Shamelessly Thankful

Shameless is a television series created by Paul Abbott is an amazing show that can be hilarious at some times and at others very dark and depressing. The show is about a poor family of six children and their father Frank Gallagher (William H. Macy) trying to get through life day by day while getting themselves into crazy yet unmistakably serious situations. One episode in this series I want to talk about specifically is the episode Just Like the Pilgrims Intended, directed by Mark Mylod. Fiona Gallagher (Emmy Rossum) tries to have a nice Thanksgiving with her family, including her mother Monica (Chloe Webb), and some of her friends, but as things always seem to happen in this show it doesn't turn out to be a nice Thanksgiving at all.

The setting really displays what kind of money the Gallagher family has. The house is in a poor neighborhood in Chicago and is small, crowded, and kind of beaten up, showing they don't have alot of money because they wouldn't be living in that house otherwise. The acting of each character not only shows their financial situation once again but also displays their character's personality. For example, Frank is shown drinking, taking pills, trying to beg for money from his brother, and not helping his family at a time where all hands needed to be on deck. This clearly shows that he's a junkie that just wants money to get drunk or high and wants nothing to do with anybody unless he's getting payed. Monica, after her high-energy spending spree from last episode, has fallen into a deep, deep depression and is feeling down for most of this episode except for the few minutes that was shown where she was on cocaine. These actions display that she has bipolar disorder and that she's just as much as a junkie as Frank is.

I think the meaning of this episode is to show how bad bipolar disorder can get if it's not addressed or managed properly. Monica goes between really high highs and really low lows fairly quickly, and this episode showed how low the lows can get. She's refuses to get out of bed in the beginning and once Frank yanks her out of bed she keeps falling to the floor because she doesn't want to stand up. Frank has to do everything for her like give her a shower and change her clothes. Although Monica's bipolar disorder is very severe, it's still possible for somebody who is bipolar to be like that. Without spoiling the episode, what happened to Monica at the end of the episode is a very real situation that can very well happen to bipolar people.