The Shameless Gallaghers Have Grown Up and Moved On

 

by Pa Rock

Television Junkie

I've been enjoying the often scandalous and always shameless antics of the Gallagher family for nearly two decades, and now suddenly they are gone, packed up and moved on down the road leaving a major tear in the American social fabric.

Hell, the Gallagher's weren't even Americans when I first encountered them.  They were a British family living in a public housing estate called Chatsworth in the English industrial city of Manchester.  That was in 2004.  The family was headed (kinda, sorta) by Frank, the father, who neglected his several kids and concentrated instead on meeting his personal needs of drink, drugs, and women.  Frank's wife, Monica, had walked out on Frank and the kids prior to the opening episode.

The real work of keeping the Gallagher family together and operational fell on Fiona, the oldest daughter.  She was the boss, and no one  dared raise a complaint when she brought her new boyfriend home to stay in the first episode.  Lip (Philip) was the second oldest, the one with the most academic promise and a young man who was, like his father, quite the ladies' man.  Ian, the third oldest, was just discovering that he was gay as the series opened.  He was working in a neighborhood market and having an affair with his boss, a young married man with a family.  Three other youngsters completed the family:  Debbie, Carl, and little Liam.

Because the Gallagher family was from Great Britain, it was a challenge to access their misadventures on American television.  I acquired the first couple of seasons on DVD, and accessed the remainder of their ten seasons through a streaming service (probably Netflix) just a few years ago.

Then, as if one highly dysfunctional Gallagher family was not enough for the world to endure, a second one popped up in 2011.   The American Frank Gallagher family lived in an old two-story house in Chicago's notorious "south side."  And, would you believe it, not only was the family headed by a worthless piece of humanity named Frank, but it was also run by the oldest daughter who was named Fiona!  What are the odds?  Then there was Lip with the raging intellect and the zipper that wouldn't stay in the up position, Ian the gay brother, the very independent Debbie, Carl the budding fascist, and little Liam - practically a mirror image of the British Gallagher family!

The British Gallaghers were around for ten seasons (13 Jan 2004 - 28 Mar 2013) and a total of 139 episodes.  Their American cousins managed to hang on for eleven seasons (9 Jan 2011 - 11 Apr 2021) totaling 134 episodes.  The final season of American Shameless is still streaming on Netflix, and, if you haven't seen it, the good-bye episodes, as the family starts to pull apart and move on with their individual lives, are well worth a view.   

There but for the grace of God go us all.

And there is something about a burning Tesla in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood that just warms the cockles of the heart!