Shameless (US): Father’s Day Rewatch
February 6, 2015 8:14 PM - Season 2, Episode 5 - Subscribe
Sheila has regressed — she’s staying in her bedroom and won’t even leave to use the bathroom. Frank: “Even Osama had to come out of his cave once in a while.” Sheila: “And look what happened to him.”
Frank gives Sheila the news that her estranged husband, Eddie, was found dead in the lake. At the Alibi, Frank is told he’s being investigated as a suspect in Eddie’s death, so he starts looking for an alibi. Instead, he gets arrested for sexual assault of a child. But when Karen tells the police what happened when they had sex — including that Frank was barely conscious — they let Frank go. Sheila is upset that Frank didn’t tell her earlier: “Taking advantage of someone so vulnerable! … I’m so sorry that my daughter raped you!” Frank thanks Karen for giving that exculpatory account to the police, and Karen believes she was returning a favor: “Thanks for taking out my dad.”
Debbie wants to know what attracts men to women, so she can impress Little Hank. Lip tells her what he liked about Karen: “easy, convenient, low maintenance.” Debbie: “Think I can be easy, convenient, and low maintenance?” Lip explains that there’s something more — you need pheromones. Then Debbie gets dolled up in Fiona’s clothing and earrings. When Fiona walks in and wants to know what’s going on, Debbie explains (in teenager-like uptalk): “Pheromones? I’m borrowing them?”
After V catches Kev lying about being at a game that was actually canceled, and she finds a handwritten note with barely legible dirty talk, including a backwards “e,” she suspects Kev of cheating with “an illiterate.”
Frank hears that Karen is pregnant, so he has a heart-to-heart talk with Lip: “It’s a big responsibility, being a parent.” Lip dryly asks: “Is that right?” Frank goes into a rant: “Give a man a fish, you’ve fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you’ve fed him for a lifetime. I raised fishermen. The best gift you can give? Neglect. Neglect fosters self-reliance. Do the right thing: split.”
When Lip confronts Karen, she reveals she and Jody “got hitched.” Karen says that makes Jody the father. Foreshadowing: Lip tells Karen to stop drinking now that she’s pregnant.
Ian is mad at Lip because Lip, instead of Ian, has gotten an in with a war hero for a West Point application. They start fighting after Ian says he’ll let Lip get back to Karen, “who can’t be sure if her kid is your son or your brother.”
Fiona goes on a wedding date with Richard and poses as high-class. When she slips up, he apparently doesn’t mind and knew all along: “You don’t do $500 million worth of business a year without being able to read people.”
Ethel and Malik go on a walk, pushing their respective kids in strollers, and we hear some more about her background. “So, they trip when you got pregnant?” “Oh no, we’d been trying for months… Why would God make us physically ready if he didn’t want us to have children?” “True dat!”
Ethel’s husband, Clyde, and Malik’s dad are both in prison. Malik has his dad “take care of” Clyde, though there’s a miscommunication about what’s meant by “take care of.”
Frank gives Sheila the news that her estranged husband, Eddie, was found dead in the lake. At the Alibi, Frank is told he’s being investigated as a suspect in Eddie’s death, so he starts looking for an alibi. Instead, he gets arrested for sexual assault of a child. But when Karen tells the police what happened when they had sex — including that Frank was barely conscious — they let Frank go. Sheila is upset that Frank didn’t tell her earlier: “Taking advantage of someone so vulnerable! … I’m so sorry that my daughter raped you!” Frank thanks Karen for giving that exculpatory account to the police, and Karen believes she was returning a favor: “Thanks for taking out my dad.”
Debbie wants to know what attracts men to women, so she can impress Little Hank. Lip tells her what he liked about Karen: “easy, convenient, low maintenance.” Debbie: “Think I can be easy, convenient, and low maintenance?” Lip explains that there’s something more — you need pheromones. Then Debbie gets dolled up in Fiona’s clothing and earrings. When Fiona walks in and wants to know what’s going on, Debbie explains (in teenager-like uptalk): “Pheromones? I’m borrowing them?”
After V catches Kev lying about being at a game that was actually canceled, and she finds a handwritten note with barely legible dirty talk, including a backwards “e,” she suspects Kev of cheating with “an illiterate.”
Frank hears that Karen is pregnant, so he has a heart-to-heart talk with Lip: “It’s a big responsibility, being a parent.” Lip dryly asks: “Is that right?” Frank goes into a rant: “Give a man a fish, you’ve fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you’ve fed him for a lifetime. I raised fishermen. The best gift you can give? Neglect. Neglect fosters self-reliance. Do the right thing: split.”
When Lip confronts Karen, she reveals she and Jody “got hitched.” Karen says that makes Jody the father. Foreshadowing: Lip tells Karen to stop drinking now that she’s pregnant.
Ian is mad at Lip because Lip, instead of Ian, has gotten an in with a war hero for a West Point application. They start fighting after Ian says he’ll let Lip get back to Karen, “who can’t be sure if her kid is your son or your brother.”
Fiona goes on a wedding date with Richard and poses as high-class. When she slips up, he apparently doesn’t mind and knew all along: “You don’t do $500 million worth of business a year without being able to read people.”
Ethel and Malik go on a walk, pushing their respective kids in strollers, and we hear some more about her background. “So, they trip when you got pregnant?” “Oh no, we’d been trying for months… Why would God make us physically ready if he didn’t want us to have children?” “True dat!”
Ethel’s husband, Clyde, and Malik’s dad are both in prison. Malik has his dad “take care of” Clyde, though there’s a miscommunication about what’s meant by “take care of.”
(I'm just starting season 3 for the first time)...
This is also the episode where Steve/Jimmy comes back from Brazil for the first time.
This episode also mentions the plotline of kev learning to read. Is that going to continue at all or just a oneoff thing?
posted by fizzix at 6:40 PM on February 8, 2015
This is also the episode where Steve/Jimmy comes back from Brazil for the first time.
This episode also mentions the plotline of kev learning to read. Is that going to continue at all or just a oneoff thing?
posted by fizzix at 6:40 PM on February 8, 2015
the plotline of kev learning to read. Is that going to continue at all or just a oneoff thing?
That seems to be mainly for this episode. Lip will bring it up to Kev later in the season.
posted by John Cohen at 9:31 PM on February 8, 2015
That seems to be mainly for this episode. Lip will bring it up to Kev later in the season.
posted by John Cohen at 9:31 PM on February 8, 2015
I'd thought Karen raped Frank all along, so I guess I didn't react to Frank's getting off the hook quite the way the writers intended, but I'm glad viewers who hadn't seen it that way got confronted.
We learn in this episode — I think — that Frank never had an erection, and thus the puzzle about whether Karen's baby might be Lip's son or brother is solved for the viewer, if not for Lip (and for Ian, who's using that uncertainty to taunt Lip).
Nice use of pee in this episode, resonating with the pee in the final episode of Season 1, in which Frank was blessed and absolved by Lip's rain from heaven. In this episode, Sheila hands Frank a glass bowl of her urine (and I'm seeing a holy water/holy chalice symbolism), and Karen pisses on her father's grave. Fathers get watered upon on this show.
That makes me think about the prominence of the backyard swimming pool in the first 2 episodes of this season. I kept expecting something to go wrong, like a day-care kid drowning, but it hasn't happened yet. The "home page" of the DVD and the DVD cover center on a spritzing fire hydrant, so I'm expecting more water symbolism as we proceed.
Of course, the repeated opening sequence for this show centers around a toilet, and there's plenty of peeing. And in the next episode -- spoiler alert for the next episode -- Frank's mother insults him with the adjective "bed wetting" and he subsequently literally wets the bed while sleeping with Sheila and then with Carl.
posted by Alizaria at 4:35 AM on February 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
We learn in this episode — I think — that Frank never had an erection, and thus the puzzle about whether Karen's baby might be Lip's son or brother is solved for the viewer, if not for Lip (and for Ian, who's using that uncertainty to taunt Lip).
Nice use of pee in this episode, resonating with the pee in the final episode of Season 1, in which Frank was blessed and absolved by Lip's rain from heaven. In this episode, Sheila hands Frank a glass bowl of her urine (and I'm seeing a holy water/holy chalice symbolism), and Karen pisses on her father's grave. Fathers get watered upon on this show.
That makes me think about the prominence of the backyard swimming pool in the first 2 episodes of this season. I kept expecting something to go wrong, like a day-care kid drowning, but it hasn't happened yet. The "home page" of the DVD and the DVD cover center on a spritzing fire hydrant, so I'm expecting more water symbolism as we proceed.
Of course, the repeated opening sequence for this show centers around a toilet, and there's plenty of peeing. And in the next episode -- spoiler alert for the next episode -- Frank's mother insults him with the adjective "bed wetting" and he subsequently literally wets the bed while sleeping with Sheila and then with Carl.
posted by Alizaria at 4:35 AM on February 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
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Also, why did everyone hate Karen's dad so much?
posted by Literaryhero at 9:01 PM on February 6, 2015