Monica’s Really Dead: Shameless Season 7 Finale

In the Season 7 finale of Shameless, Monica never regained consciousness at the hospital. Fiona was shocked when the nurse told her, Lip and Debbie that the cause of death was not an overdose. Monica died from a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Frank was sitting out on the curb by the emergency room entrance and Fiona went to get him to go say goodbye one last time, but he wordlessly wandered off to the nearest watering hole.

Ian was on his way home from the Tex-Mex border on a Greyhound bus when Lip texted him the news. Carl was called away from training at his military school (where they curse at the kids) and sent home on a train.

Anything worth more than a nickel, she would have pawned years ago. ~ Fiona Gallagher

Back at the Gallagher homestead,, they went through Monica’s belongings over fried chicken, coffee and beer. There were some rings and bracelets, clothing articles, and a plastic bag with some drugs that Kevin tested. There was a case with a key in it that Fiona thought was to some dump she was evicted from years ago. There was also a copy of Hermann Hesse’s “Siddhartha” that Fiona took and began reading in bed. Frank wandered in after everyone was in bed. He had a bloody nose and passed out on the kitchen floor, leaving the front door wide open. Fiona got up, shut the door and cleaned off Frank’s face. She folded up a towel and put it under his head, just as she must have done many many times when she was a child, as we later learned.

So, I made some copies of the inspection that I had done last spring. ~ Ryan

After V and Carl agreed to go to the mortuary to make Monica’s final arrangements, Fiona went to work and put in a call to Bill Darrgen, Monica’s father. He wasn’t there but she left the message that his daughter died. Sierra came and told her there was a guy wanting to talk to her. It was Ryan, wondering if Fiona had changed her mind about buying his foreclosure because she forgot about meeting him earlier. She explained that a family thing was the cause and she was still interested. He suggested they bypass real estate agents by using his attorney unless she wanted to use hers, but she was fine with his. He arranged another meeting and left her the inspections.

Liam, do you know your numbers? ~ Frank Gallagher

When Frank saw the key, he knew there was a storage place at 36th & Racine, and he figured this must be where Monica left the kids something valuable but dangerous to retrieve. He took Carl, Debbie and Liam with him and tasked little Liam with opening the gate in case they got caught, contending that Liam would do less time than Carl or Debbie, who could be tried as adults. In the storage unit, Frank found a big stash of drugs: 10 one-pound bags of crystal meth. Debbie found a stack of cards that Monica wrote out on her children’s birthdays but never mailed.

What’s the cheapest way I can get this woman into the ground? ~ Fiona Gallagher

Fiona and V met with Connie at the funeral home without Carl since they did not know he was with Frank. Fiona pulled no punches about not wanting to spend a nickel more than she had to on getting Monica buried or cremated. $750 turned out to be the cheapest option with no embalming, fast cremation and the ashes returned in an old coffee can. That’s because the $500 or less option of “a cardboard refrigerator box and a gallon of gasoline in our parking lot out back” wasn’t real.

It’s like a family heirloom, only drugs. ~ Frank Gallagher

After meeting Ryan once again for more info on the building, Fiona shook on the deal with him and went home. There she found Frank, her siblings and the drugs and promptly informed them that it was getting flushed. Frank insisted that this “maternal bequest” was worth $10,000 each and they had to take a vote on who wanted to flush that amount of moolah away. Fiona was shocked when no one but her put their hand up in favor of flushing. Well, what did she expect? She’s sitting pretty with a $75K profit from her laundromat deal.

Suddenly, there was a loud banging on the door and everyone scrambled to hide the drugs. It wasn’t the cops. It was only Bill Darrgen, but that didn’t turn out so well for Frank when Bill blamed him for Monica’s death without even asking what happened and beat him to a bloody pulp. When he got done, he learned that Monica died from an aneurysm and insisted on paying for a viewing with some nice words said. After Bill left, Frank went berserk when he could not find the drugs and began choking Debbie and hitting Fiona when she intervened. When the boys finally pinned him to the wall, Debbie slapped him hard in the face. Out in the yard, Fiona confronted him with her reality about Monica, how all her maternal duties were thrust on Fiona when she was just 9 years old, and how Frank was no help because he was always drunk. It was like a blast from a cold water hose for Frank when Fiona told him that Monica did not love her or him. All he could say was “Please” and watch brokenly as Fiona announced that she was glad Monica was dead before she went back inside.

Fiona contacted the funeral home to stop the cremation right when Jose was loading Monica into the furnace, but Connie assured her that the feet were only slightly singed and, with shoes on, no one would notice. She gave Fiona a preview of Monica laid out in her wedding dress, brought in by Frank. For some reason, Fiona found that hilarious. Left alone with her mother’s body, Fiona took out two bags of the meth and stuffed them in the foot of the casket, cursed her mother and punched the corpse a couple of times. Two workers had come in to remove some chairs in the middle of that, but it probably wasn’t something they had never seen before.

Bill Daargen and the Gallagher children took turns saying a few words about Monica. We could not hear what they had to say over the song that was playing, “I Shall Cross This River” (Black Atlantic):

We did get to hear a little of Fiona’s speech. She read a passage from “Siddartha” that ended with the word “harmony.” Fiona said she didn’t know what the passage meant, but Monica had underlined it. We thought that was as funny as Fiona thought the wedding dress was. Monica no doubt got that book secondhand and the passage may very well have already been underlined. It was strange that somehow moved Fiona, however, when the birthday cards that Debbie showed her did not. In fact, Fiona seemed to have more sympathy for Frank upon realizing that he really did love Monica. Most viewers had more sympathy for Monica who was bipolar, after all. Frank, on the other hand, is just an incorrigible degenerate. Frank made the last speech, telling his children that while they may not believe it or think much of Monica, she did love them. He sees her face when he looks at them, she is in each of them and that’s a good thing because none of them would be who they are without her.

At the party afterwards, Fiona danced with her father. Lip hung out on the front porch where Sierra caught up with him and let him know that other people besides Professor Youens still care about him, meaning herself we’re sure.

In the final montage, Debbie was at her welding school, Ian was back on EMT duty, Lip went to an AA meeting with Brad and Fiona had the keys to the foreclosure, signifying that she is the new owner. Carl put the finishing touches on a graffiti painting of Monica’s name while Frank looked on approvingly.

The one thing we did not see in this episode was Kev and V getting their revenge on Svetlana, although some of the episode descriptions said that would happen. Looks like we’ll have to wait till Season 8 to see that.