Shameless – Mo White!

By: Ariba Bhuvad

The season 9 premiere was all about STDs and Frank’s (William H. Macy) sexual escapades, but the second episode of the season focused on Fiona’s (Emmy Rossum) commercial real estate endeavors and Debbie’s (Emma Kenney) stand against the patriarchy. Oh, and Ian (Cameron Monaghan) has met bail thanks to his dedicated followers and is actually upset about the prospect of being out. The Gallagher family is quite the hoot and manages to always keep us on our toes, right?

It was also quite the episode for Kev (Steve Howey) and V (Shanola Hampton) who are exhausted from taking care of the twins and came to the realization (thanks to a group of leashed kids) that the girls need to go to preschool. However, this is much easier said than done for multiple reasons. But, the biggest reason? Preschool is EXPENSIVE and they learn that the hard way after visiting an uppity, posh school that charges tuition that would cost them three times their mortgage. Instead, they are sent to a more affordable school at a church which lacks the lavish amenities of the school to where they were hoping to send the girls. The cost may be lower, but there is just one slight, teensy problem–they only have one spot left. Given that they need both girls to go to school, they decide that they will send them together but try to fool the school into thinking it’s just one girl by having them never be in the same room at the same time. It’s quite the outlandish idea, but hey, it just might work.

As usual, Frank is on the hunt for some money and low on funds. After successfully convincing V to give him a beer for free, he meets a man at the bar that tells him a lady is paying money to those who will steal her competition’s yard signs. The yard signs are for a man running for Congress so naturally Frank takes us to the neighborhood to get his hands on as many signs as he can. However, the campaign decides not to hire him so Frank does what Frank wants and heads to the competition to work for them. He is given money to put the signs back into the yard, but along the way he realizes the quickest way to make a buck is to raise money for a campaign. This sparks an idea within him and he gathers the locals at the bar and rallies them up to nominate a man from the neighborhood to run while he collects cash for the cause. Will Frank eventually run off with the money he collects? Hell yes, he will.

Lip (Jeremy Allen White) had an interesting episode this week between dealing with Xan (Scarlet Spencer) and getting asked to sponsor someone. He is still taking care of Xan and it looks this might be the case for a while. Things get messy; however, when Kevin leaves the girls with Xan and she abandons them at the park after stealing a woman’s wallet. When Lip catches up her later, he finds out that she ran because she didn’t want the lady to call the cops on her and be sent away to DCS. Essentially, Lip has been unknowingly sponsoring and babysitting for a while now. Although he initially hesitates, he decides to sponsor one of the guys from the meeting to help him out. Let’s hope that this continues to put Lip on the path of keeping himself together and gives him the inspiration to do something more. Seriously, he was so amazing in school–can’t he go back?!

Poor Liam (Christian Isaiah) is dealing with the consequences of Frank’s actions from the season premiere and is expelled from the private school due to his scholarship being taken away. It seems like many of the parents are ticked off at Frank’s sexual shenanigans and having his son around isn’t really what they want. The poor kid is now out of school with nothing to do until Fiona shows up at home. While with Fiona, he confesses he can’t go to public school anymore as the private school life has softened him. Unfortunately, none of the schools have any openings or rather openings for an African American student to come in. Seriously, schools, seriously? But it appears Liam may have found his calling because he helps Fiona land a real estate deal that will take her over the top.

When we catch up with Ian this week, he is in prison marrying gay couples but mid-ceremony he is escorted out of the yard because he has met bail thanks to some of his dedicated and obsessed followers. Ian; however, had no interest in leaving just yet because he still had work he wanted to do. He’s certainly out of his element when he returns home as everyone is preoccupied with their own issues and lives.

There are a lot of laugh-out-loud, head scratching moments this week for Carl (Ethan Cutkosky) as he sets his eyes on being accepted to West Point. But there is one catch – he can’t get a recommendation until he gets some volunteer work done and if you know the Gallaghers, this isn’t exactly their strong suit. He ends up volunteering at a clinic with a retired vet who euthanizes pets that are close to passing away. It’s quite morbid and frightening and it disturbs Carl enough to where he takes them all home and let’s them die naturally rather than through gasing them as the vet had been doing. The episode ends with Carl and his military pals giving a gun salute during one of the dog’s funerals (he was a service dog), which makes for some hilariously frustrated comments from the family.

Now that Fiona isn’t using the money she got for Ian’s bail, she decides to invest in commercial property. However, Ford (Richard Flood) doesn’t think this is the best idea and rejects the idea of her meeting with the real estate agent based on a past experience with him. However, Fiona goes anyway with Liam by her side, and they tackle this big gun in the Chicago real estate scene and end up snagging a deal that Fiona hopes will be amazing for her. We have to say that we are so proud of how far Fiona has come from the very first season as her character has been through the wringer but she kept on persisting! Let’s just hope this new guy doesn’t screw her over in any way and the deal is legit and works in her favor.

Debbie spends the episode reeling from the gender inequality when it comes to pay and she decides to do something about it by protesting at construction sites. She doesn’t exactly find any success, but does get the attention of one of the female workers who is pretending to be a guy so she can get paid more. And maybe it was just us, but there seemed to be a spark between this new girl and Debbie so maybe a romance is in Debbie’s future? Debbie is another character that has undergone such a drastic transformation since the first season and it’s nice to see her fight for change now that she is a mother and maybe even find love along the way.

Season 9 is only two episodes in but yet there is already so much going on that we have to process. Most importantly, given that Emmy Rossum is leaving after this season, it begs the question, what will happen to Fiona? The way season 9 is going it seems like she is finding more and more independence from family as well as relationships and it wouldn’t be too shocking if her exit from the show revolves around an opportunity outside of Chicago.