Silly Sammi, You're Not The New Fiona And You Never Will Be!

It's kind of inconsiderate of Ian to lam it with Mickey's son at the worst time -- when Fiona's dealing with the return of Jimmy, Lip's trying to run orientation at his dorm, Svetlana's going into labour, and Deb's starting high school. But if it weren't these four things, it would be four (or more) others. Ian and Fiona pretty much suck up all the air in the episode, but how do things shake out for everyone else, based on the little we see? Let's rank them from who's having the best week to who's having the worst.

1. Gus
   He's married a really great woman! She might not be around that much, but it's just because she's so devoted to her siblings and they require a lot of her attention. That honeymoon phase is a great time of life, Gus! I hope you're enjoying it!
2. Carl
   He seems pretty chill in his one big scene with Mickey this week, so while I'm still concerned about his new career in illegal narcotics (don't look ahead at titles of upcoming episodes if you don't want to get spoiled), I guess no news is good news for now!
3. Deb
   The first day of high school can be rough for any awkward girl; spending her summer making a name for herself in girl fights on YouTube has potentially just set Deb up for an even harder time, with other tough girls wanting to step to her. Fortunately, Derek goes to Deb's school and is a cheerful and adorable ally.
4. Sammi
   I still can't stand her, and all her anti-rape advice for Deb is as misogynist as it is probably ineffectual. But her moving into the Gallagher house and nominating herself the official defender of all the kids against Frank -- lock those bedroom doors, everyone! -- in Fiona's increasing absence is a life promotion for her. The scales have fallen from her eyes in terms of trusting in the ridiculous lies of her new daddy, and at least she's sleeping indoors.
5. Lip
   From the little we've seen so far, Lip seems like a natural as an RA, politely delivering reality checks to moms who think he's going to be administering her special snowflake's Ativan and warning residents to wait until the parents have gotten back on the highway to Iowa before firing up their bongs. I could have done without his fat prejudice with regard to Amanda's mural...
   

   ...but he's still holding things together overall and even chivalrously offers to beat Jimmy to death with a baseball bat for Fiona. She declines -- though not, unfortunately, because she's quite capable of doing so herself.

6. Kevin & Vee
   They seem to be in kind of a holding pattern: she's still mad; he's still in contact with his handjob associate from last week, who's not that interested in either hearing him bitch about his problems at home OR jerk him off again.
7. Frank
   Maybe you guys can help me out, because I just started watching this show last season. Was Frank EVER worth rooting for? Because in this episode, where his whole storyline revolves around his children rejecting him before he rejects his liver, all I could think was "Just DIE already." So many people would be better off if Frank died. And you know that his doctor's stern warning at the end -- that he won't get another liver if this one craps out on him -- has fallen on deaf ears as well as incompetent hands and feet that were probably already pointing at a bar. Frank sucks.
8. Fiona
   Again, having only started watching in Season 4, I missed the glory days of Fiona and Steve/Jimmy/Jack. I gather from this episode that I'm supposed to think they're Shameless's OTP, but with all due respect, I refuse to go along with it. All that time I was watching Gus being perfect, was I really meant to be hooking into him and Fiona as a couple so that when she ended up stomping on his heart -- which I feel is coming imminently -- I would be extra-sad about her unstoppable self-destruction? Jimmy was clearly bad news even before we knew that he and Angela were involved in some kind of criminal enterprise. Gus is a sweet bearded cunnilingus performer who just wants to write Fiona songs. This is not a contest -- and though Fiona seemed to come to that realization on her own in her first of two tearful sex scenes in the episode, is she REALLY done with Jimmy? Please can she be done with Jimmy?
9. Mickey
   Spending hours and hours not knowing where your partner OR your baby are is terrifying and exhausting, but at least this storyline has ended with Mickey recognizing that he has a support team who are also invested in Ian's health and safety, and reiterating his place in Ian's life to a cop in Indiana.
   

   "Now that I found him / I love him / I won't let him get away...." - Mickey on Ian / Pete from Pete's Dragon about Pete's Dragon.

10. Ian
    Ian's flight from Chicago without any plan or resources or concept of how little control he actually had over his impulses was well done and pretty scary to watch: he goes from trying to haggle over diapers at a roadside convenience store to trying to diaper Yevgeny on the counter in front of the cashier to locking Yevgeny in the car while he goes to make a quick buck with a quick...well, you know. Getting detained by police for his erratic behaviour ends his escape and forces him to accept the fact that Mickey's and his siblings' concerns for his mental state haven't been overblown. And yet, even though he hits a pretty low low in Terre Haute, and responds by agreeing to check himself in to a locked psych ward -- making this a pretty bad week for Ian -- at least he can go in with hope: Mickey still loves him enough to ask if he can go drop him off in his room. Sorry, Mickey: to quote Lip on college, this isn't summer camp. Get well soon, Ian, because if anything happens to you, Mickey will be destroyed.