she put it at the close of this week’s episode, need her family to survive this. The incessant chastisement had only served to drive her more so into the ground.
Fiona also had two encounters from folks outside of the Gallagher home today. First, her probation officer arrived promptly, denied Fiona’s offer of some chocolate chip cookies, and systematically walked her through the motions and requirement of their relationship, including gathering supervised urine samples. Basically, Fiona can’t even get as far as the family’s trashcans in the backyard. In addition, she can’t begin the search for a job for about two weeks when her report is filed. Later, Fiona also received an unexpected visit from Robbie, who mainly wanted to know just how much information about the owner of the cocaine, himself, Fiona had snitched to the police. Yes, he is that scummy.
The best Fiona moment during Episode 8 had to be the scenes in which she walked from room to room in her empty house, said goodnight to every empty bed, and subsequently crawled into Liam’s to sob her eyes out. In the end, she phoned Lip at school and begged him to help her by returning her family. Lip, probably realizing that taking Liam to a college party and receiving oral sex while his little brother slept on the floor aren’t exactly perfect parental decisions either, seemed to finally warm back up to the idea of giving Fiona a new start. He brought Liam home to wake her the next morning.
Showtime "Shameless"
Perhaps the most exciting part of Episode 8 was the return of Ian, who is, sadly, not himself whatsoever. There’s no telling exactly what is going on with him at the moment, but his behavior seems drug-addled, wired, and manic. I like that Shameless has used Ian’s tailspin as a means of getting us better acquainted with Mickey as an individual during Season 4. Watching Mickey and those around him coming to terms with his sexuality has been a blast, especially when taking into consideration some of this week’s moments that included a trip to a gay club and an after-party with a more highbrow kind of fabulosity crowd. Mickey is, quite literally, a pimp, and watching him interact with the likes of gay scholars and other affluent LGBT figures was highly entertaining. Mostly, while this was entertaining, it was important because it showed us just how much Mickey is willing to leave his comfort zone to be loyal to and to protect Ian. Ian, clearly, needs help. Also, let's not forget that this is an amazing journey of self-discovery for Mickey, too! Noel Fisher is a gem. My favorite Ian-Mickey moment this week had to be when Mickey caught a glimpse of an older man looking to tip a dancing Ian, only to subsequently slap his hand away and give him a firm talking to. Mickey does not like seeing Ian objectified at all. Funny enough, as all of this was transpiring, Mickey’s wife went into labor, not that he cared whatsoever. He's in love!
https://twitter.com/noel_fisher/status/442837726962790400
What did you think of Shameless Season 4 Episode 8, “Hope Springs Paternal”? What’s up with Ian? Will Frank end up surviving all of this? Is it time for Fiona to catch a break or does she not deserve one? Do you like the idea of Lip and Amanda? Do you think Carl will start to clean up his act?
Thanks for reading my Recap and Review of Shameless Season 4 Episode 8, “Hope Springs Paternal”!