Shameless Season 6
Channel 4
During her appearance on Celebrity Big Brother, Tina ‘Bugsy’ Malone assured her new superstar housemates that she was nothing like Mimi Maguire, the crime family matriarch she plays on Shameless. She’s got a point. One’s a foulmouthed scouse gunt atrocity, the other’s married to Paddy Maguire. Mimi’s clan certainly have a more central role in the show these days. It doesn’t matter that the Maguire siblings don’t resemble their parents or each other. They only have to resemble us and the struggles we face1 in some small way for us to connect with them. And the strange thing is you still kind of do.
"Kelly is still sucking cock for a living and still fond of dishing out advice as she wipes the cum from her face like she just played with Aerial Telly. She is what passes for moral propriety in Shameless."
Shane is still running around with his prossie girlfriend Kelly – she has a phantom pregnancy, he has a stroke (does that make them even?). Kelly is still sucking cock for a living and still fond of dishing out advice as she wipes the cum from her face like she just played with Aerial Telly. She is what passes for moral propriety in Shameless.
Elsewhere in Casa Maguire, Mickey continues his campaign as a very unconvincing gay and Mandy is being fucked and fucked over by the Chatsworth estate football captain Joe. He’s beating her up in scenes we don’t see and I’m not really sure why this is. I mean, I understand why he wants to beat up the scrawny boneypie – he’s a turd and she’s annoying. Violence is always likely to ensue with that chemistry. I just wonder why they don’t show it. We see everything else in Shameless, including the scenes where Joe is fucking Karen (wife of Jamie Maguire, best friend of Mandy Maguire).
“As is often the case with the relatives of smackhead pieces of shit, she blames the dealer as if he ran a prime-time advertising campaign aimed at young gullible twats.”
But where is Paddy Maguire in all of this? The acne scarred thug, standover man and chubby chaser has problems of his own having been kidnapped by the mother of a young woman he supplied with heroin. As is often the case with the relatives of smackhead pieces of shit, she blames the dealer as if he ran a prime-time advertising campaign aimed at young gullible twats. Pffffft. So after tying him to a bed and making him watch shitty videos of her daughter’s school play, she starts dosing him with heroin, giving him what is surely the most terrible of addictions.2
"They lie to their friends, try to get clean, relapse, go cold turkey, shit in a bucket and empty it over their heads. There’s a reason nobody cares about drug addicts in real life – they’re tedious worthless plankton. Seriously, writers: get past this shit. No one gives a fuck."
Man alive. Is there anything more boring, more hackneyed, more utterly predictable than the heroin addiction storyline? Kicked off by Zammo Maguire (no relation) on Grange Hill, followed up by Nick "flipping ‘eck! I wish this was post-watershed so I could swear properly" Cotton on Eastenders and taken to heights and depths of teed by Little Jimmy Corkhill on Brookside3. They lie to their friends, steal from their families, try to get clean, relapse, go cold turkey, shit in a bucket and empty it over their heads. There’s a reason nobody cares about drug addicts in real life – they’re tedious worthless plankton. This applies to drama also. Seriously, writers: get past this shit. No one gives a fuck.
But chill. Aerial Telly still watches Shameless regularly and still likes it. Some "people" (notably Birmingham screenwriter Andy Conway) believe that Shameless lost its way sometime during its second season and became a chav cartoon. This is to miss the point of the show. It’s melodrama in the same way Oz was. Everything is exaggerated, the implausible is commonplace, and characters are stock. Yet somewhere in their cocksucking, street fighting, dole scrounging existences you find a way to care about them. While this continues, Shameless will prevail, as raggedy and unapologetic as when it first lurched onto our screens.
The best thing about it: Karen getting fucked is always good.
The worst thing about it: The annoying "tickets this way for the Chatsworth estate" poem that kicks off each show
The verdict on Shameless Season 6: Still gets my vote.
Marks out of 10: 7.5
1 The type of struggles YOU face. The only struggles Aerial Telly faces are how to spend the money he makes, how to deal with the poontang he attracts and which punk to beat down.
2 Apart from German scat porn.
3 Following hot on the heels of his father’s cocaine addiction, this storyline offered Jackie Corkhill yet another opportunity to shout "it’s the druckgs Jimmmmeeee!” Brookside scriptwriters didn’t even have to change the names. Marvellous.
Imagined: 3 April 2009