Love Songs in the Key of Gallager Recap: Shameless

The 12th episode and finale of Season 5 of Shameless was called “Love Songs in the Key of Gallagher” (4/5/2015). It opened up with Fiona Gallagher back in the arms (and bed) of her husband, Gus Pfender. We don’t know which relationship is iffier, the marriage or the Sean flirtation… but it surely did seem like Fiona wanted Sean to make the decision for her. She wanted to make sure that it was on with Sean before she called it off with Gus. Sean wasn’t about making it easy for her.

In one scene, she showed up at Gus’s with some coffee but he wasn’t there. His bandmate told Fiona: “If you don’t love Gus, you’re going to have to man up and leave. He won’t do it. He’s too nice a guy….” Then he straight up told Fiona “and you’re not.” Did this result in any soul searching? Hell no. Fiona flew straight to the diner to line Sean up but he told her to grow up.

Fiona also had her sexually active younger sister to deal with. Debbie gave Fiona some lip early in the episode about dumping the guardian duties on her. When Fiona decided to go home at 10 p.m. for a change, she found little Liam all alone watching “Night of the Living Dead.” Upstairs she found Derek in Debbie’s bed in his undershorts. Embarrassed, Derek threw on his pants and split. Fiona’s all-too-late lecture went nowhere as Debbie retaliated with Fiona’s loose morals. Then Debbie blurted out, “I’m pregnant.”

Diego Mustafa, er… Frank was in Costa Rica with Bianca. She decided to go swimming in shark-infested waters, then she wanted to go get drunk and buy a gun. The locals thought Bianca was Frank’s daughter. She really wanted the gun to commit suicide with, and even decided to play a little Russian roulette but Frank managed to get it off her. Ultimately, she could not bring herself to do it that way. She just left Frank some instructions while he slept and swam off in the ocean, never to return.

After Lip experienced some more of Helene and Theo’s kinky sex habits (she tied his hands up, and licked wine off his body while her husband, Theo, watched), he went back to his dorm room. There was Amanda with a jealous Muff Bulldagger tale, although Amanda was the one who was really jealous. She got all nosy about Lip’s relationship with “the cougar,” disparaging Helene and mentioning rules about student/professor relationships. She tried to interest Lip in teaching her some Helene moves, and when that didn’t work, she tried to share a pizza with him, but he split without so much as an arrivederci. Amanda accosted him in the library and punched him in the mouth for “making” her fall in love with him. Lip later confided to Ian that he thought he was falling in love with Helene.

And how did Ian end up with Lip? Well, after the truckers dropped him and Monica off, they were hungry but had no money. Monica solved that problem with a short sale to another trucker. After she bought just about everything in the diner, she assured Ian that what she sold the trucker was not herself. She took him to the trailer she was living in with her young boyfriend Walter. Ian snooped in her purse and realized she and Walter were selling crystal meth. Walter and Ian almost got in a fight and Ian split.

Supporting Cast of Love Songs in the Key of Gallagher

After avoiding all Mickey’s calls, Ian returned to the Gallagher house and called Mickey who ran straight over. But it was not for a happy reunion. Ian told Mickey that he was not going to take his meds and there was too much wrong with him in Mickey’s eyes for them to be together. “You can’t fix me,” he told Mickey, “I’m not broken.” While Mickey tried to digest the fact that they were breaking up, Sammi arrived on the scene with a gun. Mickey took off running while she followed in hot pursuit, firing away. Sirens soon blared, Fiona came home and hugged Ian and they went in the house together, leaving the police to deal with Sammi and Mickey.

Debbie didn’t really know whether she was pregnant or not, but took a home pregnancy test and was certainly as delighted with the results as she was when Derek said “I love you, too.” We’ll have to wait on Season 6 to see if Derek still feels that way after he finds out he’s been tricked.

And we’re going to have to wait till Season 6 to find out how the gang war in juvie between Carl and Chuckie went down, but it did look like all Sammi’s worries about Chuckie were for naught. He still had the swastika on his forehead and didn’t look the least bit afraid of Carl.