Shameless: The American Dream

The second episode of Season 3 (1/20/2013) picked up with Fiona having an anxiety attack, waking up and remembering she’s given all the money for the property tax to Meg for a night to promote at the club. Jimmy manages to calm her down but, at breakfast, Lip shoots her down, pointing out she doesn’t know jack about promoting and that there are only two ways that people like them can make money: stealing or scamming.

But Fiona has Veronica and Kev to help her out. Kev hooks her up with some mob guys so she can bring her own booze and thereby get a bigger cut of the profits. Wily Meg still gets a bigger percentage of that than she was going to give Fiona when it was the other way around. V worries that Fiona will get in deep trouble floating a check for the booze, but Fiona says they have to show an entrepreneurial spirit. V is down for that, she gets an email list from a guy at the club who was only willing to share for a 50% cut by swiping his cell phone. But there will be more fingers in Fiona’s pie before she gets her final cut.

Debbie is at first still happy to have Frank back and let’s him stay in her room, where the rotten bastid pushes her away when she brings him breakfast and tries to get him to take a little bit of interest in her life. Then Debbie goes off to babysit for Hymie, the noisy little baby that is driving Sheila and Jody to tears. Sheila was so tired, she almost got Hymie picked up by the trashmen. Debbie is trying to work on her popsicle stick log cabin for her Civil War project but Hymie just won’t stop crying. She takes the child to Frank at the bar who gives the baby something — he says it’s valium — which immediately quiets Hymie down.

Lip started his community service where he met a pot connection and Duncan, a rich kid who is helping to beautify Chicago “one block at a time.” Duncan is only in it to beef up his college app. Lip sees scams. Mandy pays the guidance counselor a visit and wants to know what he can do to get Lip to go to college. “You’re the guidance counselor,” she says. He says she will probably have more success in persuading Lip than he has. Lip screws some illegal immigrants out of work by getting the college volunteer workforce to repair a building, and later he gets them to all show up at Fiona’s club night with a false claim that a band they love will be there, charging them for valet service.

Everything Frank did at the Gallagher home just made everyone (but Deb) despise him more. He made cut offs out of Fiona’s $160 designer jeans (that she got for $40 at the thrift shop) and cut them too short resulting in southern exposure. He helped himself to the rotisserie chicken Jimmy made for everyone’s dinner. But the last straw came when he brought home two stumble bums. A melee in Debbie’s room ended with Frank landing on her Civil War project and saying it was junk anyway. That was the last straw, even for Debbie who got her pillowcase full of soap bars and beat the crap out of Frank, and he was carried out of the house and thrown in the dumpster. Frank goes to the bar and complains about what a bunch of ingrates his kids are, but no one wants to help. He calls up child protective services to get even and makes an anonymous report of neglect and abuse. When sleeping on the bar floor doesn’t fly, he shows up at Sheila’s and offers to keep Hymie quiet in exchange for room and board. Jody and Sheila don’t want him there but they are desperate. So Hymie gets another Valium nap.

Throughout the entire episode, Jimmy was under surveillance by Beto, who works for Estefania’s papa. Jimmy had to admit to Fiona that he had no money when she tried to borrow some for the liquor. Feeling bad, Jimmy tried to sneak off to steal a Porsche but Beto caught him and broke his finger. At least he’s not malicious. He took Jimmy to the hospital and out for Whoppers afterwards. Then because he couldn’t go to the club night without Beto (and couldn’t think of a way to explain who he was to Fiona), Jimmy pretended to be sick.

Fiona ended up with a net profit of $900, only losing $100. Meg told her that’s how it goes — she has to pay her dues. When Fiona tried to give Lip the $900, he wouldn’t take it and gloated that he had it covered while Mandy smirked on the porch.

Mickey got out of juvie early and Ian sought advice from Mandy on how to know if a boy really cares for you. Mandy asked if he had that look in his eyes. It was pretty comical the next time Ian saw Mickey and kept trying to look in his eyes for “that look” while they were walking abreast.

While Veronica was getting ready to go to the club, who do you suppose knocked on her door? No, not the Jehovahs, Kev’s wife with a kid in tow that she is going to claim is Kev’s according to the previews.