#how do tags even work around here zzzzzz

[chisutofu]

[koganphrancis]

(I saw these cropped in a similar way on eliosberm’s Twitter and I liked it because it looks like Ian’s in jail-foreshadowing the not too distant future, perhaps)

Ugh, so do I have it in me to recap the Season H8 Premiere?  

It was so boring!  If they were trying to set up an exciting season, they failed miserably-which is no surprise, I know, but what did surprise me was how bland it all was.

First I want to address the time skip-from Monica’s pre-Christmas demise to...end of summer?  Maybe?  Liam’s in school, Debbie’s in school, but Carl’s not (yet), but I doubt it’s early summer/almost the end of school for L&D, so it’s probably late summer and at least 8 months since Monica’s funeral...but Fiona hasn’t met any of her tenants till last night?  Welcome to the usual Shameless Time Warp where no one is experiencing the same passage of time.  

Anyway-yeah, Fiona.  She’s off Tinder after an opening scene with a blue dick-at first I thought it was a dildo but I guess the guy was wearing a blue condom?  For whatever reason, she’s not into...something with the guy, and after about six close ups of her looking like she’s never seen a penis before, she throws her clothes on over her underwear (no FIona tits shot?  JW must’ve been so disappointed) and splits. The only other thing she does in the episode is go to her apartment building and meet the lesbian tenant that dozens of people in the Shameless tag hope she has a “gay” relationship with (whereas Fiona isn’t gay and would either be bi or pan if it were to happen)-but spoiler alert-Emmy did say Fiona’s strictly dickly (unlike Ian got to be), so I’m doubting the show goes there.  The new tenant has a girlfriend who, so far, is coming off as a bitch, so, you know, Shameless keeping up their streak of no such thing as a happy gay couple!  Anyway-aren’t you all excited for a TV show about a woman who runs a diner and manages an apartment building?  Yawn.

Lip is being a tool-mooning over Snore who has told him she wants nothing to do with him.  He’s not taking No for an answer for some reason, and he volunteers to babysit her kid, giving her a speech that had me gnashing my teeth and thinking it was all things Ian should’ve been saying to Svetlana two seasons ago about how he likes her son and misses seeing him.  Meanwhile, he also sneaks off and pays her overdue electric bill for her (and, in typical Shameless fashion-she’s on the phone begging the electric company to let her send in $50 towards her big overdue bill-while wearing at least $50 worth of make up.  And I don’t mean they caked it on her and made her look slutty-but she DID look like she had her face done at a spa and, come on?  I know they don’t want to be as gritty and realistic as they could be when it comes to the actors’ looks, but they could pull it into the realm of possible).  But wait!  He’s also acting like a total horndog for a chick at the motorcycle shop he’s working at with his sponsor.  So, which is it?  Is he lovesick over the one that got away and would give anything to be with her again, or is he still willing to bang any chick with a good body?  

Carl is living out Ian’s dream-sort of.  He’s observing all sorts of military rules, but he’s also moving everyone’s meth and he buys the hot tub for the back yard.  And there’s a scene with all the guys in it, but there’s no steam coming off the water, so I wonder if the poor bastards had to sit in water as tepid as the overall episode was cuz that’s what it looked like.  That hot tub didn’t seem hot.  

Debbie’s going to welding school (so, she’s gotta be 18 now-look up welding schools in Illinois, LOL) and also working in a parking garage where she stuffs her kid in a pet carrier during her shift.  I wish I was kidding.  She’s got the hots for her welding teacher and for a guy she meets at a bar after school when she’s out with them after class-sticking Neil with her kid for the night.  Debbie looking at these dudes with her lust eyes makes one think of what she did to poor Matty and even to her clueless baby daddy and it’s just icky.  

Liam has lines now-who cares?  That just means less for everyone else and his storyline so far is stupid-the school that he’s going to for free keeps pulling him out of class for free “advertising” when prospective parents come for a visit.  And?  If the Gallaghers get wind of it and don’t like it, they can put him into public school.  That’ll show that evil snooty private school!  There’s a scene where Fiona is driving Liam to school and asks him how school is-so, again, first time she’s ever taken an interest?  He was going there last year too...

Frank is doing his usual schtick-it hasn’t won them an Emmy so far, but hey, why change shit up now?  He was all wasted and burned out, lost a tooth because of his insane meth usage, and now is going to try to make amends to everyone he can remember that he wronged.  Boring.  

There was stuff with Kev that would be good if I hadn’t heard the story isn’t going to be serious and now I’m just bracing myself for them to play it up for laughs.  And there was awful stuff with Vee being a real bitch to Svetlana about the bar.  Svetlana says she’s willing to take Kev and Vee back-they’ll all work at the bar, raise the kids, be the thrupple (which I was never a fan of, but they all seemed into it, so what the hell)-but she’ll still own the bar and Vee is screaming no fucking way and I think even if Svetlana said they’d split ownership of the bar Vee would still say no.  Svetlana says how they hadn’t paid taxes for two years and would’ve lost the bar anyway and it was Svetlana staying up all night doing the books that saved the place. Vee doesn’t give a shit and throws a punch and they fight and all the bar patrons look on and Kermit asks Tommy if they should stop it, but Wells is getting his boner over the girl on girl action and he says no.  Later, Vee calls ICE on Svetlana and that was a total bitch move.  Svetlana is completely in the right about the bar and it’s weird that the show is making her out as the evil Putin-loving Ruskie and expecting us to side with Vee.  

Finally, Ian.  He’s acting just like Lip-mooning over Terror and acting like a real loser about trying to get him back.  WHY?  What’s the attraction?  I get it, corporate headquarters says there has to be a trans character-but why does Ian have to be involved with him?  And why are they having him act like such a stalker?  In the first scene together he asks Trash to go out for a drink-T can’t because he has a date.  Ian says bring him.  Tragedy says he can’t-it’s a drinks and movie thing.  Ian looks gutted, says, “What movie?”  Really, Ian?  You gonna follow him to the movie theater and sit in the row behind them and jerk off?  WTF?  Why are they making it seem like Ian can’t find somebody new?  The ambulance gets a call and Ian and Sue have to leave.  After Ian leaves, one of the LGBTQ+ center’s youths (who looks a lot like Terror just without the chin hair and with a richer skin tone) gives Trumpet a hard time.  “You used to hit that?” and maybe something like “why aren’t you still” and Teabag says, “It’s complicated,” and the junior Trev says, “Why?  Because he fucked an old boyfriend?”  Yeah, that’s all Mickey was-an old boyfriend.  Not the love of Ian’s life, not the man who saved his life time and time again, just some guy Ian used to date in high school-like Ned or Kash.  Grrrrrrrr.  Anyway, I can’t even remember if there’s another scene with Trailmix, but the end Ian/Trial scene is Ian waiting outside the center like a total stalker, talking to the Jamie kid till Terror comes out and they”flirt” and it was soooooo awful.  Ian says something about being irresistible, Terror says, “No,” Ian, all flirty says, “I’m not irresistible?” and leans closer.  Terror says, “No to whatever you’re going to ask me this time.”  Ian tries to ask him out for drinks again, Terror says “no” again-what is it with the show and not knowing No means no?-Terror for some reason says if Ian’s doing okay and when Ian tries to say he’s all right Terror brings up Ian’s mom-so, again-whether it’s been five months or eight-this is the first time he’s asking?  Ian gets all sad, says something that again, he should be saying about Mickey and the way he ignored him while he was rotting away in jail :(  “I miss her.  It’s weird huh?  Never around when she was alive and I never thought about her, now she’s gone and I think about her all the time.”  And Cameron delivered those lines well, and made you believe them, but then in the quickest turn around since Jerome Valeska went from crying to Jim Gordon about his mom to laughing about killing her, Ian slides right back into flirt mode and says, “Come on, one drink!”  It was creepy and crappy and if the show was actually handling/showing him dealing with bipolar disorder, you’d think they were setting the table for him to be on the edge of trouble with his meds again.  But of course, that’s zzzzzz and he’s just a red blooded male, wanting to get back with his now-main-squeeze Treacle.  Tupperware says no to the millionth drink invite and says he’s gotta go or whatever, and Ian says, “I’ll be back tomorrow.”  It’s SO FUCKING CREEPY AND PATHETIC AND WEIRD.  Oh, and I forgot-but in the middle of the flirting and Ian saying Jamie said to buy Terror a car (cuz, yeah, that’s true love, when you have to buy someone’s affection), Ian gives Terror another “I’m sorry” and this time it really is clearly about running off with Mickey (not the retconned scene from the “previously on Shameless” where they edited Ian saying he was sorry that he didn’t answer T’s texts to make it look like he was saying he was sorry for taking off with Mickey).  THAT’S the conversation they need to have-instead of Ian merely saying he’s sorry, Terror needs to make him say what he’s sorry FOR.  Terror needs to ask, “All things being equal-if there was some miracle and Mickey was set free and could move back here-would you pick me?”  Why the fuck should Terror take Ian back, knowing he’ll never be what Ian really wants?  Why does the show think we want to see them dance around that issue?  Tragic never even says WHY he keeps turning Ian down-and of course, by the end of the episode you can see he’s thawing and it’s going to be so fucking unrealistic if they do get back together and act like a happy couple.  Ian’s a bolter!  We all know he’ll run again-hell, we all know Terror would run if he had to put up with any of Ian’s bipolar manifestations.  

The ONLY good thing the episode had to offer was when Ian was in the hot tub and it made his curls come to life.  I’m all for that-but I figure we’ll only see him in there up till the episode where he gets his tattoo and then it’ll be too much bother to let him be shirtless/wet.  Which, if that applies to being with Terror, I guess I’ll be okay with sacrificing shirtless times when he’s not with that little whiner.