Shameless - Season Premiere - Review: "Brand New Day"

Note: Please be aware that English is not my first language
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"Milk of The Gods" premiered on Sunday, January 11 at 09:00 PM on Showtime.

The Good Wife, Hannibal and Shameless. The golden trio. My golden trio. And for two of them, I have to wait 9 months every year for the new season to come out. So I’m clearly in pain for three quarters of the year because, well, three months of really good tv is not enough in a whole year ! 
But Shameless proved itself a very long time ago. In my opinion, it’s one of the very few tv shows with plenty of seasons which continues to approve its quality through the time. It’s very rare.
Indeed, the fourth season of Shameless was one hell of a ride. Every episode delivers an explosive bomb of emotion, joy, laugh and tears. And that’s the thing with Shameless, one second you’re laughing so hard, the next one they draw you a tear, whether you want it or not. You laugh and you cry. You are inked in the various stories of each character and you relate to them, to their weakness, to their fragility and to their dreams and hopes. The show transcribes perfectly with realism the daily life of the Gallagher family and that’s what makes it so brilliant.

However, Shameless has a thing with starting their season very softly and calmly. Indeed, in season 3 and 4, we had to wait the episode 5 for things to explode and blow us away. But even in its calmest moments, Shameless is still better than almost everything on television.

I think you might have understood, I worship Shameless. I have been waiting for it to return for 9 months and watching « Milk of The Gods » was truly a good thing for my mental health. Not seeing Emmy Rossum on my screen for 9 months was really a torture !
All in all, what I can say about this season premiere of Shameless is that it was pretty good. Of course, as usual, the introduction to the season was clearly calm but that’s a good thing after all the drama last season offered us being the darkest season so far. Plus, this season takes place in summer just like season 2 did, so I think that the drama part will diminish a little. Wait and see.

« Milk of The Gods » was a really good introduction giving us the opportunity to see the evolution of every character since last year season finale and one thing is sure: things are going well for the Gallaghers this summer.

Fiona is now working as a waitress and is having a kind-off friendship with her boss Sean. Is this the sign of a beginning of drama here with the fact that Fiona can’t resist the tentation of having inappropriate relationships? Anyway, Fiona is clearly trying to make things right. She’s taking care of herself, she’s following the agreement of her parole and she’s trying to be the pillar of the family as she always have been. The scene in the dinner with all the family reunited was pretty great and significant. Fiona is also trying to take care of Ian as he might have the bipolar gene of the family.

Indeed, after last year season finale, we learnt that Ian might be bipolar. He’s moody and temperamental and is clearly in denial of his situation. In this episode, Ian is really horny and I guess that we can blame this on his disease but he « cheated » on Mickey two times. I don’t particularly like how they are dealing with this but I guess that it’s necessary and that it will offer us some intense scene in the future. But I have the feeling that it’s not going to end well mostly because everything is going well for Ian: he’s with Mickey, living with him and affirming their homosexuality.
What to remember about this episode is the current situation with Kev and V. as they are now rising two babies. While V. has a lot of difficulties trying to take care of the both of them, Kev takes care of them naturally. V. is completely exhausted. In addition, Kev is more interested in his babies than his wife as she tried to seduce him so they could have a moment just the two of them but he was more interested in how to feed his child.

Another thing to remember is the Frank storyline. He’s still faithful to who he is even if he’s clearly less hateful than he was in the past. After his health issues in season 4, he had to stop drinking alcohol but he decided he had the right to one drink per day. However, through the episode, he was working on his « secret project » which was to create his own beer (with some bacon and a condom... classic Frank!). Plus, the situation at home with Sheila and Sammy puts Frank in an awkward position: support his wife and stand by her or be on the side of Sammy who is trying to get the attention of her father as the is constantly at Sheila and Frank house. But Frank is not taking sides (classic Frank!) and is letting the two women of his life fight over him.

After the season 3 finale leaving Steve’s faith unclear, -which was a brilliant idea, adding a shade of darkness to the show- Fiona had to move on with her life and with Steve. However, the season 4 finale cliffhanger leaves us with a couple staring at the Gallagher’s house in their car out front. They decide to come back another time. But we can clearly see Steve's face coming back from the dead.

But I don’t have a shadow of doubt that they will manage to pull the best out of this return. In the season premiere, we don’t have a direct answer concerning the return of Jimmy. However, as a waitress, Fiona had a customer for what seems to be a long time. The customer is the girl (or the wife?) who was in the car with Jimmy. 
I don’t know what to think of his possible return. The cliffhanger was frankly confusing as his exit from the show in the season 3 finale was really clever and satisfying, so we can ask ourselves: what's the point of bringing him back?

Verdict: 7/10. All in all, this season opener of Shameless was a pretty good one. Not too surprising and not too emotional but it gave us the right amount of things to arouse our attention and reconnect with the characters and the different situations they are now in. Can wait for things to shake up a little !

Hit the comments section below and tell us what you thought about the season premiere of ''Shameless''. Disappointed? Satisfied? Tell us everything!

About the Author - Adil Daoumer

Adil Daoumer is an almost 18y/o Moroccan student living in Paris, France, studying law and economy. He spends the majority of his life watching TV shows, reading books and listening to music. He has a lot of favorite TV shows such as Breaking Bad, LOST, Six Feet Under, Friday Night Lights, Shameless, Fringe, Hannibal, Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones, Revenge and more recently, Fargo and The Leftovers. He also enjoys having a good laugh in front of Community, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Happy Endings and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
This season on SpoilerTV, Adil will review Ray Donovan, The Affair and Shameless.
Don't hesitate to contact him on one of these social media sites.

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