Paradise Lost Recap: Shameless

While Carl was trying to get his life back on track, Lip’s life was unraveling big time in “Paradise Lost” (Shameless, S6 E9, 3/20/2016). For us, the title applied more to Frank than Lip, though. Having 3 women fighting over him after he defeated Jupiter in the pit had to be “the best high” for Frank, and it all happened on a poppy farm. The Good News: Chuckie is alive and well! His encounter with the mountain lion did leave some deep scratches on his forehead. Grandpa Frank, said he was lucky but warned him that once cougars get a taste, they come back for more.

Frank and Debbie left Soaring Consciousness but not the way we thought it would go down. When Debbie began to have painful contractions she was moved to the birthing tent and introduced to the mid-wife, an old woman named Fern who is as sketchy as a back-door abortionist. Jupiter, in the meantime, had enough of Frank challenging his authority and daring to cast aspersions on his manhood. He challenged Frank to meet him in “The Pit,” a huge vat of mud where commune members get down and dirty to settle their differences and leave their anger behind. Jupiter waited (waded?) in the pit in his underwear, sure that he could make Frank say UNCLE. He grossly underestimated Frankie boy and that victory turned on a woman named Moon. She wasn’t the only one. Old lady Harmony got into the act and when Queenie found out, all 3 women went at each other’s throats.

The more Fern told Debbie about her methods, the more Debbie became convinced that she did not want her baby delivered in a tub with decades old after-birth in it. She woke Frank up in the wee hours and begged him to take her home before the baby arrived. Much to our surprise, Frank did. When they arrived chez Gallagher, a grateful Debbie told him he was the only one that stood by her the whole time — right before two of G-Dogg’s homies showed up and hauled Frank away to a soundproof room where no one would hear his screams when they tortured him with a blowtorch. That was enough for Frank to give up the commune as a source of opium. Jupiter confronted the would-be thieves with a loaded shotgun. The homies were packing too, of course. Frank was able to get his skinny butt out of there before the shoot-out went down.

Lip forgets his drinking buddy is his boss: Professor Youens needed the mid-term grades ASAP because the department head had so decreed. Lip’s flippant reply made Youens realize that boundary lines must be drawn. He warned Lip to get it together and not take his internships for granted. Lip promised to get the mid-terms graded and went for an interview, easily putting himself in line for his next internship. But Lip soon found himself fired and out of a place to stay because of some (literally) pissy things he did during his alcoholic blackout at that party where he later landed in the E.R. He also learned that he must go to mandatory alcohol counseling or lose his scholarship. He asked Youens to let him sleep in his office and tried to cry on his shoulder. Lip had not even graded the midterms and he got upset when the professor was unsympathetic to his plight. He accused Youens of plagiarizing his ideas on complex wave fuctions in the academic paper he published. All he got was a research assistant credit for something he actually wrote. Youens told him to grow up but Lip insultingly retorted: “Like you? A drunk has-been coasting on an outdated reputation. Thriving off of other people’s work… no wonder your kid wants nothing to do with you” and stormed off.

Carl borrowed one of Sean’s shirt to meet with Sergeant Winslow, Dominique’s father. The Sergeant, you may recall, chased Carl and Nick away from his house with a bat. Now he has promised his little girl to give Carl a chance and takes him on patrol in his police car. Carl is told to stay in the car when Winslow goes after one suspect but another gets out of their vehicle and starts running. Carl gives chase and takes down this guy, who is twice Carl’s size. LOL. We won’t even go into the ridiculous aspect of Carl winning Winslow over by calling him an a-hole.

Ian learns that it is okay to lie to get the EMT certification but not to lie to Caleb. While getting tested for HIV, Ian was reluctant to reveal his sexual history in front of Caleb. After acing his EMT test, Ian was beside himself to find out that he had to admit he was treated in-patient at a mental health facility on his forms. Caleb told him to lie and even checked off the no box for him, informing Ian that complete honesty only applied to their relationship, not the rest of the world. Pretty scary, if you know how Ian gets when off his meds!

Kev’s tried to get a fake I.D. for Svetlana to stop V and Svetlana from getting married and, typically, got scammed. The two ladies went off and did it behind his back anyway. Svetlana also helped with altering Monica’s wedding dress and they threw a bachelorette party for the bride-to-be. The highlight of that was the dance of Alibi regulars and Kevin, that turned out to be a literal strip, at least for Kermit, who thought they were all doing the Full Monty.

Debbie had her baby girl on the Gallagher kitchen table with V coaching and Svetlana filming. She promptly named the baby Frances, after Frank, and noticed how big she was. At least 3 months old, we’d say. It looked the front teeth were already coming through! LOL! Debbie and the baby were taken to the hospital but Debbie didn’t want Fiona to ride with her.