Shameless Review: “Carl’s First Sentencing” (5×09)

Even the title of “Carl’s First Sentencing” encapsulates perfectly the waggish sense of irreverence that permeates Shameless. That rebel attitude is on full display in the episode, for better or for worse. But hey—for once, it’s not Frank acting as the dead weight dragging the show down, and for that reason alone I’m pretty taken with this episode.

I’m still not quite sure how I feel about Carl’s storyline, which is the obvious focus of “Carl’s First Sentencing,” but it’s perhaps for the best that the tack they’ve taken with it is one of full-on comedy (if dark comedy). Take it seriously and the whole endeavor becomes too dark, too wholly depressing for a show that is still ostensibly a comedy (at least if the Emmy categorization panel is to be believed). But give it just the lightest of touch and suddenly CHUCKIE’S IQ IS 71 AND IT’S THE BEST SCORE HE’S EVER GOTTEN I’M DYING—verbatim from my review notes, but seriously, Chuckie as a perennial punching bag is undoubtedly the best joke this show has in its bag of tricks. “Even if he is functionally retarded, he’s getting time,” says the public defender given the thankless task of defending poor Chuckles. That’s a tricky line to walk as far as punch lines go, but all of the chokes at Chuckie’s expense undoubtedly land.

An eight-year-old getting a four-month sentence for something that is pretty clearly not his doing is a tragic situation. That “juvie” in this instance is an experience on par with something out of Oz, and that Sammie gives her child not comfort or sympathy but advice on avoiding brutal prison rape (the advice is to simply accept less brutal prison rape) and a shiv, should ramp up the tragedy exponentially, but instead, by dialing every aspect of this story to a ludicrous eleven, “Carl’s First Sentencing” gets the laughs it’s going for, instead of the groans that could (should?) have accompanied this plot.

And then there’s Frank, who spends the episode gallivanting about Chicago with Bianca the ER doctor. She breaks down in the middle of checking up on Frank’s wound—she’s been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and has little time left to live. Meanwhile Frank shouts at God and lives to fight yet another day. It’s cosmically unfair, and Frank is such a vile character that this feels like a twist of the knife. And yet I don’t hate it! Somehow, against all odds, there is some real power to the time Frank spends with Bianca and the strength he gives her to get through her diagnosis. The lake location they’ve found, and to which Frank returns again to contemplate his and Bianca’s mortality, is gorgeous, and wonderfully shot again here—I’m beginning to think it will never run out of mileage.

Something that has run out mileage: Kevin and Veronica. I’ve been very patient with this story, hoping with each episode that we’ll get to explore the substance behind their fight. But we haven’t gotten to do that. There is no substance here. Instead we have Kevin roaming the halls of Lip’s school, having started his own business venture as a “Rape Walker”, escorting drunken girls safely to their dorms. This of course turns into Kevin having sex with sober girls, because sure. And it all leads to a coalition of dorm dudes ganging up on him, to assert their dominance or their property or some shit, and the Kevin realizes that he truly loves V and puts all that Rape Walker stuff behind him. It’s insulting and stupid, a contrived character assassination intended to put V and Kev on equal footing in time for a reconciliation; each scene spent on it is an increasing waste of time.

At least Lip at college is more entertaining. He gets to stay in school thanks to the kindly financial aid officer, who gets an unexpected donation for Lip from his friend who started that topless maid service. It’s the latest in a series of good things to happen to Lip—deus ex boob maid, if you will. I’ve seen grumblings, on reddit and elsewhere, that the continue cavalcade of good fortune is unearned and undramatic, but I think there is definitely a tension here, a tendency for self-destruction that underlies too many of Lip’s actions. He was going to cheat his way back into school, the Gallagher way. He’s fucking a woman who was, then wasn’t, and now is again his professor. He’s the RA of his dorm and he’s selling pot to pay his bills. Carl’s proud of his rap sheet; Ian won’t admit his mental illness; and Lip can’t escape that terrible Gallagher genome, no matter how hard the world pulls him away from it. That’s interesting to me—even if we are waiting to watch it all blow up in Lip’s face.

Like so many episode’s this season, it’s a little uneven. As always, too much focus on inconsequential characters and jokes, and too little focus on characters who should be at the fore. Ian’s one big scene, where the doctor informs him he will be on medication for basically the rest of his life, is great—but doesn’t the character and the story merit more? And Fiona does, I don’t know, stuff? I guess? She’s used here to prop up Sean and not much else, and there’s no real excuse for that. But also as always, what works, works. And at any rate, at this point I’d watch fifty minutes straight of Chuckie doing hard time, so the show must be doing something right.

Stray Observations:

“You’re a robotics engineer, do you own a fucking robot?”

I’ve been calling Sean “Sam” for a few weeks. I have no clue why, but apologies. (He does look like a Sam to me.)

Chuckie falls in with neo-Nazis at juvie (because of course) and he has a swastika tattooed on his forehead, which shouldn’t be funny, but is tremendously hysterical anyway.