Shameless: Rite of Passage (Recap)

The 5th episode of Season 5 of “Shameless” (2/8/2015) was called “Rite of Passage.” One of was Sammi finding out you can’t believe a word Frank Gallagher says. We thought she already knew. She believed her father would get her a new trailer with his accident settlement. A real estate agent showed up to kick her off the lot next to the wreckage of Sheila’s house and she tried to finagle some extra time with her, er, assets. But the agent said he wasn’t interested.

At the Gallaghers, she confronted Frank about calling up to collect the settlement. He didn’t want to tell her that it was already all gone. Fiona came home and told Carl and Debbie she had an announcement to make at dinner later that evening, refusing to tell them about marrying Gus until then. She went off to work. Debbie went off to the gym and Carl went off to sell drugs.

At work, Fiona’s boss Sean ribs her non-stop about marrying Gus while Jackie frets over her family court hearing. Fiona says she may not know much but she know about family court. Jackie has been clean for 6 months and will get her child back. Out in the hood, even with a crib sheet, Carl can’t get his stuff straight and keeps getting deeper in debt to the homies. Debbie meets up with Carl at school while Holly and Ellie sneer at them across the way. Debbie shows off her new boxing skills, knocking the snot out of Ellie. When Holly tries to intervene, Debbie rearranges her teeth. Carl gets the whole thing on video. When Fiona finds out, as Debbie’s guardian, she disapproves of violence but as her sister, she high fives Debbie: “Those bitches had it coming.”

Frank, in the meantime, invited himself to lunch at the Shelton house. You remember the Sheltons from “I’m the Liver.” They are the parents of David, the donor of Frank’s new liver. David’s grieving dad, Wade, is easy prey for Frank, the master of manipulation. Frank is soon eating whatever he wants from the fridge sitting in David’s chair. He puts on David’s baseball jersey and is getting ready to play some catch with Wade when Laura Shelton returns and freaks out. She wants Frank out of the house. He is not David. Frank goes for a nap in David’s bed and pretends to be sleeping when Wade has to deliver the eviction news. Wade doesn’t have the heart to wake “David” up and covers him gently.

Later, Frank stumbles upon Laura sitting miserably on the couch and tries to cheer her up with ways to fill the hole in her heart while eyeballing the liquor on the bar. Laura says she hasn’t just lost her son. She’s lost her husband, too. She wants sex, not liquor and jumps on Frank, who is happy to oblige, especially if it means he can stay with the Sheltons longer.

But the next morning, Sammi learns from Debbie there is no new trailer and shows up fighting mad, grabs a knife and tries to stab Frank. Wade stops her in a highly symbolic rescue for him since he wasn’t there to stop an intruder from shooting David. “I saved our son,” he tells Laura. Frank takes off with Sammi in hot pursuit.

Lip’s crisis moment in the episode comes after a hard day’s work and an encounter with Mickey Milkovich at the Alibi. Mickey challenges Lip to help destroy the new coffee shop, mocking him for being a college boy. Mickey takes along his brother and friend and whips out high powered weapons and they shoot out the windows of the coffee shop. Everyone except Lip, who doesn’t even fire. So Mickey leaves Lip stranded with the police on the way. Lip dives into a rat-infested dumpster to avoid arrest. He decides to go back to college.

Throughout the episode, Ian’s manic behavior continued to simmer and finally boiled over when Mickey thought Ian spent the night with someone from the club. But Ian really shot an adult movie and made $600. Mickey told him that he has to leave and he was either going to the E.R. or the psych ward. Ian pretended compliance but wanted to take a shower. Instead he ran off with the car and Baby Yevgeny.

Fiona’s dinner didn’t go off as planned because Jackie did not get her child back and went home and took an O.D. instead. Fiona and Sean spent the night at the hospital. Sean managed to get in another dig about not knowing Gus that well before telling Fiona his own O.D. story. The next morning, Lip correctly hit on Fiona being married in their guessing game but agreed not to tell the kids. Gus went to the diner to see Fiona who said that Jackie was going to be all right and confessed her fears that they had made a mistake getting married so quickly. Gus admitted experiencing the same doubts but said that if it turns out to be a mistake, they should make the most of it and it will be the best and most fun mistake they ever make in their lives.

Then Fiona spied Angela at at table and went over to speak to her. This time, Angela brought Jimmy with her and the episode ends with a shocked Fiona looking at a smile on the face of her ex-lover, who disappeared without so much as a goodbye text.