Shameless (US): A Great Cause Rewatch
February 20, 2015 6:19 PM - Season 2, Episode 10 - Subscribe
Monica discovers her kids’ “squirrel fund” and uses it to buy drugs, a car, and toys.
Monica buys the drugs with Frank, then drives away with him in the car, but they get into a fight and she tells him: “Stop the car!” Frank: “You’re the one driving!” Monica stops and leaves Frank stranded in Indiana. Monica buys toys for Debbie, who doesn’t have the heart to tell her mom that she’s outgrown dolls.
Monica later gets arrested for letting Carl drive. When Lip tries to pay the bail, he discovers there’s no money in the squirrel fund. He gets some of the money back by returning the toys. Lip gets furious at Fiona, who gets furious at Monica, trying to drag her out of bed (foreshadowing the next episode).
Steve has “great news” for Fiona: “My wife is in love with another guy!” Steve is going to try to import the other guy, Marco, into the US in a cargo container. Fiona tells Steve that if Estefania’s dad finds out, “you’re going to be Hoffa’ed,” but Steve is sure the dad “will remain blissfully unaware.” Steve’s wife, Estefania, hits him and tells him he’s going to be maimed and killed if he doesn’t produce Marco.
Ian, working in the Kash & Grab, tells Lip that Mandy’s father is after him (Ian) for supposedly getting Mandy pregnant. Lip asks if Ian “switched teams” or accidentally had sex with “the wrong Milkovich.” Lip and Ian try to plant their dead grandmother’s gun in the Milkoviches’ house, but get caught by Jerry, who corners Ian and points a gun at him. Mandy shows up to point a rifle at her dad (Jerry), and Lip says “it” (Mandy’s fetus) isn’t Ian’s. Mandy: “He knows. This is between us.” Later Mandy explains to Ian: “He gets drunk and mistakes me for Mom.” Ian offers to “raise it” — not raise the kid, raise money for an abortion — “for my girlfriend.”
V and Kev have been unsuccessfully trying to conceive, which surprises V — “I’ve had so many abortions, the next one’s free.” But she turns out to have pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), and she doesn’t think she’s likely to get pregnant. She tells Kev she never wanted kids anyway. Kevin calls her a liar and bitterly says: “Congratulations! You just got everything you wanted!” Kevin punches a hole in their kitchen wall. Later, V admits she was lying: “I said I didn’t want kids. I did.”
Sheila starts taking care of Rubin, who’s deaf and recovering from a crack addiction. Sheila confesses to her minister that she feels “lost.” He tells her, now that she’s raised a family and her husband has died, “this [Rubin] is your purpose.”
Monica takes Ian to military recruiters, and makes the worst possible impression on them.
Jody is still outside the Jacksons’ house singing. But he’s stopped serenading his wife, Karen, and has switched his attention to his mother-in-law. “Sheila … you’re the only one who really knew me at all.”
Monica buys the drugs with Frank, then drives away with him in the car, but they get into a fight and she tells him: “Stop the car!” Frank: “You’re the one driving!” Monica stops and leaves Frank stranded in Indiana. Monica buys toys for Debbie, who doesn’t have the heart to tell her mom that she’s outgrown dolls.
Monica later gets arrested for letting Carl drive. When Lip tries to pay the bail, he discovers there’s no money in the squirrel fund. He gets some of the money back by returning the toys. Lip gets furious at Fiona, who gets furious at Monica, trying to drag her out of bed (foreshadowing the next episode).
Steve has “great news” for Fiona: “My wife is in love with another guy!” Steve is going to try to import the other guy, Marco, into the US in a cargo container. Fiona tells Steve that if Estefania’s dad finds out, “you’re going to be Hoffa’ed,” but Steve is sure the dad “will remain blissfully unaware.” Steve’s wife, Estefania, hits him and tells him he’s going to be maimed and killed if he doesn’t produce Marco.
Ian, working in the Kash & Grab, tells Lip that Mandy’s father is after him (Ian) for supposedly getting Mandy pregnant. Lip asks if Ian “switched teams” or accidentally had sex with “the wrong Milkovich.” Lip and Ian try to plant their dead grandmother’s gun in the Milkoviches’ house, but get caught by Jerry, who corners Ian and points a gun at him. Mandy shows up to point a rifle at her dad (Jerry), and Lip says “it” (Mandy’s fetus) isn’t Ian’s. Mandy: “He knows. This is between us.” Later Mandy explains to Ian: “He gets drunk and mistakes me for Mom.” Ian offers to “raise it” — not raise the kid, raise money for an abortion — “for my girlfriend.”
V and Kev have been unsuccessfully trying to conceive, which surprises V — “I’ve had so many abortions, the next one’s free.” But she turns out to have pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), and she doesn’t think she’s likely to get pregnant. She tells Kev she never wanted kids anyway. Kevin calls her a liar and bitterly says: “Congratulations! You just got everything you wanted!” Kevin punches a hole in their kitchen wall. Later, V admits she was lying: “I said I didn’t want kids. I did.”
Sheila starts taking care of Rubin, who’s deaf and recovering from a crack addiction. Sheila confesses to her minister that she feels “lost.” He tells her, now that she’s raised a family and her husband has died, “this [Rubin] is your purpose.”
Monica takes Ian to military recruiters, and makes the worst possible impression on them.
Jody is still outside the Jacksons’ house singing. But he’s stopped serenading his wife, Karen, and has switched his attention to his mother-in-law. “Sheila … you’re the only one who really knew me at all.”
But it was at least an interesting contrast to Peggy, who had the sense to stash her money inside a wall that had to be cut open (though we never found out how she managed to install her own drywall).
With all that money, she could have hired/bribed a construction worker.
posted by John Cohen at 9:12 AM on February 23, 2015
With all that money, she could have hired/bribed a construction worker.
posted by John Cohen at 9:12 AM on February 23, 2015
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Mandy's "He gets drunk and mistakes me for Mom" resonates with Karen's wisecrack to her mother in the next episode. ("An accident? Where his penis slipped into your vagina?")
There was also parallelism between Karen's relief that her husband wanted another woman and Steve's jubilation that his wife wanted another man. It's the ultimate in guilt-free escape for someone who wants out of a marriage to have her/his spouse openly mate with somebody else.
I hated Monica's theft of the money. I felt bad for the family even as I was mad at the writers for requiring Fiona to be so stupid as to keep thousands of dollars in a can in that kitchen, available to so many untrustworthy intruders. But it was at least an interesting contrast to Peggy, who had the sense to stash her money inside a wall that had to be cut open (though we never found out how she managed to install her own drywall).
I had to turn off the episode and go back to it on another day, I was so bothered by Monica's finding the money! The idiotic throwing away of the money -- the manifestation of the manic side of her manic-depression -- was more entertaining. "Stop the car!”/“You’re the one driving!” was great.
I've long been a critic of road-trip stories where they just have to stop the car and get out of the car and walk around and yell at each other. It's a movie cliché, it's something that never happens in real life, and it's obvious that the writers don't trust us or themselves with long sequences where people stay in the car, but this one paid off when Monica left Frank in Indiana and we got another sequence for what could be a montage of Frank geographical alienation from his family (Canada being the longest one yet).
posted by Alizaria at 7:19 AM on February 22, 2015 [1 favorite]