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"Shameless" Recap: The Return of Carrot Boy

Another week, another puddle of tears on my couch thanks to Showtime's criminally good Shameless. Thanks to the short first season of Looking, I should be back to getting these puppies up on Mondays for the next few weeks. Which is great, because nothing says "Happy Monday!" quite like house arrest, pregnant prostitutes, and farts that reek of the stench of a thousand open graves.

Let's dig in!

Fiona (Emmy Rossum) can't sleep - what, is she STILL high? No, just trapped in her own home, life, choices, etc. She reaches for a beer - atta girl! - and then dumps it out, opting to bake pre-made cookies instead. Not necessarily a wise choice from a nutritional perspective, but a good one nonetheless.

Debs (Emma Kenney) has a Virginity Countdown that leads up to the big day, which will be on her 16th birthday (I'm guessing because that's when Matt told her it would be appropriate for them to date?). It's disturbing, but not nearly as disturbing as what comes next: she gets her first period. And I don't mean class.

Fiona - who is over the moon that her baby sister is bleeding from her ladyparts - tries to help Debs navigate the cotton pony situation, but Debs is not having it. They squabble and Fiona yells at both Debs and Carl (Ethan Cutkosky) to clean their rooms, because her parole officer is coming, apparently wearing white gloves.

Over at Sheila Jackson's Hobo Squatter Bed and Breakfast, Chuckles asks an increasingly grey Frank (William H. Macy), "Are you dead?" Frank: "Not a chance." Sammi (Emily Bergl) arrives to unleash a torrent of racist language about Arabs and say that they have to get money to buy this here lung transplant. Frank contributes to the conversation by farting loudly as he bends over to snort his oxys. Thanks for coming to work today, Frank.

Speaking of work, Lip (Jeremy Allen White) brings Liam to his job at the cafeteria, because of course his inflexible boss would be totally okay with that, and a hot girl student is turned on by it, and gives Lip her number. All that, AND it's Taco Tuesday? Everything's coming up Lip!

Fiona cleans out the kids' rooms, throwing out any gratuitous weapons and porn, and also Debs' Virginity Countdown. Her parole officer shows up and asks her a lot of questions, and Fiona offers her cookies. The woman tells her that they're not friends, and that Fiona can't leave the house for at least two weeks. She also makes Fiona give a urine sample while she watches, instructing her, "You need to wipe first." I can't quite figure out this policy, but I'd rather not think too closely about it.

At school, Debs revels in her newfound ovulation, but she won't use a tampon, instead stuffing an entire roll of toilet paper into her pants. This is officially the worst Charmin commercial ever.

Ian (Cameron Monaghan) wakes up with a very pregnant, very unhappy Svetlana looming over him. Yeesh. He takes a shower (sweet poopah, Ian!) and she threatens him with a hammer, telling him that she and the baby need Mickey and threatening, "I bash your orange head" if he gets in between them.

Ian comes home. Fiona is overjoyed to see him, giving him a big hug and calling him a "piece of shit asshole bastard", which is Gallagher for "welcome home". He dodges questions about the Army and laughs way too loudly at her jokes - she quickly picks up that he's either on something or up to something. Ian says he has no plans to finish high school, because Frank didn't and it worked out so well for him. Yes, clearly "on something".

At the Alibi, Kev (Steve Howey) talks guns with Kermit, and becomes convinced that he needs to buy more. This is not going to end well. Mickey (Noel Fisher) arrives to round up the prostitutes, including his own very pregnant wife, who monotones to him that "Carrot boy is gone." Mickey pretends not to care and barks at her to shave her ladyparts before her shift. Later, we see Kevin window-shopping - the window in the back of a van, mind you - for new guns, including a frickin' grenade launcher. Once he sees the price tags, he changes his mind.

At school, Carl gets in trouble for beating up the kids who picked on him on the bus... and a bunch of other kids that he just beat up for shits and giggles.The principal tells him he's suspended and will be expelled if he doesn't bring a parent or guardian to school with him on Friday to meet with the other kids' parents, because Fiona.

Sammi drops by the house to tell the kids that she and Frank are squatting at Sheila's and also can they give her any money? They politely decline. Mickey drops by to see Ian, and the rest of the family is shocked to learn that their AWOL brother is in the house. They reunite briefly and when the kids go back downstairs, Ian asks Mickey if they're back together, which would mean that Mickey has to blow him whenever he wants. Mickey says he's cool with that, and proves it. Welcome home, Ian!

Sammi comes up with a scheme to sell Sheila's house several times to different bidders and then scam them all for the earnest money. Frank responds, "You really are a Gallagher."

Fiona steals every bit of money she can find in the boys' room (it's not much), and goes through the couch as well. She only finds a pack of cigarettes, which she proceeds to smoke in one sitting before going outside to test the range of her ankle cuff. Inside, Ian tells a story from the Army where they made him do push-ups while singing. Sounds kinda... gay? Mandy (Emma Greenwell) comes in and seems alarmed to see Lip, and checks to make sure that he's still in school. She then mentions to Mickey that his wife's water broke. Mickey is less than interested. Debs calls Fiona a bitch for ruining her art project - and Carl's also mad at her for tossing his tossing material. Ian gives Fiona some money and mentions that he's twerking - sorry, working - a double that night.

Carl visits Frank and asks him to go to school with him, since Fiona can't leave the house. Debs asks Sammi for maxi pads, telling her that she's saving her virginity for when she's 16. Sammi points out that you can't lose your virginity to a tampon: "It has to be a penis. Attached to a man." Hey, why be so choosy? Later, Sammi shows the house to a bunch of flippers and sells the furniture while she's at it - "cash only". She also charmingly tries to explain love and why it is so confusing to Debs, saying, "It's a long con, baby." She advises Debs to show Matt what he gave up. Later, we see her playing games at the arcade with him like old times, and then she tells him she has to leave for a date and she'll catch him later. Well-played, Debs! Now please keep that up until you are AT LEAST TWENTY.

Fiona can't take the trash out without violating her parole, so she calls V (Shanola Hampton) - who is on the toilet - to come help. She goes back inside and goes on a crazy cleaning rampage, only to be interrupted by the door. She opens it, and it's Robbie. LE GASP. I seriously forgot he even existed. He brought her a cronut, and it seems it might be in apology, but it's actually a bribe for her to not mention that the coke that almost killed Liam was his. She is suitably disgusted, and slams the door in his face. Any money she's rethinking her refusal to play stool pigeon? V shows up just in time, with vodka.

At school, Lip once again lets his roommate's girlfriend, Amanda, babysit Liam. She dreamily says, "You're a really good person." He tells her he will find a way to repay her and her eyes tell us that she already has something in mind. Lip has his 20-minute booty call with the cafeteria girl.

Back at home, Fiona looks online for jobs she could do from home - she is/was the main breadwinner, after all - and she mourns to V that she's useless now and nobody needs her anymore. Lip comes home just as the smoke alarm goes off - Fiona and V forgot about dinner, and it's burned to shit. Lip sees the vodka bottle and freaks out, blaming her for once again ruining everything with her filthy appetites for booze and drugs that just manifested in the last few weeks. She tries to laugh it off, but he is pissed, and takes Carl AND Liam back to school with him. Just then Kev bursts in from his arms deal with the news that Carol is in labor. Ack!

At the White Swallow, Ian dances and Mickey forcibly defends him from anyone who gets too handsy. Charmed, Ian tries to kiss him, but Mickey pulls back, horrified. He looks around and realizes for the first time exactly where they are: a place where they don't have to hide. He kisses Ian and it is simply RAPTUROUS. Seriously, it's a straight-up fairy tale moment and one of the most purely romantic moments in the history of this show. Awesomesauce.

Lip tries to study during the big ABC (Anything But Clothes) party in the dorm, which looks like a waking nightmare. Carl, however, is LOVING it. Later, when everyone is sleeping, Amanda creeps into Lip's bed and blows him. Free babysitting, Toblerone, AND oral? He's hit the jackpot. Oh - and Carl wakes up, sees what's going on, and smiles. Oh good grief.

Fiona wanders from room to room of the house saying goodnight to her absent family members in a scene that is one part The Waltons, one part suicide watch. I'm seriously worried for her. But she gets into Liam's wee bed and cries herself to sleep, which is better than the alternative.

Kev and V are asleep in the hospital waiting room, and a nurse wakes them to tell them that Carol (Vanessa Bell Calloway) had the baby. She's cradling the adorable little nugget, and she's clearly not doing well with the whole post-partum parting thing. V pulls Kev aside and tells him that they have to let Carol keep the little boy. Kev balks, but she tells him that it will still be his baby, but Carol will shoulder the responsibility. And they still have two of their own on the way. Later, at the bar, Kev downs booze and mourns that they lost the baby... to Carol. "I keep losin' babies!"

Ian and Mickey attend an "after-party" in a loft with a bunch of guppies. I have to say, for an afterparty with go-go boys on the guest list, it's an amusingly tame gathering. A guy chats up Mickey, who reveals with very little prompting that he's a pimp. The guy is thrilled, because he's writing a dissertation on sex workers. Mickey looks at him like he is speaking Mandarin. The next morning Mickey wakes up beside Ian - both are fully clothed and on a pull-out bed, mind you - with their host Brian taking waffle orders. It's all very adorable in a Mormon adult sleepover kind of way. He asks Mickey if they are a couple, and when Mickey mumbles quietly they are, he tells him, "You're a lucky dude." Gazing at sleeping Ian, Mickey looks like he's just realizing this for the first time.

Lip, meanwhile, wakes to his phone ringing - it's Fiona, who quietly pleads with him to bring the kids home, saying that she needs her family with her in order to move on. She cries some more. Lip looks shaken.

Sammi tarts up Frank with makeup, making him look like the headliner at an open casket wake. The principal and other parents lay into him for Carl's behavior, and after a few moments of uncharacteristic restraint (maybe he was having a stroke?) Frank launches into a monolog about how bullying builds character and that it's thanks to the meanness of his kid - who will wind up in prison getting an STD from cell rape - that their kids will excel and lead happy lives. He tells the kids to learn to avoid Carl at all costs and maybe some day they'll go on to cure cancer. Carl asks, "What if I want to cure cancer?" Ouch. We later see Carl beat up a kid for his lunch money.

Fiona wakes up to the touch of Liam's little fingers on her cheek. She wakes up and cries some more, and this time I join her. Lip watches, a small smile on his lips.

"Thanks."

"No problem."

SCENE

Notably Absent: Sheila Jackson

Another action-packed episode, and hopefully the end of the tension between Lip and Fiona that has been driving everyone batty for the last few weeks. I'm loving that they've been able to do something fresh and unexpected with Mickey, who I thought was an utterly irredeemable character, and I'm very curious as to what is going on with this whole "after party" scene. Is anyone else getting the idea that Ian might be turning tricks? If so, it might put Mickey in a very awkward situation, being that he is a pimp who is married to a prostitute he doesn't love and also dating another prostitute, who is a man, whom he does love. (And if there were ever any question, I think this episode firmly established that Mickey does, indeed, love Ian. In his own human trafficking, head-bashing, Pigpen way.) And if I am finding all of this confusing, I can only imagine that in Mickey's eyes his life has just turned into a Japanese game show.

Am I the only one worried that Kev and V are going to end up with NO babies by the season finale? Ugh. Don't mess with my favorite people, show - at least let them have one of these babies. I know these folks are down on their luck, but 1 in 4 odds isn't asking for the moon.

Frank continues to bore me, and Lip's school situation isn't terribly compelling, either - though the secret hummer was a nice callback to the series' first episode.

No, this week belonged to Fiona's grief and to Carrot Boy and his stinky Romeo, and for that the episode earned a solid eight Old Styles:

What'd you think? With four episodes left, where do you think this is all headed? Am I completely nuts to wonder if Ian and Mickey might last? Or hope that Fiona might actually stay out of jail?

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