Is the new iteration of Shameless as enjoyable as, say, seasons five and six (my favorites, not only because Dermot Mulroney portrayed an irredeemable cad)? No, of course not.
#IS SEASON 7 OF SHAMELESS OVER FULL#
However - and you knew this was coming - we should probably fully consider this season in full context of the series. He’s certainly not replacing Rossum in any way, but White’s now coming into his own, probably in a way that he could never do as Lip if Fiona was still on the scene.
Neither Fiona nor Debbie dealt with the same version of events that Lip must confront, and White holds nothing back in his performance. Yet you’ve never seen Lip go through anything quite like what he faces in this tenth season. And we watched with trepidation while Lip grew involved with Tami, who’s still around and very pregnant when the action picks up.
White’s performance during those seasons was brutal and tragic and fearless as we saw Lip claw his way into sobriety and help others achieve that same precarious goal. We’ve already seen Lip in the gutter, literally, while he descended into the depths of alcoholism and losing his grip on the bootstrap of college education. Now, I know what some of you might be thinking. Let’s just say that fatherhood brings out new aspects of Lip’s nature, and White’s up for the increased burden and focus. I won’t go so far as to call Lip the new Fiona because that’s unfair to both characters, who’ve both faced their own different challenges. Multiple seasons after his character went sober, White’s now pulling off some incredible shades of comedy, tragedy, and several emotional states in between. To that end, Jeremy Allen White’s stepping up to the challenge quite nicely.
#IS SEASON 7 OF SHAMELESS OVER SERIES#
It probably won’t surprise you that even though Debbie’s appointed herself the new family leader (and to be fair, Fiona did leave that $50,000 with her sister), the emotional focal point of the series now sits upon Lip’s shoulders. Frank, obviously, is still the same variety of drunken mess, but everyone else’s antics now feel amplified in a pleasant but not-too-showy way. And yes, the Gallaghers’ penchant for grifting can continue to reach new heights.
This success is largely due to the writers making a few key characters increasingly dynamic - there’s no shortage of compelling developments in this season. She’s better off on a beach somewhere, and so is the series. She wouldn’t stop dating the same variety of men, over and over again, and no number of tedious real estate ventures could make Fiona compelling again. Strange, I know! Yet Fiona became a portrait of inertia. Whether the character actually outgrew the stories presented on Shameless can remain up to interpretation, but fans will soon see how - despite some stressful moments within the tenth season - the show feels (overall) freer with Fiona gone and doing her own thing. Perhaps I also now feel disloyal to Fiona after she busted her ass and gave up her life for her siblings? The better explanation is that Emmy Rossum delivered a pitch-perfect portrayal of Fiona as written, but it’s now apparent that her character no longer fit into the series. This is a welcome development, but frankly one that I’m still attempting to digest. Although the first episode of this season struggles to find a new rhythm, the next few that follow (three were provided to critics for screening) prove that there’s more life left in the Showtime series. The fear, of course, was that the series would sink without Fiona but, surprisingly enough, there’s been a burst of energy now that the anchor has been lifted. In a show that’s jam-packed with shenanigans and dramatic hijinks, this seemed, well, odd, but Fiona had accomplished all that she could possibly do for her family, and it was time to live her own life. This wasn’t sudden departure but happened after several months of public announcements and buildup, and the end result was that Emmy Rossum’s departure felt understated, rather than notable. During the last Shameless season finale, Fiona Gallagher, the matriarchal glue that presumably held the family together, left the building.
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