Shameless: The Helpful Gallaghers

In the 4th episode of Season 3 of “Shameless” (2/10/2012), Frank is certainly the first helpful Gallagher. He’s helping Debbie learn how to hold her breath underwater to protect herself from city kids at the pool. “Savage little Cosby kids will drown your ass,” he warns. Carl goes off for his week at Camp Happy Hopes, and Frank provides him with miracle pills (antacid) to help him get through the week. The trusting child says “I love you” as he hugs his despicable and undeserving daddy goodbye. Carl makes friends with a kid named Hanley on the bus. Camp is a big disappointment, though. They don’t have that shooting range he was looking forward to, no sprinkles (they’ve been linked to cancer) on the ice cream, and there’s not a single chicken nugget on the menu. Carl organizes a strike while Wendy, the volunteer counselor does her best to cope with his troublemaking.

Carl tells his new friend he’s not really dying but Hanley assures him he is, otherwise he wouldn’t be at Camp Happy Hopes, the “final party.” Hanley has one final wish: to see real boobs and Carl has a solution: they can bust in the medicine cabinet, sell the drugs and pay a girl to show her tatas. Wendy catches them but instead of turning them in, she does what any idealistic young college student would do so there will be no need for them to steal money. When she does, the camp clown and another male counselor happen to come upon the scene. Poor Wendy goes home in hysterical tears on the bus and the only other occupant is Carl, who assures her “they” were nice.

Frank also was quite helpful to Sheila in this episode. She wants to have some “toy time” with Jody, who more than does not want to accommodate her weird idiosyncrasies. She enlists Frank to change Jody’s mind. Jody explains his recovering sex addict status and how it got so bad that he once had 32 different partners in one week. Frank gets the best line in the entire episode here:

“I underestimated you Jody. In a bar full of depraved people, you are the Grand Poobah of depravity.”

But Jody says he won’t be again. Looks like he might be wrong, though. Frank doesn’t want to be on the receiving end of Sheila’s needs, so he tries even harder to break down Jody’s defenses and the last time we see him, Jody’s about to let Sheila make him feel something he does not want to feel.

Mandy has a half-sister named Molly whose mother kicked the bucket from an overdose. Mandy is plenty conflicted but Lip thinks the right thing to do is rescue Molly from foster care. After trying to find someone who can take care of her fails, they bring little Molly home and prevail upon Fiona to let her stay. Fiona is upset because she thinks Lip is signaling something to Mandy. “He’s Captain Chivalry now,” Ian says. Fiona caves and Molly can bunk with Deb until Carl gets back. At bedtime, Deb discovers that Molly has a “girl penis” that looks exactly like a boy penis.

Ned calls his son Jimmy to meet him for a drink. In the background, his wife is throwing his stuff out the window. Ned tells Jimmy they are getting a divorce because their incompatibility finally caught up with them, then gets drunk as hell. When he walks Jimmy home, he thinks Jimmy is making a stop to buy crack. Jimmy says he lives there and brings him in, where Ned is amazed to see loverboy Ian. So amazed that he tries to crawl in bed with Ian, but Lip is bunking in Ian’s room and he gets in the wrong bunk. Lip throws him on the floor and everyone rushes in. Ian reveals that Ned was looking for him, not Lip, so now Jimmy thinks that his mom threw Ned out after finding out he’s gay, but Ned says no, it’s really because he’s flat broke.

At her new job, Fiona learns that break time has a different meaning. As part of their duties, the ladies are all having a little session with the manager, Bobby. Fiona, you may recall, blackmailed Bobby for the job and threatened to provide proof of his extracurricular activities at work to his wife, after getting V to tape his proposition, so she is the only one not on that duty roster. She decides to hold a meeting at her home, and exhorts the women to stand up to Bobby collectively. Fiona is incredulous when some of the women would prefer to continue the practice. They take a vote. The majority think Bobby’s not that bad, and they’d rather stick with the devil they know then take a chance with one they don’t. Her idea further backfires when the girls find out that she is exempt from duty.

Cast Notes:

Madison Moellers, who is really a girl, played Molly
Galadriel Stineman played the camp counselor, Wendy
Charles Henry Wyson, who played Benjamin Button at age 6, was Hanley.