Shameless – Series 2a

Let’s return to Manchester’s Chatsworth Estate and see what the Gallagher family has been up to since last season! Just before Christmas, Kevin and Lip steals some meat off a truck and sells it down the pub. Before you know it, the police are all over the place. Soon after, the army comes marching into town. The stolen meat was not for human consumption, but intended for a defense lab to test it for contamination. Yeah, I know, how do they come up with this stuff? Ian is taken ill. Sheila’s gone into labor. But now the whole town is under quarantine. Lip and Kev have to steal a military truck to get Ian and Sheila out of town. Folks are after Kev for selling them the contaminated meat. Lip tells them it’s the army who poisoned the food, and they should give them the vaccines. So they all storm to the soldiers and cause a raucous. Throughout, Frank’s lost on a drunken stupor.

Frank’s father, Neville, arrives unannounced at Sheila’s house. “I’m sure Frank thinks you’re dead,” she blurts out. He’s coming to see his new grandchildren, but also in hopes of turning his son to correct his ways – unsuccessfully, of course. Neville nearly had a heart attack. Frank’s not the kind of man you’d want to leave alone with your kids, for when Sheila has to leave for a few days when her mother is on her deathbed, Frank lets his mate babysit, who invites all his friends to run a private bar. Frank also has an accident at Kash Karib’s local store. He gets offered assistance for a hefty insurance, which would close Kash down. Not only would Ian lose his job, the whole neighborhood is putting pressure on Frank. He decides to drop the charges. But now he has to pay for all the legal counseling and medical treatment he received. Sheila calls in on a TV quiz and wins £1,000 with which she pays off Frank’s debt. Except that Kev had already blackmailed the insurance people to wave the fees. Truth be told, Frank’s finest moment comes when Social Services happens round checking on his family, and he defends Fiona as the true caretaker of his children and doing a better job than her mother ever could.

Sheila’s estranged daughter, sexy Karen, gets herself a job at the local pub, The Jockey, pretending to fancy the Lesbian owner Jez. Veronica hates the idea of Kevin working with the seductive temptress, but only gets herself into trouble. Party-hardy Kev and Vee try adopting a child (because he can’t give her a child of their own). This scatterbrained social worker arrives, the morning after another space-cake binge, with an awkward ten-year old Eric. Although they come to love Eric, they have to let him go when they realize they are just not up to the task. Mostly, Kev and Veronica are there to help the Gallaghers – even if they dump her pyromaniac, Tourette’s spewing brother Marty and their mother on the Gallaghers, after Marty burned down his mother’s house.

When Frank’s eldest, Fiona, catches a text on her boyfriend Steve’s cell from some girl, she’s afraid he has met someone else. Turns out, though, he actually has a daughter he never said a word about before. Fiona doesn’t know if she can still trust him if he hid that from her, but when he proposes, all she can cry is “yes!” They visit the church and start planning their nuptials. Steve, as we know, if also a car thief, but family friend, police officer Tony, is on to him. They struck a deal to keep Steve out of jail. To spite him, though, Tony nicks one of Steve’s stolen cars – only to find out the ceiling is filled with cash: money Steve’s made dealing coke. Tony returns the car, but without the money or the coke, so that he can tell Steve to quit dealing or he’ll tell Fiona. Then, Tony botches things up really bad. Steve has to run both for the law and for the gangster he was dealing with – leaving Fiona practically at the altar.

And with that the Cricket will leave you, too, until next week, when we’ll chirp some more about the series.