Shameless – Face It, You’re Gorgeous

By starrymag | October 20, 2018

By: Ariba Bhuvad

 

 

This week on Shameless we said goodbye to a beloved character that we’ve grown attached to and learned to love through his imperfections and struggles. Who might this character be? Sigh…It’s Ian Gallagher (Cameron Monaghan). Luckily, he was given off the best send-off he could have given the circumstances and his story got the closure it deserved and needed.

 

As Ian faces his final day of freedom for a while, the Gallagher clan is eager to spend the day with him and get up to all sorts of crazy shenanigans. But it’s not what Ian wants and he decides that he would rather spend the day in peace and quiet and just stay out of trouble entirely.

 

What does Ian have for last meal as a free man? White Castle. That’s exactly the type of meal many of us would have gone for so kudos to Ian for picking that. The calm and peace doesn’t last for very long after Carl (Ethan Cutkosky) and his new girlfriend remind Ian that the prison will be full of dangerous, strong men that will make him his target.

 

In an effort to teach him some moves of self-defense, they instruct him in Krav Maga moves and try to prepare him for what’s to come. A mutual friend visits Ian as well to give him the laydown of the correctional facility he will be at, dividing places between the dangerous zones and other zones he likes to refer to as “Disney.”

 

It seems like Ian is as prepped as he could be and the only thing left is to actually go to prison the next day. Fiona (Emmy Rossum) promises to drive him the next morning, but a drastic situation arises that prevents her from doing it. Since big sister isn’t around to take him there, Kev (Steve Howey) takes Ian and the entire family instead.

 

The tearful, emotional goodbye is too much for any fan to handle and knowing it’s Cameron Monaghan’s final episode makes it all that more difficult. Luckily, his last moments are absolutely perfect as he arrives in his cell to find that his roommate is none other than Mickey (Noel Fisher). That moment felt like us dropping off our child at school only to learn that he or she is going to be just fine. Cameron Monaghan, you will truly be missed on Shameless and we can’t wait to see what you do next!

 

Meanwhile, in the world of Fiona things went from amazing to absolutely horrible really quick. Remember the deal she pushed herself into? Well, it’s going to be delayed for at least a year due to administrative issues and it will also cost an additional $25,000. We all know Fiona does not have that cash on hand and she is making plans with Ford (Richard Flood) to buy a new place. In absolute panic, she heads to the bank to see if she can get more money against her apartment building, but considering she already has two loans it’s unlikely she’ll get another one.

 

She tries to get out of the deal, but is prevented from doing so and if she doesn’t pay the $25,000 then her $100,000 investment will go out the window and she will default on her loans. That means there goes her apartment building as well. But this is just the icing on the cake in terms of Fiona’s horrible luck goes in this episode.

 

Ford is pretty ticked off when Fiona tries backing out of moving in with him in order to use her money towards her investment. The two have a huge blowout earlier in the day after she gets home to find he’s been packing the place up already. She tries heading to Patsy’s to “borrow” the money from the safe, but when there isn’t enough she ends up drinking with a bus boy (Beau Casper Smart) at a birthday party for one of their coworkers. When he kisses her, she puts a stop to it by saying she’s with Ford and because he’s angry with her she has to make it right.

 

When Fiona returns home to find Ford still isn’t there, she gets on his tablet to find his location, which leads her to a suburban home. Upon ringing the doorbell, a woman answers the door with Ford trailing behind. It turns out this is the Patty from his phone and she is his wife, not his mother in Ireland! Ford is still married, although he insists they are about to get a divorce. An angry, flustered Fiona storms out and attempts to drive off in a huff, but she loses control and crashes it into a parked car. Hurt pretty badly, Fiona runs away from her car into the night, thus explaining her absence the next morning before Ian’s prison drop-off.

 

Lip (Jeremy Allen White) fills in on a sober companion job for his friend and learns that he will be looking after movie star Jen Wagner (Courteney Cox). This proves to be a rather difficult job as she tries to sneak out of the hotel room to get drunk. But Lip is determined to excel at this job because the money he gets from it can be used for Ian’s commissary account. In the spirit of doing the job right, he keeps a watchful eye on her all day and even brings Jen home when his shift ends up running longer than he expected. The family has a sweet moment as they realize that Jen is indeed the movie star they were thinking of with a tagline that everyone knows her by, “Face it, you’re gorgeous.” It was nice to see all the Gallagher kids sans Fiona share these moments together, which we can only imagine were difficult to film knowing they were some of Monaghan’s final moments on the show.

 

Frank (William H. Macy) spends the day running after the crazy lady Ingrid he bumped into at the E.R. in last week’s episode (Katey Segal). Of course, we know Frank loves crazy (remember, Monica?) and he is intrigued by this woman and her wacky behavior. Knowing she is in a psych hold, he convinces Liam (Christian Isaiah) to go along with him as he waits for her. But when she is finally released and presumably on her meds, her calm and collect behavior turns him off.

 

V (Shanola Hampton) and Kev face an awkward situation when one of the twins takes a vibrating dildo to school as part of an object that required them to bring something that represents their parent’s love. While the dildo is not at all shocking, it makes for some uncomfortable moments when Kev and V go to talk to the Father at the school, played by Bob Saget. They get an odd sexual lecture from him and decide that all their sex toys need to be thrown out.

 

They head to the lake to dump it all out, and coincidentally enough, a drunk Fiona is with one of her coworkers at the edge of the lake and witnessing all the dildos and other sex toys being thrown in.

 

Shameless has been giving us some solid episodes this season and each one is powerful, unique, and stands strong on its own. Perhaps the best part of this week’s episode; however, is Ian’s arc as he heads off to prison. This whole arc could have gone horribly wrong and often character exits are not given the closure they deserve. But when it comes to Ian, Shameless did his character justice.

 

Seeing him with Mickey was the perfect way to sum up everything he’s gone through over the last nine seasons and it was fitting to see his journey end with the man he has always loved, and always will. Sigh, love wins–it truly does.