'Shameless' season 10 will see Ian make his big return, so is Fiona likely to follow?
When Cameron Monaghan announced his exit from 'Shameless' after nine long years in the Showtime dramedy, the fandom was left shaken and stirred. The news came shortly after the show's prime matriarch — Fiona Gallagher aka Emmy Rossum announced her exit and left fans wondering whether the show would ever be the same without the character.
We felt the same way about Monaghan's Ian, who struggles as a gay young adult in a stereotypically regressive environment while also battling bipolar disorder. There was a huge final episode focused on Ian where he reconciled with the love of his life and the two of them presumably went on to live happily ever after in the shared prison cell they had found each other in. That is until Monaghan announced that he is very much returning for the upcoming 10th season. And that has only led fans into speculating if Rossum too would reprise her character in the show's future.
Rossum left 'Shameless' after nine long years of ruling the show as the prime matriarch, Fiona Gallagher — the very messy, very dysfunctional, and impulsive, but resilient eldest Gallagher sibling, who has been taking care of her siblings since she was six. Thanks to her deadbeat degenerate of a father, Frank (William H. Macy) and an absentee, erratic mother who suffers from bipolar disorder, Fiona grew up to be the main parental or guardian figure for the rest of the Gallagher kids, with her responsibilities shared by her younger brothers, Lip (Jeremy Allen White) and Ian.
While Rossum had claimed on her long, emotional, social media post about quitting the show that she wanted to pursue other options, her clash with the show reportedly arose a couple of years ago, and the issue was a pay disparity between her, and the other lead, Macy.
"When the show started, Bill was one of the first people attached. I was the last piece in the puzzle and I'd never done TV before, and I obviously wasn't as well known, while Bill is an Oscar nominee. So for the first few seasons, a difference made a lot of sense," she had said at a Vulture festival panel in 2016. "As the time went on, the leadership role started to feel somewhat more shared," explaining that both she and Macy had directed on the show. "I felt that I loved the show, that I loved everyone in it, but I just wanted it to feel right," she said.
That, and the lack of active pushing of Rossum for nominations during award season, not even 10% of how hard they worked for Macy's role, among other things, is said to have contributed to the actor's decision. But with her prospects and options wide open right now, is it really possible that she could ever return to a show that couldn't see the gem she was?
It might seem like a far-fetched dream to hope for her return. Sure, Monaghan returned after a big, multi-photo goodbye post on Instagram where he documented his then final days on the set. Yet, all of this only makes the hope for Rossum's return get stronger within fans.
But with the way things have gone down, the odds are looking quite bleak. Perhaps, if not for anything else, Rossum might decide to swing by every now and then, as a recurring, or even a guest star on the show, because let's face it — there's no 'Shameless' without Fiona, no matter how many Gallagher stories are left to be told, and there is no Fiona without Rossum either.
It would be nice to see that radiant smile glowing and peeking into the Gallagher household every now and then, or just pop by The Alibi to check up on Kev and V. Maybe at some point in the future, Fiona decides to come back and have her rightly earned payback from Ford for one last time. Or maybe in a world outside Chicago, she has found Jimmy/Steve and the two decide to pay their hometown a visit for old times' sake. But it's all very vague, and our best bet right now is a recurring character.