Shameless: Frank the Plumber Review

I have always been a fan of this show. It is a top notch show that should be a ratings and awards juggernaut since the first season and although it does good numbers for Showtime awards shows seem to not understand how brilliant this show really is.
There are many examples of the exemplary work from just this season alone but this episode in particular stood out in particular as a showcase for everyone involved starting with the writing. The writer’s gave enough material for everyone, including themselves, to really shine. Emmy Rossum as Fiona and William H. Macy as Frank are always brilliant and have multiple episodes where they really shine including this one.

Fiona takes a job in an office as a temp calling clients and sees if they are interested in purchasing more products. It is the first time Fiona found her job rewarding and actually enjoyed herself and you can see it in Emmy Rossum’s face. It was also nice to see Jake McDorman from Greek on the show. I have a feeling, though, that he is going to complicate things with Fi’s new job and her relationship with Steve/Jimmy; should be interesting.

The writers also constantly find more material for Frank to win worst father of the year by a wide margin episode after episode. However, in this episode, instead of ruining his children’s lives again, he decides to ruin his “caretakers” life by forcing him to apply for a domestic partnership to take advantage of his benefits, but when that doesn’t work Frank goes on a rant, in true Frank fashion, at a press conference for a candidate for mayor. As a result, Frank becomes a hero in the gay community. Yeah…no comment…moving on.

Lip got to showcase his passion for robotics with a MIT alum in this episode as well. It was nice to see Lip finally share his passion instead of hiding it under a nonchalant attitude and anger. Lip’s relationship with Mandy, on the other hand, has been on the rocks mostly because Lip didn’t want to commit and Karen coming back didn’t help things either. The writers gave Mandy some dramatic scenes including the final scene with her cleaning evidence off of a car, but more on that later.

Mandy bore her heart to Lip and that along with the college applications Mandy sent out for him gave Lip the final push he needed to break things off with Karen and be with Mandy.

Joan Cusack is the lone actor to get some love from the Emmys…in fact she is the only part of the show to get love from the Emmys. She proves her worth constantly but this is a new highlight for her. Sheila deals with a little depression after Karen makes the Wongs take her baby away. Debbie lifts Sheila’s spirits enough to make peace with Karen and also apologize for all of her craziness. It was a nice emotional scene which obviously is a foreshadowing for the tragedy that follows.

Karen who has been vying for Lip’s affection since coming back to town gets a text from Lip asking her to meet him; however, she never makes it to the park because she is hit by a car – very violently shown – on the way. It is in fact the same car Mandy was cleaning evidence off of.

Now with Karen out of the way Lip and Mandy can ride off into the sunset, right? Mandy had been pushed to her breaking point and she was not very stable to begin with either so we shall see next week if she does get away with it.

Also, Ian had another heartbreaking episode when the person he wants to be with the most continues to reject him because he can’t come to terms with himself.

Steve/Jimmy after this episode has had enough with living poor and he is going to do something drastic next week. We shall see what it is next week as well.