Shameless - "It's Time to Kill the Turtle" Review

“I know I haven’t been the most exemplary father for the past 3 or 15 years, but now I gonna need your help to get through this. From this point forward, we’re going to be a family again. What the hell is THAT?” -Frank

I’d like to start this review with a congratulations to Shameless as Showtime announced today that it will be picked up for a second season! This is excellent news, as I’ve grown to love the Gallagher family and friends. If season 2 offers more episodes like this one, then I’m fully on board.

“It’s Time to Kill the Turtle” was brilliant in the sense that it gave us a glimpse into the future of these characters. Or what the future would be like if things changed. We start with Fiona who has had her doubts all along about Steve being right for her. When she suspects he might be cheating, she is confronted with her feelings about losing him. I think even Fiona was shocked about her feelings for Steve, so it will be interesting to see what happens when she finds out his name is actually Jimmy, has a girlfriend/wife named Candice and is lying to his family about being in college. Then there’s Phillip who, despite being brilliant, has never considered going to college. That is until he was shown the robotics lab by a University of Chicago professor who caught him cheating for other students on the SATs. Phillip saw just how bright his future can be and it might finally get him out of the hood. The question will be whether he takes Karen or not. Karen appears to have no real aspirations other than palling around with Lip. Lip finally realized he may have feelings, but is Karen just going to be someone who brings him back down? Or can she change for the better with him?

We also got to see a side of characters we don’t normally get to see. The best example was seeing the sober side of Frank. In an effort to gain $3000 from a medical study, Frank had to remain sober for 2 weeks. In his sobreity we saw him be a fun and caring father. I really enjoyed my time with Sober Frank. I think Frank is best used on the show when he has a task for the episode. Be it dodging henchman looking to collect money or trying to stay sober. Often it seems like we see Frank just as a picture of what rock bottom is. That constant reminder border lines on beating the audience over the head, so I always like it when Frank is more a vehicle for driving the story in an episode.

Kevin also showed us a bit of his softer side when he and Veronica took in a foster child. Props to Shameless for never letting me guess just what they’ll do next to take a normal situation and mess it all up. They didn’t just get any foster child, they got a 13 year old mother/wife of a 65 year old polygamist. She was the polar opposite of the world of Shameless. Prim proper and reserved. The show gave us two extreme ways to live life and let us see that while not perfect ways to live, people can till find happiness. Kevin and Veronica were only going to keep the foster child for a week so they could get enough money to pay for Veronica’s parking tickets, but after seeing the type of situation Ethel had, Kevin thinks they can help her and wants to keep her.

There was one really poignant moment where Fiona comes home after waitressing at a bar where she’s a glorified stripper and breaks into tears. She works hard all day every day to provide for the family and she never gets treated with the joy the children are showing Frank when all he had to do was be sober for a day. It was even more heartbreaking after seeing Fiona try and sit through a class that taught Microsoft Office. She was the only one in there who did not know a single thing about computers so she wasn’t able to keep up. This gave her the realization that she will always be on the hustle. Life doesn’t seem like its going to get any easier for her.

Fiona and Lip decide that it’s better to force Frank into drinking again than to let him hurt Deb and Carl by going right back to his drunken self after the two week trial is up. Deb had a nice introspective moment where she tells Lip that she’s aware of Frank’s problems but she’s just going to enjoy the good times with her father while she can. It’s interesting that for all the trouble Frank is, the Gallagher’s just might be better off with him not being sober. He’s at least out of the way.