Not Ashamed of Shameless

I refused to watch Shameless. For years. The first time a friend suggested I watch it, I was put off. She told me about it and it just sounded too much like things I’d seen in real life. It wasn’t entertainment, it was sad. It was wrong to think that I’d want to watch the show just because I was like them in some way. The line was drawn, I wasn’t going there.

Was I crazy? Everyone loved this show and I still refused to watch it. That was until my boyfriend got hooked. Then I had to watch if I wanted some TV time with him after the kids went to bed. One episode, and I was hooked. I had to watch it from the beginning. I had to watch the next episode, I even had to watch them again if the mood was right.

Was I telling everyone? No. Was I watching? All the time. It makes me laugh, and I love Kevin and Veronica, everything about them. Do I want to be them? Maybe, just a little. I missed Mickey so much and hated Fiona from the beginning. I have been on so many crazy trips with Frank I almost wish I could be his friend, maybe not a friend.

So why was I so ashamed? I was just not ready to let it out yet, I was binge watching and I liked it. I don’t usually like to watch that much TV. I like to read and write. I don’t like to watch trashy TV shows all day and read about it on-line.

But now that's out. I am not ashamed of liking Shameless anymore. I don’t have to think child neglect is funny to find the show hilarious. Drug addiction is no laughing matter, but Frank. O.k. I get it now. I get why people said I should watch the show. I needed a sense of humour. I needed a little bit of Frank and Lip to laugh at the alcoholics in my life a little, or at least the situations.

Monica and Frank make anything I am doing wrong with my children so trivial, and anything I lived like a walk in the park. Who says a bunch of feral children can’t make a go at life? The Gallaghers can.

If anyone can make poverty look like a party it’s them.

I feel like I have watched them all grow up too fast. In my actual time, Carl was just a little punk kid and now he’s a cop. Carl as a cop, is my new favorite part of the show. Carl is almost always my favorite part of the show. It doesn’t matter what he does, dealing drugs, selling guns, giving a lady back her wig, he does it with heart. You have to applaud his engenuity. We need more Carls.

I may be more invested in the outcome of Ian and Mickey’s marriage than Mickey, and maybe that’s the point. Maybe we care more about these characters than the characters themselves.

I was definitely more concerned than Debbie about how her daughter was going to get to school and am really hoping Kev and V make all their entrepreneurial dreams come true because they deserve it. They work so hard! They all do.

Their lives almost always suck, but they keep showing up episode after episode making us laugh at their tragedies and cheer for them if things are looking up for a minute. It gives me a break from my own stresses and perspective. Nothing in my life could ever be Gallagher bad.

Sometimes life is complicated, but TV doesn’t have to be. Just funny.