A Shameless Night to Try to Remember (Recap)

“A Night to Remem– Wait, What?” was the title of Episode 4, Season 5 of “Shameless” (2/1/2015). The episode began with a cop waking up Frank, sleeping at the base of a monument covered in pigeon droppings. Frank told the officer he was celebrating his “last day below the poverty line.” No, he didn’t win the lottery, he is getting the insurance settlement he earned by getting Carl to break his femur. Frank stumbled off to see his attorney Lou only to learn that the $121,000 was put in the bank. At the bank, he finds out he withdrew it and then has to retrace his steps to find out what he did with all that money.

Carl is preparing for work. He’s found a new job as an assistant to drug dealers to attract white customers, and Debbie wants Fiona to hook her up with some birth control. Big Sis agrees to get her an appointment at Planned Parenthood. Gus spent the night and when he comes downstairs, he is introduced to Debbie and Carl for the first time. He hangs out at the diner most of the day and tells Fiona that he thinks he is falling in love with her.

Veronica wants to go out on a date with Kev but his babysitter inquisition makes her realize it’s not going to happen. She decides to go out by herself, calls up Fiona and tells her they are going out that night and she can’t bring Gus.

Carl’s first day on the job doesn’t go so well when he gives the customer too much product for the money and is told that he now owes the thugs for that mistake. By this time, Frank has learned that he treated everyone at the Alibi to $2K worth of booze and bought a $60K Porsche. After locating the Porsche, he finds Kermit sleeping the back seat. Kermit helps him retrace a visit to Chinatown where Frank doubled his money at pai gow. He goes home where he runs into Carl who finds a hotel key in Frank’s wallet. Frank takes Carl along and gives him some lessons on drug math, provided he doesn’t let Fiona know where he got the info.

Debbie runs into Holly and her friends. They make fun of her for the Matty episode. Deb hauls off and punches Holly but it’s four against one. A young guy jumps in and breaks it up. He warns Debbie not to take on four girls at once unless she learns how to fight. Seeing an immediate replacement for Matty, she finds the gym he works out at and wants him to train her. He directs her to the front desk to sign up for a free class. He is watching when during her practice, Debbie knocks a girl down who took too close a swipe with a boxing glove. He asks Debbie if she’s going to stick with it. She is but you can see the real reason is not to learn self-defense.

Veronica’s night out doesn’t go quite as planned. While Fiona sits at the bar texting Gus, V dives right in on the dance floor with a guy but makes a quick exit when it went too fast. Outside, she worries that she unintentionally cheated on Kevin. The next day she confesses the incident to Kev.

At the hotel suite, Frank and Carl find the ladies of the evening drinking expensive wine. They tell him that he went out with a businessman named Buddy Diamond who left his card. Frank calls Buddy who says he knows how scary it is to hand over $113,000 to a complete stranger as an investment. The investment turns out to be of the charitable type. Buddy has invested it in prosthetic limbs for homeless children. Frank wants his money back but Buddy says it has all been spent already, showing him a limb that is worth $60K. Frank tries to leave with it dragging a little one-legged girl around who wants it back. Back at the hotel, the valets spot Frank and inform him he hit one of them when he crashed his car. That valet is now in the hospital in a full body cast and they are calling the cops. Frank has nothing left to give them except the Porsche. And he is now officially back below the poverty line.

After the Veronica fiasco, Fiona went back to Gus and confessed her feeling that she was falling in love with him. A wild night and morning of love-making ensued and she called the diner to change her shift, faking illness. Gus proposed marriage telling a story of how his parents married two days after they met and are still hitched. After finding out how to do it by the time Fiona has to be at work, they run off to the courthouse, buy a $10 bouquet and use the elastic bands for rings. Right after she lies to her boss, Sean, about recovering from an upset stomach, the Jezebel band comes in and announces the wedding news. Sean gives her the night off, but says the next time she takes off to get married, tell the truth. Fiona gets a call from Debbie who has changed her mind about birth control, and she agrees to watch Liam for the night. As Fiona begins to straighten up at Gus’ apartment, the giddiness of her wedding day suddenly wears off.

Meanwhile at the Milkovich Warehouse… When a lost suitcase that does not belong to Mickey is delivered, he signs for it anyway and takes some medication that’s in there, chasing it down with alcohol. When he wakes up, he finds out that Ian went to the airport and got another suitcase from the lost luggage department. Ian becomes irrationally compulsive about the venture and the house is soon overflowing to the porch with the contents of other people’s suitcases.

Miami-bound… Lip visited Amanda at her family’s swanky digs in Miami. Amanda is still on her “stick it to the parents” and decides to give Lip her virginity in her parents’ bed while they are out. When her father learns that Lip wants to get into engineering, he takes a genuine interest in showing Lip his workshop and secret pot stash and offers to get him a paid internship so he won’t have to haul concrete anymore. Amanda says she is not sure she is comfortable with the two of them bonding but her dad assures her they are just pretending to annoy her. She walks off with a smile.