Shameless - Episode 2 & Episode 3 - Double Review: "Weight of Leaving"

Note: Please be aware that English is not my first language
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Shameless (US)

Directed by Sanaa Hamri and written by Krista Vernon for 5.02 and directed by Peter Segal and written by Sheila Callaghan for 5.03.

« I’m the Liver » and « The Two Lisas » premiered respectively on Sunday, January 18 and Sunday, January 25 at 9PM ET/PT on Showtime.

These past two weeks, Shameless sank in its crazy habit to be so absurd and yet absolutely brilliant. While we are still at the low-stakes part of the season, the show slowly returned to its groove of every season beginning: being a comedy before being a drama. Because if Shameless was a drama 100% of the time, I think that it would lose a lot of its splendor and that it would be repetitive and not so compelling and powerful that it can be a those times. But even if this season beginning is more on the comic tone… it only took two episodes for things to go wrong again. Nothing too serious for now but the general good humor of the first episode has already disappeared giving room for new conflits.

I love how the Fiona and the Debbie storyline are evolving in the right way. 
The various scenes that Fiona shared with her boss are very interesting and how the relationship between those two is dealt with is well-managed, especially in the extremely well-written scene at the house where Sean explains why he can’t be in a relationship with her.

« It’s just that you’re a chaos junkie Fiona and I’m a junkie-junkie so I love chaos and when I get into chaos bad shit follows and women like you (…) hot, sexy, irresistible, fun, trouble-making, chaos-causing women like you. ».
While her relationship with him seems to be completely compromised, this is a really nice way to put Fiona in front of her demons and what she truly is as it seems that there is an awareness of herself at the end of the second episode.

I also enjoy how Debbie's storyline is evolving. They are processing the fact that Debbie is growing with much more subtlety than last year when Debbie just changed overnight. Now, we feel that the character is in a very important phase of her life and her desires, hopes and expectations of life take a real dimension. The fact that her relationship with Fiona stiffen after last year when everything went wrong is a good thing to help Debbie go though this « process ». All in all, I truly love what they are doing with Debbie this season, it’s realistic, down to earth and necessary for the development of the character.
 The thing with Shameless is that they are also trying to deal with very important thematics in a very humoristic way. Like the fact that Debbie organized a party with alcohol (FRANK’S BEER!) and that Matty was completely drunk and that they had sex in her room. For many people, this might seem normal but it’s rape and many people don’t know the extents that the definition of rape has. Furthermore, many other people don’t know that girls can also rape boys. So this storyline was very interesting to follow, delivering a message and allowing the character to evolve as I explained earlier.

The character that is kinda missing in these first episodes is Lip in my opinion. Unfortunately, there isn’t much to explore in his (few) storylines. Last year was very exciting as we saw him in a brand new environment at university on his own. Now, in Chicago, there is nothing particularly interesting for him to deal with. Except maybe his relationship with Mandy but she left Chicago with Kenyatta to relocate elsewhere for a job Kenyatta obtained. Lip tried desperately to convince Mandy to stay but I think that the fact aht she said she loved him without getting a response back was the reason why she finally decided to leave.

And finally, the storyline that I enjoyed the least turned out to be the most explosive one... literally. It wasn’t a bad storyline, let’s be clear, just the one I appreciated the least: the Frank/Sheila/Sammy storyline. What I reproach to this storyline is that it was a little disconnected from the rest of the other ones and mostly because I couldn’t see the actual point of this storyline. But with the ending of this week episode, it all lit up to me. But one thing I can’t take off from this storyline is that it was funny as hell. The fact that Sammy was constantly trying to be a daddy-daughter, trying to have the attention of Frank and the fact that she made Sheila completely crazy was really fun to watch.
 However, I was wondering where they were going with all of that. We have now a response: one departure, one house blown away, one death and one person who becomes homeless. The scene where Frank tells to Sheila and Sammy what he really thought about them was excellent. William H Macy really did deserve his SAG winning. 
Otherwise, I just hope this is not the last we’ve seen of Sheila.

Oh and don’t forget about those lesbians trying to buy all the houses of the Gallaghers neighborhood. If the drama isn’t here yet, I’m pretty sure that they will play a big part in bringing it very soon !

Verdict: 7/10 for «I’m the Liver» and 7,5/10 for «The Two Lisas». All in all, Shameless is taking its time to set all its characters in the right directions regarding their different ambitions, goals and feelings. But they are managing to do that while things are starting to shake up in Chicago and I feel that it's just a question of time for things to explode.

About the Author - Adil Daoumer

Adil Daoumer is an almost 18y/o Moroccan student living in Paris, France, studying law and economy. He spends the majority of his life watching TV shows, reading books and listening to music. He has a lot of favorite TV shows such as Breaking Bad, LOST, Six Feet Under, Friday Night Lights, Shameless, Fringe, Hannibal, Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones, Revenge and more recently, Fargo and The Leftovers. He also enjoys having a good laugh in front of Community, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Happy Endings and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
This season on SpoilerTV, Adil will review Ray Donovan, The Affair and Shameless.
Don't hesitate to contact him on one of these social media sites.

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