Highlights From The Season Finale

Ian on the bus to an active combat zone. 

I'm actually really worried about Ian. 

He enlisted in the marines and now wants to be sent to an active combat zone. I'm not worried about him going off to war, but about his intentions. Even the recruiter told Ian to sleep on it, but Ian's mind was already made up. He's obviously running away from his toxic relationship with Micky, but what exactly is he running toward? It doesn't surprise me that he would enlist, but go right to the front lines?

His storyline is much like that of Vronsky in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. After Anna takes her own life, Vronsky is so devastated by losing her that he is contemplating suicide himself. Vronsky didn't want to cowardly take his own life, so he does it with dignity: he goes to the front lines. Is this what Ian is doing? Lip mentions something like "I thought we were going to have to put you on suicide watch," and that same morning Ian, standing at attention in full uniform in a recruiting office, asks to be sent to an active combat zone. Another ominous sign was that he gave away his prized knife to Carl. Will he soon have no use for it?

Another emotional scene was when Sheila said goodbye to Karen. She says something like I always knew this day would come, where her daughter would be all grown up and she would have to say goodbye. But she never pictured it to be like this, with a wheelchair, and a scar. She was prepared to say goodbye one day, but her daughter’s brain injuries make it all the more difficult for Sheila to go back inside her home that is now just an empty nest.

But Sheila survived. Her party where she sold sex toys was a great success for whatever that's worth. Again taking the advice of the sagacious Debs, she goes out to make friends her own age and with similar interests. Debs has got her through this far, now Sheila has to make her own way. It probably won’t be easy, but then again the Gallagher's are never far.

Surprise! Lip's graduation party. 

And in the midst of these calamities, the surprise party for Lip felt really great. Something that was so characteristic of Lip and so true-to-life was when the lights turn on to his surprise party and everyone screams and throws confetti, before he even gets through the threshold into the living room, he turns back to Fiona with true puzzlement and says: “Why’s Sheila here?" 

But, Fiona making sure that they throw a party for Lip's graduation was so Shameless. When she tells Debs and Carl that the Gallagher’s are good at two things: finding a way to get back up, and partying. That’s what life is and what this show is all about. Frank is dying, but Kevin and V are finally pregnant. Ian is off to war, but Lip got accepted to MIT. There will always be mourning, which makes taking time to celebrate the victories that much more important.