Shameless Recap: Civil Wrongs

Civil Wrongs comes at a particularly depraved – and humorous – stretch of the Shameless series. After the emotional roller coaster of the custody battle, it only makes sense for the show to shift gears towards a “lighter” direction.  Of course, this lightness comes in the form of Lip figuring out that his current girlfriend (Mandy) was behind the murder attempt on his ex, while Ian struggles with the news that his boyfriend is getting married to a woman that he knocked up. Fiona and Jimmy hit a rough patch of their own over his decision to finish med school in Michigan. No big deal. That’s light material in Shameless terms.  There is always going to be extreme highs and lows on the show, but somehow the dramatic lows and comic highs remain in equilibrium.

You know that the season has hit a new low/high when Frank Gallagher is confounded with disbelief when he asks himself, “Is this really happening?” This comes at an especially ironic time given the current battle with gay rights, but be that as it may, Frank finds himself caught between conversion therapy believers and gay marriage advocates. Both parties are using him as a high-paid pawn in the fight for their respective causes.  This, by far, is my favorite Frank storyline ever!

Dissatisfied with the perks that Abraham Paige (gay marriage activist) is giving him, Frank manages a better deal with a conversion therapy believer by the name of Alistair Huddleston. Under the orders of the Return to Paradise project, Frank undergoes clinical fornication with a lesbian named Scotty. They will continue to provide women for Frank until he is “cured.” Both Alistair and Abraham battle to keep Frank on their side of the cause because of his gift for speaking to large audiences and getting them to pony up donations.

Fiona has her hands full juggling her new temp job and taking care of the kids. In the midst of all this, Jimmy brings up the topic of med school while Fiona is running out the door for work. She is intitially caught off guard, but warms up to the subject after talking with co-workers. Unaware to Fiona, her incredibly attractive new manager has an eye for her. He manages to wrangle her into playing softball with the company’s co-ed team, the Cuppers, after mentioning that they would be forced to forfeit if they didn’t have enough players. At the end of the softball match, Fiona finds out that Jimmy has to finish med school in Michigan. This means that the two would be apart for over a year. He wants to make it work long distance, but she is clearly not happy with the idea of being apart. Things aren’t looking good as Fiona storms off the field, leaving Jimmy in her dust.

On a lighter note, an anxious Veronica finally gets some good news of her own. After spending days tracking down her mother-in-hiding, Veronica finally catches up with her mom.  Following three excruciatingly long minutes, the pregnancy test shows up positive. Kevin and Veronica are one step closer to having a child! That means he finally doesn’t have to do the deed with his mother-in-law any more. Yay!

Lip is devastated by the recent discovery of Mandy’s attempt on Karen’s life. He keeps this news to himself, but you know it is going to blow up in next week’s episode. The doctors are not even the slightest bit optimistic that Karen will drift out of unconsciousness when they take her off of the coma-induced medication.

Sheila and Jody finally decide to take turns watching Karen for the sake of their own sanity. One doctor mentioned that positive and happy stimulation is the best way to help coma patients awaken. While Jody has a second alone with Karen, he begins to massage her feet. He immediately notices that her finger starts to wiggle. As he works his way up her legs and closer to her nether regions, her heart begins to beat faster and the episode ends with her fully conscious after Jody performs cunnilingus.

On next week’s episode of Shameless, Frank is back on the streets, Jimmy must deal with a drug lord, and Karen is home recovering.

Find out what happens in the episode before the series finale when Shameless airs on Showtime Sunday at 9pm/et!