Product Description
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Shameless: The Complete First Season
Meet Frank Gallagher (William H. Macy): proud, working-class
patriarch to a motley brood of six smart, spirited and
independent kids who, without him, would be…better off! In
Frank’s booze-addled view, parenting just eats into his
hard-earned bar-crawling and c time around Chicago – so
he leaves it to eldest daughter Fiona (Emmy Rossum) to hold down
the fort. Bearing the de facto parent badge/burden, she makes
sure her younger siblings do their chores, keep a clean(ish) home
and feed the Gallagher family fund jar because the bill is
due, and everyone (no matter how small) works to keep the house
lights on, as well as food on the table. Brothers Lip, Ian and
Carl use their intellect to break every rule in the book to
survive and make the bank, while younger sister Debbie would
sooner steal her share. Liam, the youngest, is just happy to be
along for the ride. The Gallaghers are irreverent, endearing,
resilient – and they’re absolutely, wildly and unapologetically
SHAMELESS.
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In one of the making-of featurettes accompanying this two-disc
set of all 12 episodes from the first season of the Showtime
series Shameless, a member of the creative team reports that in
adapting the show from the British version that preceded it, the
producers and writers were determined to depict "real Americans."
They succeeded admirably--assuming, of course, that one's idea of
"real" includes a family headed by an unemployed single her
who spends his waking hours blind drunk or hung over and the
other ones passed out, scams the government out of money to buy
more booze, and blames his six kids for his problems while
contributing absolutely nothing of substance to their welfare,
while the kids in question support themselves by lying, stealing,
cheating, and other dubious activity. That doesn't mean Shameless
isn't well written and well acted, beautifully produced,
consistently entertaining, and often very amusing--it is. On the
other hand, The Waltons it ain't. But "real"? Not so much.
The estimable William H. Macy stars as Frank Gallagher, the
drunken paterfamilias and all-around loser. While he may have a
shred of a conscience in there somewhere (as one character says
of him, "Deep down, I think Frank is capable of doing the right
thing"), far more often than not it's his children (one of whom
turns out not to be Frank's after all) who keep this family
afloat. That's especially true of the oldest and most
responsible, daughter Fiona (the excellent Emmy Rossum), who acts
as de facto mom while balancing a complicated love life (the two
main men in her world are a car thief and the cop who wants to
nail him), and Lip (Jeremy Allen White), a smart and enterprising
teen who makes money taking tests and writing papers for other
students but also looks out for his younger siblings, who include
Ian (Cameron Monaghan), Carl (Ethan Cutkosky), Debbie (Emma
Kenney), and Liam (an infant played by twins), all of whom have
issues of their own. These (and various others in the sizable
cast) are the folks who, we're told, put the "fun" in
dysfunctional, and along with a steady dose of raunch (nudity,
sexuality, and profanity all flow as freely as the liquor at
Frank's favorite bar) and serious issues such as school bullying,
cancer, suicide, prison, and Ian's burgeoning sexuality,
Shameless does have a darkly comedic sensibility. Perhaps most
striking is that the kids, against all odds, are generally far
more mature and sensible than the grownups, who also include
Frank's agoraphobic girlfriend Sheila (Joan Cusack), her very
snarky husband, Ian's older lover (who happens to have a wife and
children), and various others of questionable character. Indeed,
it's the younger Gallaghers, not Frank, who are the most
dedicated to keeping the family together, and the grit,
determination, and guile they use to do that are Shameless's
heart and soul. --Sam Graham