‘Shameless’ Season 10 Premiere Recap
Shameless returned to Showtime tonight and as promised, picked up six months after the events in the season nine finale. Is Fiona missed? She is but she’s definitely not forgotten as life goes on for the Gallaghers. If you thought that the elder sister’s absence would affect Frank drastically and cause him to change his old ways, think again.
The first episode debuted with a new set of opening credits that blended scenes from the past with the current Shameless bunch, and things kicked off with older toddlers and money in the kiln. Here’s a recap of what everyone is doing.
Debbie
The opening shot shows Fiona is still calling to check on everyone, but it looks like Deb misses the call because she’s upstairs trying to get Liam and Franny together. Deb is running things, and the family is still fighting over bathroom time. Franny is getting so big!
While milling around that morning, Debbie informs the household that only kids age 12 and under eat free in the house, she’s not doing anyone’s laundry, and if you leave things in the hallway and cause a fire hazard, it’s getting thrown outside. And in case anyone is confused, she reminds them she’s NOT FIONA!
Debs is in charge of the household finances, and Frank learns that he is in the negative for the family’s discretionary fund due to him destroying the couch with his “broken leg juices” and piss.
Deb goes off on him explaining how the money is to be allocated, but we later see she has a storage unit full of high-end fashions including Chanel, Prada, La Perla, and Gucci. Obviously, she’s been going on shopping sprees. She tells Franny she’s got a system for taking it all back. We can’t wait to see how that works out.
Liam
Liam is growing out his hair into an Afro and is assuming the identity of Fredrick Douglass for the day. He is dedicated to exploring his roots and stops by V’s on the way to school to talk about being black, and she says she’s cooked some version of “slave food” that she found in a book.
On the way to school, poor Liam gets called names and is jumped by a group of kids while his friend Todd–who refused to walk with him because of his outfit–watches from across the street. By the end of the day, he’s hanging out at the Alibi in his disheveled dashiki, sipping on a Coke.
Kevin and Veronica
The Ball twins are much bigger, and things are still chugging along at the bar. Kev hits a pickup game of basketball at a local court but is ignored until the very end, where he embarrasses himself by shooting an air ball. While talking to the guys at the Alibi, Kev becomes convinced that he needs a pair of $350 sneakers, and V protests because they’re on a budget. He defiantly declares he’s going to make his own money so he can buy them. What plan will he hatch? It looks like it’ll be exotic dancing again.
Kev finds out he’s been put on the nightclub roster to dance as part of a lineup with older, gray-haired men. He’s not happy, but he does it for the tips. Wearing a skimpy costume, he shakes it on stage.
Frank
Frank is still gross, walking around in dirty underwear and eating out of the kitchen trash. With empty pockets and no access to the family till, he’s looking for his next scheme. Frank, being his usual self, tries to scam his orthopedic doctor into believing his leg isn’t fully healed and he needs pain medicine. It doesn’t work.
This sets him on mission to find drugs elsewhere. Frank, ever clever, posts up at a pharmacy with a walker and winds up stealing an elderly woman’s Oxycontin by bumping into her and switching her package out for his. While slipping away, he runs into Mikey, who’s also running a scam by posing as a double amputee.
Frank and Mikey devise a plan to case a hotel lobby, pull the fire alarm, and steal sofa cushions. They then go back to the house, refurbish the dirty couch with their newfound hotel loot, and get high.
Carl
Carl is first shown sitting alone in a jail cell of some sort at military school. It’s graduation day, so they wake him up and hose him down. At Carl’s graduation ceremony, cadets are stoically and quietly receiving their diplomas until it’s Carl’s turn.
The commanding officer hilariously unloads on him and tells him he’s a piece of putrid __ and that he never wants to see him again, and he also put in word at the Pentagon that Carl is disallowed from fighting for his country. Carl thanks him.
At the end of the festivities, Carl finds out that the cadet who he fought for and ended up in a cell for is transgender, but he thought the word “trans” meant transfer student. He believed he was standing up for a new kid. He’s angry this is the reason he spent time in the cage all those weeks. He and Kelly take off to engage in some intimate escapades for the duration of the show.
Lip
Lip and Tami are a total couple living in the Gallagher house since Tami is pregnant. She goes into labor at work and when Lip takes her to the hospital, they learn she needs an emergency c-section. The baby is delivered but Tami becomes unresponsive and is rushed out to an operating room. Lip texts his siblings, Frank, Kevin, and V.
At the close of the episode, the family shows up to meet the baby, and it looks like Fiona calls back to check in on everyone. Deb takes the call. The doctors still haven’t given Lip or Tami’s family an update on her status, so viewers won’t find out until next week. And somewhere in there, they’re planning to visit Ian in prison.
