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9 seasons together: Fiona doesn't make it on time for Ian's final goodbye. 

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9 seasons together: Fiona doesn't make it on time for Ian's final goodbye. 

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What were the writers thinking?

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Ian Says Goodbye to His Family || 9x06 || Ian's Final Scene || Shameless US

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Best scene to date? Ian's Sweet Last Moments

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Best scene to date? Ian's Sweet Last Moments

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This part of the show was personally one of my top 3 moments in the past 9 seasons. By watching this, you see exactly what I am trying to explain and how the chemistry between the two characters mesh well.

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Ian and Mickey Reunite in Jail || 9x06 || Ian and Mickey's FINAL Scene || Shameless US

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Notable, fitting, not typical choice for Ian's reunion with ex-boyfriend Mickey

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Notable, fitting, not typical choice for Ian's reunion with ex-boyfriend Mickey

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This was a surprising choice because Frank Ocean isn't a mainstream artist, he himself is gay, which made this a great choice. It made me think that there was an actual though process to picking this soundtrack.

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Frank Ocean – Pink + White (music video)

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Myles McNutt's Arguable Anaylsis about Ian's finale

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Myles McNutt's Arguable Anaylsis about Ian's finale

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In my paper, I go head to head with McNutt's analysis of this episode.

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When a main character exits a long-running series, it's typically a time for reflection: for more than eight seasons, Ian Gallagher has been a critical part of Shameless, and one of the longest-running primetime explorations of homosexuality in the past decade. There are fans of the show who were drawn in by Ian's story in particular, and whose relationship with the show has been shaped-for better and for worse-by the character's experiences. Although we only learned earlier this week that this would be Ian's last episode when Cameron Monaghan announced it via social media, it still marks a significant turning point for the series: the first Gallagher has left the nest, with another set to depart by season's end.

And yet "Face It, You're Gorgeous" is not in a particularly reflective mood. All of Ian's siblings-who, to reiterate from weeks previous, apparently never visited their brother in prison but are all eager to say farewell this time?-are willing to ditch work and other commitments to be with him on his final day of freedom, but he resists: he just wants to have a quiet day at home and a nice dinner, although it eventually becomes a day of self-defense training and learning which part of the prison is most likely to get him killed. I buy that Ian might not want a big traditional sendoff, but it's a character choice that also reflects a writing challenge: how could you possibly reflect on Ian's story without acknowledging how thoroughly the show lost track of the plot over the past three seasons?

Executive producer Nancy M. Pimental, who wrote the script for Ian's final episode as part of the main cast, doesn't attempt to dive into Ian's past in any detail. There's no visit from the paramedics he worked with until getting caught up in the Gay Jesus boondoggle. Trevor doesn't stop by to say goodbye to a former friend and lover. While Ian and Lip share some emotional scenes of brotherly affection, they never once turn their gaze to the past to-for example-reminisce about the scene in the first season where Karen was giving Ian a blowjob under the table. In an episode where Lip and Ian enjoy torturing Carl with stories about his childhood, Ian's past garners significantly less investigation. In the end, there's only one piece of Ian's past that matters, and Pimental delivers the "Deus Ex Mickey-na" that the fans honestly deserved: Mickey is the only part of Ian's past that counts, and so any and all logic is thrown out the window as he somehow managed to time his absurdly convenient cartel informant deal with federal investigators to the exact moment Ian would be entering this prison.

I want to be very clear that I'm glad that the Gallavich shippers get something approximating a happy ending, and so I don't feel my logistical concerns are or should be an issue for the fans the final scene was designed to serve. But Mickey's arrival only reinforced how poorly the show dealt with Noel Fisher's departure from the show, as literally nothing else the writers introduced for Ian's character in the interim resonated on any level. The writers didn't just go to Mickey because of fan service, although I'm sure that was a big part of it: Gallavich was endgame because it was literally their only option. What else could have made Ian's departure from the show mean something? His relationship with Lip has been sporadic at best, they never managed to give him any friends outside of Mandy, and the show basically cut Fiona off from all of her siblings over the past few years. That left Ian stranded with a handful of boyfriends and co-workers, and Cameron Monaghan often felt equally stranded as a performer, lacking the substance of material to generate substance in his performance. While losing Ian and Mickey's relationship back at the end of season five felt like a significant loss for the show on a structural level, losing Ian now feels like it will have little to no impact on the show's weekly storytelling. As much as it is unfortunate to see the show losing such a pivotal LGBTQ character (and no, making Debbie bisexual in the blink of an eye is not a meaningful replacement, Shameless), having Ian bunking in prison with Mickey off-screen is probably the best case scenario for the show and the character, and as much as that makes me sad I'm glad at least something positive for the fans came out of this mostly unceremonial end to his character's journey.

"Face It, You're Gorgeous" works in some other stories here, including a continuation of Frank's infatuation with his latest mentally unstable love interest and an honestly quite fun guest turn from Courteney Cox as Lip's first sober companion gig. However, while those weave in and out of the story, the centerpiece here is a cautionary tale for what will happen next winter when I'm writing a perhaps very similar essay about Emmy Rossum's last episode of the series. The show has been pushing Fiona on the path of upward mobility, creating the implication that this could be the character's way out. However, in one fell swoop, Fiona's entire empire comes crashing down. Faced with a $25,000 expansion of her senior care investment that she doesn't have, running out of loan options, and with Ford breathing down her neck to move in together, Fiona struggles to avoid buckling under the pressure. The show throws "Gallagher solutions"-a hastily offered gang loan, stealing from the safe at Patsy's-at her but she resists, until everything unravels when she tries apologizing to Ford and instead finds him at his wife's house with their kid.

There's two layers to the frustrations of this Fiona storyline. Taken wholly out of the context of this particular episode, what is the show trying to accomplish by making Ford entirely right about Fiona's ignorance to the terms of her investment while also making him a married asshole who never told her he was separated from his wife? Their entire relationship has always lacked justification: it was never clear why Fiona was attracted to him beyond the accent, it was never clear what he wanted to be in a relationship with her so desperately given his constant judgment of her choices, and his insistence on them moving in together here is just plain inscrutable. And yet despite how awful Ford is, he was technically right: Fiona was an idiot and accepted the terms of a deal without fully understanding the long-term financial implications. The show's attempt to merge our sympathy for Fiona getting screwed over by another asshole-which leads to potentially adding a DUI and huge damage to her leased vehicle to her list of problems-with our judgment of her poor financial decision-making is just messy. I'm fine with the show not wanting Fiona to continue her rocket ship journey to upper-middle-class existence, as it was frankly moving a bit too swiftly, but having it all fall apart in this way was muddled to a degree that makes the whole thing seem wasteful.

However, when we put it in context of the episode, it gets even worse. Fiona's very bad day happens to coincide with Ian's last day of freedom, and yet she doesn't make it home to send him off. I understand that Fiona was trying to avoid facing anyone, let alone her family who just recently learned that she had invested the $100,000, but the fact that she is absent from Ian's goodbye dinner but a famous commercial actress and Carl's new girlfriend are present is just bizarre. Fiona eventually realizes she needs to apologize to Ford-after making out with one of her Patsy's employees in a bizarre scene where she compares her middle-class problems with his lower-class ones-but she never realizes that she's missing her last chance to see Ian without a glass window between them for two years? Sure, it adds an extra layer of tragedy to Fiona's situation that she stands up Ian after insisting she drive him to jail, but the sheer pileup of terrible things happening to Fiona on this day didn't need to converge with Ian's departure in order to resonate. And the fact that Fiona never seems to realize that she's missing Ian's last day is a mistake, even if next week we see Fiona bearing the consequences for that: this was a bad day for Fiona, but no version of this character that I know would so completely ignore her brother going to prison, even if that revelation may have had to come at a point when she had no way of doing anything about it thanks to the terrible situation she'd fallen into.

And now Shameless has eight episodes to either get her out of that situation or have it all unravel even further. It remains to be seen what that will entail, but if this episode was any indication, the show's approach to resolving messy and inconsistent character arcs involves a trip into the production rolodex and a ringing phone for Justin Chatwin. In the meantime, though, Shameless will needs to find a way to pivot from the emotional catharsis of this ending into something approximating a cliffhanger in next week's mid-season finale, which still has a lot of work to do in order to get the show as a whole back on track.

Stray observations

Frank Ocean's "Pink + White" was definitely a nice soundtrack choice for Ian and Mickey's reconcilation. I'm glad they resisted using "End Game," would've been less thematically appropriate and too on the nose.

I love how the entire family is like "ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS?!" while Lip is standing there having just given away $10,000 like it was nothing two weeks ago which the show has yet to comment on in any way.

Yes, I get that we as a society decided it is funny when Bob Saget says depraved things, but this Kevin and Veronica story was just dull. Beyond the fact they completely ignored the whole "twins pretending to be one child" gambit that somehow doesn't get discovered when the nun visits their house, their ceremonial farewell to their sex toys just sat there, with some funny lines but nothing that moves them or the show forward. I appreciated their presence at Ian's departure, but wish greatly that the show was still willing to let their stories converge with the Gallaghers on a regular basis.

"Last time I saw you, you must have been two years old, talking up a storm"-okay, why is Shameless gaslighting us on Liam's childhood? They're ignoring the overdose and any potential impacts on his development, and I sort of understand that choice even if I disagree with it, but now they're pretending that Liam wasn't more or less mute even before that incident? I know we have no reason to believe Frank's buddy at the mental health facility is an entirely reliable narrator, but it's still insane that they're not even slightly aware of the fact the audience would read that as a blatant lie.

"Didn't you see the GIF?"-Shameless may be ignorant to the pasts of its own characters, but it's on the right side of the GIF pronunciation debate, so there's that at least.

I was utterly perplexed by Jen Wagner's level of stardom: everyone knows who she is by name in the bar when Lip outs her, and she's a famous cosmetics spokesperson, and she has three Golden Globe nominations, but she's only been in 17 films (and 4 TV shows). Lip calls her a "movie star," but is that really what she is with that resume? As noted, I liked Cox's energy a lot, but the facts are all over the place.

"Hey, thanks for being my brother"-that was the closest I came to getting emotional during this whole rushed situation, for the record, but only because it's harder to be emotional when you're rolling your eyes (they surely knew that was how people like me would respond to the justification for why Mickey would be there, as much as I accept the necessity of such an absurd fiction and enjoyed the scene nonetheless).

An open memo to the people at Showtime: I understand that you've literally made the "Previously On" sequence part of the show in the case of Shameless, but I firmly and strongly believe that you should not include random details that by their randomness more or less spoil your show. There's no reason to include Fiona's obsession with Ford's second phone if you weren't going to reveal that Patty wasn't actually his mother, and so you basically called your shot, and that's deeply unnecessary. Just let a handful of people be confused for a second remembering why Fiona knew she was Patty and let everyone else be even remotely surprised. Thank you for your time.

And if I could speak directly to the Gallavich shippers for a minute: I know from Twitter that you were certainly among the readers of these reviews, so I just wanted to say that I'm happy for you, and that I'm pleased that reviews provided you a space to vent and work through your reactions to the mess of Ian's character arc. That's a huge value to this kind of episodic criticism, so a sincere thanks for being part of that discourse.

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Shameless says goodbye to its first Gallagher sibling in a fitting yet frustrating farewell

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When a main character exits a long-running series, it's typically a time for reflection: for more than eight seasons, Ian Gallagher has been a critical part of Shameless, and one of the longest-running primetime explorations of homosexuality in the past decade.

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Awards, cast, ratings

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Short, summed up biography on Ian

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Frank Gallagher: The drunk Father. He is the alcoholic drug addict yet oddly philosophical single father of the Gallagher household who knows how to play the system to survive. Fiona Gallagher: The Mother sister. She is the oldest sibling and the most responsible. She has been

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Den of Geek Review of Season 9 Episode 6

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Den of Geek Review of Season 9 Episode 6

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This Shameless review contains spoilers.

Shameless Season 9 Episode 6

Goodbye, Ian Gallagher. The title of the episode might be about the inherent beauty of everyone-including presumably (or especially) Ian. But ever since it was announced earlier this week that tonight was for all intents and purposes Cameron Monaghan's last episode of Shameless, the hour has become the expected, and dreaded, farewell to who is many viewers' favorite Gallagher.

Yet it didn't play that way. In fact, if Monaghan had not made the announcement himself beforehand, I suspect many would have treated it like the seasons where Carl went off to juvenile hall or boot camp mid-season ("Oh Monaghan must have some other project so is leaving early, see you next year!"). Alas, this is the end, which makes the choice to primarily treat this as merely another hour of Gallagher hijinks an intriguing and honest one. However, I cannot deny it was still a disappointing direction go in.

With the added knowledge that this is Ian's last Shameless episodes barring some unexpected mini-arc cameo in two seasons (supposing the show even continues to live on that long), there is not much until the very closing moments of the hour to mark this as a true sendoff. Rather it is in many ways an Irish goodbye, as John Wells and the characters go about their other business. This was stated to be Ian's understandable intent: He's about to spend what he thinks is the next two years looking over his shoulder in fear, so now he just simply wants to have a pleasant day at home chill-axing before the big sendoff. This leaves most of the episode to be relegated to the other characters' daily toils while Ian takes some self-defense lessons from Carl's way cooler girlfriend.

Luckily, the other storylines are primarily strong tonight. The biggest non-Fi one is a breezy departure from all the angst poor Lip has been forced to endure this season. Due to scheduling issues, I was unfortunately unable to review last week's episode, which I think is by far the best hour of season 9 so far. It also shined some illuminating attention onto why Lip fixated so much on turning Xan into his surrogate daughter: As long as he's obsessing over her well-being, he isn't worried about his own, which due to anxiety and/or tedium drives him back to the bottle.

It was a revealing aspect of Lip's desire to be a better big brother to strangers these days than he is to his own wee baby brother, Liam. But that longing for dependency from excitement, while reminiscent of Fiona's own self-destructive tendencies in the first four seasons, also leads Lip to a cheery of a new plot development, since he is working part-time as a drinking buddy's non-drinking buddy. Yep, with a gig that requires him to run down rich slushes who are too unwilling (or lazy) to kick the habit themselves or attend AA, Lip has a dynamic that should be easily mined for the rest of season 9 for amusing narrative scenarios that also force him to examine himself.

The first up in this vein is a movie and television star played by an iconic movie and television star, Ms. Courtney Cox. In an amusing bit of intertextual irony, after getting Wells' leads to guest spot on , their new "Must-See TV lineup" neighbor of over 20 years ago, Cox is now returning the favor on .

A decidedly different neck of the Chicago woods, Cox embodies the "Gorgeous" vapidity of pampered celebrity culture as she savors slumming it for the day on the South Side. She apparently was forced into hiring a glorified babysitter to keep her hand off the booze, and Lip gets exactly what he so secretly yearns for-a person in crisis he can help, one shouting match at a time.

Shameless knowingly walks the line when it has its hero pin an actress to the ground and demand she do as he says, all while in public. But by and large, it is just an amusing sojourn with Lip finding increasingly desperate and amusing ways to stop Cox's Jen from hitting the bottle. He smashes the glass out of her hand when she sneaks some booze into her virgin cocktail, and then forces her to fight off a swarm of fawning celebrity chasers at a hotel bar when he draws attention to her presence. It's hard to stop him from stealing your beer when you have a line out-the-door of folks wanting selfies. As someone who has seen celebrities in these situations (and not-so-proudly has gone for the selfie early in my career), seeing Cox lampoon the artifice of pretending to share a moment with total strangers who care more about their phones than the famous human being they're posing next to was wickedly on-point.

All of this is, of course, a long way around toward explain why Jen winds up with Lip back in the South Side. There are moments here where the series lives up to its name and does things simply for shock value-like having Jen make out with Debbie just for the surprise of seeing Courtney Cox kiss a teenager-but it's mostly a savvier entertainment, one that reboots Lip's storyline with a breath of fresh air.

I have no idea if the plan is to keep Jen around for a multi-episode arc (they leave the door open when she concedes she's having fun hanging out with the Gallaghers), but it's nice to see Lip out of his own head and neither be stressing out over Xan or his need to self-destruct via girl or drinking problems. At least not right now during these spontaneous early moments with a new acquaintance. Soon though comes the investment troubles.

Speaking of investments, Fiona Gallagher faced a downside of commercial real estate that I did not fully see coming. I did predict that her business arrangement in a senior center would come back to bite her in the rear, if only because I assumed there would be something below the board and vindictive about how she'd be set-up as the smallest fish holding the bag. Instead it turned out to be a case of above the board regulations doing her in. Due to the site having been a gas station about a hundred years ago, and some other nebulous reasons, legal wrangling with the city will cost Fiona and each of her partners $25,000, plus a year of waiting to break ground on their new venture.

Of course Fi is a Gallagher who put all of her $50,000 windfall, plus another $50,000 in loans, into this venture. She doesn't have the money and never truly will. This is the beginning of what I suspect to be a half-season-long fall from middle class grace and back into the rags of Gallagher life. It's cynical, but after they took away Fi's chance of breaking out in the fourth season, or even a happy personal life with Shawn in season 6, I've long come to expect nothing ever going right for these Gallaghers for long (a theme I'll return to in a moment). Yet in this case, it feels less like glib smugness and more of a knowing understanding of how the system is stacked against anyone trying to improve their situation.

Fiona has had genuine success as a small business owner, but trying to spin that into a larger business venture that actually takes her out of the South Side was always going to be an uphill battle, especially when her income is based on one building, and she has no one watching her back as she swims with the sharks.

That desperation is only going to be compounded by what comes next tonight. Fi gave a long hard look at the prospects of a loan shark when she gets an "offer" from Ian's new mentor. She turns it down, but the look on Rossum's face is not one of dismissing obvious danger; it is someone who almost said yes. Next week, I believe she will, hence how Fiona could be on a far darker path off than Ian. There is no way for Fi, on this series, to get into bed with loan sharks and for it to end well.

Yet the other reason that might make Fiona more desperate is this appears to be the end of Ford as her steady boyfriend. I cannot say I'll be that sad to see him go if it is. Admittedly, I just began liking him last week when he swallowed his anger at her doing a lousy thing and not showing up for the art exhibit he had been anticipating for six months; he even had a Gallagher-worthy apology for his bitterness via a bed of condoms. Still, he's the guy who has always acted far too cool by half.

Discovering he is married after previously learning about his treatment of exes and other children is not a surprise, but it is the poisoned cherry on the arsenic ice cream sundae that was Fi's day. Thus Rossum leans into her reliably heartstring-yanking dramatic chops as she totals her new car and just stumbles off into the night. It is a moment in keeping with the thesis of the series, and sadly forebodes worse days for Fiona's future... the kind where Ford's absence will be the least of it.

Indeed, she is so distraught by the whole experience that she totally forgets to attend Ian's farewell dinner of White Castle hamburgers. Nor is she there the next day to drive him to prison. It's easy to roll with, however, since Fi and Ian had a much more poignant moment last week where he resisted Fi's mothering influence, but still succumbed to her best intentions for him when she took a step back. (I'll just add though that while he's bipolar, what are the rest of the Gallaghers' excuses for complaining about Fi? Do they not recall when they had to beg her pardon to open Aunt Ginger's casket?)

Ian allowing Fiona to attend his court appearance without dialogue was a fitting moment between the two, and narratively it reinforces how far down the rabbit hole to hell Fiona has fallen after just one episode if she misses Ian's last moments in the Gallagher home. (Although Frank missing Ian's goodbye was too perfect.)

Be that as it may though, I still feel somewhat let down by the whole affair. Ian's choice not to make a day of it with Lip, who he had the closest and most profound familial relation with during those early seasons, is understandable but a disappointment. Fi being so screwed up she misses Ian's dinner and drive, while also befitting the terrifying trajectory she's on, is nevertheless underwhelming.

Shameless is always at its strongest when the Gallaghers rally. We prefer seeing them together as opposed to apart. With Ian essentially gone forever after this episode (at least likely so for viewers), we've lost the chance to see them altogether here. There will never be a moment, save perhaps a now increasingly slap and dash series finale in the next year or so, where they're all in the same place interacting. And we lost that this week, perhaps because of narrative choices, but also in an attempt to move us on to a series without Ian.

Well, they can try. It's currently unclear if Monaghan is leaving simply because he is ready to pursue other opportunities, especially after getting a lot of critical notice on Gotham, but he cuts a hard-to-replace figure. While Fi might be the monarch this family, and Frank the unwanted jester, Ian was its soul. Suffering from mental illness, his self-destruction was far less controllable than Lip or Fi's, and Monaghan grew into a wonderful understated actor over the years, playing the guy who under different circumstances might've actually just been a happy well-adjusted dude.

There is something disheartening about seeing the guy who put his life straight by quitting the "Gallagher vortex" and starting to work as an EMT while not running off to Mexico with Mickey... still wind up in a cell with Mickey. For shippers, it's very romantic. It also put a smile on my face, because God knows we needed Ian to have some good news given how the last two seasons have gone for him. And as soon as I saw no cellmate in his room, I even thought "I bet/hope Mickey shows up behind him."

And he did, ready to let Ian take top bunk, likely much to his father's horror. As these two are by far the healthiest and best romantic pairing in the entire series' run, it was a sweet way to close the curtain on Ian, potentially for good. On the other hand, the vortex Ian so forcefully escaped in season 7 still sucked him down this year. I suppose in Shameless, the Gallagher Vortex will always win, and the Gallaghers in turn will always lose. At least there is a happy ending or two at the center of it tonight.

So it's a fond farewell in an episode that was definitely superior by Shameless narrative standards. Yet it already causes me to worry for the future, as something was missing, and Ian hadn't even left yet.

Most Shameless Quotes of the Week

"Who is that?" / "Probably a Gallagher." - V and disgusted Kev.

"I'm going to get some more of those fudge stripes and then I'm going to tell you about the time Monica shattered my kneecap with a pool cue. It was the best sex of my life!" - Frank.

"Oh hey, I got bottom, so you're on top." - Mickey Fucking Mikovich.

Keep up with all your Shameless news here.
Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2018 Special Edition Magazine right here!
David Crow is the Film Section Editor at Den of Geek. He's also a member of the Online Film Critics Society. Read more of his work here. You can follow him on Twitter @DCrowsNest.

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Shameless Season 9 Episode 6 Review: Face It, You're Gorgeous

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This Shameless review contains spoilers. Goodbye, Ian Gallagher. The title of the episode might be about the inherent beauty of everyone-including presumably (or especially) Ian. But ever since it was announced earlier this week that tonight was for all intents and purposes Cameron Monaghan's last episode of Shameless , the hour has become the expected, and dreaded, farewell to who is many viewers' favorite Gallagher.

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Demographics, awards, summary of the show.

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Shameless is an American comedy-drama television series developed by John Wells which debuted on Showtime on January 9, 2011. It is an adaptation of the British series of the same name created by Paul Abbott, featuring an ensemble cast led by William H. Macy and Emmy Rossum.