Showtime's "Shameless" (1 Viewer)

[mattCR]

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you Showtime! This is how you take a UK show and bring it to the US. From this point on, it will be almost IMPOSSIBLE to compare the UK and US version. We are seeing now the version that may have been originally planned before casting changes in the UK. I thought the finale went exactly the way I wanted the UK version to go at the end of S2.. so now it is as different as possible. Fantastic. Great episode as well. Really, truly great stuff this season, and I am now VERY eager for what happens next, and with no roadmap out there, I think it's better for everyone.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Wow, quite an episode. As much as the show made you hate Eddie over the course of the season, he didn't deserve the end he arranged for himself. I've never understood suicide, but of all the ways to pick, Eddie's has to be among the worst. Freezing and drowning is not way to go. The whole time I thought they were gearing up for Karen to kill herself, so I was pretty shocked when it was Eddie instead. Ultimately, he was the biggest victim of his sexual hang-ups. What would be absolutely mortifying and demoralizing for any normal father was world ending for Eddie. Karen meant to hurt her father with that video, but I don't think she wanted this.


I liked seeing Frank bottom out. The aftermath the scene where Eddie storms in and reveals what Frank did, while Kev's hiding him under the bar, was particularly powerful. Frank's like their mascot, the lovable buffoon. But after hearing Eddie, nobody could so much as stand to look at him. Frank knew he'd crossed a line before, but that really drove it home. It was nice to see Frank apologize to Lip, an unexpected effort from him that Lip desperately needed for reasons far beyond what happened with Karen. When Frank let Lip piss on his head, he was allowing Lip to exorcise years of pent-up rage at him. The only shoe left to drop know is what happens when Sheila finds out what happened. Since we saw her dump her birth control pills, it might not be as easy to rid Frank from her life as it otherwise would have been.


Right now, Tony thinks he's coming out looking like a hero. He doesn't know that he lost a long time ago. And as soon as Fiona finds out that Steve deeded the house he bought for her to Tony, she's going to put two-and-two together. But instead of thinking that Tony selflessly got Lip and Ian off at great personal expense and only later took Steve's bribe as one final "fuck you," she's going to think that Steve bribed Tony to get them out and that Steve is the real reason Lip and Ian are free.


As for Steve, something tells me we haven't seen the last of him. Why show Debbie ratting Jimmy out to his mom if Steve's exiting stage-left? I don't think the Steve saga's over by any stretch of the imagination.


Great season of television. Can't wait for next year's run; will we have to wait a full year, or can we expect this one back in the fall?

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

 

[mattCR]

LOVE it

 

[Adam Lenhardt]