Good morning, Gallaghers! Fiona (Emmy Rossum) is fired up for another day temping (been there, done that), Carl (Ethan Cutowsky) has built what looks to be a zombie George Washington, and Ian's (Cameron Monaghan) bruises from Mickey are healing - on the outside, anyway. Debs (Emma Kenney) pops in to make soup for Sheila, and Jimmy (Justin Chatwin) drops the mini-bomb about going back to med school. "Dr. Jimmy, huh?" As opposed to "Jimmy Doctor," which would be something else entirely.
At some art gallery or all-beige corporate lobby, Frank (William H. Macy) is plopped behind a podium by Abraham the Supergay (Bradley Whitford) and touted as the new gay Jesus or some crap (although we will meet an ACTUAL gay Jesus later). Frank discards his index cards and instantly goes off-book, harping about sex sex sex sex sex: "It's time for arousal to happen within marriage!" He gets a few "halleloo!"s and despite oversexing the message and offering to sleep with half the audience (where is Christopher through all of this, btw?), Abraham thinks he's brilliant. Ugh. Frank says he could get any of these "rump-swappers" to cough up donations, and Abraham notes the inventive new slur. Frank calls him a "saucy tart" and I reset my clock for Victorian Savings Time.
Speaking of losing hardons, Lip (Jeremy Allen White) drops his while having sex with Mandy (Emma Greenwell). She knows it's because of Karen, and Lip admits that he's going to visit her.
At Fiona's temp job, the office is all a-twitter because NEW K-CUPS ARE IN! I don't know what that means, but it sounds vaguely dirty - turns out it's just coffee. Fiona lets slip about Jimmy and instantly the office gossip is all about her marrying a doctor. Evan from Greek (Jake McDormand) joins the coffee-pod orgy and pretends not to be upset about Fiona's doctoral marriage status update. Later, her slightly hobbitish but very sweet colleague, Connie, invites her out for lunch.
Debs tells Lip to put Mandy's feeling first for a change. CHURCH. Unless you want to get intimate with the grill of her Toyota Corolla, that is.
While speaking at a school, Frank speaks about same-sex civil rights as though they were purely about which direction one's genitals are pointing, and that includes toward animals. Abraham quickly shuts him up, but a prep school noob who heard "truth" in Frank's words gets his parents to donate huge amounts of money, so s'all good. Wait - is Abraham's organization called "The Servitude Commission"? What does that even mean?
At Karen's hospital room, Jody (Zach McGowan) threatens to throw the doctor out the window if he doesn't take a second to give human doormat Sheila (Joan Cusack) a straight answer about her daughter's condition. Good on ya, Jody. Lip visits, and cries. It looks like this:
V (Shanola Hampton) and Kev (Steve Howey) are still on the outs about her mother's menstrual cycle. You know, typical married couple stuff.
Ian grills Mandy about this chick that Mickey is marrying, and it turns out it's the Russian prostitute that their dad made Mickey sleep with to de-gay him (who is now pregnant). Ian checks out the girl, and sure enough, it's her. Ugh.
Jimmy pleads with Estefania's papi's henchman to let him go to Detroit for - oh, a year? - to finish med school. Wait - did Liam just say "charge"? Is this his first word or have we heard him speak before?
At the Alibi, Frank orders a Maker's Mark and uses his speaker's fee to settle up about three years of overdue bar tabs. He makes a very unpleasant reference to a sex tape he apparently made with bartendress Kate (Kate?! I thought more of you, girl!) and then is approached by a guy from an ex-gay conversion therapy cult. Ugh. Frank is just leading the guy on for free drinks until he learns the guy will send in women to "deprogram" him as a part of his therapy. Okay, this is hilarious.
Frank insists, "Gay is who I am now - gay is who I shall be." But when he hears about the parade of female sex partners they'll be sending to his hotel room he's all about "rule-breaking for the greater good."
Ian tells Lip about the whole Mickey/prostitute hufflepuff and Lip is genuinely empathetic to his baby bro. His advice: "You need to get out there and f*ck someone new." While this might not be the best advice for everyone, in this case I would not argue with it. And it's a bit disappointing that we didn't get to see if Ian tried it out, especially when publicity stills clearly showed that Ian ran into Frank at the gay bar at some point in the filming of a later scene:
Iiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaanyway.
Frank's gay bellboy - who I totally recognize asE.J. Bonilla from Revenge and this movie I saw about wheelchair ballroom dancing. (Oh, and the photo spread we did with him awhile back) - tells Frank that he's a big fan and will do whatever he wants to make his stay more comfortable. His name's Jesus. Of course it is.
Meanwhile, V confides in Fiona about how effed up her situation with her mom is, and Fiona gives her a hug: "I love you." Awww. Great moment.
Debs says that she needs Jimmy to buy her braces like he did for Carl - wait, what? Yes, apparently Jimmy bought braces for Carl. When it's mentioned that she has character, Debs points out, "I have red hair, freckles, and crooked teeth - I don't need more character." Love her, harder and more often.
Jimmy's clearly deliberately not telling Fiona about Michigan - and then we cut to Frank. Uh-oh. Is Jimmy about to pull a Frank with this med school thing? (Just trade out "med school" for "bender in Mexico" or something similar.)
The creepy ex-gay guy brings Frank straight porn. The sight of Frank in a bathrobe watching porn might be the scariest thing this show has ever given us.
At the office, Evan from Greek (sorry, he will always be that to me) asks Fiona if she's good at softball. Only conversationally.
Abraham - who can't find Frank, apparently - comes to the Alibi looking for him, and Kev gets a tip out of him. Atta boy, Kev!
Back at Frank's hotel, the creepy gay aversion therapy guy brings a lesbian who looks like Nurse Jackie after a six-day oxy bender to have sex with him as a part of both of their therapies. Okay, this is more disturbing than I'd expected. Especially when he tells her to pretend that he's Angelina Jolie and she actually gets into it. Is this an episode of Californication all of a sudden?
Over at Karen's hospital room, Jody is playing "Just the Way You Are" on the tambourine and I want to marry him right now. Lip shows up and makes Jody and Sheila stop murdering Billy Joel, and Sheila lets slip about how excited Karen was to get Lip's text that led to her near annihilation. Whoopsies.
Frank is at the best gay bar ever, where drunk skinny men squawk over him and people dance with themselves in the shadow of tinsel curtains. It's pretty much where I want to spend eternity. Abraham interrupts all the fun to tell Frank about his next gig, at a gay bookstore. He's also gotten him a better hotel than the one that Frank was complaining about - which looked pretty damned nice to me, no? Bathrobes and bellboys named Jesus and everything?
Anyway, Abraham dismisses one of the boys by saying, "Walk away, Renee," so I officially have to love him forever, because I cannot resist a Left Banke reference to save my gay life.
V drops by to visit her insanely gorgeous mother and make her pee on a stick.
Jimmy breaks the news about Michigan to Fiona, saying she can come with him. Like that would ever happen, Jimmy. She has a game to get to.
V hustles her amazing apple bottom to the Alibi to announce that Kev is gonna be a daddy. Kev responds that he is going to mix all the cocktails that night with Carol's pee-stick. Good thing nobody orders actual cocktails in that dump.
Also, I love them more than my own cats.
Jesus the Bellboy spies Frank macking on Scotty the confused lesbian Nurse Jackie, and he sends a smoke signal to the rest of the Gay Underground.
At the softball game, Fiona runs into Evan Chambers' arms. Awww! Did Justin Chatwin quit the show or something? Seriously.
At the hospital, Karen's impossibly handsome doctor tells Sheila and Jody to let Karen know they are there by doing things that she loves. Jody instantly tells Sheila to go home to get some sleep, and THIS IS GONNA GET NASTY, ISN'T IT?
Before she leaves, Sheila tearfully admits to Jody that she feels guilty for taking Jody away from Karen (uh - she left town on her own?) because he is clearly her fairy-tale prince. Whatever, Sheila - call us when the shuttle lands.
Jimmy shows up at the softball game and when Fiona tells him that he knew about Michigan all along, he admits it: "I need a change." He tells her he's gonna be a great doctor, and she tells him "I'm not arguing that." Wait, is she Tom Hanks' boss from Joe vs. the Volcano all of a sudden? ($20 to anyone who actually got that reference.)
Mandy comes by to visit Lip, but he pretends to be asleep because he knows she MOWED DOWN HIS OTHER GIRLFRIEND.
At the hospital, Jody hovers around Karen's feet and looks like he's about to shrimp her into next week. He touches her and she twitches. He moves north and she shows more signs of response. He makes a reservation for lunch at the Y, AND SHE WAKES UP.
Back at Frank's hotel room, he's giving it to lesbian Scotty - who is being beamed up by Rhianna, apparently. Jesus brings Abraham and his gay hustler thugs in, and they lock the door and tell Frank he's going to prove that he was gay to begin with. Abraham adds, "I like to watch." Hey - it takes all kinds. And sorry, wouldn't the shot of the looming genital Thunderdome that Frank was facing have been more effective if they'd had the guys drop their undies, even from behind? What, is Shameless going soft, of all shows?!
And back at the hospital, Jody crows to the doctors that "I've found the cure to comas!"
SCENE
Another fine episode, delivering the usual Shameless so-wrong-it's-right shenanigans and a few out-of-nowhere genuinely touching moments to undercut the comedy (Sheila and Jody, V and Fiona). I have the feeling Frank has already punched this whole gay rights meal ticket and we'll be seeing the backside of that storyline soon (even if we didn't see the backsides of either of his rump-swapping tormentors). I'm a bit bummed that Ian might have wound up on the cutting room floor - his storyline has been seriously lacking since the horrifying ordeal with Mickey's father - things had better pick up in that department soon. And while she's a total psycho, my heart somehow still goes out to Mandy in all this. Considering how much I hated that character just a season ago, it's pretty remarkable that they've managed to get me on her side.
Also, they seem to be taking their time with the whole Fiona/Evan from Greek situation. Could he be sticking around a while as a potential long-term love interest for Fi? I can't say for sure whether I'd be okay with that and respectfully request a nude scene to help me make up my mind. Thanks!
All in all, I'd give it a seven out of ten Old Styles:
What'd you think? Any ideas what might be in store for the last two eps of the season?
