Well, Shameless isn’t for the faint of heart – we can tell
you that right off the bat. But it’s what I think most viewers want out of any cable television series and that’s a series with characters and plotlines
willing to push the envelope. After one episode of Shameless, there are already
plenty of envelopes being pushed. There’s plenty of sex, drugs, and booze to go
around, but Shameless goes far deeper than just that.
Shameless was adapted from a British TV series of the same
name. I had heard of the British series,
but for one reason or another had never checked it out – that is until after I
watched the pilot episode of the american Shameless. From what I saw, the two
pilots were a near mirror image of one another, I take that back, the script
was a near-mirror image - but not much else.
Shameless revolves around the Gallagher clan, a low-income
family living on the South Side of Chicago, doing whatever they have to do to
make ends meet … however Shameless it may be. We’re introduced to each of the
six Gallagher siblings in episode 1. Fiona, played by Emmy Rossum (Who looks as
good with no make-up as she does with it, and yes, that’s a compliment) is the
oldest and she spends her days taking care of her five younger siblings making
sure they stay out of as much trouble as she can control. While the four middle
kids head off to school, Fiona heads off to work with her youngest sibling (and
the one who looks a tad bit different than the rest), Liam.
Lip (Jeremy Allen White) is the second oldest and appears to
be the brains of the family tutoring for money and taking the SATs which if you
can pull it off, brings in a nice wad of cash. Ian (Cameron Monaghan) is the
third sibling, one year younger than Lip. Ian has a gig at the local corner
market owned by a Muslim woman, Linda (Marguerite Moreau) and her husband, Kash (Pej Vahdat). At first
sight you can tell the marriage is in trouble and we soon learn more.
Turns out Ian is secretly gay and has been messing around
with Kash behind locked doors. Lip finds a stash of male porn in the room he shares
with his brother at the Gallagher compound, soon confronting Ian. Eventually,
Lip puts two and two together, something Ian and Kash couldn’t do with their
shoes and figures out what has been going on, which leads to tension between
the two brothers for much of the remainder of the episode.
Meanwhile, Lip is having his own sexual encounters with one
Karen Jackson (Laura Slade Wiggins), daughter to an agoraphobic, just slightly
“out there” woman, played perfectly in this episode by Joan Cusack and her
miserable husband, Eddie (Joel Murray). While Lip thinks of tutoring as helping
Karen pass science class, he learns science “turns her on” – and we have a
feeling that’s not the only thing.
Next in line there’s little Debbie (Emma Kenney), an
elementary school-aged girl who helps the family out by collecting money for UNICEF
and pocketing half of it. Finally, there’s Carl (Ethan Cutkosky), and while we didn’t get a whole lot of him in episode
one something tells me, he’s going to be a tough one for Fiona to handle. We’re
definitely hoping to see more out of both youngsters in the weeks ahead.
So if the scripts are almost identical, what’s the
difference between the British and American versions you ask? Oh where to
begin, the casting, as a subsequent result the acting, the shot composition –
the two products are like night and day or in this case the North and South
sides, with the advantage in each category going to the US version.
There is a father involved who lives with the family, and by
living we mean the family home happens to be where the neighborhood cops drag
him back to every night and where he passes out on the floor as life goes on
around him. William H. Macy knocked each of his scenes out of the ballpark
(Comiskey I suppose). While obviously Macy’s character, Frank Gallagher, is the
cause of most of the family’s problems we didn’t see too much of him, but
instead just the right amount in the series’ first episode.
Plenty of storylines were cracked open. Fiona met Steve
(Justin Chatwin), who at first look was someone who wasn’t used to driving
around the South Side of the city, soon we learn though that Steve doesn’t buy
cars and then sell them – he steals cars and sells them (more profitable, I
suppose). Maybe though, it’s adventure that Steve likes and is looking for.
Fiona and her situation presents that opportunity to him. While I think some
viewers may have been rubbed the wrong way in episode one by dangerous Steve, I
think Fiona is slowly falling for him, I could be kicking myself for saying
this in a few episodes, but I have a feeling Steve is going to be sticking
around, he might actually be more Gallagher than any of us, or even he
realizes.
We also meet the next door neighbors, V (Shanola Hampton)
and Kev (Steve Howey), they’re two interesting, change of the pace characters.
V was kicked out of nursing school for selling medical supplies on Ebay, while
Kev bartends at Frank’s favorite hangout besides the kitchen floor, The Alibi
Room. I look forward to seeing what else those two bring to the show in coming
episodes.
That’s the thing about this show, while some viewers no
doubt had rough upbringings, upbringings when there parents struggled with
money and in some cases, no doubt addiction … this family has more problems
than the average American family (times ten), but at the end of the day it
doesn’t matter – they all still wake-up the next morning and start over again at that
breakfast table, helping each other and doing whatever they can in their power
to bring the necessary money in. If you didn’t notice that’s kind of how the
show started, and also how it ended – a whole lot of shit happened in between,
but bookmarking it all was the entire family together, chipping in,
doing whatever they could do to help each other.
Now here’s what I’m excited to see in the weeks ahead:
- The development of Ian and Lip’s relationship,
these two were no doubt involved in the heaviest storyline of the pilot, and
the heaviest scene was the two of them sitting in the old astro van, Lip
reminding Ian of the brotherly bond the two have always held… that scene pulled
at the strings just a little bit.
- Will Frank get caught by the cameras he has been
dodging for years to keep the disability checks rolling in after what sounds
like a horrific chicken-grinding incident that must have stained him badly, or
atleast his clothes…
- Does Fiona push Steve away or does she get
closer with him, Fiona is all about her family, at times maybe too much – she’s
been hurt before by people, some guys no doubt, she’s a lot more vulnerable
than she displays, as we saw in the scene were she thanked herself for a passed
out Frank laying on the living room floor
- Why does Eddie have that clown fascination? I
found it very creepy, amid all the shameless behavior, to me, the clown paraphernalia was the most unsettling thing in the entire
episode…
Final Word: Overall, 57 minutes of really solid television. After one
episode you can already see each actor has really taken on their character, and
it’s a special cast. The writing and minor adaptions made in the pilot were
spot on and set-up each character well, planted all kinds of seeds that should
make for appointment television.
Looking forward to episode 2 and seeing what shameless activity
the Gallagher’s get their hands and other objects in next.
