Shameless (US): Frank Gallagher: Loving Husband, Devoted Father Rewatch
July 10, 2014 6:18 PM - Season 1, Episode 7 - Subscribe
Those two men are still hunting down Frank and threatening to maim him over $6,000, so he decides to fake his own death.
Frank convinces the kids to help by saying: “How many of you, at one time, have wanted to see me dead? [Everyone raises their hands.] Now’s your chance!” Carl applies pale makeup to Frank’s face, and Lip goes the extra mile by punching his dad in the face and helping him land in the coffin. In his dazed state as a result of the punch combined with drugs, Frank plays the corpse perfectly, not even flinching when one of the men attacks him.
Steve drops off Liam with Sheila in order to have a hotel getaway with Fiona. Steve has a harder time convincing Fiona to go away with him than convincing Sheila to babysit. Sheila bonds with Liam … creepily. Liam walks a few feet out of the fenced-in house, and we see Sheila go outside for the first time.
Kermit makes his debut, bringing a bag of Frank’s mail to his house. The kids look at his bills and see how much money he’s been wasting, using credit cards under the kids’ names. When Fiona confronts Frank about this, he blames it on the economy and America’s lack of “personal responsibility.”
Ian, trying to protect Kash from Mickey’s attacks, goes to Mickey’s (and Mandy’s) house, demanding his gun. They start wrestling, which leads to sex. Afterwards, Mickey tells Ian: “You kiss me, and I’ll cut your ____in’ tongue out.”
Linda has perhaps her strongest scene of the series when she catches her husband, Kash, having sex with Ian on the store’s surveillance camera. She punches Ian in the face — “That’s for screwing my husband!” — and makes an agreement with Kash: he has to have a third baby with her, and he can keep having the affair, “but no touching the forbidden fruit until [she’s] knocked up.” Linda’s humiliating words to Ian as he apologizes and heads out of the store: “You’re not fired. My opinion? You could do better.”
Steve gives Fiona a favorite piece of AskMetafilter advice: “You know when a plane starts going down, and they tell you to put your mask on before helping anyone else? Put your mask on!” Fiona retorts: “I’ve never been on a plane!”
(Shameless Wiki.)
Frank convinces the kids to help by saying: “How many of you, at one time, have wanted to see me dead? [Everyone raises their hands.] Now’s your chance!” Carl applies pale makeup to Frank’s face, and Lip goes the extra mile by punching his dad in the face and helping him land in the coffin. In his dazed state as a result of the punch combined with drugs, Frank plays the corpse perfectly, not even flinching when one of the men attacks him.
Steve drops off Liam with Sheila in order to have a hotel getaway with Fiona. Steve has a harder time convincing Fiona to go away with him than convincing Sheila to babysit. Sheila bonds with Liam … creepily. Liam walks a few feet out of the fenced-in house, and we see Sheila go outside for the first time.
Kermit makes his debut, bringing a bag of Frank’s mail to his house. The kids look at his bills and see how much money he’s been wasting, using credit cards under the kids’ names. When Fiona confronts Frank about this, he blames it on the economy and America’s lack of “personal responsibility.”
Ian, trying to protect Kash from Mickey’s attacks, goes to Mickey’s (and Mandy’s) house, demanding his gun. They start wrestling, which leads to sex. Afterwards, Mickey tells Ian: “You kiss me, and I’ll cut your ____in’ tongue out.”
Linda has perhaps her strongest scene of the series when she catches her husband, Kash, having sex with Ian on the store’s surveillance camera. She punches Ian in the face — “That’s for screwing my husband!” — and makes an agreement with Kash: he has to have a third baby with her, and he can keep having the affair, “but no touching the forbidden fruit until [she’s] knocked up.” Linda’s humiliating words to Ian as he apologizes and heads out of the store: “You’re not fired. My opinion? You could do better.”
Steve gives Fiona a favorite piece of AskMetafilter advice: “You know when a plane starts going down, and they tell you to put your mask on before helping anyone else? Put your mask on!” Fiona retorts: “I’ve never been on a plane!”
(Shameless Wiki.)
There was some nice parallelism in Fiona and Sheila both finally getting out of the house. Sheila needed an umbilical cord (tying sheets together to remain connected to the house/womb), and Fiona remained within the amniotic sac of the swimming pool.
Wow, that's a really good point which I never would have thought of.
posted by John Cohen at 7:53 PM on February 1, 2015
Wow, that's a really good point which I never would have thought of.
posted by John Cohen at 7:53 PM on February 1, 2015
that tawdry no-kissing sex.
Mickey's line about not kissing him is a good example of how the show can be very crude and violent while also having pathos and depth — that one sentence is so revealing of his fear of intimacy and self-directed homophobia.
posted by John Cohen at 8:01 PM on February 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
Mickey's line about not kissing him is a good example of how the show can be very crude and violent while also having pathos and depth — that one sentence is so revealing of his fear of intimacy and self-directed homophobia.
posted by John Cohen at 8:01 PM on February 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
There's a water theme with Fiona going back to episode 1: the washing machine, the water heater, the toilet... all the inside the house water problems. It's possible that the swimming pool, because it's beyond the house, in the hotel, represents emergence from the womb, the breaking of the waters, into the world... naked like a newborn.
Which brings up Linda and her desire for another baby. Just seeing thematic unity amongst the females.
Meanwhile, the men's stories revolved around meat, real and metaphorical. All that stolen real meat and man-on-man meat, that tawdry no-kissing sex.
posted by Alizaria at 1:51 PM on February 1, 2015 [1 favorite]