Hey Everyone, Shameless Is Back!

The title says it all.

Spoilers below...

Shameless – “Summertime” (B)

Of all the shows that returned to TV this winter I think Shameless was the one I was most looking forward to. Sure, I forgot most of what happened at the end of last season – 8 months off will do that to you – but the show generated so much goodwill from me last season that even that vague recollection was enough to get me excited. Well that and the recap at the beginning of the episode... you forget just how many important scenes involve nudity until you see them all lined up in a row like that.

“Summertime” was more of a transitional episode though. I might have liked to see the show address some of the more pressing issues from the finale, but I guess I’ll just have to settle for the fact that at the moment they seem to be bubbling under the surface. Instead the writers upped the shameless factor, which is probably more in line with the original tone of the series, but did leave me wanting more.

Still, baby cages, foster kids growing weed, pot bonfires – it was like the writing staff was just testing how much they could get away with now that the show’s been validated with a second season. I think my favourite piece of the episode was Lip and Kev’s ice cream truck. The arbitrary ages for buying cigarettes, pot, and beer were pretty entertaining.

And then of course there was Frank losing Liam because he couldn’t pay off his $10,000 gambling debt. It’s hard to get more shameless than that. It was a pretty solid side story for Frank though, generating a lot of good bits from his character. His sleepover explanation for why Liam wasn’t with him made me laugh out loud (by the way, why was he sleeping instead of figuring out how to get him back).

No Steve in this episode though. That was the one area I thought we would get some more movement. All the poor guy got was a passing mention, and while I was happy to see that Fiona is still getting over him (her character had a great internal arc in the episode), I’m interested in seeing how the writers are going to bring him back. That’s assuming Justin Chatwin is coming back. He’s still main cast, right?