The Final Fourth-Season Fight For Frank

Boy, you sure can tell this is a season finale, huh? Loose ends get tied up all over the place. Sheila's attempted adoption? Scuttled due to the wisdom of tribal elders, with the kids returned to their grandfather's custody (even though he doesn't have wifi). Bonnie and her gaggle of siblings? Moved on, in their van, to parts unknown. Fiona's prison term? Cut short due to good behaviour and the fact that she's a non-violent offender. Her difficulties in finding a job with a felony conviction on her record? Temporarily solved, with Officer Johnson's help: she arranges a job for Fiona as a waitress at a diner, working for a seemingly empathetic recovering addict. Between Fiona's wages and tips and the nest egg from Amanda's parents, things may just be okay for the Gallaghers after all!

Haha, just kidding, no one believes that. First of all, the euphoria of Mickey's triumphant coming-out has dissipated, and Ian is now on a down cycle with what is certainly presenting a lot like bipolar disorder: when he's not actually asleep (for hours, and days), he's lying awake in bed, staring straight ahead, and completely unresponsive. Checking in with him is one of Fiona's first stops the morning after her return from prison, and the immediate aftermath -- the Gallagher kids explaining to Mickey what may be happening with Ian -- sets up a likely storyline for Season 5: the kids' experience with Monica informing how they will want to help Ian versus Mickey's protectiveness and horror at the thought of Ian's being committed to a mental hospital.

And speaking of hospitals, Frank wakes up aware of who and where he is, and that Sheila and Sammi are not actually his mother and father. Sheila is overjoyed to see this kind of recovery just moments before her presentation to the tribal council, and makes the appropriate preparations: she tells Sammi that she's going to need all the room in her house for the kids she's about to adopt, so she needs Sammie and Chuckie to clear out by the time she gets back. Under the circumstances, I would call this a normal response, but of course "normal" is not where Sheila is meant to stay, because of course the council denies her adoption. Without the kids to fill all the various voids in her life, Sheila decides to dig her claws deeper into Frank (who doesn't remember the wedding), getting between him and Sammi and leading to a huge fight. Carl walks straight past both of them and wheels Frank out of the hospital and to the lakefront, apparently with a stop at a liquor store on the way, because Frank decides to celebrate his new life/liver with a forbidden taste of booze, and by yelling at God, "Is that all you've got?!" I imagine that this will also be an issue in Season 5, as Frank ignores medical advice and goes back to ruining a whole new liver, while Sheila tries to assert her wifely authority.

But the biggest tease for what Season 5 may be about came after the episode proper, and in an interlude during the closing credits: Jimmy pulls up on the Gallaghers' street, contemplates the house, but doesn't go in to look for Fiona -- or, at least, "not tonight." WHOA.

How Shameless is this fourth-season closer?