Shameless (TV Series) Love Songs (In the Key of Gallagher) (2015) User Reviews

Seriously?

[grneyedgirl · 5/10 · 5 April 2015]

Honestly, after investing 5 years into this show, I am not angry about the breakup but I am angry at how it was portrayed. John Wells had to know that he had brought Mickey to the place we had all been wanting him to be, loving, supportive, invested... Ian on the other hand, was rude, out of character and just plain selfish in the breakup scene. "F**k you!" "No thanks, already done that". Really? I call bullshit. I'm sick of Fiona's "who should I f**k over next" story line, Debbie's story has been fair, not great but fairly realistic for a 14 yo girl on the Southside raising herself. Liam, who the hell is raising Liam? Oh yeah, 14 yo Debbie. I get the drama/comedy but Jesus.. to take from the fans an at least halfway decent breakup scene in the last 3 minutes of the show.. I'm kinda over it. The shark is about to jump I can feel it pushes up from the waves...

Could have been much better

[mbas85 · 5/10 · 6 April 2015]

First of all, I want to point out that this is Shameless so I have super high expectations to being with. The quality of the show that us viewers have gotten used to was never nothing short of great. Second, this fifth season was on and off for me and it was actually the first Shameless season where I wished I could fast forward and skip some parts. That said, the finale was very much in tune with the whole season because it was not strong enough to be Shameless. This episode could have been a billion times better and it got spoiled by some bad writing, sorry to say. And no, I am not talking about the Gallavich break-up only. I am talking about the cruel and heartless way in which a caring and selfless character like Ian Gallagher and one who turned out to possess the exact same qualities, Mickey Milkovich, have been treated by the writers. They both have the saddest story ever, and not one writer seems to even care. The break-up yes it was absolutely awful but not in and of itself, what bothers me to no end is the way in which it happened. The coldness of Ian's words and his attitude of hostility towards a shaken-up and hurt Mickey who was telling him he loves him, while that hurts us viewers and it hurts Mickey, it all can be attributed to Ian feeling scared and being conditioned by Monica's words, and fit with his attempt of wanting to push Mickey away. What is very very wrong is the ridiculous way in which the break-up itself was dismissed like that in two seconds, because we had to watch Sammi show back up and try to shoot Mickey (with Ian not even flinching at the thought that the boy who he once claimed to love could have been killed in that very moment). Who thought that would be a clever or funny idea? Why did this already mistreated relationship and these mistreated characters have to reach such a pitiful and disrespectful end to their arc? And since when does having bipolar means disregarding the life of the people you care about? I mean, I could have accepted them breaking up but not like this. The way it was written it felt more like a big F you to the viewers and to these characters, in my opinion. And now if Noel Fisher does not come back the situation gets even sadder, with no possible resolution for his amazing character who he has done an incredible job with, by the way. Besides this, another huge source of sadness was seeing Debbie wanting to get pregnant to just get out of the Gallagher house. What once was a close group of siblings is now falling apart and even Debs can see that Fiona does not care that much anymore... food is never in the house, Liam is left laying around, Carl went to juvie for selling drugs... who is really invested in these kids? No one. So yeah while Debbie is doing a crazy thing, you cannot blame her and actually I liked what she had to say to Fiona. She is more mature than her and she is 14, of course besides the whole wanting to get pregnant scheme. A great part of 5x12 was Lip getting punched by Amanda and getting called out on his bs... I swear he is getting unbearable with his storyline as much as Fiona is. Another very good part was seeing this interestingly caring side of Frank on his vacation with Bianca and the whole storyline in general was heartwarming and superbly acted by both actors. It was also very amusing seeing him show up to Lip and Ian and ranting about Bianca being gone to them and them laughing it off... that was a moment that seemed back from season one. Old school Gallaghers. You can say that in general it was not a bad episode but it is infuriating because it is Shameless and once you set the bar so high then it sucks really hard if you can't keep the quality there and they haven't been able to, writing wise, some very poor choices. Plus, I need to point out that the Gallaghers seem to be turning into completely different people who I am not entirely sure I like anymore, especially Fiona. I hope things will get better for the next season because it would really disappoint me if my favorite show just gets dragged on and not truly develop.

Kinda disappointed

[lolobean · 3/10 · 8 April 2015]

Season 5 was, to say the least, a bit of a disappointment. The plots were just so disconnected and started to get unrealistic. There were a lot of holes, like "I haven't seen this character in two weeks- where have they been?" or "Everyone is here- who's watching Liam?" The Ian/ Mickey arc was inconsistent and poorly portrayed. Debbie and Fiona were OOC the majority of the time, basically whole new characters. Frank was irrelevant honestly. Fiona would go and do her own thing and not see the kids for days on end. They didn't even know she was married! In season 2 if Debbie had a boyfriend the family would've been like WOW I want to meet him! But now nobody cares. They're hardly a family anymore. I feel like the writers were so intent on coming up with new plots that they didn't focus on any of them- quantity over quality. I seriously hope they bring back the writing from seasons 1-4 for season 6.

Good until Season 5

[lois-combs · 1/10 · 6 April 2015]

Shameless was a fantastic show with great potential.... Until season five.

The first four seasons saw beautiful character development, a never before seen portrayal of family and poverty, and a show with fantastic potential. Season five displayed pointless character arcs, abandonment of characters and story lines, destruction of relationships that deserved more respect, and overall bad story telling. I would not recommend Shameless to any avid TV watcher. If you want, watch seasons 1-4 for a wonderful story, but avoid season 5 at all costs. It was truly terrible.

What Happened?

[Cnth-hbb · 1/10 · 6 April 2015]

I loved watching the first four seasons of Shameless. They were so good I even went back and watched them a second time around, so I was pretty disappointed when, after a long wait, I was finally able to watch season five. Although it wasn't as amazing as the previous seasons, season five was entertaining enough. It was nice seeing the characters growing and changing, like Sheila, who grew out of her shell and found a voice for herself, and Frank, who became more mature and took care of someone else for a change. But the season finale took what was a decent season and flushed it down the toilet. First of all, Ian and Mickey's break-up. Really? I know they had to break up because Noel might not be able to film for season six, but after four seasons of the two struggling to be together, the break-up could have been written with much more care. Everything was just messy and uncharacteristic of the writers who usually do such a beautiful job.