Cinemavenger

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Shameless (TV show)

​When it dropped back in 2011, Showtime's Shameless (now streaming on Netflix) was bold, daring, and fresh. Instead of the perfect nuclear family, it featured an alcoholic/druggie father, kids with various mental illnesses, and a supporting cast of bizarre, blue-collar bozos. Every character inside and outside the family embraced a life of petty - and often not so petty - crime in order to survive poor on the South Side of Chicago.

Dad Frank (William H. "Don't Get All" Macy) was a shit parent. Eldest son Lip (Jeremy Allen "The Price Is" White) was the super smart one with a real chance of getting out of the South Side. Ian (Cameron "CaMo" Monaghan) was the gay - and later gay and bipolar - one. Carl (Ethan "Cutco" Cutkosky) was the most delinquent of the juveniles. Liam ("Sister" Christian Isaiah) was the perplexingly African American one. Debbie (Emma "Kill" Kenney) was the third wheel, so to speak. And first child Fiona (Emmy "Award Winning" Rossum) was the glue that held the Gallagher family together.

Fiona was no saint, but she was the most functional of the bunch and the undisputed main character and emotional center of the show. So, when Rossum found out she was making way less money than Macy, she asked for equal pay. In the TV industry - like everywhere else - gender equality is all, "You go, girl!" until it means actual dollars out of someone's pocket, and then it instantly becomes, "Get your bitch ass back in the kitchen!" In 2019, the shameless Shameless execs let Rossum walk rather than pay up, and the rest of the series went downhill faster than da Bears playing the Pack.

To quote one of the show's best lines from back when it was still edgy and cool, fuck you, you fucking fucks! Shameless never recovered from Rossum/Fiona's departure. Because nobody - and I mean fucking nobody - wanted a show focused on one of the worst characters in TV history, Debbie, especially with her getting more unbearable by the episode. No one was begging for more of Ian's white trash boyfriend, Mickey (Noel Fisher "Price"). Or Carl becoming the most boring cop ever. Or Lip getting dumber and more useless by the day. Or any of the other uninspired bullshit that fills the final seasons. 

Like most benders, Shameless started out awesome before winding up face down in the gutter covered in its own puke.

October 29, 2021