'Shameless' Season 10 Episode 10 review: Another Gallagher flies the nest amidst blackmails and reunions
This article contains spoilers for episode 10: 'Now Leaving Illinois'
It's an episode filled with unexpected opportunities for the Gallaghers, but not all of them pleasant enough. It proves to be really great timing for Lip and Tami, and of course, we have another sneaky trick pulled on the state of Illinois by none other than Frank himself, then you have Carl's struggles with associating with his new garbage work dynamics and finally Ian's tryst with online dating. It's probably the craziest time for Debbie though because opportunities just drift into her life with conditions so twisted that it's amusing and equally painful to watch.
When we meet Lip and Tami on tonight's episode 10 titled 'Now Leaving Illinois', they have been called for an emergency family meeting at the Tamietti house. After much speculation, when the new parents reach the venue, they find out that Tami's grandma has been put away in a facility and therefore the old woman's house stands vacated and ready for new people to move in. It is touching that Tami's father and racist aunt Oopi would come together to think that the best option for interim tenants is Lip and Tami, and considering this is the first time we are meeting Tami's parent, it's a big deal. It almost makes one curious about how intrusive the Tamietti's are gonna get once the couple moves into this massive house just a two-hour drive away from the Gallaghers'.
While all of that unfolds, we have the mini-Gallaghers hustling for that good life through whatever they believe in. Liam goes on a quest to find out what happened to his father, Frank, because he is a loyal sidekick if not anything else. And Carl shows his loyalty towards his job even after finding out that picking up garbage throughout the city also means scavenging for whatever remotely decent looking food people have thrown away as part of your day's meals. When not picking and digging through garbage, Carl also learns that his degenerate coworkers enjoy busting into people's houses and get a kick out of beating them to a pulp, and this is where the second-youngest Gallagher's lawman integrity probably comes into play: Will he report them or will thug Carl make a reprisal?
Speaking of thugs, the Gallagher patriarch gets busted by the cops in a sea of used up Oxy bottles, just as Faye had planned. He gets dragged to court, but trust him to weasel his way out, pleading not guilty to the judge, claiming that big drug corporations are framing his innocent self as he's trying to wean off of them. It's funny how the state always falls for Frank's bullshit - no matter how outrageous, or how liberal the judge is. Of course, he gets away with a hundred hours of community service, while Faye's boyfriend was wrongfully sent to prison for 45 years in the past for something Frank did.
Guess luck really does favor the Gallaghers - or so we'd like to hope for Debbie who had to break the heart of her much older girlfriend's underage tease for a daughter who simply can't stop luring the 19-year-old Gallagher in. As Debbie oscillates between age groups, the older Claudia also offers her a job to babysit said daughter, Julia - something that Debbie is supposed to earn $30 an hour for. But looks like grand gestures run in that family, as the very next moment Julia ambushes Debbie with an elaborate homecoming proposal that forces the latter to turn her down. But hell hath no fury like a Julia scorned - as is clear from the young girl randomly popping up at the Gallaghers' and threatening to expose Debbie if she doesn't go to the dance with her.
Threats and dancing come together once again in Mickey's constant wall up against Ian's advances for apologies, and the latter's little tryst and troubles with online dating. Mickey's constant bragging of how hard he's moved on forces Ian to pretend to do the same and he indulges in dating apps after Byron invites him to check out this cool band he and Mickey are going to see, and asks if he should add a plus one to Ian's name. The plus one is a hot stranger off the internet who shows up in all black lacey sheer - the exact kind of gay southside Chicago isn't used to, but could definitely use. Sadly, both this fancy new guy and Mickey's 'love' Byron say all the wrong things to the right people and get beaten up by Mickey and Ian respectively - leading to the inevitable making up of the Gallavich couple.
So rest easy fans, the two are back to work things out like a pair of rabbits. The only sad thing about this all is the very last scene when Lip sits down his siblings in the living room and tells them of his new accommodation plans. He assures them he won't be gone forever and asks them to come to visit as it's only a 'two-hour ride away' and that sparks a smirk on every Gallagher siblings' face. First Fiona and now Lip; Debbie and Carl's smirks show that they know this process far too well. Lip is probably going to visit as much as Fiona has in the last one year but such is a part of being a Gallagher: you take what's handed down to you and make the best of it.
'Shameless' season 10 airs on Sundays at 9pm only on Showtime.