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koganphrancis · 5 years

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Fiona Faded Away

A visual representation of how reluctant I was to even watch the episode. (gif source: i-usedtobe-normal)

A visual representation of my face as I watched the episode.

It was SO boring. And emotionless. Believe me when I tell you that Joe Mazzello posted an 80 second video of himself breaking up with a piece of cardboard and it was more compelling than Fiona’s send off. Don’t take my word for it-watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvfyh_hD2F4

The video has everything the show was missing-longing looks, inside jokes, references to things past, REASONS to break up...

The show gave me hardly anything to snark about, but here’s a recap anyway, under the cut.

I don’t know how they managed, but the show has actually gotten worse since I stopped watching after episode 6 (you remember that one? Cam’s bullshit swan song?). There is nothing compelling happening, since anything that DOES happen is wiped out in the next scene containing the same characters-or even within the same scene.

I truly was bored to tears, so I ain’t gonna recap much.

I think John Wells is too in love with his idea that actors leaving a show is just a thing that happens and you don’t have to spotlight it and make it a big deal-in real life, people move in and out of other’s lives all the time, right? But Fiona is supposed to be considered FAMILY even to the viewing audience and how cold and unfeeling to you have to be to put that on par with someone you take classes with or work in an office with for a period of time moving on?

He said in post-airing interviews that having Fiona saying goodbye to characters would get too repetitive or whatever-but she didn’t really say a proper goodbye to anyone and the episode was bland and felt false.

Frank was more annoying than ever-laid up on the couch and expecting the family to wait on him hand and foot and keep him doped up and on a constant beer drip. He had some interaction with Franny that I guess we were supposed to find humorous, but the thought of Debbie leaving her toddler napping in a house with only an incapacitated man was actually horrifying. Even if the kid couldn’t get out of her crib and down the stairs (which she could) it was child endangerment. What if there had been a fire? The other “humorous” Shameless thing involving him was his bedpan needed to be emptied and they had the props department whip up something that looked like human shit and Carl dumps it in the downstairs toilet and then washes the bedpan out in the KITCHEN sink wearing the yellow gloves one assumes are there for washing dishes, plus using the kitchen sink sponge. Another insight as to how the writers, especially Wells, think poor people live. All the other Gallagher kids but Liam are right there, and not one of them yells at Carl not to use that sink and those supplies.

Frank was the only character whose farewell to Fiona might have been considered to have any emotional punch, but since they weren’t facing each other when they spoke, I thought a lot of it was just meh. He comes as close as he can to thanking her, but fucks it up by saying she “helped” raise the family. It was in character for him not to be able to face how much responsibility his shitty parenting forced onto her, and her upset reaction was justified, but it came so late into the episode that I was numb and was like, “Just walk out the door already!”

Lip is dealing with yet another heatless romance. He and Tami have a fight after she gets some hard to hear medical news. So, granted she had every right to be upset and overwhelmed, but the actress didn’t pull it off, and going from tears to “let’s fuck in a dirty bathroom” to “forget it” to getting into her car to Lip chasing after said car to Tami letting him in to driving under some LA overpass (I really don’t think they were in Chicago for that part of the scene) to fucking in said tiny car with the camera a dozen feet or so away to getting out of the car to pull up her underwear to him getting out to zip up his pants to fighting about whether she should put the kid up for adoption to saying they don’t love each other to Lip saying but maybe he could grow to love her to her driving off in a huff to leave him to walk back to work-yes, kids, that all happened in ONE scene. Am I supposed to give a shit about these people? Am I supposed to buy into each of the half dozen or more emotions they’re trying to cram into that one scene? There’s no build up, there’s certainly no time to process what’s going on and to decide if I think one or both or neither of them have a point, and there’s no consequences to any of the elements of what we were forced to watch! Lip gets back to the bike shop, his boss diffidently asks him to do his job, and Tami’s waiting for him, ready to talk to him again and go get something to eat. By the end of the episode she’s at the Gallaghers with a beer in her pregnant hand, dancing. WTF?

Lip’s final scene with Fiona-just by seeing her one dinky suitcase being packed he’s all, “You going? Okay, good. Let’s throw you a party!”

Debbie and Carl-lumping them together since the show seems determined to. They have an awful bonding over having their hearts broken by Kelly thing going on-it’s too bad they never established one of them were adopted so they could just have Debbie and Carl hook up romantically, it’s sort of how the show feels they’re pairing them up-ew. Just because Kelly woke up to Debbie kissing her and freaked out and ran off and had already (I guess?) dumped Carl because he’s too clingy, they decide to destroy her truck. Carl has some sort of awesome spray paint that doesn’t drip and does a professional-level graffiti job on the side of the truck, Debs punctures all the tires, and I thought they didn’t have time to pour sugar into the gas tank when the car alarm went off, but Kelly mentions it later, so I guess maybe they poured it before they ran. (And then she had it all fixed the same day so she could drive around again, but sure, it’s Shameless.)

Carl and Debbie have a scene together that’s pretty much Ian and Lip’s fight from Season 6 about Ian being a janitor (kept waiting for Carl to say the fast food industry is “where I land”) and their acting was...not good. Both of them just seem to get loud to try to convey any kind of emotion that’s required of them. They both usually act very sleepy and stoic when not having to act worked up. Carl insists he’s quitting school. Kelly comes looking for both of them, and finds Debbie. (Side note: Kelly, Debbie, and Fiona all wore clothes in this episode that looked painfully tight-does the infamous wardrobe lady Lyn Paolo do one fitting at the start of shooting and by the end of the season, if any of the actors have even gained 4 or 5 pounds it’s tough shit and you get what you get? For years Cam has been hulking out of his wardrobe, now it’s others too? Sheesh. Sorry for the side trip.) Debbie gives Kelly this horrible toxic speech, blaming Kelly for “making” her and Carl fall in love with her. Um, excuse you? It’s her fault you’re obsessed and stalking her? Anyway, Kelly bitches about what Debbie wrote on her truck, and Debbie says, “That wasn’t me, I can spell” because what it says is Heartbeaker Cunt-Kelly says all moony, “Carl?” and Debbie says Carl’s dropping out of school (she might blame Kelly for that too, but, again, by this point I was so bored I wasn’t paying very close attention). Kelly jumps in her truck, drives to Carl’s fast food place, zip ties him up, marches him out of the restaurant, yells he’s quitting, and tells him he’s going back to school and that she loves him because he’s so dense. She also makes a dumb speech about him not going to West Point but he’ll be a better officer than those guys cuz he’s South Side and can reload while he’s rolling under an Impala during a drive by or something. Um, that might make it better for him as a soldier saving his own ass, but nothing about that says he’s officer material. But again, I don’t care because it’s another Ian recycled storyline that I never bought into to begin with. So, in the space of just a couple of scenes, Carl and Debbie have vandalized her property, called her a cunt, yelled at her for being a siren who forced them both to fall in love with her, Carl’s reunited with her, and we’re supposed to buy that they’re wonderfully in love even though Carl is still just a dumb teen. Even if you’re a Carl fan, there was no time to care about any of the plot points, and by the end of the episode Kelly’s also dancing in the Gallagher living room.

Debbie and Carl don’t have any kind of goodbye with Fiona-just Lip giving them their assignments of what to get for the send off party.

Liam-Oh god, you poor little kid. Liam spends the episode trying to point out to people in the family that they don’t care about him, so he doesn’t care about them. He wants his own room, his own cultural identity...and I guess that’s about it? But, in having his story mainly be that no one cares and he doesn’t care, fans at home don’t care either. Fiona didn’t care enough to stick around if he was truly missing. Not to mention that, as his legal guardian, her leaving the way she is is child abandonment. Carl too-he’s not 18 yet.

Fiona spends most of the episode walking around in her too tight blazer and pants. She drops in at The Alibi and Vee talking about Kev being Jesus reminds Fi she has a brother once known as Gay Jesus, so she goes to visit him. No goodbye to Vee or Kev. The Fiona/Ian scene is (no surprise here) badly written. She’s obviously been there before-she doesn’t ask Ian any questions about how he’s being treated or what his life there is like-but hasn’t she been on a bender since she didn’t drop him off in Episode 6? And if she went to see him after hitting AA and Al Anon, wouldn’t she have told Ian the family news? Especially about Lip’s girlfriend? Continuity? Shameless never bothers with it. She asks about his hair, he says a guy in the infirmary had lice and it was easier just to buzz it. She goes on to say, “So you’re STILL working in the infirmary”-so, again, she knows shit about his life on the inside. He says it beats working in the laundry like Mickey, so, okay, we get a Mickey mention, but it’s pretty fucking neutral. (Not that I was expecting more.) But once again, I can’t help but feel it’s a bit of a dig-how does working in the infirmary and being exposed to puke, pink eye, and parasites “beat” working in a place where Mickey goes back to the cell smelling like clean linens every night? And then fucking Fiona has to go and say, “Mickey washing undies, you gotta send me a picture.” Bitch, YOU worked in a prison laundry! You know he’s not handwashing inmates’ delicates! You forget about those big canvas sacks you had to sling from machine to machine? It just rubbed me the wrong way, the two of them sitting there acting as if they’re (still) better than him. Gallaghers looking down on a Milkovich? I don’t fucking think so!

Also, it really bothered me that Ian’s “putting his medical training to use”. I can just see Wells making him a Certified Nursing Assistant or something when he magically gets out of prison next season-like he’d ever get medical field work with his background now of blowing shit up near minors, his prison record, and his army file.

Anyway, Ian asks if everything’s okay at home and she runs down the list-he blinks at Lip having a girlfriend, but literally doesn’t bat an eye when Fiona says Liam may be missing. Then she tells him she’s thinking it’s time for her to go, and that it’s the first time she’s said it out loud. He’s immediately on board, giving her the support she failed to give him when he wanted to leave with Mickey.

Then after the credits, there’s one more truly dumb ass scene of him playing basketball with his fellow inmates (although I did laugh that he did the courtesy of wearing a beanie so as not to spread his head lice, but when he hugged Fiona their heads were snuggled together sans hat) and a plane flies overhead and he looks up at it and smiles. Why would he assume she was leaving that day-and on a plane? Fiona specifically states how she’s never been on one before in her final scene. John Wells trying to make some sort of poignant moment that just looked hokey and fake.

One last thing about the money Fiona gets-now that it’s not being rolled into another investment, won’t she get smacked with capital gains tax? I’d love it if they have to have her crawling back to Debbie the following April to tell her she can’t keep all of the $50K she left her.

Also, Debbie’s face when she sees the check? To me it looked like she was thinking, “Now it’s MY turn to really fuck up!” And when she inevitably does, it’ll just be boring too.

Anyway, I got to thinking later how if Cam hadn’t fucked everything up by coming back to the show, the scene with Fiona would’ve been a good way for him to end his time on Shameless. We see him looking happy-he’s getting three square meals a day, there are people to make sure he’s taking his meds, he’s probably even getting to talk to a therapist in there-plus he’s getting good loving every night from Mickey. He’s probably in the best situation of his life-even when he was a kid at home at the beginning of the series he was with Kash in a very unhealthy situation. He and Mickey don’t have Terry to deal with, he’s on a schedule, things seem good. AND THEN I GOT PISSED AS HELL THAT THE SHOW HAS REDUCED ME TO THINKING IN TERMS OF CRAPPY SCRAPS LIKE THAT BEING “BEST CASE SCENARIOS”. THE LAST PLACE A PERSON DEALING WITH MENTAL ILLNESS SHOULD BE IS IN PRISON!

Ugh, what a shit show. If Noel’s not coming back, what is the point in trying to continue? Here’s my pessimistic outlook-Noel won’t be back. Why should he come back? The show has gotten progressively worse since S6. All the pressure would be on him to salvage a show that’s done everything it can to save money on writers and talent. There’s no indication that anything is going to change-Wells isn’t going to suddenly hire experienced talented writers to try to put this thing back on track. There’s no incentive to. Showtime has renewed them (and I get the feeling maybe it’s for the last time and they all already know it-hence Cam coming back so quick-he’s probably been told it’s his last chance to make bank) and even if my theory about it being the last season is wrong, ratings have obviously played no role in renewing the show the past few seasons. There’s no reason to “improve” the show. They’ve let is slip further and further into a cesspool in each season since 5. Would I love to see Noel as Mickey again, swearing and being sweet and the best character in the entire history of TV? Yes. Do I think it’s still possible given what a piece of crap this show has become? Not really :(

#Recap #It was worse than I thought #and so damn boring #PULL THE PLUG #Season 9 Episode 14

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