Shameless – The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Alibi

By: Ariba Bhuvad

Shameless is back from its Winter hiatus and things are as horrible as ever–for Fiona (Emmy Rossum), at least. After her world falls apart, Fiona is pretty much lost in life. The episode begins with her waking up and heading straight for some alcohol first thing in the morning. Frank (William H. Macy) is passed out per usual on the floor and things feel pretty much as the Gallagher house usually does.

Carl (Ethan Cutkosky) has moved on and is now dating Kelly (Jess Gabor), but on the sly out of fear of her father. They camp out in a tent near her house and have a morning routine they follow that involves her sneaking into her house, meeting him at the end of her driveway, and then getting up to no good for the rest of the day. “Jabby” er Lip (Jeremy Allen White) is still with Tami (Kate Miner), but they’re not exactly comfortable in her apartment full of other people. Back at the Gallagher household, Fiona must face the reality of being back home as Debbie (Emma Kenney) and Frank interrupt her shower to quickly pee.

The nickname of Jabby isn’t quite going away to the point that Tami’s roommates are referring to him by that nickname as well. One of Tami’s roommates points out to Lip that if he intends on staying there so much he better start paying rent. Tami isn’t too eager to agree to that considering other people are always in the apartment as well.

Kevin (Steve Howey) and V (Shanola Hampton) decided that they will adopt a child instead of trying to have one of their own in the Winter finale. The wait list for adopting a baby was too long so they opted to adopt a 12-year old boy instead. Naturally, Kevin is super excited at the prospect of being a father to a son and begins planning the types of activities he’ll do with him. Meanwhile, Carl and Kelly are up to no good and decide to turn their day into a day of making money. They do this by stealing scooters around town and charging more for them. Carl thinks they could make solid money by selling the scooters on the Southside.

Fiona’s mood continues to worsen when she learns that the building she once owned was sold to someone else for more profit. Things only continue to get worse as Fiona begins to spiral. Apart from losing control of herself, she’s also forgotten to pay the house bills. As a result, the electricity is turned off and Debbie is left to figure out what to do. She tries to reach Fiona who ignores her call to continue doing research on her old building. Her concentration is broken when one of her employees, Eliza (Rebecca Field) comes in to tell her of all the things she’s taken care of and to remind Fiona about the paychecks.

Frank comes to learn something very interesting in the Winter premiere – Ingrid (Katey Sagal) has frozen her eggs and wants him to be the sperm donor. For reasons beyond anyone, Frank agrees to do this for her and visits the fertility center to provide his sperm. Speaking of children, V and Kevin arrive at the center at which that they are supposed to meet their adoptive son. It appears to be pretty sketchy, but they hesitantly walk in anyway. It turns out that the center is some sort of facility for detained kids, ones that were trying run into the country. Kevin and V still proceed to finalize things because Kevin cannot contain his enthusiasm.

Fiona continues to lose it back at the diner when she realizes that there is gum under all the tables. Instead of doing something about it without creating a scene, she starts screaming out loud at all the patrons. She’s annoyed they can’t throw their gum away and doesn’t understand why they do this. And the fact that she is over a thousand dollars behind on house bills certainly won’t help the situation. By the end of the episode, she passes out from being drunk and Kevin has to carry her home unconscious. Thanks to Debbie; however, the bills get paid for the time being.

Eager to get their own place, Tami shows up at Lip’s work to take him apartment hunting despite him being swamped with work. They go to check out an apartment, which seems extremely bougie for Lip’s taste and he said he’d rather get a studio. Besides, he’s freaked out by the realtor who is extremely well-endowed, but Lip thinks otherwise. Instead, he convinces Tami to just move into the basement of the Gallagher house where they can have privacy to have all the sex they want.

Kev and V finally meet the child they are going to adopt who is a 12-year old boy named Santiago (Anthony Gonzalez). He doesn’t speak any English, but he does know the national anthem by heart. Kevin is smitten already and puts Santiago to work at the bar. Encouraging Santiago to take a break from working so hard, Kevin attempts to play catch with his new son. He’s surprised to learn that Santiago actually has a strong arm and has the potential to play the game for real. V brings over the woman that runs the laundry cleaners nearby to help translate a conversation with Santiago. Through talking to him, she learns that Santiago’s family is in the United States and were all split up. V says they can’t keep Santiago as their adoptive child because his family is still around.

Back at the fertility center, Frank has a difficult time obtaining the sperm he needs for the sample so he asks Ingrid to help him out. But after the results come in, it turns out that Frank has a low sperm count and the one or two he has essentially have zero motility. Naturally, this bruises his ego but he comes up with a different plan and tries to keep Ingrid in the dark about it. He bets Carl that he can’t masturbate within a few minutes. Not realizing Frank’s actual intentions, Carl tries to prove his father wrong and even provides him with the sample after Frank says he “needs proof.” Frank takes the sperm sample to the center and the doctor (and Ingrid) are happy to learn the sperm is quite alive and moving around. The episode closes out with Fiona at home passed out on the couch as the rest of the Gallagher family realize that things are going from bad to horrendous.